And as the Bishop looked, a voice seemed to breathe in his ear: "_And

he caused all ... to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their

foreheads_." It was as if his soul was speaking to him and urging him

to say the words aloud. He did not; but with a pale face gently put

aside Brown's hand. "I do not know, Mr. Brown--but I think you are

called upon for a speech."

It was so; and, after a moment's hesitation, Brown rose. He was a

fluent speaker, and the occasion was one with which he was peculiarly

qualified to deal. He began well; but as he went on those who looked

upon him saw that he was ghastly pale, and that the veins stood out on

his high forehead in blue cords. As he spoke he made some allusion to

those men who have risen to eminence from an obscure position. He

spoke of himself as one of these, and then began to tell the story of

"The Devil's Manuscript," as he called it, with a mocking look at the

Bishop. As he went on he completely lost command over himself, and the

story of the manuscript became the story of his life. He concealed

nothing, he passed over nothing. He laid all his sordid past before

his hearers with a vivid force. His listeners were astonished into

silence; perhaps curiosity kept them still. But, as the long tale of

infamy went on, some, in pity for the man, and believing him struck

mad, tried to stop him, but in vain. He came at last to the incident

of the letter, and told how De Bac was to call for him to-night. "The

Bishop of Browboro'," he said with a jarring laugh, "thought De Bac

was the fiend himself," but he (Brown) knew better; he--he stopped,

and, with a half-inarticulate cry, began to back slowly from the

table, his eyes fixed on the entrance to the room. And now a strange

thing happened. There was not a man in the room who had the power to

move or to speak; they were as if frozen to their seats; as if struck

into stone. Some were able to follow Brown's glance, but could see

nothing. All were able to see that in Brown's face was an awful fear,

and that he was trying to escape from a horrible presence which was

moving slowly towards him, and which was visible to himself alone.

Inch by inch Brown gave way, until he at last reached the wall, and

stood with his back to it, with his arms spread out, in the position

of one crucified. His face was marble white, and a dreadful terror and

a pitiful appeal shone in his eyes. His blue lips were parted as of

one in the dolors of death.

The silence was profound.

There were strong men there; men who had faced and overcome dangers,

who had held their lives in their hands, who had struggled against

desperate odds and won; but there was not a man who did not now feel

weak, powerless, helpless as a child before that invisible, advancing

terror that Brown alone could see. They could move no hand to aid,

lift no voice to pray. All they could do was to wait in that dreadful

silence and to watch. Time itself seemed to stop. It was as if the

stillness had lasted for hours.

Suddenly Brown's face, so white before, flushed a crimson purple, and

with a terrible cry he fell forwards on the polished woodwork of the

floor.

As he fell it seemed as if the weight which held all still was on the

moment removed, and they were free. With scared faces they gathered

around the fallen man and raised him. He was quite dead; but on his

forehead, where there was no mark before, was the impress of a red

trident.

A man, evidently one of the waiters, who had forced his way into the

group, laid his finger on the mark and looked up at the Bishop. There

was an unholy exultation in his face as he met the priest's eyes, and

said:

"He's marked twice--_curse him!_"

UNDER THE ACHILLES

O Charity! thy mystery

Doth cover many things.

"Now, don't break hup the 'appy 'ome!"

"Move those wite mice o' yourn hon, then, 'stead o' sittin' like a

hitalian monkey hon a bloomin' barrel horgan."

A hansom had hacked into a green Atlas in Piccadilly Circus, at the

point where Regent Street and Piccadilly meet. From his height of

vantage the omnibus driver threw a sarcasm at the cabman, and Jehu,

instead of attending to business, lifted his head to fling back an

answer. The sorrel in the hansom likewise lifted his head, stood on

his hind legs, and then, plunging sideways on to the pavement, locked

the wheels of the two conveyances together, completely stopping the

roadway. It was not a good time for a thing of this kind to happen. It

was Piccadilly Circus, just after the big furnaces of the theatres had

let out their red-hot contents. The molten stream was hissing through

the streets, boiling in the throbbing Circus. Such a crowd was there,

too, as no city besides may show; but London need not plume itself on

this. Here, in that hour, when the past of one day was becoming the

present of another, assembled together the good and the bad. The

honest father of a family, with a pure wife or daughter on his arm,

jostled the soiled dove in her jewelled shame. Here were gathered the

men whose lives by daylight were white, those who trod the primrose

path, and the workers of the nation; gilded infamy, tawdry sin, joy

and sorrow, shame and innocence, vice blacker than night, more hideous

than despair. Above blazed the electric stars of the Monico and the

Criterion. A stream of fire marked Coventry Street. To the right the

lamp glare terminated abruptly in Waterloo Place, leaving the moon and

the lonely Park together. From all the great arteries, through

Shaftesbury Avenue, through Coventry Street, through the Haymarket,

the toilers of the night beat up to the roaring Circus, and it was

full. I, a derelict of humanity, was there. In the crowd that fought

and elbowed its way for room--it was a crowd all elbows--I was the

first to reach the hansom. There were two occupants: a man who lay

back with a scared face, and a woman who laughed as she attempted to

step out. It was as daylight, and the rush of an awful recollection

came to me--God help me! It was my wife! My hand stretched out to aid

fell to my side; but, as I staggered back, the brute in the hansom

plunged yet more violently than before. There was an alarmed cry, a

swaying motion, and the cab turned over slowly, like a foundering

ship. I could not control myself. I sprang forward, and lifting the

woman from the cab placed her on the pavement. There was a bit of a

cheer, and before I knew it she thrust her purse into my hand.

"Take this, man, and----"

I waited to hear no more; a sudden frightened look came into her eyes,

and I turned and fled up Piccadilly. Some fool cried "Stop thief!"

Some other one took up the cry. In a moment every one was running. I

ran with the crowd, my hand still clenched tightly on the purse, which

seemed to burn into it. It was too well dressed a crowd to run far.

Opposite Hatchett's it tired, and public attention was engaged by an

altercation, which ended in a fight, between a bicyclist and a

policeman. I had sense enough left to pull up and slacken my pace to a

fast walk. I went straight on. It did not matter to me where I went.

If I had the pluck I should have killed myself long ago. It takes a

lot of pluck to kill one's self. Five years had gone since Mary passed

out of my life. Five years! It was six years ago that I, Richard

Manning of the Bengal Cavalry, had cut for hearts, and turned up--the

deuce! What right had I to blame her? Whose fault was it? I asked this

question aloud to myself, and a wretch selling matches answered:

"Most your hown, guv'nor: buy a box o' matches to warm yer bones with

a smoke--honly a penny!"

I looked up with a start. I was opposite the Naval and Military. Once

I belonged there. The very thought made me mad again, and I cursed

aloud in the bitterness of my heart.

"Drunk as a fly," remarked the match-seller to the public at large,

indicating me with a handful of matchboxes.

Opposite Apsley House I was alone. All the big crowd on the pavement

had died away, only the street seemed full of flashing lights.

Surely some one called Dick? I stopped, but for a second only. I must

be getting out of my mind, I thought, as I hurried on again. A few

steps brought me to Hyde Park Corner. A few more brought me close to

the foot of the Achilles, and, without knowing what I was doing, I

sank into a seat. One must rest somewhere, and I was dead beat. The

long shadow of the statue fell over me, clothing me in darkness. It

fell beyond too, on to the walk, and the huge black silhouette

stretched even unto the trees. A portion of my seat was in moonlight,

and the muffled rumble of carriage wheels reached my ears from the

road in front. It might have been fancy; but I saw a dark figure

glide past the moonlit road into the shadow behind me. Some poor

wretch--some pariah of the streets as lost as I. I wonder if any of

the three-volume novelists ever felt the sensation of being absolutely

stone broke. Nothing but these words "stone broke" can describe it. I

am not going to try and paint a picture of my condition. I was stone

broke, and Mary--the very air was full of Marys!

Mechanically I opened the purse I still held in my hand, and looked at

its contents. I don't know why I did this. I remember once shooting a

stag, and when I came up to it, I found the poor beast in its mortal

agony trying to nibble the heather--it was nibbling the heather. And

here I was, wounded to death, looking at the contents of a Russian

leather purse with idle curiosity. It was heavy with gold--her

gold--Mary's. Damn her! she ruined my life. I flung the purse from me,

and it made a black arc in the moonlight, ere it fell with a little

clash beyond. I saw the gold as it rolled on the gravel walk in red

splashes of light. Ruined my life? Did Mary do this? The old, old

story--"the woman gave me and I did eat." Of course Mary ruined my

life. Had I anything to do with the wreck of hers? If so, I had

committed worse than murder--I had killed a soul. I put my hot head

between my hands and tried to think it out; I would think it all out

to-night, and give my verdict for or against myself. If against me,

then I knew how to die at last. It would not be as at that other time,

when my courage failed me. The bitterness of death was already past. I

would go over what had been, balance each little grain, measure forth

each atom, and the end would be--the end.

It needed no effort. The past came up of itself before me. Five years

of soldiering in Afghanistan, the heights of Cherasiab, the march to

Candahar, a medal, a clasp, a mention in dispatches. This was good.

Then came that staff appointment at Simla, and the downward path.

Life was so easy, so pleasant. I was always gregarious, fond of my

fellow-creatures, easy-going; and as each day passed I slipped down

lower and lower. There were other deeps to come, of which I then knew

not. A lot of conscience was rubbed out of me by that time. Mrs.

Cantilivre must answer for that. There again: the blame on the woman!

