A flood of yellow sunshine on yellow sand, and a horse at the gallop. A
horse guided by an English boy, in blue spectacles, sitting squarely
enough, but somewhat stiffly, in his saddle, as if too independent to
give himself away even to the joyous swing of the handsome little beast
beneath him. A big boy undoubtedly; but a boy for all his size, and
despite the fact that he was an Assistant Commissioner of the third
grade. In other words, one appointed to administer justice to the
ignorant heathen--those ignorant heathen who seemed to have such odd
ideas of life, and to require such immediate regeneration--at the hands
of English boys.
In front, across the foreground, the glaring white high road for which
he was steering; to the left centre a gnarled, knotted old _jhand_ tree
hung with coloured threads and patches, proclaiming it to be still
sacred to some effete modern form of serpent-worship--one of those
mysterious Indian cults of which no one, not even the disciples
themselves, know anything. Young Jones, or Smith--what matters the name
when a character has but to figure before the footlights of a single
scene?--noticed these threads and patches with the quick but
incomprehensive eye of superiority. A not uncommon feeling of
contemptuous interest came over him, which prolonged itself even when
the cause changed into a wonder why the brute he was riding would not
keep its head at the proper angle. Then darkness, and silence!
Smith-Jones's horse had put its foot into a rat-hole and given him a
bad fall, about as bad a fall as could well have been, short of those
curious plunges over the edge of one world into the next. He lay white
and still on the yellow sand, neither in time nor eternity, for a long
while. How long matters no more than his name, for this is the story of
Smith-Jones, and it is through his eyes and his thoughts that it must
be seen and told; therefore until he began to gain consciousness the
scene remained, as it were, a blank, despite the fact that there were
other actors on the stage.
Most people when coming to themselves (to use a popular, but confusing
phrase) meet first of all with a sound of slow, storm-spent breakers
rolling in on some unknown shore. Is it the one they are leaving, or
the one to which they seek return? Who knows--for the vague wonder is
stilled by a whispering _hush!_ growing louder and louder as if both
worlds were waiting, finger on lip, for a decision. Then, as a rule,
comes a kindly, familiar voice or touch to settle the question in
favour of this earth; perhaps some day it may come to summon us to
another. Again, who knows?
Smith-Jones, however, felt something so distinctly unfamiliar that he
opened his eyes in a fright, relieved to find himself in that
unmistakable flood of sunshine which does not exist out of India.
Briefly he felt, or thought he felt, a kiss upon his lips. Now
Smith-Jones, like most well-trained, unemotional English boys, had a
strong dislike to kisses. He lumped them, with many other things, under
the generic term _bosh_, and confined himself to reserved pecks at the
foreheads of his mother, his sisters, his aunts, and an occasional, a
very occasional, cousin. Even when they had all stood round in tears
while Robin the gardener hoisted the brand-new cabin-trunk on to the
fly, which from the large white placards on the luggage was evidently
destined to carry Smith-Jones part of the way to Bombay, he had only
got as far as a kiss on the cheek, despite a choke in his throat, and a
distinct inclination to cry.
And now? It was startling in the extreme!
Lying on his back, a prey to somewhat alarmed surprise, he became aware
through his nose of a pleasant scent, and through his eyes, of the
pendant mistletoe-like twigs of the _jhand_ tree. Mistletoe,--yes, that
might account for the kiss; but what about the perfume of roses? There
it was again, in company with an old peacock's feather fan which looked
as if it were half through a severe moulting. Some one was fanning him,
positively fanning him! for the feathers swooped again and again just
above his face in composed curves suggestive of leisure and perpetual
motion. He tried to find out more by turning his head--an effort which
made him realise that he had been within an ace of breaking his neck,
and sobered him to acquiescence for a time. Not for long, however,
seeing that the boy was a pertinacious boy. So, at the expense of a
fearful rick, he discovered a hand and arm belonging to the fan--at
least if it was a hand and arm after all, and not merely a withered
brown branch. Smith-Jones's blue eyes came to the conclusion that it
was at any rate the skeleton of a hand and arm, and what is more a
curiously graceful skeleton. Then, being still confused out of speech,
he tried to arrest the arm by catching hold of it; but either he had
not yet recovered a just estimate of distance, or it eluded his grasp,
for the even monotony of the curve continued. And, on the whole, it was
pleasant enough to lie on one's back in the yellow sand and be fanned
sleepily, gracefully. An enjoyment, however, which could not be allowed
long continuance when there was a horse to be caught, a camp to be
reached, a judgment to be written; the whole burden of a world, in
short, on Smith-Jones's young shoulders.
