THE SNAKE APPEARS.
The European child who grows up in India, if only to the age of six or
seven years, grows under a severe moral, physical, and mental handicap.
However wise, devoted, and conscientious its parents may be, the evil
is great, and remains one of the many heavy costs (or punishments) of
Empire.
When the child has no mother and an indifferent father, life’s handicap
is even more severe.
By his sixth birthday (the regiment being still in Bimariabad owing to
the prevalence of drought, famine, and cholera elsewhere) Damocles de
Warrenne, knowing the Urdu language and _argot_ perfectly, knew, in
theory also, more of evil, in some directions, than did his own father.
If the child who grows up absolutely straight-forward, honest,
above-board and pure in thought, word, and deed, in England, deserves
commendation, what does the child deserve who does so in India?
Understanding every word they spoke to one another, the training he got
from native servants was one of undiluted evil and a series of
object-lessons in deceit, petty villainy, chicanery, oppression, lying,
dishonesty, and all immorality. And yet—thanks to his equal
understanding of the words and deeds of Nurse Beaton, Major Decies,
Lieutenant Ochterlonie, his father, the Officers of the Regiment, and
the Europeans of the station—he had a clear, if unconscious,
understanding that what was customary for native servants was neither
customary nor possible for Sahibs….
But he knew too much….
He knew what percentage of his or her pay each servant had to hand to
the “butler-sahib” monthly—or lose his or her place through false
accusation.
He knew why the ayah was graciously exempted from financial toll by
this autocrat. He knew roughly what proportion of the cook’s daily bill
represented the actual cost of his daily purchases. He knew what the
door-peon got for consenting to take in the card of the Indian aspirant
for an interview with Colonel de Warrenne.
He knew the terms of the arrangements between the head-syce and the
grain-dealer, the lucerne-grass seller, the _ghas-wallah_[8] who
brought the hay (whereby reduced quantities were accepted in return for
illegal gratifications). He knew of retail re-sales of these reduced
supplies.
[8] Grass-man.
He knew of the purchase of oil, rice, condiments, fire-wood and other
commodities from the cook, of the theft (by arrangement) of the poultry
and eggs, of the surreptitious milking of the cow, and of the simple
plan of milking her—under Nurse Beaton’s eye—into a narrow-necked
vessel already half full of water.
He knew that the ayah’s husband sold the Colonel’s soda-water,
paraffin, matches, candles, tobacco, cheroots, fruit, sugar, etc., at a
little portable shop round the corner of the road, and of the terms on
which the _hamal_ and the butler supplied these commodities to the ayah
for transfer to her good man.
He knew too much of the philosophy, manners, habits, and morals of the
dog-boy, of concealed cases of the most infectious diseases in the
compound, of the sub-letting and over-crowding of the servants’
quarters, of incredible quarrels, intrigues, jealousies, revenges, base
villainies and wrongs, superstitions and beliefs.
He would hear the hatching of a plot—an hour’s arrangement and
wrangle—whereby, through far-sighted activity, perjury, malpractice and
infinite ingenuity, the ringleader would gain a _pice_ and the follower
a _pie_ (a farthing and a third of a farthing respectively).
Daily he saw the butler steal milk, sugar, and tea, for his own use;
the _hamal_ steal oil when he filled the lamps, for sale; the _malli_
steal flowers, for sale; the coachman steal carriage-candles; the cook
steal a moiety of everything that passed through his hands—every one in
that black underworld stealing, lying, back-biting, cheating,
intriguing (and all meanwhile strictly and stoutly religious, even the
sweeper-descended Goanese cook, the biggest thief of all, purging his
Christian soul on Sunday mornings by Confession, and fortifying himself
against the temptations of the Evil One at early Mass).
Between these _nowker log_, the servant-people, and his own _jat_ or
class, the _Sahib-log_, the master-people, were the troopers, splendid
Sikhs, Rajputs, Pathans and Punjabis, men of honour, courage, physique,
tradition. Grand fighters, loyal as steel while properly understood and
properly treated—in other words, while properly officered. (Men,
albeit, with deplorably little understanding of, or regard for, Pagett,
M.P., and his kind, who yearn to do so much for them.)