But when a society belle makes up her mind to form a man, she takes a

lot of the nap off the fine feelings. I tried to pull up once or

twice, but the effort was beyond me. I drifted back again. Things that

were formerly looked upon by me as luxuries became necessaries; I

developed a taste for gambling, and got into debt. Pace of this kind

could not last long. There came a day when I got ill, and then came

furlough. A long spell of leave, with a load of debt on my shoulders;

but my creditors were, to do them justice, very patient. The voyage

gave me plenty of opportunity to reflect, and the folly of the past

came before me vividly. I would bury the past, have done with Myra

Cantilivre, and start afresh. England again! Words cannot describe the

feelings that stirred me when I saw the Eddystone, with the big waves

lashing about it. Arriving on Sunday, I had to spend the afternoon in

Plymouth, and saw Drake looking out over the sea. All the old fire was

warming back in my heart. There was time to mend all yet: when I got

back I meant to win the cherry ribbon and bronze star--no more

flirtation under the deodars for me--I would soldier again.

A few months later I met Mary, and in a month she had promised to be

my wife. I can see her yet as she stood before me with downcast head,

and the pink flush on her cheek. She lifted her eyes to mine, and the

look in them was my answer. A few months afterwards we were married,

and almost immediately sailed for India. I give my word that I meant

all that a man should mean for his wife. But one cannot live in the

world and look on things in the same light as an innocent woman. I had

buried all the past, as I thought, forever. Myra Cantilivre was dead

to me, but she had done her work. It was an effort to me always to

live in the pure air of Mary's thoughts, and one day I said something

on board the steamer that jarred on my wife. It was a comedown from

cloudland, and was the first little rift within the lute. I pulled

myself up, however, and smoothed it over. Then the scheme which I

worked out took its birth in my mind. If there was to be any happiness

in our future life, Mary must either come down to my level or I must

go up to hers. I had tried and failed. There was nothing for it but to

bring her down. This fine sensitiveness of hers necessitated my having

to play the hypocrite forever. Then again I did not like to unveil

myself. Every man likes to be a hero to his wife. I suppose she finds

him out, however, sooner or later. Perhaps it would be better to let

Mary find out gradually. It would in effect be carrying out my

programme in the best possible way. Now, I had hitherto concealed from

Mary the fact that I was in debt; but something happened at Simla,

soon after we reached there, that necessitated her knowing this. There

was another little difference. It was not, Mary said, the matter of

the debt, but the fact of my concealing it, that hurt her. She brought

up in minute detail little plans of mine, sketched without

consideration of the bonds of my creditors, and put them in such a

manner that it appeared as if I had told untruths to her regarding

myself. The confession has to be made: they were practically untruths;

but a man during his courtship, and the first weeks of his married

life, has often to say things which would not bear scrutiny. My wife

showed she had a retentive memory, and, for a girl, a very clear and

incisive way of putting things. The storm passed over at last, and

then Mary set herself to put my disordered affairs to rights. Debts

had to be paid, and rigid economy was the order of the day; but coming

back to Simla meant coming back to the old things. I tried to second

Mary's efforts to the best of my ability; but I felt I couldn't last

long. I met Mrs. Cantilivre one evening at Viceregal Lodge. She

received me like an old friend, and begged to be introduced to Mary.

She made only one reference to what had been:

"And so, Dick, the past is all forgotten?"

"It is good to forget, Mrs. Cantilivre; and I am now hedged in with

all kinds of fortifications."

I looked towards Mary, where she stood talking to Redvers of the

Sikhs--I always hated Redvers, and never saw what women admired in

him.

Myra laughed at my speech--it was an odd little laugh, and I did not

like it.

"Who makes her dresses?" she asked. "And now give me your arm and take

me to your wife."

I should not have done it, I know I should not, but my hand was

forced. If I had had the moral courage I should have got out of it

somehow. It was just that want of moral courage that broke me. This is

something like a verdict against myself, but it is worth while setting

forth the whole indictment. I began to tire of Mary's rigid rules of

honesty and strict economy. She tied me down too much. I should have

been allowed a run now and again. The short of it was that I began to

break out of bounds, and in a few months was leading my old life once

again. There was this difference, however--that formerly I had nothing

to fear, whereas now it was necessary to conceal things. I flattered

myself that I was still her idol. I should have known she had long ago

perceived that the idol was of the earth, earthy. I had occasionally

to resort to falsehood, and was almost as invariably discovered. I had

not a sufficiently good memory to be a complete liar. The shame of it

was knowing I was discovered; but Mary never threw it up to my face.

She set herself to her duty loyally, though day by day I could see the

despair eating its way through her. I had taken to gambling again, and

as usual had bad luck and lost heavily. This necessitated my having to

borrow some more money, which I arranged to pay back by instalments;

and then I had to tell my wife that, owing to an alteration in the

scales of pay, my income was so much the less. I upbraided the rules

of the service, and on this occasion Mary believed me. I resolved to

gamble no more. About this time my wife got ill, and when she

recovered there was a small Mary in the house. During her illness

things were so upset that I was compelled to frequent my club more

than ever. To add to the worry to which I was subjected, the child got

ill, and really seemed very ill indeed. All this involved expenditure

which I did not know how to meet, and in despair one evening I turned

to the cards again. It was the only thing to do. It was absurd to lose

all I had lost, for the want of a little pluck to pull it back again.

One evening I had just cut into a table when a note was put into my

hands. It was from my wife, asking me to come home at once, as the

child seemed very ill. It was rather hard luck being dragged home; and

I could do nothing. So I dropped a note back to Mary to say she had

better send for the doctor, and that I would come as soon as possible.

I meant to go immediately after one rubber. I won. It would have been

a sin to have turned on my luck, and I played on until the small hours

of the morning, and for once was fortunate. I rode back in high

spirits. Near my gate some one galloped past me; I thought I

recognised Brasingham's (the doctor's) nag, but wasn't quite sure. At

any rate, if it was, Mary had taken my advice. I rode in softly and

entered the house. A dim light was burning in the sitting-room; beyond

it was the baby's room. I lifted the curtain and entered. As I came in

my wife's ayah rose and salaamed, then stole softly out. I cannot tell

why, but I felt I was in the presence of death. Mary was kneeling by

the little bed, and in it lay our child, very quiet and still. I

stepped up to my wife and put my hand on her shoulder. She looked up

at me with a silent reproach in her eyes. "Wife," I said, "give me one

chance more"; and without a word she came to me and lay sobbing on my

heart.

We went away after that for about a month; and I think that month was

a more restful one than any we had spent since the first weeks of our

marriage. By the end of it, however, I was weary of the new life. I

must have been mad, but I longed to get again to the old excitements.

I told Mary that when we came back she should go out as much as

possible--that the distraction of society would be good for her. She

agreed passively. We went out a great deal after that; and somehow my

wife discovered the falsehood I had told her about the reduction in my

income. She did not upbraid me, but she let me understand she knew,

with a quiet contempt that stung me to the quick. From this moment she

changed. Whilst formerly I had to urge her to mix in society, she now

appeared to seek it with an eagerness that a little surprised me.

Redvers was always with her. At any rate this made things more

comfortable for me in one way, for I could more openly go my own path.

I renewed my acquaintance with Mrs. Cantilivre. She always said the

right thing, and she understood men--at any rate she understood me. If

Mrs. Cantilivre had been my wife I would have been a success in life.

Bit by bit all my old feelings for her awoke again, and then the crash

came. It was the night of the Cavalry Ball. I asked Myra Cantilivre

for a dance; but she preferred to sit it out. I cannot tell how it

happened, but ten minutes after I was at her feet, telling her I loved

her more than my life--talking like a madman and a fool.

She bent down and kissed my forehead. "Poor boy!" she said; and as I

looked up I saw Mary on Redvers' arm not six feet from us. I rose, and

Myra Cantilivre leaned back in her chair and put up the big plumes of

her fan to her face. Mary turned away without a word, and walked down

the passage with her companion.

I followed, but dared not speak to her. Old Cramley, the Deputy

Quartermaster General, buttonholed me. He was a senior officer, and I

submitted. Half an hour later, when I escaped, my wife was gone. I

reached home at last. Mary was there, in a dark grey walking dress, a

small bag in her hand. I met her in the hall, and she stepped aside as

if my touch would pollute her.

"Mary," I said, "I can explain all."

"I want no explanation: let me pass, please."

She went out into the night.

In two days all Simla knew of it, and in six months I was a ruined

man.

There is no help for it--the verdict is against me; and yet for five

years I have been through the fire, and I am strong now--there would

be no blacksliding if another chance were given to me. Regrets! There

is no use regretting--ten times would I give my life to live over the

past again. "Mary, my dear, I have killed you: may God forgive me!"

Some one stepped out of the shadow into the moonlight as I raised my

head with the bitter cry on my lips.

"Dick!"

"Mary!"

And we had met once more.

THE MADNESS OF SHERE

BAHADUR

The mahout's small son, engaged with an equally small friend in the

pleasant occupation of stringing into garlands the thick yellow and

white champac blossoms that strewed the ground under the broad-leaved

tree near the lentena hedge, was startled by an angry trumpet, and

looked in the direction of Shere Bahadur.

"He is _must_," said one to the other, in an awe-struck whisper, and

then, a sudden terror seizing them, they bounded silently and swiftly

like little brown apes into a gap in the hedge and vanished.