"I could get up now, if you would remove that fan," he said at last,
weakly surprised at his own difficulty in stringing two words together
in a foreign tongue.
"There is no hurry, _Huzoor_," came in immediate reply. "The Protector
of the Poor being so very young, there is naturally plenty of time for
all things ere he has to leave life; yea, plenty of time."
What a remarkable voice! Soft as the cooing of the doves in the _jhand_
tree, and no louder; the far-away echo of a voice, toneless, yet
mellow. But then the whole experience was remarkable, and he lay trying
to piece common-sense into it with his brain still muddled by the jar
which had so nearly sent him to still more novel environments, until
his hatred of _bosh_ made him sit up suddenly, unsteadily, one hand
supporting himself, the other averting the sweep of the fan. There was
no doubt as to the place; yonder was the white road, there the
responsible hole, the wallow in the sand where his horse had rolled,
the _jhand_ tree gay in its shreds and patches.
But what was that to one side of him? Some one, either half-fledged
girl or shrunken old woman, seated in one of those flat baskets which
packmen use for carrying their burdens. It was, in effect, a
pack-basket, since cords attached it to one end of a _banghy_, or yoke,
which was resting against a net-full of small earthern pots fastened to
the other extremity of the pliant lever. The sight of a human being in
a pack-basket was unusual, but Smith-Jones during the last six months
(that is to say, during his service in India) had seen so many strange
things that he set it down as yet another eccentricity of an eccentric
people. The occupant of the basket, however, disturbed him more; he
even thought (with a certain sense of shame, which would have been
wanting had he been older, or younger) of fairy godmothers--as if such
banalities could be considered by Smith-Jones, Assistant Commissioner
of the third grade! And yet he was not without excuse. Mr. Rider
Haggard has described what "She" became when the fire scorched the
charm out of a face and form which, but for magic, would have mouldered
and been remoulded to fresh beauty centuries and centuries before. The
figure in the pack-basket was as shrunken, as shrivelled, as any "She."
Extreme old age had driven womanhood away; it had stolen every curve,
every contour, every colour; and yet, possibly because the slow furnace
of natural life is kinder than its artificial fires, there was nothing
unlovely in the wizened face or form. On the contrary, Smith-Jones,
despite the memory of that fancied kiss still haunting his brain,
looked at her without a shudder. She was dressed in a way which even
his ignorance of the gala costumes of respectable females told him was
unusual. A very full red silk petticoat bordered with gay colours was
half tucked into the basket, half displayed over the edge in coquettish
quillings and frillings of the bright embroidery. A loose sacque of the
same stuff, many times too large for the bones it covered, lay in
wrinkles on arms and bust with here and there a glint of tarnished
tinsel, while a veil of like material, faded to a purplish tint, its
heavy gold thread tracings torn, frayed, or wanting, hid all but the
tiny hand and arm swaying the fan, and a shrunken, waxen face whence a
pair of bright black eyes looked at him wisely.
"The Presence would do well to repose once more," came the worn-out
voice. "He is not to die this time. He has broken nought save his blue
spectacles, and that is well. Spectacles are not for the young; and, as
this slave said but now, my Lord is in possession of such great youth
that he can afford to rest till Dittu returns from pursuing the
Presence's horse, which, conceiving that the Protector had no immediate
need of its services, hath retired, after the manner of beasts, to
gorge in a _gram_ field. But I, being Dittu's relation, can affirm that
he will of a surety return ere long; therefore rest is within reach,
and if the Presence will lie down again I will keep the fly-people from
settling on the Presence's face."
To tell the truth, the effort to rise had made Smith-Jones feel
decidedly queer, so without more ado he lay back on the pillow which
the strange watcher had evidently improvised from the coarse outside
veil she had worn over her finery. He guessed this by the lingering
smell of roses which clung to the fabric.
"You might tell me how I came to fall off, and who you are," said he
after a pause, a little fretfully, for he was unused to inaction, and
impatient at things he did not understand.
"_Huzoor!_ rat-holes are very simple things. Or perhaps it was a
snake-hole. If my Lord had gone a pace farther from the tree, he would
not have been on sacred ground, and then the serpent might not have
revenged himself."