These men Damocles admired and loved, though even _they_ were apt to be
very naughty in the bazaar, to gamble and to toy with opium, bhang, and
(alleged) brandy, to dally with houris and hearts’-delights, to use
unkind measures towards the good _bunnia_ and _sowkar_ who had lent
them monies, and to do things outside the Lines that were not known in
the Officers’ Mess.
The boy preferred the Rissaldar-Major even to some Sahibs of his
acquaintance—that wonderful old man-at-arms, horseman, _shikarri_,
athlete, gentleman. (Yet how strange and sad to see him out of his
splendid uniform, in sandals, _dhotie_, untrammelled shirt-tails, dingy
old cotton coat and loose _puggri_, undistinguishable from a
school-master, clerk, or post-man; so _un_-sahib-like.)
And what a fine riding-master he made for an ambitious, fearless
boy—though Ochterlonie Sahib said he was too cruel to be a good
_horse_-master.
How _could_ people be civilians and live away from regiments? Live
without ever touching swords, lances, carbines, saddles?
What a queer feeling it gave one to see the regiment go past the
saluting base on review-days, at the gallop, with lances down. One
wanted to shout, to laugh—to _cry_. (It made one’s mouth twitch and
chin work.)
Oh, to _lead_ the regiment as Father did—horse and man one welded piece
of living mechanism.
Father said you couldn’t ride till you had taken a hundred tosses, been
pipped a hundred times. A hundred falls! Surely Father had _never_ been
thrown—it must be impossible for such a rider to come off. See him at
polo.
By his sixth birthday Damocles de Warrenne, stout and sturdy, was an
accomplished rider and never so happy (save when fencing) as when
flogging his active and spirited little pony along the “rides” or over
the dusty _maidans_ and open country of Bimariabad. To receive a
quarter-mile start on the race-course and ride a mile race against
Khodadad Khan on his troop-horse, or with one of the syces on one of
the Colonel’s polo-ponies, or with some obliging male or female early
morning rider, was the joy of his life. Should he suspect the
competitor of “pulling” as he came alongside, that the tiny pony might
win, the boy would lash at both horses impartially.
People who pitied him (and they were many) wondered as to how soon he
would break his neck, and remonstrated with his father for allowing him
to ride alone, or in charge of an attendant unable to control him.
In the matter of his curious love of fencing Major John Decies was
deeply concerned, obtained more and more details of his “dweam,” taught
him systematically and scientifically to fence, bought him foils and
got them shortened. He also interested him in a series of
muscle-developing exercises which the boy called his “dismounted
squad-dwill wiv’out arms,” and performed frequently daily, and with
gusto.
Lieutenant Lord Ochterlonie (Officers’ Light-Weight Champion at
Aldershot) rigged him up a small swinging sand-bag and taught him to
punch with either hand, and drilled him in foot-work for boxing.
Later he brought the very capable ten-year-old son of a boxing
Troop-Sergeant and set him to make it worth Dam’s while to guard
smartly, to learn to keep his temper, and to receive a blow with a
grin.
(Possibly a better education than learning declensions, conjugations,
and tables from a Eurasian “governess”.)
He learnt to read unconsciously and automatically by repeating, after
Nurse Beaton, the jingles and other letter-press beneath the pictures
in the books obtained for him under Major Decies’ censorship.
On his sixth birthday, Major John Decies had Damocles over to his
bungalow for the day, gave him a box of lead soldiers and a
schooner-rigged ship, helped him to embark them and sail them in the
bath to foreign parts, trapped a squirrel and let it go again, allowed
him to make havoc of his possessions, fired at bottles with his
revolver for the boy’s delectation, shot a crow or two with a
rook-rifle, played an improvised game of fives with a tennis-ball, told
him tales, and generally gave up the day to his amusement. What he did
_not_ do was to repeat the experiment of a year ago, or make any kind
of reference to snakes….