There were ten thousand evil desires hissing in Shere Bahadur's heart

as he swayed to and fro under the huge peepul tree to which he was

chained. Indignity upon indignity had been heaped upon him. It was a

mere accident that Aladin, the mahout who had attended him for twenty

years, was dead. How on earth was Shere Bahadur to know that his skull

was so thin? He had merely tapped it with his trunk in a moment of

petulance, and the head of Aladin had crackled in like the shell of an

egg. Shere Bahadur was reduced to the ranks. For weeks he had to carry

the fodder supply of the Maharaj's stables, like an ordinary beast of

burden and a low-caste slave; a fool to boot had been put to attend on

him. It was not to be borne. Shere Bahadur clanked his chains angrily,

and ever and anon flung wisps of straw, twigs, and dust on his broad

back and mottled forehead. He, a Kemeriah of Kemeriahs, to be treated

thus! He was no longer the stately beast that bore the yellow and

silver howdah of the Maharaj Adhiraj in solemn procession, who put

aside with a gentle sweep of his trunk the children who crowded the

narrow streets of Kalesar. No, it was different now. He was a felon

and an outcast, bound like a thief. Something had given way in his

brain, and Shere Bahadur was mad. The flies hovered on the sore part

over his left ear, where the long peak of the driving-iron had

burrowed in, and, with a trumpet of rage, the elephant blew a cloud of

dust into the air and strained himself backwards.

_Click_! _click!_ The cast-iron links of the big chain that bound

him snapped, and Shere Bahadur was free. He cautiously moved his

pillar-like legs backwards and forwards to satisfy himself of the

fact, and then, with the broad fans of his ears spread out, stood for

a moment still as a stone. High up amongst the leaves the green

pigeons whistled softly to each other, and a grey squirrel was engaged

in hot dispute with a blue jay over treasure-trove, found in a hollow

of one of the long branches that, python-like, twined and twisted

overhead. Far away, rose tier upon tier of purple hills, and beyond

them a white line of snow-capped peaks stood out against the sapphire

of the sky. Hathni Khund was there, the deep pool of the Jumna, where

thirty years before Shere Bahadur had splashed and swam. It was

there that he fought and defeated the hoary tusker of the herd, the

one-tusked giant who had bullied and tyrannized over his tribe for

time beyond Shere Bahadur's memory.

Perhaps a thought of that big fight stirred him, perhaps the breeze

brought him the sweet scent of the young grass in the glens. At any

rate, with a quick, impatient flap of his ears, Shere Bahadur turned

and faced the hills. As he did so his twinkling red eyes caught sight

of the Kalesar state troops on their parade ground, barely a quarter

of a mile from where he stood. The fat little Maharaj was there,

standing near the saluting point. Close to him was the Vizier, with

the court, and, last but not least, a knowing little fox-terrier dug

up the earth with his forepaws, scattering it about regardless of the

august presence.

The Maharaj was proud of his troops. He had raised them himself in an

outburst of loyalty, the day after a birthday gazette in which His

Highness Sri Ranabir Pertab Sing, Maharaj Adhiraj of Kalesar, had been

admitted a companion of an exalted order. The Star of India glittered

on the podgy little prince. He was dreaming of a glorious day when he,

he himself, would lead the victorious levy through the Khyber, first

in the field against the Russ, when a murmur that swelled to a cry of

fear rose from the ranks, and the troops melted away before their

king. Rifles and accoutrements were flung aside; there was a wild

stampede, and the gorgeously attired colonel, putting spurs to his

horse, mingled with the dust and was lost to view. The Maharaj stormed

in his native tongue, and then burst into English oaths. He had a very

pretty vocabulary, for had he not been brought up under the tender

care of the Sirkar? He turned in his fury towards the Vizier, but was

only in time to see the snowy robes of that high functionary

disappearing into a culvert, and the confused mob of his court running

helter-skelter across the sward. But yet another object caught the

prince's eye, and chilled him with horror. It was the vast bulk of

Shere Bahadur moving rapidly and noiselessly towards him. Sri Ranabir

was a Rajpoot of the bluest blood, and his heart was big: but this

awful sight, this swift, silent advance of hideous death, paralyzed

him with fear. Already the long shadow of the elephant had moved near

his feet, already he seemed impaled on those cruel white tusks, when

there was a snapping bark, and the fox-terrier flew at Shere Bahadur

and danced round him in a tempest of rage. The elephant turned, and

made a savage dash at the dog, who skipped nimbly between his legs and

renewed the assault in the rear. But this moment of reprieve roused

His Highness. The prince became a man, and the Maharaj turned and

fled, darting like a star across the soft green. Shere Bahadur saw the

flash of the jewelled aigrette, the sheen of the order, and, giving up

the dog, curled his trunk and started in pursuit. It was a desperate

race. The Maharaj was out of training, but the time he made was

wonderful, and the diamond buckles on his shoes formed a streak of

light as he fled. But, fast as he ran, the race would have ended in a

few seconds if it were not for Bully, the little white fox-terrier.

Bully thoroughly grasped the situation, and acted accordingly. He ran

round the elephant, now skipping between his legs, the next moment

snapping at him behind--and Bully had a remarkably fine set of teeth.

The Maharaj sighted a small hut, the door of which stood invitingly

open. It was a poor hut made of grass and sticks, but it seemed a

royal palace to him.

"Holy Gunputty!" he gasped. "If I could----"

But it was no time to waste words. Already the snakelike trunk of his

enemy was stretched out to fold round him, when with a desperate spurt

he reached the door, and dashed in. But Shere Bahadur was not to be

denied. He stood for a moment, and then, putting forward his forefoot,

staved in the side of the frail shelter and brought down the house.

Sri Ranabir hopped out like a rat, and it was well for him that in the

cloud of dust and thatch flying about he was unobserved, for Shere

Bahadur, now careless of Bully's assaults and certain of his man, was

diligently searching the _debris_. But he found nothing save a brass

vessel, which he savagely flung at the dog. Then he carefully stamped

on the hut, and reduced everything to chaos. In the meantime Sri

Ranabir, unconscious that the pursuit had ceased, ran on as if he was

wound up like a clock, ran until his foot slipped, and the Maharaj

Adhiraj rolled into the soft bed of a nullah, and lay there with his

eyes closed, utterly beaten, and careless whether the death he had

striven so hard to avoid came or not. Then there was a buzzing in his

ears and everything became a blank.

* * * * *

"Blessed be the prophet! He liveth." And the Vizier helped his fallen

master to rise, aided by the Heir Apparent, in whose heart, however,

there were thoughts far different from those which found expression on

the lips of the Nawab Juggun Jung, prime minister of Kalesar. The

sympathetic, if somewhat excited, court crowded round their king, and

a little in the distance was the whole population of Kalesar, armed

with every conceivable weapon, and keeping up their courage by beating

on tom-toms, blowing horns, and shouting until the confusion of sound

was indescribable.

"Come back to the palace, my lord. They will drive the evil one out of

him." And the Vizier waved his hand in the direction of the crowd, and

pointed to where in the distance Shere Bahadur was making slowly and

steadily for the hills. But the Maharaj Adhiraj would do no such

thing. "Ryful lao!" he roared in his vernacular; "Gimme my gun!" he

shrieked in English. There was no refusing; a double-barrelled gun was

thrust in his hands, he scrambled on the back of the first horse he

saw, and, followed by his cheering subjects and the whole court,

dashed after the elephant.

"Mirror of the Universe, destroy him not," advised the Vizier who rode

at the prince's bridle-hand. "The beast is worth eight thousand

rupees, and cannot be replaced. The treasury is almost empty, and we

will want him when the Lat Saheb comes." The Maharaj was prudent if he

was brave, and the empty treasury was a strong argument. Besides, they

were getting rather close to Shere Bahadur and outpacing the faithful

people. But he gave in slowly. "What is to be done?" he asked, taking

a pull at the reins.

"The people will drive him back," replied the Vizier, "and we will

chain him up securely. He is but _must_, and in a month or so all will

pass away."

Shere Bahadur had now reached an open plain, where he stopped, and

turning round, faced his pursuers.

"Go on, brave men!" shouted the Vizier. "A thousand rupees to him who

links the first chain on that Shaitan. Drive him back! Drive him

back!"

There is the courage of numbers, and this the people of India possess.

They gradually formed a semi-circle round Shere Bahadur, cutting off

his retreat to the hills, and attempted by shouts and the beating of

tom-toms to drive him forwards. But they kept at a safe distance, and

the elephant remained unmoved.

"Prick him forwards," roared the Vizier. "Are none of ye men?

Behold! the Light of the Universe watches your deeds! A _must_

elephant--_pah!_ What is it but an animal?"

"By your lordship's favour," answered a voice, "he is not _must_, only

angry--there is no stream from his eye. Nevertheless, I will drive him

to the lines, for I am but dust of the earth, and a thousand rupees

will make me a king." Then a red-turbaned man stepped out of the

throng. It was the low-caste cooly who had been put to attend to the

elephant on Aladin's death. He was armed with a short spear, and he

crept up to the beast on his hands and knees, and then, rising, dug

the weapon into the elephant's haunch. Shere Bahadur rapped his trunk

on the ground, gave a short quick trumpet, and, swinging round, made

for the man. He did this in a slow, deliberate manner, and actually

allowed him to gain the crowd. Then he flung up his head with a

screech and dashed forward.

_Crack_! _crack!_ went both barrels of Sri Ranabir's gun, and two

bullets whistled harmlessly through the air. The panic-striken mob

turned and fled, bearing the struggling prince in the press. The

elephant was, however, too quick, and, to his horror, Sri Ranabir saw

that he had charged home. Then Sri Ranabir also saw something that he

never forgot. Not a soul did the elephant harm, but with a dogged

persistence followed the red turban. Some bolder than the rest struck

at him with their tulwars, some tried to stab him with their spears,

and one or two matchlocks were fired at him, but to no purpose.

