CHAPTER III. The Snake Appears
CHAPTER IV. The Sword and the Soul
CHAPTER V. Lucille
CHAPTER VI. The Snake’s “Myrmidon”
CHAPTER VII. Love—and the Snake
CHAPTER VIII. Troopers of the Queen
CHAPTER IX. A Snake avenges a Haddock and Lucille behaves in an un-Smelliean Manner
CHAPTER X. Much Ado about Almost Nothing—A Mere Trooper
CHAPTER XI. More Myrmidons
PART III. THE SAVING OF A SOUL
CHAPTER XII. Vultures and Luck—Good and Bad
CHAPTER XIII. Found
CHAPTER XIV. The Snake and the Sword
Seven Years After
EPILOGUE
PART I.
THE WELDING OF A SOUL.
CHAPTER I.
THE SNAKE AND THE SOUL.
When Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, V.C., D.S.O., of the Queen’s
Own (118th) Bombay Lancers, pinned his Victoria Cross to the bosom of
his dying wife’s night-dress, in token of his recognition that she was
the braver of the twain, he was not himself.
He was beside himself with grief.
Afterwards he adjured the sole witness of this impulsive and emotional
act, Major John Decies, never to mention his “damned theatrical folly”
to any living soul, and to excuse him on the score of an ancient
sword-cut on the head and two bad sun-strokes.
For the one thing in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the
waters under the earth, that Colonel de Warrenne feared, was breach of
good form and stereotyped convention.
And the one thing he loved was the dying woman.
This last statement applies also to Major John Decies, of the Indian
Medical Service, Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, and may even be expanded,
for the one thing he ever _had_ loved was the dying woman….
Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne did the deed that won him his
Victoria Cross, in the open, in the hot sunlight and in hot blood,
sword in hand and with hot blood on the sword-hand—fighting for his
life.
His wife did the deed that moved him to transfer the Cross to her, in
darkness, in cold blood, in loneliness, sickness and silence—fighting
for the life of her unborn child against an unseen foe.
Colonel de Warrenne’s type of brave deed has been performed thousands
of times and wherever brave men have fought.
His wife’s deed of endurance, presence of mind, self-control and cool
courage is rarer, if not unique.
To appreciate this fully, it must be known that she had a horror of
snakes, so terrible as to amount to an obsession, a mental deformity,
due, doubtless, to the fact that her father (Colonel Mortimer Seymour
Stukeley) died of snake-bite before her mother’s eyes, a few hours
before she herself was born.
Bearing this in mind, judge of the conduct that led Colonel de
Warrenne, distraught, to award her his Cross “For Valour”.
One oppressive June evening, Lenore de Warrenne returned from church
(where she had, as usual, prayed fervently that her soon-expected
first-born might be a daughter), and entered her dressing-room. Here
her Ayah divested her of hat, dress, and boots, and helped her into the
more easeful tea-gown and satin slippers.
“Bootlair wanting ishweets for dinner-table from go-down,[1] please,
Mem-Sahib,” observed Ayah, the change of garb accomplished.
[1] Store-room.
“The butler wants sweets, does he? Give me my keys, then,” replied Mrs.
de Warrenne, and, rising with a sigh, she left the dressing-room and
proceeded, _via_ the dining-room (where she procured some small silver
bowls, sweet-dishes, and trays), to the go-down or store-room, situate
at the back of the bungalow and adjoining the “dispense-khana”—the room
in which assemble the materials and ministrants of meals from the
extra-mural “bowachi-khana” or kitchen. Unlocking the door of the
go-down, Mrs. de Warrenne entered the small shelf-encircled room, and,
stepping on to a low stool proceeded to fill the sweet-trays from
divers jars, tins and boxes, with guava-cheese, crystallized ginger,
_kulwa_, preserved mango and certain of the more sophisticated
sweetmeats of the West.
It was after sunset and the _hamal_ had not yet lit the lamps, so that
this pantry, a dark room at mid-day, was far from light at that time.
But for the fact that she knew exactly where everything was, and could
put her hand on what she wanted, she would not have entered without a
light.
For some minutes the unfortunate lady stood on the stool.
Having completed her task she stepped down backwards and, as her foot
touched the ground, she knew _that she had trodden upon a snake._
Even as she stood poised, one foot on the ground, the other on the
stool, both hands gripping the high shelf, she felt the reptile
whipping, writhing, jerking, lashing, flogging at her ankle and instep,
coiling round her leg…. And in the fraction of a second the thought
flashed through her mind: “If its head is under my foot, or too close
to my foot for its fangs to reach me, I am safe while I remain as I am.