A few days later, on the morning of the New-Year’s-Day Review, Colonel
Matthew de Warrenne once again strode up and down his verandah, arrayed
in full review-order, until it should be time to ride to the regimental
parade-ground.
He had coarsened perceptibly in the six years since he had lost his
wife, and the lines that had grown deepest on his hard, handsome face
were those between his eyebrows and beside his mouth—the mouth of an
unhappy, dissipated, cynical man….
He removed his right-hand gauntlet and consulted his watch…. Quarter of
an hour yet.
He continued the tramp that always reminded Damocles of the restless,
angry to-and-fro pacing of the big bear in the gardens. Both father and
the bear seemed to fret against fate, to suffer under a sense of
injury; both seemed dangerous, fierce, admirable. Hearing the clink and
clang and creak of his father’s movement, Damocles scrambled from his
cot and crept down the stairs, pink-toed, blue-eyed, curly-headed,
night-gowned, to peep through the crack of the drawing-room door at his
beautiful father. He loved to see him in review uniform—so much more
delightful than plain khaki—pale blue, white, and gold, in full panoply
of accoutrement, jackbooted and spurred, and with the great turban that
made his English face look more English still.
Yes—he would ensconce himself behind the drawing-room door and watch.
Perhaps “Fire” would be bobbery when the Colonel mounted him, would get
“what-for” from whip and spur, and be put over the compound wall
instead of being allowed to canter down the drive and out at the gate….
Colonel de Warrenne stepped into his office to get a cheroot.
Re-appearing in the verandah with it in his mouth he halted and thrust
his hand inside his tunic for his small match-case. Ere he could use
the match his heart was momentarily chilled by the most blood-curdling
scream he had ever heard. It appeared to come from the drawing-room.
(Colonel de Warrenne never lit the cheroot that he had put to his
lips—nor ever another again.) Springing to the door, one of a dozen
that opened into the verandah, he saw his son struggling on the ground,
racked by convulsive spasms, with glazed, sightless eyes and foaming
mouth, from which issued appalling, blood-curdling shrieks. Just above
him, on the fat satin cushion in the middle of a low settee, a huge
half-coiled cobra swayed from side to side in the Dance of Death.
“_It’s under my foot—it’s moving—moving—moving out_,” shrieked the
child.
Colonel de Warrenne attended to the snake first. He half-drew his sword
and then slammed it back into the scabbard. No—his sword was not for
snakes, whatever his son might be. On the wall was a trophy of Afghan
weapons, one of which was a sword that had played a prominent part on
the occasion of the Colonel’s winning of the Victoria Cross.
Striding to the wall he tore the sword down, drew it and, with raised
arm, sprang towards the cobra. A good “Cut Three” across the coils
would carve it into a dozen pieces. No. Lenore made that cushion—and
Lenore’s cushion made more appeal to Colonel de Warrenne than did
Lenore’s son. No. A neat horizontal “Cut Two,” just below the head,
with the deadly “drawing” motion on it, would meet the case nicely.
Swinging it to the left, the Colonel subconsciously placed the sword,
“resting flat on the left shoulder, edge to the left, hand in front of
the shoulder and square with the elbow, elbow as high as the hand,” as
per drill-book, and delivered a lightning stroke—thinking as he did so
that the Afghan _tulwar_ is an uncommonly well-balanced, handy
cutting-weapon, though infernally small in the hilt.
The snake’s head fell with a thud upon the polished boards between the
tiger-skins, and the body dropped writhing and twitching on to the
settee.
Damocles appeared to be dead. Picking him up, the callous-hearted
father strode out to where Khodadad Khan held “Fire’s” bridle, handed
him to the orderly, mounted, received him again from the man, and,
holding him in his strong right arm, cantered to the bungalow of Major
John Decies—since it lay on the road to the parade-ground.
Would the jerking hurt the little beggar in his present comatose state?
Well, brats that couldn’t stand a little jerking were better dead,
especially when they screamed and threw fits at the sight of a common
snake.
Turning into Major Decies’ compound and riding up to his porch, the
Colonel saw the object of his search, arrayed in pyjamas, seated in his
long cane chair beside a tray of tea, toast, and fruit, in the
verandah.