Through the crowd he steered straight for his prey, and the crowd

itself gave back before him in a sea of frightened faces. At last the

man himself seemed to realize Shere Bahadur's object, and it dawned

like an inspiration on the rest. They made a road for the elephant,

and he separated his quarry from the crowd. At last! He ran him down

on a ploughed field and stood over the wretch. The man lay partly on

his side, looking up at his enemy, and he put up his hand weakly and

rested it against the foreleg of the elephant, who stood motionless

above him. So still was he that a wild thought of escape must have

gone through the wretch's mind, and with the resource born of imminent

peril he gathered himself together inch by inch, and made a rush for

freedom. With an easy sweep of his trunk Shere Bahadur brought him

back into his former position, and then--the devil came out, and a

groan went up from the crowd, for Shere Bahadur had dropped on his

knees, and a moment after rose and kicked something, a mangled,

shapeless something, backwards and forwards between his feet.

"Let him be," said the Vizier, laying a restraining hand on Sri

Ranabir. "What has he killed but refuse? The Shaitan will go out of

him now."

When he had done the deed Shere Bahadur moved a few yards further and

began to cast clods of earth over himself. Then it was seen that a

small figure, with a driving-hook in its little brown hand, was making

directly for the elephant.

"Come back, you little fool!" shouted Sri Ranabir. But the boy made no

answer, and running lightly forward, stood before Shere Bahadur. He

placed the tinsel-covered cap he wore at the beast's feet, and held up

his hands in supplication. The crowd stood breathless; they could hear

nothing, but the child was evidently speaking. They saw Shere Bahadur

glare viciously at the boy as his trunk drooped forward in a straight

line. The lad again spoke, and the elephant snorted doubtfully. Then

there was no mistaking the shrill treble "Lift!" Shere Bahadur held

out his trunk in an unwilling manner. The boy seized hold of it as

high as he could reach, placed his bare feet on the curl, and murmured

something. A moment after he was seated on the elephant's neck, and

lifting the driving-iron, waved it in the air.

"Hai!" he screamed as he drove it on to the right spot, the sore part

over the left ear. "Hai! Base-born thief, back to your lines!"

And the huge bulk of Shere Bahadur turned slowly round and shambled

off to the peepul tree like a lamb.

"By the trunk of Gunputty! I will make that lad a havildar, and the

thousand rupees shall be his," swore the Maharaj.

"Pillar of the earth!" advised the Vizier, "let this unworthy one

speak. It is Futteh Din, the dead Aladin's son. Give him five rupees,

and _let him be mahout_."

* * * * *

When I last saw Shere Bahadur he was passing solemnly under the old

archway of the "Gate of the Hundred Winds" at Kalesar. The Maharaj

Adhiraj was seated in the howdah, with his excellency the Nawab Juggun

Jung by his side. On the driving-seat was Futteh Din, gorgeous in

cloth of gold, and they were on their way to the funeral-pyre of the

Heir Apparent, who had died suddenly from a surfeit of cream.

As they passed under the archway a sweetmeat-seller rose and bowed to

the prince, and Shere Bahadur, stretching out his trunk, helped

himself to a pound or so of Turkish Delight.

"Such," said the sweetmeat-seller to himself ruefully, as he gazed

after the retreating procession, "such are the ways of kings."

REGINE'S APE

It is a May morning in the north of India--such a morning as comes

when the hot wind has been blowing for three weeks, and has shrivelled

everything before it, like tea-leaves under the fan of a drying

engine. The Grand Trunk Road, a long line of grey dotted in with

dust-covered _kikur_ trees, stretches for three hundred miles to the

frontier, and to the right and left of it, beginning at the village of

the Well of Lehna Singh, which lies but a quoit-cast from the

roadside, spreads a plain, dry, arid, and parched--agape with

thirst--the seams running along its brown surface like open lips

panting for rain, the cool rain which will not come yet, although, at

times, the distant rumble of thunder is heard, and dark clouds pile up

in the horizon, only to melt away into nothing. The tall _sirpat_

grass has been cut, and its pruned stalks, stiff as the bristles on a

hair-brush, extend in regular patches of yellow, spiky scrub, with

bands of mottled brown and grey earth between them. Here and again it

would seem there are scattered pools, for the eyes, running over the

landscape, shrink back from a sudden flash, as of water reflecting the

fierce light of the sun. It is not so, however, for, except what the

groaning Persian wheels drag up from the deep wells, there is never a

drop of water for man, for beast, or for field. Those gleaming

stretches from which the pained eyes turn are nothing more than the

bare earth, covered with a saline efflorescence, soft and silver

white, as if it were dry and powdered foam. It is yet early, and the

light is not so dazzling as to prevent the eye resting on the

patchwork of the plain, studded here and there with clumps of trees,

that mark a well and the hamlet that has grown up around it. To found

a village here it is only necessary to dig a well, and behold! mud

huts spring up like fungi, and a hamlet has come into being. Right

across the plain is a dark line of _kikur_ and _seesum_ trees. That is

where the dry bed of the Deg torrents lies. Only let it rain, and the

Deg will come down, an angry yellow flood, alive with catfish, and

bubble its way to the wide but not less yellow bosom of the Ravi.

Beyond the dry bed of the torrent, and towards the east, are a number

of sand dunes covered with the soda plant, and looking like anthills

in the distance. In the east itself the sun looms through a red haze,

and against this ruddy, semi-opaque mist, a dust-devil rises in a

spiral column, and opening out at the top, like an expanding smoke

wreath, spreads sullenly against the sky line. On a morning such as

this, two men are beating for a boar in a large patch of _sirpat_

grass. One man is at each end of the grass field, and between them are

twenty or thirty _Sansis_, a criminal tribe, who make excellent

beaters whatever their other faults may be. With the man to the right

of the field we have little concern. It is with the man to the left

that this story deals. As he sits his fretting Arab, and the sunlight

falls on his features, it would need but a glance to tell he was a

soldier. The careful observer might, however, discover in that glance

that there was something wrong about the good-looking face. The eyes

were too close together, the bow of the mouth both weak and cruel,

although the chin below it was firm enough. If the grey helmet he wore

were removed, it would have been seen that the head was small and

somewhat conical in shape, the head of a Carib rather than that of an

European. As he slowly advanced his horse along the edge of the field,

keeping in line with the beaters, it was evident that he was in a high

state of excitement, and the shaft of his spear was shivering in his

hand.

_Whirr_! _whirr!_ A couple of black partridge rise from the grass and

sail away till they look like cockchafers in the distance. Then there

is a scramble, a hare dashes out, and scurries madly across the plain,

his long ears laid flat on his back, and his big eyes almost starting

out of his head with fright. The beaters yell at this, and the Arab

plunges forward; but the rider, who is growing pale with excitement,

holds him in, and he dances along sideways in a white sweat--both

horse and man all nerves. Two mangy jackals slink out of the grass,

give a sly look around, and then lope along in the direction taken by

the hare. It will be bad for puss if they come across him. As yet not

a sign of the boar, and the Arab is almost pulling Sangster's arms

off. He looks across at his friend, and sees him well to the right, on

his solemn-looking black, and he catches sight of a pale blue curl of

smoke from Wilkinson's pipe.

"By George!" he muttered, "only think of smoking now! Steady----" He

might as well have tried to stop an engine. There is a chorus of

yells, shrieks, and howls from the beaters, a sudden waving of

crackling grass, the plunge of a heavy body, and in a hand-turn an old

boar breaks cover, and, with one savage look about him, heads at a

tremendous pace for the Deg. The Arab has seen it, and lets himself

out like a buck, and then all is forgotten except the fierce

excitement of the chase. Sangster can hear the drumming of the black's

hoofs behind him, and fast as he goes Wilkinson draws alongside, his

teeth still clenched over the stem of his pipe. The boar is well to

the front, a brown spot bobbing up and down, racing for his life, as

he means to fight for it when the time comes. He is not afraid, his

little red eyes are aflame with wrath, and as he goes he grinds his

tusks till the yellow foam flies off them on to his brindled sides. He

is not in the least afraid, and he fully intends, at the proper time,

to adjust matters with one or both his pursuers. It is his way to run

first and fight afterwards--that is, providing the enemy can run him

to a standstill. If not--well, the fight must be deferred to another

day, and in the meantime it is capital going, except over that

ravine-scarred portion of the plain called the "Gridiron," where, at

any rate, the advantage will lie with him.

Side by side the two men race. Wilkinson knows perfectly well that

when the time comes he can draw away from the Arab, which, with all

its speed and pluck, is no match for a fifteen-hand Waler. He is

calculating on gaining "first spear" with a sudden rush; but has

missed out of this calculation the consequences of an accident. In the

middle of the "Gridiron," the Waler makes a false step between two

grass-crowned hummocks, and Sangster is left alone, with the boar,

whilst Wilkinson, with a sore heart, crawls out of a water-cut, and,

after many an ineffectual effort, succeeds in catching his horse and

following the chase, now almost out of sight.