If its head is free I am doomed—and matters cannot be any the worse for
my keeping as I am.”
_And she kept as she was,_ with one foot on the stool, out of reach,
and one foot on the snake.
And screamed?
No, called quietly and coolly for the butler, remembering that she had
sent Nurse Beaton out, that her husband was at polo, that there were
none but native servants in the house, and that if she raised an alarm
they would take it, and with single heart consider each the safety of
Number One.
“Boy!” she called calmly, though the room swam round her and a deadly
faintness began to paralyse her limbs and loosen her hold upon the
shelf—“Boy! Come here.”
Antonio Ferdinand Xavier D’Souza, Goanese butler, heard and came.
“Mem-Sahib?” quoth he, at the door of the go-down.
“Bring a lamp quickly,” said Lenore de Warrenne in a level voice.
The worthy Antonio, fat, spectacled, bald and wheezy, hurried away and
peremptorily bade the _hamal_[2], son of a jungle-pig, to light and
bring a lamp quickly.
[2] Footman and male “housemaid”.
The _hamal_, respectfully pointing out to the Bootlair Sahib that the
daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any lamp,
complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney, trimming
the wick, pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory and
commendable job of it.
Lenore de Warrenne, sick, faint, sinking, waited … waited … waited …
gripping the shelf and fighting against her over-mastering weakness for
the life of the unborn child that, even in that awful moment, she
prayed might be a daughter.
After many cruelly long centuries, and as she swayed to fall, the good
Antonio entered with the lamp. Her will triumphed over her falling
body.
“Boy, I am standing on a snake!” said she coolly. “Put the lamp—”
But Antonio did not stay to “put” the lamp; incontinent he dropped it
on the floor and fled yelling “Sap! Sap!” and that the Mem-Sahib was
bitten, dying, dead—certainly dead; dead for hours.
And the brave soul in the little room waited … waited … waited …
gripping the shelf, and thinking of the coming daughter, and wondering
whether she must die by snake-bite or fire—unborn—with her unhappy
mother. For the fallen lamp had burst, the oil had caught fire, and the
fire gave no light by which she could see what was beneath her
foot—head, body, or tail of the lashing, squirming snake—as the flame
flickered, rose and fell, burnt blue, swayed, roared in the draught of
the door—did anything but give a light by which she could see as she
bent over awkwardly, still gripping the shelf, one foot on the stool,
further prevented from seeing by her loose draperies.
Soon she realized that in any case she could not see her foot without
changing her position—a thing she would _not_ do while there was
hope—and strength to hold on. For hope there was, inasmuch as _she had
not yet felt the stroke of the reptile’s fangs_.
Again she reasoned calmly, though strength was ebbing fast; she must
remain as she was till death by fire or suffocation was the alternative
to flight—flight which was synonymous with death, for, as her other
foot came down and she stepped off the snake, in that instant it would
strike—if it had not struck already.
Meantime—to call steadily and coolly again.
This time she called to the _hamal_, a Bhil, engaged out of compassion,
and likely, as a son of the jungle’s sons, to be of more courage than
the stall-fed butler in presence of dangerous beast or reptile.
“_Hamal_: I want you,” she called coolly.
“Mem-Sahib?” came the reply from the lamp-room near by, and the man
approached.
“That stupid butler has dropped a lamp and run away. Bring a pail of
water quickly and call to the _malli_[3] to bring a pail of earth as
you get it. Hasten!—and there is baksheesh,” said Mrs. de Warrenne
quietly in the vernacular.
[3] Gardener.
Tap and pail were by the door of the back verandah. In a minute the
_hamal_ entered and flung a pail of water on the burning pool of oil,
reducing the mass of blue lambent flames considerably.
“Now _hamal_,” said the fainting woman, the more immediate danger
confronted, “bring another lamp very quickly and put it on the shelf.
Quick! don’t stop to fill or to clean it.”
Was the pricking, shooting pain the repeated stabbing of the snake’s
fangs or was it “pins and needles”? Was this deadly faintness death
indeed, or was it only weakness?
In what seemed but a few more years the man reappeared carrying a
lighted lamp, the which he placed upon a shelf.
“Listen,” said Mrs. de Warrenne, “and have no fear, brave Bhil. I have
_caught_ a snake. Get a knife quickly and cut off its head while I hold
it.”
The man glancing up, appeared to suppose that his mistress held the
snake on the shelf, hurried away, and rushed back with the cook’s big
kitchen-knife gripped dagger-wise in his right hand.
“Do you see the snake?” she managed to whisper. “Under my foot! Quick!
It is moving … moving … moving _out_.”