Smith-Jones gave a little wriggle. "What bosh!" he muttered; adding
aloud, as if to change the subject, "And who are you, mother?"
"If my Lord dislikes old wives' tales," came the cooing voice,
"he will not care for mine. He is so young. If the Presence's
great-grandfather--"
"What do you know about my great-grandfather?" he interrupted hotly.
"Nothing, except that the Protector of the Poor must have had one. That
is all. Nevertheless, if the Presence's great-grandfather (Heaven cool
his grave!) had been in Jodhnagar when he was young he might have heard
Gulabi[28] sing. I am Gulabi, _Huzoor_."
The peacock's feather fan, with its scent of dead roses, swung
backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in that even rhythmical
sweep which only those accustomed to the task from childhood can
maintain for long without break or flaw. It was particularly soothing.
"I was singer to the great Maharani at the Pearl Palace," went on the
voice, "I had to sing her to sleep whilst I fanned her as I am fanning
the Pillar of Justice even now, I used to sing also before the Court in
the evening, sitting in the screened room where only the great and the
favoured had sight of my mistress. Sometimes the Presence's people came
from over the sea; I have seen them. They came in those days for gold
and jewels. Sometimes also for love; not for justice, as my Lord comes
now. Nor did they wear blue spectacles; but then they were young, and
I, who am so old now, I was young also."
The melancholy cadence of her words was quite lost on Smith-Jones, who
was fast recovering himself, and beginning once more to take a rational
view of life, and an interest in the situation, as a situation. Among
other things he was a student of folk-lore, and the chance of acquiring
information from this old woman, something that might even be construed
into a sun-myth, was exceedingly tempting. "You must know a lot of old
songs, mother," he said in superior tones. "Sing me one while we are
waiting for Dittu. Or if you can't sing it, you know, just say it; I
only want the words."
Was it a faint chuckle he heard, as he lay prone on his back, or only a
louder gurgle of those ceaseless doves in the _jhand_ tree? The old
lady's voice, imperturbably toneless, arrested his wonder. "Why should
I not sing, _Huzoor_, seeing I am of a family of bards? We sing both of
the old and the new order. My father and my father's father sang of
them before me; yet I have no son to sing them after me. So the songs I
sing die with me. When I am dead no one will hear them any more."
All the more reason why he should hear them now, thought Smith-Jones,
feeling surreptitiously in his pocket for a note-book.
"The Presence need not trouble himself. He must close his eyes or I
shall forget my song. My singing is for sleep and dreams, and this song
has been waiting to be sung so long that it is well-nigh forgotten
already. Listen and dream, _Huzoor!_"
She began in the usual low chant, varied by occasional sudden turns
modulating the tone into a higher or a lower key in accordance with the
spirit of the story. From a musical point of view there was nothing
remarkable in the performance, save the absolute want of vibration in
the worn-out voice, whose even softness became all the more remarkable
when contrasted by the passion in the words. Yet Smith-Jones felt at
once that he was listening to a past mistress in her art. The art which
in old times represented history, literature, and the drama, and made
the desire for, or possession of, a really good bard a just cause for
battle, murder, or sudden death among rival Courts. He could not, of
course, recollect the exact words used, but, in telling me the tale
years after, he declared that his memory clung close to the original,
and that her song swept on untrammelled by more rhyme or rhythm than
what seemed to come to it spontaneously through the chant. She sang, in
fact, as the native bards sing, with every now and again an interlude
of refrain or exclamation serving as a pause during which the singer
grasps a fresh idea, a new measure. And this, according to Smith-Jones,
was the song that she sang.
Listen, Pillar of Justice! Listen.
Roses smell sweet, but they are silent when the sun kisses them. I sing
of a rose who sang, yet rose-like was silent of kisses. Heart of my
heart? why should I sing of a kiss which never came, of the kiss owed
to the rose, not by the dead but the living!
For what is a dead man's kiss to lips that are like the rose? He was so
fair and young, he came from far over the seas. Was it jewels or gold
he was seeking? No matter! 'twas love that he found.
His hair was golder than gold, his eyes, full of laughter, were
blue--blue as the sapphires he sought whilst love was seeking for him.
Yea, the black sought for love in the blue. Oh, cold were his eyes!
cold as the snows in the north when the rose began singing
_Hai_, golden sun! _Hai_, cold blue skies!
Grant me but this, a look, a kiss.