In the meantime the boar has all but reached the Deg, and safety lies

there. Could he only gain one of the hundred ravines that cobweb the

plain, a quarter mile or so from the dry bed of the torrent, he would

yet live to run, and maybe fight, on another day. He strains every

nerve to effect this object, and Sangster, seeing this, calls on his

horse, and the Arab, answering gallantly, brings him almost up to the

boar with a rush. Sangster can see the foam on the boar's jowl, necked

with bright spots of red; blood-marks from the hunted animal's lips,

wounded by the sharp tushes as he ground them together in his wrath;

already has he reached out his arm to deliver the spear, when, quick

as lightning, the boar jinks to the right, and, dashing down a deep

and narrow ravine, is lost to view. Sangster saw the bristles on his

back as the beast vanished, and the speed of his horse bore him almost

to the edge of the steep bank of the Deg before he could stop and turn

him. When Sangster came back to the point where he had lost the boar

he realized that it was useless to make any attempt to find the

animal. In a hasty look round he had given when Wilkinson came to

grief he had seen that the accident to his friend was not serious, and

he now resolved to cross the Deg by an old bridge known as "Shah

Doula's Pool," and make his way back to the beaters along the "soft"

that bordered the metalling of the Grand Trunk Road. It would be shady

there, and he was parched with thirst, and very much out of temper.

Failure in anything made this nervous man extraordinarily irritable,

and he was in a mood to pick a quarrel on the slightest provocation.

Sangster reached the bridge in this frame of mind, and as he crossed

it came upon a curious scene. Under the shade of a peepul, whose

heart-shaped leaves sheltered him from the sun, sat a devotee staring

fixedly into space with his lustreless eyes. Beyond a cloth around his

waist he had no clothing, his body was smeared with ashes, and on his

ash-covered forehead was drawn a trident in red ochre. His hair, which

was of great length, and had been bleached by exposure from black to a

russet brown, fell over his thin shoulders in a long matted mane.

Sitting there, he was, up to this point, like any one of the hundred

wandering mendicants a man might meet in a week's march in India; but

here the resemblance ceased, for this man was of those who, in the

fulfilment of a vow, was prepared to inflict upon himself and to

endure any torture. He sat cross-legged, and what at first Sangster

thought was the dry and blasted bough of a stunted _kikur_ tree behind

the man he saw, at a second glance, was nothing less than the

devotee's arm, which he had held out at a right angle to his body,

until it had stiffened immovably in that position, and had shrunk

until it seemed that the cracked skin alone covered the bone. How long

the arm had been held to reach this condition no one can say. But it

was long enough for the nails to have grown through the palm of the

clenched hand, over which they curled and drooped like tendrils. The

ascetic's gourd lay before him, into which some pious passer-by had

dropped a handful of parched rice, and behind him gambolled a grey

monkey, an entellus or _lungoor_, who gibbered and mowed at Sangster

as he rode up, but made no attempt to retreat--evidently he was tame,

and used to people.

Although Sangster had nearly seven years of service, he knew nothing

about the East; his knowledge of its peoples and their characters

expressed itself in two words, brief and strong. He knew nothing and

cared less for the complex laws, the mystic philosophy, the immemorial

civilization of the great empire which he, in his small way, was

helping to hold for England. He fortunately represented only a small

class of the servants of the Queen, that class who hold the native to

be a brute, a little, if at all, better than the grey ape who leered

over the devotee's shoulder at the Arab and his rider. Sangster,

however, knew something of the language, and some devil prompted him

to rein in, and imperiously ask the sitting figure if the boar had

gone that way. He might as well have asked the ape, for that figure,

seated there in the dust, with its rigid arm stretched out, and dull

look staring into vacancy, would have been oblivious if a hundred

boars had passed before it, and was so lost in abstraction that it was

even unconscious of the presence of the fiery champing horse and

equally impatient man, who were right in front of its unwinking eyes.

Of course there was no answer, and Sangster angrily repeated the

question, lowering the point of his spear as he did so, and slightly

pricking the man below him. What came into the little brain of the ape

it is hard to say; but it was an instinct that told him his master was

in danger, and with a dog-like fidelity he resolved to defend him.

Springing forward the beast grasped the shaft of the lance, and, with

chattering teeth, pushed it violently on one side. All the little

temper Sangster had left went to shreds; with an oath he drew back his

arm, the spear-head flashed, and the next moment passed clean through

the shrieking animal, and was out again, no longer bright but dripping

red. With a pitiful moan the poor brute almost flung itself into the

devotee's lap, and died there, its arms clasped around the lean waist

of its master. All this happened so suddenly, so quickly, that

Sangster had barely time to think of what he had done; but, as he

raised his red spear, a horror came on him, so human was the cry of

the dying ape, so like a child did it lie in its death-agony. He would

have turned away and ridden off, but a power he could not control kept

him there, and for a space there was a silence, broken only by the

drip from the spear-head, and the soft whistle of a _huryal_ or green

pigeon from the shade of the leaves overhead.

The ascetic gently put aside the dead ape, and rose, a grey phantom,

to his feet. So large was his head, so small his body, and so long the

withered bird-like legs that supported him, that he appeared to be

some uncanny creature of another world. He was overcome with a

terrible excitement, his breast heaved, his lips moved with a hissing

sound, and he unconsciously tried to shake his rigid right arm at the

destroyer. Then his voice came, shrill and fierce, with a note of

unending pain in it, and he dropped out slowly, and with a deadly hate

in each word: "_Cursed be the hand that wrought this deed! Cursed be

thou above thy fellows! May Durga dog thee through life, and let thy

life itself end in blood! Now go_!"

Without a word Sangster turned to the left, and galloped along the

banks of the Deg. At any other time he could have found it in his

heart to laugh at the curse of the mad ascetic, for so he thought the

man to be; but the limp body of the dead ape was before him, and its

pitiful cry was ringing in his ears. As he rode on he caught a glimpse

of his dull spear-point. It was only the blood of an animal after all;

but he flung the lance away with a jerk of his arm, and it fell softly

into the broad-leaved _dakh_ shrubs and lay there, long and yellow in

the sunlight. He pressed on madly; the white line of the Grand Trunk

Road was now close, and he could make out a gigantic figure on a

gigantic horse. It was Wilkinson; but how huge he looked! Sangster's

head seemed bursting, and there was a drumming in his ears. Somehow he

managed to keep his seat, and at last heard Wilkinson's cool voice.

"Got the pig, old man? Good God!----" For Sangster, with a flushed red

face, slid from his saddle, and lay senseless in the white burning

dust.

In a moment Wilkinson had sprung to earth and was bending over his

friend.

"Sunstroke, by Jove! Must get him back at once."

* * * * *

One does not recover from sunstroke in a little, and in most cases it

leaves a permanent mark behind it. Sangster was no exception to the

rule. For weeks he lay between life and death. There were times when

he tottered on the brink of that dark precipice, down which we must

all go sooner or later; but he rallied at last. Finally he was well

enough to travel, and the sick man came home. He had never mentioned

to a soul what he had done at Shah Doula's Pool. If he had spoken of

it during his illness, it was doubtless set down to the ravings of

delirium. When at length he recovered his senses, he could only recall

what had happened to him in a vague manner. But he was no longer his

own cheery, somewhat noisy self. He was listless, moody, and

apathetic. Over his mind there seemed to brood a shadow that would

take to itself neither form nor substance, and against which he could

not battle. The doctors said the long sea-voyage home would set him

right in this respect. They were wrong, and day after day the man lay

stretched on his cane deck-chair, or paced up and down in sullen

silence, exchanging no word with his fellow-passengers. At last they

reached Plymouth, and although it was seven years since he had left

England, he never even glanced out of the windows as the train bore

him to his Berkshire home. He arrived at last and was made much over.

Kind hands tended him, and loving hearts were there to anticipate his

slightest whim. It was impossible to resist this, and in a little time

the clouds seemed to roll away from his mind, and he was once more gay

and bright. One warm sunny day, as he was lying in a hammock under the

shade of a sycamore, hardly conscious that he was awake, and yet

knowing he was not asleep, his mind seemed to slip back of its own

accord into the past. In an instant the soft turf, the mellow green

trees, the restful English landscape faded away. A wind that was as

hot as a furnace blast beat upon him. All around was a dreary waste,

and above, the sky was a cloudless, burning blue. He was once again

holding in his fiery Arab, and listening to the curse hissing out from

the lips of the devotee. He almost heard the blood dropping from his

spear on to the grey dust below his horse's hoofs, and from the

heart-shaped _peepul_ leaves--it was no longer a sycamore he was

beneath--the whistle of the green pigeon came to him soft and low. A

strange terror seized him. He sprang out of the hammock. He had not

been asleep. It was broad daylight, and yet he could have sworn that

for the moment time had rolled backwards, and that he was eight

thousand miles away from the square, red brick parsonage, in the

firwoods of Berkshire. And then he began to understand.

He went into the house his old brooding self, and in a week, finding

life there insupportable, ran up to town. Here he took chambers close

to his club, and plunged into dissipation. He was not naturally a man

given that way, and he did not take to it kindly. But he held his

course and broke the remains of his health, and wasted his substance

in a vain effort to shake off the weight from his soul. But it was

useless, and now a weariness of life fell upon him, and something

seemed to be ever whispered in his ear to end all. The temptation came

upon him one evening with an almost irresistible force. He was to dine

out that evening, and had just finished dressing when his eye fell on

a small plated Derringer that lay on the table before him. He took it

up and held it in his hand. But a little touch on the trigger, and

there would be an end of all things. It was so easy. Only a little

touch! He placed the round muzzle to his temple, and stood thus for a

second. He could hear the ticking of his watch, he could feel the

pulse in his temple throbbing against the cold steel of the pistol, he

could feel his very heart beating. His whole past rose up before him.