With a wild Bhil cry the man flung himself down upon his hereditary
dread foe and slashed with the knife.
Mrs. de Warrenne heard it scratch along the floor, grate on a nail, and
crush through the snake.
“Aré!! Dead, Mem-Sahib!! Dead!! See, I have cut off its head! Aré!!!!
Wah!! The brave mistress!——”
As she collapsed, Mrs. de Warrenne saw the twitching body of a large
cobra with its head severed close to its neck. Its head had just
protruded from under her foot and she had saved the unborn life for
which she had fought so bravely by just keeping still…. She had won her
brief decoration with the Cross by—keeping still. (Her husband had won
his permanent right to it by extreme activity.) … Had she moved she
would have been struck instantly, for the reptile was, by her,
uninjured, merely nipped between instep and floor.
Having realized this, Lenore de Warrenne fainted and then passed from
fit to fit, and her child—a boy—was born that night. Hundreds of times
during the next few days the same terrible cry rang from the sick-room
through the hushed bungalow: “It is under my foot! It is moving …
moving … moving … _out!_”
“If I had to make a prophecy concerning this young fella,” observed the
broken-hearted Major John Decies, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad,
as he watched old Nurse Beaton performing the baby’s elaborate
ablutions and toilet, “I should say that he will _not_ grow up fond of
snakes—not if there is anything in the ‘pre-natal influence’ theory.”
PART II.
THE SEARING OF A SOUL.
CHAPTER II.
THE SWORD AND THE SNAKE.
Colonel Matthew Devon De Warrenne, commanding the Queen’s Own (118th)
Bombay Lancers, was in good time, in his best review-order uniform, and
in a terrible state of mind.
He strode from end to end of the long verandah of his bungalow with
clank of steel, creak of leather, and groan of travailing soul. As the
top of his scarlet, blue and gold turban touched the lamp that hung a
good seven feet above his spurred heels he swore viciously.
Almost for the first time in his hard-lived, selfish life he had been
thwarted, flouted, cruelly and evilly entreated, and the worst of it
was that his enemy was—not a man whom he could take by the throat,
but—Fate.
Fate had dealt him a cruel blow, and he felt as he would have done had
he, impotent, seen one steal the great charger that champed and pawed
there at the door, and replace it by a potter’s donkey. Nay, worse—for
he had _loved_ Lenore, his wife, and Fate had stolen her away and
replaced her by a squealing brat.
Within a year of his marriage his wife was dead and buried, and his son
alive and—howling. He could hear him (curse him!).
The Colonel glanced at his watch, producing it from some mysterious
recess beneath his belted golden sash and within his pale blue tunic.
Not yet time to ride to the regimental parade-ground and lead his
famous corps to its place on the brigade parade-ground for the New Year
Review and march-past.
As he held the watch at the length of its chain and stared,
half-comprehending, his hand—the hand of the finest swordsman in the
Indian Army—shook.
Lenore gone: a puling, yelping whelp in her place…. A tall,
severe-looking elderly woman entered the verandah by a distant door and
approached the savage, miserable soldier. Nurse Beaton.
“_Will_ you give your son a name, Sir?” she said, and it was evident in
voice and manner that the question had been asked before and had
received an unsatisfactory, if not unprintable; reply. Every line of
feature and form seemed to express indignant resentment. She had nursed
and foster-mothered the child’s mother, and—unlike the man—had found
the baby the chiefest consolation of her cruel grief, and already loved
it not only for its idolized mother’s sake, but with the devotion of a
childless child-lover.
“The christening is fixed for to-day, Sir, as I have kept reminding
you, Sir,” she added.
She had never liked the Colonel—nor considered him “good enough” for
her tender, dainty darling, “nearly three times her age and no better
than he ought to be”.
“Name?” snarled Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne. “Name the little
beast? Call him what you like, and then drown him.” The tight-lipped
face of the elderly nurse flushed angrily, but before she could make
the indignant reply that her hurt and scandalized look presaged, the
Colonel added:—
“No, look here, call him _Damocles_, and done with it. The Sword hangs
over him too, I suppose, and he’ll die by it, as all his ancestors have
done. Yes—”
“It’s not a nice name, Sir, to my thinking,” interrupted the woman,
“not for an only name—and for an only child. Let it be a second or
third name, Sir, if you want to give him such an outlandish one.”
She fingered her new black dress nervously with twitching hands and the
tight lips trembled.
“He’s to be named Damocles and nothing else,” replied the Master, and,
as she turned away with a look of positive hate, he added
sardonically:—
“And then you can call him ‘Dam’ for short, you know, Nurse.”