_Hai! Hai! Hai!_
Right to the inner court of marbles and jewels, 'mid peacocks' fans
waving and tinkling sutaras, he came when the stars came and talked to
my mistress--talked of love and of jewels, the one for the sake of the
other. For the Rani grew old, and such women are easily flattered. But
Singing-Rose smiled as she sang. Though naught but a singing slave, men
sought her for love and for kisses, who sought not her mistress. And
one, a snake of a man, sought both without shame; he was high in the
Court and a noble, the Rani's known lover.
_Hai_, the snake! _Hai_, venomous thing,
Dead of your own poisoning!
_Hai! Hai!_
But what is a snake to a rose when the gold sun may kiss her? So she
sang sweeter and sweeter till blue eyes grew kinder. "What is your
price for a song, Singing-Rose?" he asked softly. "Gold from a snake,
but a kiss from the sun," I sang bravely; giving no heed to her frown,
for speech was not mine, save by singing; night after night singing on,
whilst they whispered of love and of jewels. "I owe her a gift of a
surety," he said the last night to my mistress. "Give her gold," she
replied with a sneer. "What more would you give to a slave?"
_Hai!_ Gold, nothing but gold!
The heart of the Rose turned cold.
She sought for love!
Listen! listen!
Oh, the ways of love are bold,
And the guiles of love are old.
The coins were wrapped in a paper; it had a voice of its own.
"To-night, when the gong chimes one, the seeker will find a kiss, in
the twelve-doored marble summer-house bowered in roses." Alone in the
garden I read it. I saw not the snake hid in the bushes with unwinking,
venomous eyes. "This to my mistress," he laughed, "and to-night, when
the clock chimes one, he dies; for the Rani sought love, and he gave
her but words. What are words in exchange for the jewels she gave as a
bride? The jewels he steals from the Queen when he leaves us
to-morrow."
Lies, lies! nothing but lies from the snake!
The sun gives gold he does not take.
Lies! lies!
Heart of my heart! what are words and tears to a snake? And the sun
far, far from the rose; too far for a warning. Listen! the rose has
thorns to protect her blossoms; a woman has guiles and smiles to
protect her lover. "What matters a kiss at one?" said I. "Take yours at
_eleven_, in the twelve-doored marble summer-house bowered in roses."
_Hai!_ the greed and lust in his look.
The greed at the baited hook!
He saw not the thorn.
But the Rose saw his lying soul; she knew he would take his kiss, and
betray her when it was over. She knew that with venomous snakes there
is no safety but death. _One_ and _eleven_ when figured on paper show
little of change. A stroke, a scratch of a thorn! No need for more than
a scratch, ere the paper was lost by the maiden and found by her
mistress. Lost by the guile of one woman, found in the path of another.
Oh, heart! waiting 'mid the flowers,
Counting out the hours
Till the snake's kiss!
_One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven!_
The clasp of a snake is cold, but the clasp of death is colder; and
coldest of all, the warm clinging clasp of a rose, holding him tighter
and tighter when the knife flashed out of the dark. "Let me go," he
shrieked in his terror, but the thorns of the rose held fast, the warm
blood staining her bosom as she waited for death in her turn. Then
lights and an uproar, and, lo! instead of the stranger the Rani's own
lover was dead.
Dead! who grieves when a snake is dead?
Men are glad that its power has fled.
They laugh in their sleeve.
Yet was there crying and shouting, and noise bringing warning to all,
reaching the moon in the heavens, the sun in its rising,--hastening its
flight from the east, to its home in the arms of the west. Is not that
the course of the sun? Leaving the cast with a smile; leaving the rose
and the nightingale? Yea! 'tis the course of the sun.
_Hai_, for the Rose, the Singing-Rose!
_Hai_, for the nightingale.
Yet who kills his own pleasure? Who kills the bulbul in the rose? No!
they cut its wings, they prison it, they bid it sing; sing with a
blood-stained heart when the sun shines on other roses. So it sang,
waiting always for the kiss which never came. Pillar of Justice, from
the land of the western sun, say! did the Rose deserve the kiss which
never came? Hath she not waited long enough for the promised kiss?
The song ceased as abruptly as it began, and Smith-Jones, distinctly
disappointed at its want of historical value, thanked the old lady
politely. It appeared to him confused and bewildering; nevertheless
part of it might be twisted into some semblance of a myth. The sun was
frequently mentioned, and the chiming of the hours pointed conclusively
to the swallowing up of darkness by light, and _vice-versa_. And--by
Jove, that must be Dittu returning with the horse!