He closed his eyes, set his teeth, his finger was on the trigger, when

he heard a low laugh, a mocking laugh of triumph, that, soft as it

was, seemed to vibrate through the room. Sangster's hand dropped to

his side, and he looked round with a scared face. At the time this

occurred he was standing at his dressing-table, and the only light was

that from two candles, one on each side of the glass. The bedroom was

separated from the sitting-room by a folding door, overhung by a heavy

crimson curtain, and this part of the room was in semidarkness. As

Sangster turned his white face to the curtain he saw nothing, although

the laugh was still ringing in his ears; but, as he looked, a pale

blue mist rose before the curtain; a mist that seemed instinct with

light, and in it floated the body of the devotee, the rigid arm

extended towards him and a smile of infernal malice on the withered

lips. For a moment Sangster stood as if spell-bound--a cold sweat on

his forehead. Then, for he was no coward, he nerved himself, and

advanced towards the vision. As he stepped up, mist and figure faded

into nothing, and he was alone. But he could bear to be so no longer,

and thrusting the pistol into the breast pocket of his coat, hurried

outside. Once in the street, he hailed a hansom and was driven to his

destination.

During his stay in town he had sought every class of society, and

chance had thrown him in the way of Madame Regine. Who she was is not

material to this story, but she was the one person he had met who

could for the moment make Sangster forget his gloom.

In her way, too, Regine was attracted by this man, so grave and

silent, yet who was able to speak of things and scenes she had never

heard of, and who looked so different from the other men she came

across in her literary and artistic circle.

Of late, with a perversity which cannot be accounted for, he had

avoided seeing her, and she was more than glad he was coming that

night; and as for him, he almost had it in his heart to thank God he

was to see Regine that evening.

Madame knew how to select her guests. There were but half a dozen

people, and it was very gay. At first Sangster could not shake off his

depression, but as the wine went round and the wit sparkled he pulled

himself together, and in a half-hour had forgotten what had happened

before he came to the house. They were late that evening; but the time

came to go at last. Sangster, however, lingered--the latest of all to

say good-bye.

As he went up to her she put aside his hand with a smile.

"I have not seen you for ages. You might stay for another ten minutes

and talk to me."

"I shall be delighted."

"That is nice of you--and I will show you a present I have had from

India. You can smoke if you like."

"I suppose it is little things like this that you do that make you so

charming a hostess."

"Thank you," she laughed, a pink flush in her cheeks, "and now wait a

moment and I will give you a surprise."

And Sangster heard the same sneering laugh that he had heard in his

rooms. It came from nowhere; but it chilled him to ice, and the answer

in his lips died to nothing. He alone heard it, loud as it was, for

Madame looked for a moment at him as she spoke and then there was a

swish of trailing garments, and she was gone. A little time passed,

and Sangster thought he would smoke. In an absent manner he put his

hand in his breast pocket and pulled out--not his cigarette case, but

the pistol. He smiled grimly to himself as he held it in his hand.

"Might as well do it here as anywhere else," he muttered.

On the instant he felt two soft furry arms round his neck, and

something sprang lightly to his shoulders. He gave a quick cry and

looked up to meet the grinning face of an entellus monkey leering into

his eyes.

"My God!" he gasped, and the sharp report of the Derringer cut into

Regine's peal of laughter, and changed its note to a scream of horror.

When the police came she was bending over the body of the madman,

laughing in shrill hysterics, and the ape gibbered at them from his

seat on the high back of a chair.

A SHADOW OF THE PAST

The sunbirds, hovering and twittering over the _neem_ trees, signalled

to me the approach of the coming hot weather. The sky was a steel

grey, and over the horizon of the wide plain before my bungalow, on

which the short grass was already dry and crisp, hung a curtain of

pale brown dust. Here and there on the expanse of faded green were

small herds of lean kine, and, almost on the edge of the road

bordering the plain, a line of water-buffaloes sluggishly headed for a

shallow pool about a mile or so westward, where they would wallow till

the sun went down, and then be driven home with unwilling steps to

their byres. The herd bull came last of all, and on his back sat a

little naked boy, a pellet bow in his hand, and a cotton bag full of

mud pellets slung over his shoulder. He was singing in a high-pitched

tuneless voice, and his song seemed to enrage the "brain-fever" bird

in the mango tree, where he had hidden silent since the dawn. The bird

objected in a shrill crescendo of ringing notes that brought the

pellet bow into play, and then there was a whistle of grey-brown wings

as he flew to a safer spot, and a silence broken only by the

monotonous _tink_, _tink_, _tink_ of the little green barbet or

coppersmith. There were times, when fever held me in its grip, that

the maddening iteration of its cry was almost unbearable, and to this

day I nurse a hatred to that little green-coated and red-throated

plague--of a truth "the coppersmith hath done me much evil." I stood

in my veranda watching the retreating figure of the Judge, as he drove

away full of a project of spending a month in Burma--an enterprise he

had been vainly tempting me to share; but I had other fish to fry: my

way was westwards, not eastwards, and besides I had slaved for six

long years in Burma, and knew it far too well. One glance at the Judge

as he turned the elbow of the road, and was lost to view behind the

siris trees, one look at the thirsty plain, and the shivering heat

haze, through which glinted, now and again, the distant spear-heads of

a squadron of Bengal Lancers trotting slowly back to their barracks,

and I turned in to my study. I had determined to devote the day to the

destruction of old papers, and set about my task in earnest. There was

one drawer in particular that had not been touched for three years. I

had forgotten what it contained, and opened it slowly, thinking it was

possibly an Augean Stable; but nothing met my eyes except a small

packet of papers. Yet with that one look came back to me the memory of

a life's tragedy. The papers should have been destroyed long ago, and

now--I hesitated no longer, but tore them up into the smallest

fragments, glad to be rid, as I thought, of the miserable record of a

man's folly, of his crime, and of his shame.

But an awakened memory is not easily set at rest, and, in the

stillness of that Indian day, the whole thing returned with an

insistent force, dead voices spoke to me once more, and bitter regrets

hummed of the past, the past that can never be retrodden--and then

there arose out of the shadows in vivid distinctness the memory of

that supreme moment when John Mazarion cast his soul to hell. It all

came back like a picture: that lonely Himalayan mountain side, the

black pines, the silent eternal snows, Mazarion with his pale white

face, and Rani with her laughing eyes. An eagle screamed above us, I

remember, and with a hissing of wings dropped over the abyss into the

blue mists that clung to the mountain side.

John Mazarion and I had been friends at school, and we met again as

young men with a common interest in our lives, for we had both adopted

an Indian career. Mazarion had gone into the Indian Marine, and I--I

wanted in those days to build empires as did Clive and Hastings, and

so I sought honour in another service, and got sent to Burma for my

pains and--the empires have yet to be built. There was yet another

interest between John and myself, and that was Nelly. Being young men

we did as young men do, and both fell in love; but unfortunately we

both fell in love with the same woman, and Nelly took Mazarion. It was

a bitter thing for me then; but now that I have come to an age when I

can argue with myself, I can see it was but natural. John was a big

handsome man with fair hair and limpid blue eyes, and Nelly--well, a

man does not care to write about the woman he loves; she was Nelly and

that is enough. Though I never spoke of it, I fancy Nelly must have

known I loved her, for in that tender womanly way which good women

alone have she gave me strength to endure, and for her sake I wished

Mazarion good luck, and sailed for the East. John followed in a few

weeks, and I understood they were to be married in three years, when

Mazarion got his step--a long engagement; but the purse of an Indian

officer is mostly a lean one, and Nelly's people were not rich. Well,

as I said before, I began my Eastern career in Burma, and Mazarion's

duties led him to the Bay of Bengal and to the Burman waters. We never

met for close on four years; but occasionally I came to Rangoon, the

capital of Burma, and there I heard much of him, and always in

connection with some story of stupid folly. The best of men would

shrink from daylight being thrown on all their actions; but what would

have been wrong in any man's case became doubly so, and doubly

dishonourable, in the case of John Mazarion--at least I thought and

think so, for Nelly's face used to rise before me with a look of

patient waiting in the sweet eyes.

At last we met in the club at Rangoon and lunched together. He

incidentally let out that he had got his step in promotion nearly a

year ago, and went on to answer the unspoken question in my look.

"Nelly will have to wait a year or so more, I'm afraid--I'm deuced

hard up. But I suppose you're in the same street. Come and have a

smoke."

I was not in the same street; but I went and had a smoke. We talked of

many things, and when I left I knew that John had slipped down, but

how far down I was yet to know. Before I left the club I accepted an

invitation to supper with him in his rooms; he had received a port

appointment, and was for the present stationed in Rangoon. I went to

that supper. There were two or three others there, and a lady--God

save the mark!--who did the honours of the house. I could have struck

Mazarion where he sat brazening the whole thing out; but I held myself

in somehow and saw it through. I was the first to go, and Mazarion

followed me to the door--shame was not quite dead in him. "Look here,

old man," he said, "you're off home, I know, and will see Nelly. You

needn't--and--you know what I mean--" holding out his hand.

I drew back. "Yes, I know what you mean, and I will keep silent. But I

would to God I hadn't accepted your cursed hospitality!"

And I turned and walked down the stairway, leaving him on the landing,

white with rage. In a month from that day I was in England, and a week

later I had seen Nelly. I well remember it was with a beating heart

that I came to the door of the suburban villa with the May tree in

bloom near the gate, and in a minute or so was in the little

drawing-room I knew so well. In the place of honour was a large

photograph of Mazarion in his naval uniform, and near it was a vase

with a votive offering of fresh flowers. I felt who had placed them

there, and swore bitterly under my breath. Then the door opened and

Nelly came in with outstretched bands.

"I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Thring, after all these years."

"And it seems to me as if I had never been away. I shook off the East

with the first grey sky I saw."

Then we sat and talked, but I carefully avoided the subject of

Mazarion, and now and again parried a leading question because I did

not know what to say, and felt miserable when I saw the eager light in

Nelly's eyes fade into a look of disappointment. Finally Mrs.