Nurse Beaton bridled, clenched her hands, and stiffened visibly. Had
the man been her social equal or any other than her master, her pent-up
wrath and indignation would have broken forth in a torrent of scathing
abuse.
“Never would I call the poor motherless lamb _Dam_, Sir,” she answered
with restraint.
“Then call him _Dummy!_ Good morning, Nurse,” snapped the Colonel.
As she turned to go, with a bitter sigh, she asked in the hopeless tone
of one who knows the waste of words:—
“You will not repent—I mean relent—and come to the christening of your
only son this afternoon, Sir?”
“Good morning, Nurse,” observed Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, and
resumed his hurried pacing of the verandah.
It is not enough that a man love his wife dearly and hold her the
sweetest, fairest, and best of women—he should tell her so, morning and
night.
There is a proverb (the unwisdom of many and the poor wit of one) that
says _Actions speak louder than Words_. Whether this is the most
untrustworthy of an untrustworthy class of generalizations is
debateable.
Anyhow, let no husband or lover believe it. Vain are the deeds of dumb
devotion, the unwearying forethought, the tender care, the gifts of
price, and the priceless gifts of attentive, watchful guard and guide,
the labours of Love—all vain. Silent is the speech of Action.
But resonant loud is the speech of Words and profitable their
investment in the Mutual Alliance Bank.
“_Love me, love my Dog?_” Yes—and look to the dog for a dog’s reward.
“_Do not show me that you love me—tell me so._” Far too true and
pregnant ever to become a proverb.
Colonel de Warrenne had omitted to tell his wife so—after she had
accepted him—and she had died thinking herself loveless, unloved, and
stating the fact.
This was the bitterest drop in the bitter cup of the big, dumb,
well-meaning man.
And now she would never know….
She had thought herself unloved, and, nerve-shattered by her terrible
experience with the snake, had made no fight for life when the unwanted
boy was born. For the sake of a girl she would have striven to live—but
a boy, a boy can fend for himself (and takes after his father)….
Almost as soon as Lenore Seymour Stukeley had landed in India (on a
visit with her sister Yvette to friends at Bimariabad), delighted,
bewildered, depolarized, Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne had burst
with a blaze of glory into her hitherto secluded, narrow life—a great
pale-blue, white-and-gold wonder, clanking and jingling, resplendent,
bemedalled, ruling men, charging at the head of thundering squadrons—a
half-god (and to Yvette he had seemed a whole-god).
He had told her that he loved her, told her once, and had been
accepted.
_Once_! Only once told her that he loved her, that she was beautiful,
that he was hers to command to the uttermost. Only once! What could
_she_ know of the changed life, the absolute renunciation of pleasant
bachelor vices, the pulling up short, and all those actions that speak
more softly than words?
What could she know of the strength and depth of the love that could
keep such a man as the Colonel from the bar, the bridge-table, the
race-course and the Paphian dame? Of the love that made him walk warily
lest he offend one for whom his quarter of a century, and more, of
barrack and bachelor-bungalow life, made him feel so utterly unfit and
unworthy? What could she know of all that he had given up and delighted
to give up—now that he truly loved a true woman? The hard-living,
hard-hearted, hard-spoken man had become a gentle frequenter of his
wife’s tea-parties, her companion at church, her constant
attendant—never leaving the bungalow, save for duty, without her.
To those who knew him it was a World’s Marvel; to her, who knew him
not, it was nothing at all—normal, natural. And being a man who spoke
only when he must, who dreaded the expression of any emotion, and who
foolishly thought that actions speak louder than words, he had omitted
to tell her daily—or even weekly or monthly—that he loved her; and she
had died pitying herself and reproaching him.
Fate’s old, old game of Cross Purposes. Major John Decies, reserved,
high-minded gentleman, loving Lenore de Warrenne (and longing to tell
her so daily), with the one lifelong love of a steadfast nature; Yvette
Stukeley, reserved, high-minded gentlewoman, loving Colonel de
Warrenne, and longing to escape from Bimariabad before his wedding to
her sister, and doing so at the earliest possible date thereafter: each
woman losing the man who would have been her ideal husband, each man
losing the woman who would have been his ideal wife.
Yvette Stukeley returned to her uncle and guardian, General Sir Gerald
Seymour Stukeley, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., at Monksmead, nursing a broken
heart, and longed for the day when Colonel de Warrenne’s child might be
sent home to her care.
Major John Decies abode at Bimariabad, also nursing a broken heart
(though he scarcely realized the fact), watched over the son of Lenore
de Warrenne, and greatly feared for him.