“Morning, de Warrenne,” he cried cheerily.
“How’s little—” and caught sight of the inanimate child.
“Little coward’s fainted after throwing a fit—over a common snake,”
observed the Colonel coolly.
“Give him here,” answered the Major, taking the boy tenderly in his
arms,—“and kindly—er—clear out.”
He did not wish to strike his friend and senior. How the black rage
welled up in his heart against the callous brute who had dared to marry
Lenore Seymour Stukeley.
Colonel de Warrenne wheeled his horse without a word, and rode out of
Major Decies’ life and that of his son.
Galloping to the parade-ground he spoke a few curt words to his
Adjutant, inspected the _rissala_, and then rode at its head to the
brigade parade-ground where it took up its position on the left flank
of the Guns and the Queen’s Greys, “sat at ease,” and awaited the
arrival of the Chief Commissioner at the saluting-base. A British
Infantry regiment marched to the left flank of the 118th (Bombay)
Lancers, left-turned and stood at ease. Another followed and was
followed in turn by Native Infantry Regiments—grand Sikhs in scarlet
tunics, baggy black breeches and blue putties; hefty Pathans and
Baluchis in green tunics, crimson breeches and high white gaiters,
sturdy little Gurkhas in rifle-green, stalwart Punjabi Mahommedans.
The great double line grew and grew, and stood patiently waiting,
Horse, Foot, and Guns, facing the sun and a dense crowd of spectators
ranked behind the rope-encircled, guard-surrounded saluting-base over
which flew the Flag of England.
The Brigadier and his Staff rode on to the ground, were saluted by the
mile of troops, and took up their position.
Followed the Chief Commissioner in his state carriage, accompanied by a
very Distinguished Guest, and surrounded by his escort. The mile of men
again came to attention and the review began. Guns boomed, massed bands
played the National Anthem, the crackling rattle of the _feu-de-joie_
ran up the front rank and down the rear.
After the inspection and the salutes came the march-past by the
regiments.
Now the Distinguished Visitor’s wife had told the Chief Commissioner
that she “did not want to see the cavalry go past at the gallop as it
raised such a dreadful dust”. But her maid bungled, her toilette
failed, and she decided not to accompany her husband to the Review at
all. Her husband, the Distinguished Visitor, _did_ desire to see the
cavalry go past at the gallop, and so the Chief Commissioner’s
Distinguished Visitor’s wife’s maid’s bungling had a tremendous
influence upon the fate of Damocles de Warrenne, as will be seen.
Passed the massed Guns at the walk, followed by the Cavalry at the walk
in column of squadrons and the Infantry in column of companies, each
unit saluting the Chief Commissioner by turning “eyes right” as it
passed the spot where he sat on horseback surrounded by the civil and
military staffs.
Wheeling to the left at the end of the ground the Guns and Cavalry
again passed, this time at the trot, while the Infantry completed its
circular march to its original position.
Finally the Cavalry passed for the third time, and now at the gallop,
an orderly whirlwind, a controlled avalanche of men and horses, with
levelled lances, and the hearts of all men were stirred at one of the
most stirring sights and sounds in the world—a cavalry charge.
At the head of the leading squadron galloped Colonel de Warrenne, cool,
methodical, keeping a distant flag-staff in line with a still more
distant church spire, that he might lead the regiment in a perfectly
straight line. (Few who have not tried it realize the difficulty of
leading a galloping line of men absolutely straight and at true
right-angles to the line of their ranks.)
On thundered the squadrons unbending of rank, uncrowded, unopened,
squadron-leaders maintaining distance, the whole mass as ordered,
shapely, and precisely correct as when at the walk.
Past the saluting-base thundered the squadrons and in full career
Colonel de Warrenne’s charger put his near fore into ground
honey-combed by insect, reptile, or burrowing beast, crashed on its
head, rolled like a shot rabbit, and Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne
lay dead—killed by his own sword.
Like his ancestors of that fated family, he had died by the sword, but
unlike them, he had died by the _hilt_ of it.