Carstairs, Nelly's mother, came in, and it was a relief, for I had to

go over my experiences again. But I struck on the rocks at last when

Mrs. Carstairs said: "Well, I suppose you are lucky in getting back in

four years--though that does seem such a long time."

"Yes, I suppose I am, Mrs. Carstairs. There are men who have been away

ten years and more, and whose prospects of seeing home again are still

far."

I thought I heard the faintest echo of a sigh, and grew hot all over.

My hand shook so that I could hear the teacup I held rattle on the

saucer. I was a tactless fool.

"How hard!" said Mrs. Carstairs, "and there is poor John still out

there, waiting for his step. I wonder when he will get it and be able

to come home."

I looked at Nelly. Her eyes were ablaze and her cheeks flushed, and

the words "waiting for his step" rang in my ears. Mazarion had got his

step a year ago--he had told me so himself. I could say nothing.

"I suppose you have seen John," Mrs. Carstairs went on. "You and he

used to be such friends. When did you last meet?"

"About six weeks ago, in Rangoon; he was looking very well."

"I am so glad. We--that is, Nelly has not heard for nearly two months,

and when he last wrote he said he was very busy, and likely to go on a

long cruise."

Now I knew Mazarion had held that port appointment for nearly six

months, and would hold it for a year or so to come without any

likelihood of going on a cruise, and I of course knew that he was

lying--lying to the dear heart that loved him so well. To this day I

know not whether I did right or wrong in holding my tongue, in saying

nothing, and when I left them I left them still in that fool's

paradise of trust and love and hope. I saw them once again before I

left. I could not go back without one more look at Nelly. As I said

good-bye she timidly slipped a small packet into my hands, and I

promised it would reach John Mazarion in safety.

On the voyage back I thought of many things, and reproached myself for

having parted with Mazarion as I had. For her sake I should have made

some effort to pull him right, and as it were I had simply kicked him

down a step lower, for I had made him feel his infamy, and that is not

the way to help a man to recover his own self-respect. I had been

hasty--for the moment my temper had got the better of me--with the

usual result. And so I determined not to send him Nelly's gift, but,

on reaching Rangoon, to deliver the packet with my own hands.

I found him in his office on the river face, and, as I expected, there

was a coldness and constraint in his manner. Our eyes met--his still

with anger in them--and then he dropped his look.

"I have brought this," I said, "from Miss Carstairs. I promised it

should reach you safely."

He took the packet from me in silence, but I saw his hands shake and

the crow's-feet gather about his eyes. He fumbled with the seals, then

let the packet drop on the table, and looked at me again as I blurted

out: "I have said nothing--not a word."

"I do not understand, sir."

"John Mazarion," I cut in, "you are still to her what you have ever

been. Man! you know not what you are throwing away. See here, John!

You are my oldest friend, and I can't let you go like this. Pull up

and turn round; give yourself a chance. If--if money is wanted--well,

I've saved a bit----"

He simply leaned back in his chair and laughed. And such a laugh!

There was not a ring of mirth in it--a tuneless, mocking laugh such as

might come from the throat of a devil. Then he stopped and looked at

me, the hard lines still in the corners of his mouth and round his

eyes.

"Thring, you're a meddlesome fool! Take my advice and let each man

stir his own porridge. I want no interference and none of your damned

advice. I mean to live my own life."

"It isn't of you alone I am thinking."

He fairly shook with rage. "Go!" he burst out. "Go! I hate the sight

of you, with your lips full of talk about duty and self-respect and

honour. Go!"

I left the man, but for all his violence I felt that his anger was

really against himself, and that my words had gone home.

A year, two years passed. Three times in this interval I had

heard from Nelly, and on each occasion the letter was not so much

for me as to obtain news of Mazarion. She was still watching and

waiting--wasting the treasures of her heart as many another woman has

done on men as worthless as Mazarion. And I--I was powerless to help

her for whom I would have given my life. Twice I had answered to say

that I had no news to give; but on the third occasion it was on the

heels of her letter that news reached me. It came from the commander

of a river steamer who dined with me in my lonely district house on

the banks of the Irawadi.

"The man has practically gone to the devil," said Jarman in his blunt

outspoken way; "he got a touch of the sun about a year ago."

"I never heard of that."

"I'm not surprised at that; it's a wonder you hear anything in this

doggone hole. Well, when Mazarion came round again the pace was faster

than ever. I can't help thinking that his brain never really righted

itself; but he acted like a fool, and a madman, and a blackguard

combined--with the usual result."

"You don't mean to say he's broken!"

"About as good as broke. Government is long-suffering, but in common

decency they couldn't overlook the things Mazarion did. They've given

him a chance, however. He's had six months' sick leave to settle his

affairs, and he's cleared off to some hill station or other in India."

So it had come to this. And late that night I took the bull by the

horns and wrote to Mrs. Carstairs, telling her exactly how things

were, and in the morning my heart failed me and I tore up that letter

and wrote another one to Nelly, in which all that I said of Mazarion

was that he had gone on leave to the Indian hills; and this letter I

posted.

I little knew how near the time was when I should go myself. My tour

of service in Burma was coming to an end, and that end was hastened by

the rice-swamps of Henzada. A medical certificate did the rest, and

within the month I was ordered to India, and, best of good luck, to a

Himalayan station. In a fortnight I was out of Burma--in India--in the

Himalayas.

How I enjoyed that journey from the plains! How strength seemed to

come back by leaps and bounds as we rushed through the belt of

forest that girdled the mountains, past savannahs of waving yellow

tiger-grass, through purple-blossomed ironwood and lilac jerrol,

through stretches of bamboo jungle in every shade of colour, with

their graceful tufts of culms a hundred feet and more from the ground,

through giant sal and toon woods whose sombre foliage was lightened by

the orange petals of the palas, and the blazing crimson bloom of the

wax-like flowers of the silk cotton! Higher still, and the tropical

forest is now but a hazy green sea that quivers uneasily below. Now

the hedgerows are bright with dog-roses, and the shade is the shade of

oak and birch and maple. In the long restful arcades of the forest, by

the edges of the trickling mountain springs, the sward is gay with

amaranth and marguerite, the pimpernel winks its blue eyes from

beneath its shelter of tender green, and a hundred other nameless

woodland flowers spangle the glades. Higher still and the whole wonder

of the Himalayas is around me, one rolling mass of green, purple, and

azure mountains, with a horizon of snow-clad peaks standing white and

pure against the perfect blue of the sky.

There was a window at the club which used to be my favourite seat, for

it commanded a matchless view, and it was here that I used to sit and

positively drink in strength with every puff of fresh, pure air that

came in past the roses clustering on the trelliswork outside. A friend

joined me--one who like myself had escaped to the hills after wrecking

his health in a Burman swamp. He had known Mazarion, and somehow the

conversation turned upon him, and Paget asked me to step with him into

the hall. Once there he pointed to a small board which I had noticed

before, but never had the curiosity to examine. On that board was

posted the name of John Mazarion as a defaulter.

"He has gone under utterly," said Paget as we regained our seats, "for

this is not all that has happened."

"Could anything be worse?"

"Well, I rather think so. Do you know the man has flung away all shame

and has gone to live like a beastly Bhootea--a hill man--a savage on

the mountain side?"

"What!"

"Why, every one knows it here. It happened about three months

ago--just after that affair," and he indicated the board in the hall

with a turn of his hand.

"The man must be mad."

"Not he; only he hasn't pluck enough to blow his brains out. He's not

alone either, but has taken a wife--a Bhootea woman. They're not far

off from here--over there on that spur," and he pointed to a wooded

arm of the mountains that stood out above a grey rolling mist.

"My God!" and I put my head between my hands. "The cad! the worthless

brute!" I burst out. "See here, Paget: perhaps you're wrong--perhaps

this story isn't true?"

Paget carefully dusted a speck from his coat-sleeve.

"I know what you're thinking of, Thring. That girl at home. I heard

something about the affair. I used to feel inclined to kick him when I

saw her picture in his rooms at Rangoon beside that of the other

one--you know whom I mean. Yes, it's all true, and you can go and see

if you like. The Boothea girl is called Rani; she's devilish pretty.

It's the 'squalid savage' business, you know; but the man is a moral

hog--damn him!"

Saying this, Paget, who was a good fellow after his kind, lit another

cigar, and nodding his head in farewell went off to the billiard-room,

and I sat still--thinking, thinking, with fury and shame in my heart.

At last I could endure it no longer, and then suddenly rose and walked

to my rooms--I lived in the club. I was hardly conscious of what I

did, but I remember ordering my pony, and then my eyes fell on a case

containing a small pair of dainty revolvers. I took them mechanically

from their velvet-lined beds, loaded them carefully, and slipped them

in a courier-bag. Then I mounted the pony and rode off to find

Mazarion. The road was longer than I thought; but it seemed as if some

instinct guided me--some power, I know not what, was over me, and led

my steps straight to my goal.

It is curious how in moments like this unimportant and trivial

incidents impress themselves on the mind. I remember tying the pony to

a white rhododendron, and that in so doing I dropped my cigar. It was

the only one I had, and it lay smouldering before me, crosswise on the

petals of one of the huge lemon-scented flowers that had fallen from

the tree. I kicked it from me, and then went onwards on foot. In about

half an hour I came to a little tableland of greensward, which hung

over a grey abyss. Huge black pines rose stiffly on the rocks that

beetled over the level turf, and to the edge of the rocks there clung,

like a wasp's nest, a wretched hut, with a thin blue smoke rising from

between the rafters of its moss-grown roof.