It was; Dittu, the horse, a bundle of green wheat, and a very broad
grin--all of which common objects relieved Smith-Jones, who, to say
sooth, felt out of his element lying on his back and being fanned by an
old mummy. In his more collected mood it struck him as undignified. He
blushed a little, rose hastily, and prepared to mount his horse and
depart at once. With this intention, proceeding to rummage in his
pockets for a rupee, which with a courteously intended grunt he
tendered to the old woman. She might have been a graven image for all
the notice she took of him or his coin. The hand holding the fan rested
on her lap, her eyes were half-closed.
"The Presence wastes time. He had better give the _bucksheesh_ to me,"
remarked Dittu, grinning again. "The old mother is nigh stone-deaf and
blind. She sits so all day, never saying a word save her prayers. She
is a real pious one. _Hai, Hai_, what misfortune! The stirrup of the
Protector of the Poor is broken. God send the iron may be lying in the
sand where the base-born beast fell!"
Smith-Jones's puzzled, perturbed look, as he watched Dittu on his knees
searching for the missing stirrup-iron, may have been due to anxiety
lest he should have to walk six miles into camp. On the other hand, he
may have been wondering if the fall had seriously injured his brain;
anyhow there was an unusual air of doubt about him when Dittu's grin
and the iron came out of the sand together with the remark that, if the
Presence would sit down and wait a while, he, Dittu, had some string
with which a splice of the broken strap could be made in a minute or
two. Meanwhile, as the Presence no longer required the pillow, he would
e'en cover up the old mother again with the veil he had taken from her.
It was more decent like; and she was a decent old creature, despite the
fancy she had to wear those gay garments of her youth. So the white
veil was wound about the faded finery, leaving nothing visible but the
waxen face with its half-closed eyes.
"What are you carrying her about for?" asked Smith-Jones jerkily.
"She is so old, _Huzoor_, and we, her belongings, thought she might
like to end her long life peacefully in holy Ganges. So as I had the
dead ancestors of the village to carry (they are in those little pots
on the other side of the yoke, _Huzoor_) we just put her to make a
balance in the basket."
Smith-Jones's blue eyes (they really were fine eyes now the spectacles
were away) grew big with surprise. "You mean that those little pots
contain your dead ancestors?"
"Their ashes, _Huzoor_; the ashes of the village for the year. Some one
always takes them at pilgrimage-time, and as I was strong I brought the
old lady too. She doesn't seem able to die up there amongst us all, and
she will have to be brought along some time. She is mostly bones, as it
is, no heavier than the ashes yonder."
He nodded his head at the net-full of pots and went on twining the
thread. Smith-Jones's face grew more and more troubled. He had read in
books of old people being brought thus to end their days devoutly in
the sacred stream, and it had seemed to him an interesting and curious
habit. That was all. It seemed different now.
"The Presence is surprised at the ways of the dust-like ones,"
continued Dittu cheerfully; "but old Gulabi is accustomed to being
carried about in a basket. When she was quite a girl--a long time ago,
before the gracious and beneficent rule of the Presences came to put an
end to all wrongdoing--she had both her feet cut off for something she
did. I have heard my grandmother say she was a gay one; but it must
have been so long ago that we may forget it in her present decency."
"Both her feet cut off!"
"_Huzoor_, the feet of young people lead them into mischief. She was a
singer, and she got into trouble, so I have heard old folk say. If the
Presence will cause forgiveness to be awarded to the speaker, it may be
said that the trouble was an Englishman. One of the no-account
wanderers who used to come before the Great Company Bahadur threw the
mantle of protection over the poor. I know not the story rightly;
perhaps even old Gulabi hath forgotten it, seeing it was so long ago.
The Rani she served was jealous, and would have killed the Singing-Rose
(so they called the old mother) but for her art. That they could not
spare. What tyrant kills the bulbul in his garden? So they cut her feet
off to keep her in the paths of virtue. It is an excellent plan for
those who walk lightly. See! the stirrup is ready for the foot of the
Presence and will support him safely on his road."
Smith-Jones stood irresolute before the mummylike figure in the basket.
"Did she ever tell you the story herself?" he asked at length.
Dittu's tongue clucked emphatic denial from the roof of his mouth.