The Major was an original student of theories and facts of Heredity and
Pre-natal Influence. Further he was not wholly hopeful as to the effect
of all the _post_-natal influences likely to be brought to bear upon a
child who grew up in the bungalow, and the dislike of Colonel Matthew
Devon de Warrenne.
Upon the infant Damocles, Nurse Beaton, rugged, snow-capped volcano,
lavished the tender love of a mother; and in him Major John Decies,
deep-running still water, took the interest of a father. The which was
the better for the infant Damocles in that his real father had no
interest to take and no love to lavish. He frankly disliked the
child—the outward and visible sign, the daily reminder of the cruel
loss he so deeply felt and fiercely resented.
Yet, strangely enough, he would not send the child home. Relations who
could receive it he had none, and he declined to be beholden to its
great-uncle, General Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley, and its aunt Yvette
Stukeley, in spite of the warmest invitations from the one and earnest
entreaties from the other.
Nurse Beaton fed, tended, clothed and nursed the baby by day; a
worshipping ayah wheeled him abroad, and, by night, slept beside his
cot; a devoted sepoy-orderly from the regiment guarded his cavalcade,
and, when permitted, proudly bore him in his arms.
Major John Decies visited him frequently, watched and waited, waited
and watched, and, though not a youth, “thought long, long thoughts”.
He also frequently laid his views and theories on paternal duties
before Colonel de Warrenne, until pointedly asked by that officer
whether he had no duties of his own which might claim his valuable
time.
Years rolled by, after the incorrigible habit of years, and the infant
Damocles grew and developed into a remarkably sturdy, healthy,
intelligent boy, as cheerful, fearless, impudent, and irrepressible as
the heart of the Major could desire—and with a much larger vocabulary
than any one could desire, for a baby.
On the fifth anniversary of his birthday he received a matutinal call
from Major Decies, who was returning from his daily visit to the Civil
Hospital.
The Major bore a birthday present and a very anxious, undecided mind.
“Good morrow, gentle Damocles,” he remarked, entering the big verandah
adown which the chubby boy pranced gleefully to meet his beloved
friend, shouting a welcome, and brandishing a sword designed, and
largely constructed, by himself from a cleaning-rod, a tobacco-tin lid,
a piece of wood, card-board and wire.
“Thalaam, Major Thahib,” he said, flinging himself bodily upon that
gentleman. “I thaw cook cut a fowl’s froat vis morning. It squorked
boofly.”
“Did it? Alas, that I missed those pleasing-er-squorks,” replied the
Major, and added: “This is thy natal day, my son. Thou art a man of
five.”
“I’m a debble. I’m a _norful_ little debble,” corrected Damocles,
cheerfully and with conviction.
“Incidentally. But you are five also,” persisted the senior man.
“It’s my birfday to-day,” observed the junior.
“I just said so.”
“_That_ you didn’t, Major Thahib. This is a thword. Father’s charger’s
got an over-weach. Jumping. He says it’s a dam-nuithanth.”
“Oh, that’s a sword, is it? And ‘Fire’ has got an over-reach. And it’s
a qualified nuisance, is it?”
“Yeth, and the mare is coughing and her _thythe_ is a blathted fool for
letting her catch cold.”
“The mare has a cold and the _syce_[4] is a qualified fool, is he? H’m!
I think it’s high time you had a look in at little old England, my son,
what? And who made you this elegant rapier? Ochterlonie Sahib or—who?”
(Lieutenant Lord Ochterlonie was the Adjutant of the Queen’s Greys, a
friend of Colonel de Warrenne, an ex-admirer of his late wife, and a
great pal of his son.)
[4] Groom.
“’Tithn’t a waper. It’th my thword. I made it mythelf.”
“Who helped?”
“Nobody. At leatht, Khodadad Khan, Orderly, knocked the holes in the
tin like I showed him—or elthe got the Farrier Thargeant to do it, and
thaid _he_ had.”
“Yes—but who told you how to make it like this? Where did you see a
hand-part like this? It isn’t like Daddy’s sword, nor Khodadad Khan’s
_tulwar_. Where did you copy it?”
“I didn’t copy it…. I shot ten rats wiv a bow-and-arrow last night. At
leatht—I don’t think I shot ten. Nor one. I don’t think I didn’t,
pwaps.”
“But hang it all, the thing’s an Italian rapier, by Gad. Some one
_must_ have shown you how to make the thing, or you’ve got a picture.
It’s a _pukka_[5] mediaeval rapier.”
[5] Real, solid, permanent, proper, ripe, genuine.
“No it’th not. It’th my thword. I made it…. Have a jolly fight”—and the
boy struck an extraordinarily correct fencing attitude—left hand raised
in balance, sword poised, legs and feet well placed, the whole pose
easy, natural, graceful.