Major John Decies, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, executor of the
will of the late Colonel de Warrenne and guardian of his son, cabled
the sad news of the Colonel’s untimely death to Sir Gerald Seymour
Stukeley at Monksmead, he being, so far as Major Decies knew, the boy’s
only male relative in England—uncle of the late Mrs. de Warrenne.
The reply, which arrived in a day or two, appeared from its redundancy
and incoherence to be the composition of Miss Yvette Seymour Stukeley,
and bade Major Decies either send or bring the infant Damocles to
Monksmead _immediately_.
The Major decided to apply forthwith for such privilege-leave and
furlough as were due to him, and to proceed to England with the boy. It
would be as well that his great-uncle should hear from him, personally,
of the matter of the child’s mental condition resultant upon the
tragedy of his own birth and his mother’s death. The Major was
decidedly anxious as to the future in this respect—all might be well in
time, and all might be very far indeed from well.
Nurse Beaton absolutely and flatly refused to be parted from her
charge, and the curious party of three set sail for England in due
course.
“Hm!—He’s every inch a Stukeley,” remarked the General when Damocles de
Warrenne was ushered into his presence in the great library at
Monksmead. “Hope he’s Stukeley by nature too. Sturdy young fella!
’Spose he’s vetted sound in wind and limb?”
The Major replied that the boy was physically rather remarkably strong,
mentally very sound, and in character all that could be desired. He
then did his best to convey to the General an understanding of the
psychic condition that must be a cause of watchfulness and anxiety on
the part of those who guarded his adolescence.
At dinner, over the General’s wonderful Clos Vougeot, the Major again
returned to the subject and felt that his words of advice fell upon
somewhat indifferent and uncomprehending ears.
It was the General’s boast that he had never feed a doctor in his life,
and his impression that a sound resort for any kind of invalid is a
lethal chamber….
The seven years since the Major had last seen her, seemed to have dealt
lightly with the sad-faced, pretty Miss Yvette, gentle, good, and very
kind. Over the boy she rhapsodized to her own content and his
embarrassment. Effusive endearments and embraces were new to Dam, and
he appeared extraordinarily ignorant of the art of kissing.
“Oh, how like his dear Father!” she would exclaim afresh every few
minutes, to the Major’s slight annoyance and the General’s plain
disgust.
“Every inch a Stukeley!” he would growl in reply.
But Yvette Seymour Stukeley had prayed for Colonel de Warrenne nightly
for seven years and had idealized him beyond recognition. Possibly
Fate’s greatest kindness to her was to ordain that she should not see
him as he had become in fact, and compare him with her wondrous mental
image…. The boy was to her, must be, should be, the very image of her
life’s hero and beloved….
The depolarized and bewildered Damocles found himself in a strange and
truly foreign land, a queer, cold, dismal country inhabited by vast
quantities of “second-class sahibs,” as he termed the British lower
middle-class and poor, a country of a strange greenness and
orderedness, where there were white servants, strangely conjoined rows
of houses in the villages, dangerous-looking fires inside the houses, a
kind of tomb-stones on all house-tops, strange horse-drawn vehicles,
butlerless and _ghari_[9]-less sahibs, and an utter absence of
“natives,” sepoys, _byle-gharies_,[10] camels, monkeys, kites,
squirrels, bulbuls, _minahs_,[11] mongooses, palm-trees, and temples.
Cattle appeared to have no humps, crows to have black heads, and trees
to have no fruit. The very monsoon seemed inextricably mixed with the
cold season. Fancy the rains coming in the cold weather! Perhaps there
was no hot weather and nobody went to the hills in this strange country
of strange people, strange food, strange customs. Nobody seemed to have
any tents when they left the station for the districts, nor to take any
bedding when they went on tour or up-country. A queer, foreign land.
[9] Carriage.
[10] Bullock-carts.
[11] A kind of starling.
But Monksmead was a most magnificent “bungalow” standing in a truly
beautiful “compound”—wherein the very _bhistis_[12] and _mallis_ were
European and appeared to be second-class sahibs.
[12] Water-carriers.