It was touching sunset, and the west was a blaze of crimson and gold.

The face of the pine-covered crag towering above me was in black

shadow; but the mellow light was bright on the green turf at my feet.

It cast a ruddy glow over the withered trunk of a huge fallen pine

that lay athwart the open, and then fell in long rainbow-hued shafts

on the uneasy mists that filled the valley, and stole up the mountain

side in soft-rolling billows of purple, of grey, and of silver-white.

The pine trunk was not ten paces from me, and walking up to it I took

out the pistols from the courier-bag and placed them on the rough

bark, and from their resting-place the polished barrels glinted

brightly in the evening light. I knew I was near my man, and if ever

there was an excuse for doing what I meant to do, I had that defence.

As I stood there, one hand on the tree trunk and still as a stone, a

red tragopan crept out from the yellow-berried bramble at the edge of

the steep. For a moment we looked at one another, and then he dropped

his blue-wattled head an was off like a flash, and at the same instant

there was a scream and a rush of wings, as a homing eagle dropped like

a falling stone over the pines, and whizzing past me was lost to view.

I walked to the edge of the precipice over which he had flown to his

eyrie on the face of the cliffs below; I could see nothing but that

heaving swell of billows, and now some one laughed--a sweet, melodious

laugh like the tinkling of a silver bell. I turned sharply, and Rani

stood before me. It could be none other than she. Bhootea, savage,

Mongol--whatever she was, she was of those whom God had dowered with

beauty, and she stood before me a lithe, supple elf of the woods. The

rounded outlines of her form were clear through the single garment she

wore, clasped by an embroidered zone at the waist, and holding forth a

pitcher with a shapely arm, she offered me some spring water to drink.

I shook my head, and she laughed again like the song of a bird, and

asked in English, speaking slowly:

"You want--my--man?"

Before I could answer, the door of the hut opened and Mazarion and I

had met again.

"You--you!" and he paled beneath his sunburnt cheeks.

"Even I." And we stared at each other, my temples throbbing and my

hands clenched. He was dressed as a native of the hills, in a long

loose gabardine, with a cloth wound round his waist. His fair hair

hung in an unkempt tangle to his neck, and he had a beard of many

weeks' growth. All the beauty had gone from his face, and sin had set

the mark of the beast on him; he had become a savage; he had gone back

five thousand years, to the time when his cave-dwelling ancestors

hunted the aurochs and the sabre-toothed tiger. There was that in our

gaze which stilled the laughter in Rani's eyes, and she crept closer

to him, standing as if to cover him. His head drooped slowly forwards,

and the fingers of his hands opened and shut; he was fighting

something within himself.

"Send the woman away," I said. "You know why I have come," and I

pointed to the pistols on the fallen tree trunk.

Rani saw the gesture. Her glance shifted uneasily from one to the

other of us, and then rested on the weapons, and now, trembling with

an unknown fear, she clung to her man.

"Send her away. You hear." My own voice came to me as from a far

distance.

He put her aside gently, where she stood shivering in every limb, and

came forwards a step.

"I cannot," he said thickly, and speaking with an effort; "I

cannot--not with you----"

"I will force you to." I spoke calmly enough, but there was a red mist

before my eyes and a drumming in my ears. Fool that I was to think

that God would give His vengeance to my hands! And then I struck him

where he stood, struck him twice across the face, and with a cry like

that of a mad beast he was on me.

We were both strong men, and he was fighting for his life; but I--I

had the strength of ten then; all the pent-up rage of years was

roaring within me, and there was a pitiless hate in my heart. I would

kill him like the unclean thing he was should be killed. With all my

force I struck him again and again, and I felt as if something crashed

under the blow. We fell together and rose again, and with a mighty

effort I flung him from me. He staggered to his feet, his face white

and bleeding, his blue lips hissing curses. He was then facing me, his

back but a yard from the edge of the abyss, against which the mists

were beating like a grey sea. He read the meaning in my look, and made

one last straggle, one last rush for safety, but I hit him fair on the

forehead, and he threw up his arms with a gasp, staggered back a pace,

and was gone. Far below there sounded something like a dull thud and a

cry, and then all was still. Nelly was avenged.

It was all over. I could see nothing as I peered into the mist before

me, and then I was brought to myself by the sound of sudden sobbing,

and there was Rani stretched on the grass and plucking at the turf

like a mad thing. She was a woman after all, and, poor, wild waif of

the jungles, hers was no sin and no wrong. But her sobs and the agony

on her face brought on a sudden revulsion and a horror at my deed. It

was as sudden, as swift, as the tumult of passions which had driven me

to kill the man, and now the blackness of night had settled on my

soul. I made no attempt at speech with the woman, but silently took up

the pistols, gave one last shivering glance at the deep and at the

prostrate figure of Rani, and then fled through the forest, my one

thought to put miles between me and my deed. By the time I had found

the pony and mounted him I was able to reflect a little, and it was

with a guilty start that I realized there was a witness, and--and--But

the place was a lonely one. And Rani--would her word count against

mine? Never! And then I laughed shrilly and galloped on.

I reached the club just in time to dress for dinner. Strange! I could

not bear the thought of being alone--I who had lived for a year at a

time a solitary. I dressed in haste, and as I came out my servant

handed me my letters--the English mail had just come in, he said. I

would have flung them from me, but that the first letter in my hand

was in Mrs. Carstairs' writing. With a vague presentiment of evil I

opened and read. Nelly was ill, Nelly was dying. Some fool had told

her of John Mazarion, and had killed her as surely as with the stroke

of a knife. As I read, the lines blurred one into the other, and

something seemed to give way in my brain. I rose and staggered as one

drunken, and then--and then, strong man as I was, I fainted and

remember no more.

It was a long illness. I do not know what the doctors called it; but

they pulled me through, as they thought. It was another thing,

however, that cured me. I remember how, when my brain first righted

itself, the awful memory of Mazarion's end came back again and sat

over me like a dreadful vampire. Each whispered word of the nurses in

attendance on me, each noise I heard, seemed to presage the

announcement that my guilt was known. One day I asked the nurse

whether I had been delirious, and what I had said.

She flushed a little. She was a good woman, and an untruth was hateful

to her. Then she fenced:

"Oh, one always says strange things in delirium; but you're getting

quite strong now, and Captain Paget is coming to see you to-day. It

was he who found you insensible, and he has been as good as any ten of

us----"

"Paget--Paget found me?"

She put her finger to her lips and a cool hand on my eyes, and I

seemed to fall asleep.

How long I slept I cannot quite say, but I became conscious of

whispering voices in the room.

"There's no doubt about it, and it's his only chance, I think. Just

give him the news quietly when he awakes. Yes, he may have a glass of

port before."

I lay still, but trembling under my covers. It had come at last. Oh,

the shame of it! the sin of it!--I a common murderer. It was too much,

and I tried to start up, but fell back weakly, and saw Paget sitting

by the bed, smiling kindly at me.

"Not yet, old man--in a day or so. Take this port, will you?"

I drank it with an effort; but it warmed me and gave me strength.

"You're to be shipped home in a few days--lucky beggar! Wouldn't mind

getting ill myself if I could get leave."

I smiled in spite of myself.

"That's right. Feeling better, I see. We had another interesting

patient also, but he cleared out a week or so ago from hospital. It

was that fellow Mazarion. Remember him?"

"Mazarion!"

"Yes. Fell over the edge of a precipice and on to a ledge of rock. Got

his fall broken somehow by the branches of a tree, and the wild

raspberry bushes, or he'd have been in Kingdom Come--eh? What?"

"Thank God!" I felt a load lifted from my heart, the shadows had

passed from my soul. I lay back, my eyes closed and a peace upon me.

And then I prayed for the first time in many a long day, and whilst I

prayed I fell once more asleep. There came to me in that sleep a dream

of Nelly--of Nelly robed in white with a glory around her, and she

smiled and beckoned me to come.

Well, I was once more in England, and because she wished it I was

allowed to see Nelly. She lay on her cushions very pale and white, but

for the red spot on each cheek, and an unnatural brightness of the

eyes. I knew it was a matter of time, and all that we could do was to

wait and hope.

It came at last, one dreary evening, when the lamps were burning dimly

in the streets through the ceaseless, insistent drizzle. I cannot

linger over this or my heart would break. We stood by her, sad and

silent, waiting for the end. It was not long in coming. She had been

as it were asleep, when suddenly she awoke and her voice was strong

with the strength of death. She called to me:

"Mr. Thring, you know that story about John. Is--is it true?"

Oh, the chattering ape who had killed her! Her mother's eyes met mine;

but I could see nothing but Nelly--Nelly looking at me with a wistful

entreaty. I could not; right or wrong, I could not.

"It is not true, dear. He will come back to you."

"Say that again."

"He will come back to you, Nelly."

"He must follow," and she closed her eyes with a sweet smile on her

lips.

Then my dear's hand went out to clasp mine in thanks, and I held the

chill fingers in my grasp.

"Mother--kiss me. John--you will come," and she was gone.

* * * * *

I had stolen out of the house, leaving them with their dead. As I

closed the gate, and stepped on to the pavement a ragged figure came

out of the mist and, standing beside the lamp-post, looked towards the

house and the drawn blinds. The light fell on the wasted form and

haggard features. I could not mistake; it was John Mazarion.

I went up to him and touched him on the shoulder. He started back and

stared at me vacuously.

"She lies there dead," I said.

"Dead!"

"Ay, dead. She died with your name on her lips."

He looked at me stupidly. Then something like a sob burst from him,

and with bowed head and shambling steps he turned, and crossing the

road went from my life.

THE END.