Curiously enough, the sword was held horizontal instead of pointing
upward, a fact which at once struck the observant and practised eye of
Major John Decies, sometime champion fencer.
“Who’s been teaching you fencing?” he asked.
“What ith ‘fenthing’? Let’th have a fight,” replied the boy.
“Stick me here, Dam,” invited the Major, seating himself and indicating
the position of the heart. “Bet you can’t.”
The boy lunged, straight, true, gracefully, straightening all his limbs
except his right leg, rigidly, strongly, and the “sword” bent upward
from the spot on which the man’s finger had just rested.
“Gad! Who _has_ taught you to lunge? I shall have a bruise there, and
perhaps—live. Who’s behind all this, young fella? Who taught you to
stand so, and to lunge? Ochterlonie Sahib or Daddy?”
“Nobody. What is ‘lunge’? Will you buy me a little baby-camel to play
with and teach tricks? Perhaps it would sit up and beg. Do camelth lay
eggth? Chucko does. Millions and lakhs. You get a thword, too, and
we’ll fight every day. Yeth. All day long——”
“Good morning, Sir,” said Nurse Beaton, bustling into the verandah from
the nursery. “He’s as mad as ever on swords and fighting, you see. It’s
a soldier he’ll be, the lamb. He’s taken to making that black orderly
pull out his sword when he’s in uniform. Makes him wave and jab it
about. Gives me the creeps—with his black face and white eyes and all.
You won’t _encourage_ the child at it, will you, Sir? And his poor
Mother the gentlest soul that ever stepped. Swords! Where he gets his
notions _I_ can’t think (though I know where he gets his language, poor
lamb!). Look at _that_ thing, Sir! For all the world like the
dressed-up folk have on the stage or in pictures.”
“You haven’t let him see any books, I suppose, Nurse?” asked the Major.
“No, Sir. Never a book has the poor lamb seen, except those you’ve
brought. I’ve always been in terror of his seeing a picture of a
you-know-what, ever since you told me what the effect _might_ be. Nor
he hasn’t so much as heard the name of it, so far as I know.”
“Well, he’ll see one to-day. I’ve brought it with me—must see it sooner
or later. Might see a live one anywhere—in spite of all your care…. But
about this sword—where _could_ he have got the idea? It’s unlike any
sword he ever set eyes on. Besides if he ever _did_ see an Italian
rapier—and there’s scarcely such a thing in India—he’d not get the
chance to use it as a copy. Fancy his having the desire and the power
to, anyhow!”
“I give it up, Sir,” said Nurse Beaton.
“I give it upper,” added the Major, taking the object of their wonder
from the child.
And there was cause for wonder indeed.
A hole had been punched through the centre of the lid of a tobacco tin
and a number of others round the edge. Through the centre hole the
steel rod had been passed so that the tin made a “guard”. To the other
holes wires had been fastened by bending, and their ends gathered,
twisted, and bound with string to the top of the handle (of bored
corks) to form an ornamental basket-hilt.
But the most remarkable thing of all was that, before doing this, the
juvenile designer had passed the rod through a piece of bored stick so
that the latter formed a _cross-piece_ (neatly bound) within the tin
guard—the distinctive feature of the ancient and modern Italian
rapiers!
Round this cross-piece the first two fingers of the boy’s right hand
were crooked as he held the sword—and this is the one and only correct
way of holding the Italian weapon, as the Major was well aware!
“I give it most utterly-uppermost,” he murmured. “It’s positively
uncanny. No _uninitiated_ adult of the utmost intelligence ever held an
Italian-pattern foil correctly yet—nor until he had been pretty
carefully shown. Who the devil put him up to the design in the first
place, and the method of holding, in the second? Explain yourself, you
two-anna[6] marvel,” he demanded of the child. “It’s _jadu_—black
magic.”
[6] Anna = a penny.
“Ayah lothted a wupee latht night,” he replied.
“Lost a rupee, did she? Lucky young thing. Wish I had one to lose. Who
showed you how to hold that sword? Why do you crook your fingers round
the cross-piece like that?”
“Chucko laid me an egg latht night,” observed Damocles. “He laid it
with my name on it—so that cook couldn’t steal it.”
“No doubt. Look here, where can I get a sword like yours? Where can I
copy it? Who makes them? Who knows about them?”
“_I_ don’t know, Major Thahib. Gunnoo sells ‘Fire’s’ gram to the
_methrani_ for her curry and chuppatties.”
“But how do you know swords are like this? _That_ thing isn’t a _pukka_
sword.”
“Well, it’th like Thir Theymour Thtukeley’s in my dweam.”