"_Huzoor_, she became decent before my day. Besides, grandmother said
even when she was young Gulabi held her tongue on that score. Only if
folk pitied her for crawling like a frog she would smile, saying some
things were worth more than feet, and she expected her deserts some
day. _Hai! Hai!_ a bold saying for carnal sinners, but holy Ganges will
choke the wickedness from her for ever."
"Then you will take her--to--to Hurdwar--and--and leave her there."
Smith-Jones had a difficulty with this euphemism for the strange and
barbarous custom he had read about in books. He seemed to see the old
creature seated in her flat basket in the stream, a prey to exposure
and cold.
"It would scarcely be worth while her coming back," suggested Dittu
humbly. "My grannie (she is over there, _Huzoor_," nodding his head
towards the earthern pots) "was the last person who knew her ere she
ceased singing. Now she is gone, wherefore should Gulabi wait longer?
She hath waited over long as it is. To-night, when the moon rises, we
will travel onwards to her rest. I must get back to the village by
harvest-time."
Smith-Jones gave Dittu the rupee. He rode into camp sedately; he wrote
his judgment still more sedately; then he ate his dinner and sat down
sedately to read, one book after another--the _Asiatic Antiquary_, a
sermon by his father on the relative guilt of the heathen--which
in its day had fluttered the fold of Muddleton-on-the-Fens by its
laxity--Herbert Spencer's _Sociology_, finally _The Whole Duty of Man_,
which had been presented to him by a maiden aunt. And outside, beyond
the thin film of canvas separating him from the calm Indian night,
stretched a flood of moonshine; the tent-ropes glittering like silver
cords against the dark leafage of the banyan-tree, the white road
shining like a straight broad path to heaven--or elsewhere. Sitting
beside the reading lamp he could see past the furled _chicks_ of the
door, right away to east and west: west to Rajputana and the Pearl
Palace; east to holy Ganges and the golden gates of the great
Rest-House.
_Chink-a-chink-a-chink_ came the brass jingles of a _banghy_, making
Smith-Jones lay down _The Whole Duty of Man_ restlessly, and move
towards the door. Along that broad white shining path from west to east
came a strange sight,--an old mummy of a woman wrapped in a shroud-like
veil and balanced by the ashes of the village. Swaying, bobbing,
dancing, mummy and ashes alike, as the pliant bamboo lever on Dittu's
shoulder made the jingles chink and the eyes on the worn peacock's
plume at either end look as if they were alive. Shuffle, shuffle,
shuffle, bob, bob, bob, came Dittu and his burden. _Hurri Gunga! Hurri
Gunga! Hurri Gunga!_[29] Just a little guttural grunting, like a pig's,
to keep the shuffle and the bob together.
Smith-Jones stood staring into the moonlight, the picture of
irresolution. The shadow of the banyan-tree lay right across the road
in a solid mass of darkness, as if a great gulf were fixed between the
light westward and the light eastward. Here, in this No Man's Land,
Dittu set down his _banghy_, propped the lever into position with his
packman's stick, and made sideways for an interlude of tobacco among
the camp-followers at the watchfires across the road.
Smith-Jones and the _banghy_ were alone. He could scarcely see it in
the darkness, though a wayward gleam of moonlight glittered on the
brass jingles and lit up the peacock's eyes. For all that he saw it
clearly in his mind. He saw the net of earthern pots, the figure in the
shroud,--nay, he saw more! He saw through the grave clothes to the
faded finery within, and through that again to something which had not
faded despite the long, long years. To something which was waiting
still for its reward.
And then a strange thing happened. Smith-Jones forgot everything he had
been taught. He forgot his father's sermon, he forgot sociology,
folklore, and the whole duty of man. He forgot the sun-myth and the
great fight between darkness and dawn which never ceases. He even
forgot himself, as he stepped into the shadowy gulf, stooped, and paid
another man's debt of honour with a kiss.
He told me the tale years after, when we were sitting over our toddy
round a camp fire. It was a moonlight night, and the shadow of a great
banyan-tree lay like a gulf across a white road; perhaps that awoke the
memory. He was then a married man, with a charming wife and a growing
family, but never, he assured me, had he forgotten, nor could he ever
forget, that kiss! He declared that for one short second the whole
world was at his feet, the wilderness a blossoming rose, the perfumes
of which lingered-- Here he took off his spectacles, for though he had
given up wearing blue ones years before, his kind eyes had become a
little dim, perhaps with the sympathy they bestowed on all sorts and
conditions of men; he took off his spectacles, I say, and wiped them
furtively.