“What dream?”
“The one I’m alwayth dweaming. They have got long hair like Nurse in
the night, and they fight and fight like anything. Norful good
fighters! And they wear funny kit. And their thwords are like vis.
_Egg_zackly. Gunnoo gave me a ride on ‘Fire,’ and he’th a dam-liar. He
thaid he forgot to put the warm _jhool_ on him when Daddy was going to
fwash him for being a dam-fool. I thaid I’d tell Daddy how he alwayth
thleepth in it himthelf, unleth he gave me a ride on ‘Fire’. ‘Fire’
gave a _norful_ buck and bucked me off. At leatht I think he didn’t.”
Major Decies’ face was curiously intent—as of some midnight worker in
research who sees a bright near glimpse of the gold his alchemy has so
long sought to materialize in the alembic of fact.
“Come back to sober truth, young youth. What about the dream? Who are
they, and what do they say and do?”
“Thir Theymour Thtukeley Thahib tellth Thir Matthew Thahib about the
hilt-thwust. (What _is_ ‘hilt-thwust’?) And Lubin, the thervant, ith a
_white_ thervant. Why ith he white if he ith a Thahib’s ‘boy’?”
“Good Gad!” murmured the Major. “I’m favoured of the gods. Tell me all
about it, Sonny. Then I’ll undo this parcel for you,” he coaxed.
“Oh, I don’t wemember. They buck a lot by the tents and then Thir
Theymour Thtukeley goes and fights Thir Matthew and kills him, and
it’th awful lovely, but they dreth up like kids at a party in big
collars and silly kit.”
“Yes, I know,” murmured the Major. “Tell me what they say when they
buck to each other by the tents, and when they talk about the
‘hilt-thrust,’ old chap.”
“Oh, I don’t wemember. I’ll listen next time I dweam it, and tell you.
Chucko’s egg was all brown—not white like those cook brings from the
bazaar. He’s a dam-thief. Open the parcel, Major Thabib. What’s in it?”
“A picture-book for you, Sonny. All sorts of jolly beasts that you’ll
_shikar_ some day. You’ll tell me some more about the dream to-morrow,
won’t you?”
“Yeth. I’ll wemember and fink, and tell you what I have finked.”
Turning to Nurse Beaton, the Major whispered:—
“Don’t worry him about this dream at all. Leave it to me. It’s
wonderful. Take him on your lap, Nurse, and—er—be _ready_. It’s a very
life-like picture, and I’m going to spring it on him without any
remark—but I’m more than a little anxious, I admit. Still, it’s _got_
to come, as I say, and better a picture first, with ourselves present.
If the picture don’t affect him I’ll show him a real one. May be all
right of course, but I don’t know. I came across a somewhat similar
case once before—and it was _not_ all right. Not by any means,” and he
disclosed the brilliantly coloured Animal Picture Book and knelt beside
the expectant boy.
On the first page was an incredibly leonine lion, who appeared to have
solved with much satisfaction the problem of aerial flight, so far was
he from the mountain whence he had sprung and above the back of the
antelope towards which he had propelled himself. One could almost hear
him roar. There was menace and fate in eye and tooth and claw, yea, in
the very kink of the prehensile-seeming tail wherewith he apparently
steered his course in mid-air. To gaze upon his impressive and
determined countenance was to sympathize most fully with the sore-tried
Prophet of old (known to Damocles as Dannle-in-the-lines-den) for ever
more.
The boy was wholly charmed, stroked the glowing ferocity and observed
that he was a _pukka Bahadur_.[7]
[7] Strong, powerful chief.
On the next page, burning bright, was a tiger, if possible one degree
more terrible than the lion. His “fearful cemetery” appeared to be
full, judging by its burgeoned bulge and the shocking state of
depletion exhibited by the buffalo on which he fed with barely
inaudible snarls and grunts of satisfaction. Blood dripped from his
capacious and over-furnished mouth.
“Booful,” murmured Damocles. “I shall go shooting tigerth to-mowwow.
Shoot vem in ve mouth, down ve froat, so as not to spoil ve wool.”
Turning over the page, the Major disclosed a most grievous grizzly
bear, grizzly and bearish beyond conception, heraldic, regardant,
expectant, not collared, fanged and clawed proper, rampant, erect,
requiring no supporters.
“You could thtab him wiv a thword if you were quick, while he was doing
that,” opined Damocles, charmed, enraptured, delighted. One by one,
other savage, fearsome beasts were disclosed to the increasingly
delighted boy until, without warning, the Major suddenly turned a page
and disclosed a brilliant and hungry-looking snake.
With a piercing shriek the boy leapt convulsively from Nurse Beaton’s
arms, rushed blindly into the wall and endeavoured to butt and bore his
way through it with his head, screaming like a wounded horse. As the
man and woman sprang to him he shrieked, “It’th under my foot! It’th
moving, moving, moving _out_” and fell to the ground in a fit.
Major John Decies arose from his bachelor dinner-table that evening,
lit his “planter” cheroot, and strolled into the verandah that looked
across a desert to a mountain range.
Dropping into a long low chair, he raised his feet on to the long
leg-rest extensions of its arms, and, as he settled down and waited for
coffee, wondered why no such chairs are known in the West; why the
trunks of the palms looked less flat in the moonlight than in the
daylight (in which, from that spot, they always looked exactly as
though cut out of cardboard); why Providence had not arranged for
perpetual full-moon; why the world looked such a place of peaceful,
glorious beauty by moonlight, the bare cruel mountains like diaphanous
clouds of tenderest soothing mist, the Judge’s hideous bungalow like a
fairy palace, his own parched compound like a plot of Paradise, when
all was so abominable by day; and, as ever—why his darling, Lenore
Stukeley, had had to marry de Warrenne and die in the full flower and
promise of her beautiful womanhood.
Having finished his coffee and lighted his pipe (_vice_ the over-dry
friable cheroot, flung into the garden) the Major then turned his mind
to serious and consecutive thought on the subject of her son, his
beloved little pal, Dammy de Warrenne.
Poor little beggar! What an eternity it had seemed before he had got
him to sleep. How the child had suffered. Mad! Absolutely stark,
staring, raving _mad_ with sheer terror…. Had he acted rightly in
showing him the picture? He had meant well, anyhow. Cruel phrase, that.
How cuttingly his friend de Warrenne had observed, “You mean well,
doubtless,” on more than one occasion. He could make it the most
stinging of insults…. Surely he had acted rightly…. Poor little
beggar—but he was bound to see a picture or a real live specimen,
sooner or later. Perhaps when there was no help at hand…. Would he be
like it always? _Might_ grow out of it as he grew older and stronger.
What would have happened if he had encountered a live snake? Lost his
reason permanently, perhaps…. What would happen when he _did_ see one,
as sooner or later, he certainly must?
What would be the best plan? To attempt gradually to inure him—or to
guard him absolutely from contact with picture, stuffed specimen,
model, toy, and the real thing, wild or captive, as one would guard him
against a fell disease?
_Could_ he be inured? Could one “break it to him gently” bye and bye,
by first drawing a wiggly line and then giving it a head? One might
sketch a suggestion of a snake, make a sort of dissimilar clay model,
improve it, show him a cast skin, stuff it, make a more life-like
picture, gradually lead up to a well-stuffed one and then a live one.
Might work up to having a good big picture of one on the nursery wall;
one in a glass case; keep a harmless live one and show it him daily.
Teach him by experience that there’s nothing supernatural about a
snake—just a nasty reptile that wants exterminating like other
dangerous creatures—something to _shikar_ with a gun. Nothing at all
supernatural….
But this was “super”-natural, abnormal, a terrible devastating agony of
madness, inherited, incurable probably; part of mind and body and soul.
Inherited, and integrally of him as were the colour of his eyes, his
intelligence, his physique…. Heredity … pre-natal influence … breed….
Anyhow, nothing must be attempted yet awhile. Let the poor little chap
get older and stronger, in mind and body, first. Brave as a little
bull-dog in other directions! Absolutely devoid of fear otherwise, and
with a natural bent for fighting and adventure. Climb anywhere,
especially up the hind leg of a camel or a horse, fondle any strange
dog, clamour to be put on any strange horse, go into any deep water,
cheek anybody, bear any ordinary pain with a grin, thrill to any story
of desperate deeds—a fine, brave, manly, hardy little chap, and with
art extraordinary physique for strength and endurance.
Whatever was to be attempted later, he must be watched, day and night,
now. No unattended excursions into the compound, no uncensored
picture-books, no juggling snake-charmers…. Yet it _must_ come, sooner
or later.
Would it ruin his life?
Anyhow, he must never return to India when he grew up, or go to any
snake-producing country, unless he could be cured.
Would it make him that awful thing—a coward?
Would it grow and wax till it dominated his mind—drive him mad?
Would succeeding attacks, following encounters with picture or reality,
progressively increase in severity?
_Her_ boy in an asylum?
No. He was exaggerating an almost expected consequence that might never
be repeated—especially if the child were most carefully and gradually
reintroduced to the present terror. Later though—much later on.
Meanwhile, wait and hope: hope and wait….