Marvellous was the interior of the bungalow with its countless rooms
and mountainous stair-cases (on the wall of one of which hung _the
Sword_ which he had never seen but instantly recognized) and its army
of white servants headed by the white butler (so like the Chaplain of
Bimariabad in grave respectability and solemn pompousness) and its
extraordinary white “ayahs” or maids, and silver-haired Mrs. Pont,
called the “house-keeper”. Was she a _pukka_ Mem-Sahib or a
_nowker_[13] or what? And how did she “keep” the house?
[13] Servant.
A wonderful place—but far and away the most thrilling and delightful of
its wonders was the little white girl, Lucille—Damocles’ first
experience of the charming genus.
The boy never forgot his first meeting with Lucille.
On his arrival at Monksmead he had been “vetted,” as he expressed it,
by the Burra-Sahib, the General; and then taken to an attractive place
called “the school-room” and there had found Lucille….
“Hullo! Boy,” had been her greeting. “What’s your name?” He had
attentively scrutinized a small white-clad, blue-sashed maiden, with
curling chestnut hair, well-opened hazel eyes, decided chin, Greek
mouth and aristocratic cheek-bones. A maiden with a look of blood and
breed about her. (He did not sum her up in these terms at the time.)
“Can you ride, Boy?”
“A bit.”
“Can you fight?”
“A bit.”
“Can you swim?”
“Not well.”
“_I_ can—ever so farther. D’you know French and German?”
“Not a word.”
“Play the piano?”
“Never heard of it. D’you play it with cards or dice?”
“Lucky dog! It’s music. I have to practise an hour a day.”
“What for?”
“Nothing … it’s lessons. Beastly. How old are you?”
“Seven—er—nearly.”
“So’m I—nearly. I’ve got to be six first though. I shall have a
birthday next week. A big one. Have you brought any ellyfunts from
India?”
“I’ve never seen a nellyfunt—only in pictures.”
A shudder shook the boy’s sturdy frame.
“Why do you go like that? Feel sick?”
“No. I don’t know. I seemed to remember something—in a book. I dream
about it. There’s a nasty blue room with a mud floor. And _Something_.
Beastly. Makes you yell out and you can’t. You can’t run away either.
But the Sword dream is lovely.”
Lucille appeared puzzled and put this incoherence aside.
“What a baby never to see ellyfunts! I’ve seen lots. Hundreds. Zoo.
Circuses. Persessions. Camels, too.”
“Oh, I used to ride a camel every day. There was one in the compound
with his _oont-wallah_,[14] Abdul Ghaffr; and Khodadad Khan used to
beat the _oont-wallah_ on cold mornings to warm himself.”
[14] Camel-man.
“What’s an _oont-wallah_?”
“Don’t you _know_? Why, he’s just the _oont-wallah_, of course. Who’d
graze the camel or load it up if there wasn’t one?”
At tea in the nursery the young lady suddenly remarked:—
“I like you, Boy. You’re worth nine Haddocks.”
This cryptic valuation puzzled Damocles the more in that he had never
seen or heard of a haddock. Had he been acquainted with the fowl he
might have been yet more astonished.
Later he discovered that the comparison involved the fat boy who sat
solemnly stuffing on the other side of the table, his true baptismal
name being Haddon.
Yes, Lucille was a revelation, a marvel.
Far quicker of mind than he, cleverer at games and inventing “make
believe,” very strong, active, and sporting, she was the most charming,
interesting, and attractive experience in his short but eventful life.
How he loved to make her laugh and clap her hands! How he enjoyed her
quaint remarks, speculations, fairy-tales and jokes. How he yearned to
win her approval and admiration. How he strove to please her!
In Lucille and his wonderful new surroundings he soon forgot Major
Decies, who returned to live (and, at a ripe old age, to die) at
Bimariabad, where had lived and died the woman whom he had so truly and
purely loved. The place where he had known her was the only place for
him.
On each of his birthdays Damocles received a long fatherly letter and a
handsome present from the Major, and by the time he went away to school
at Wellingborough, he wondered who on earth the Major might be.
To his great delight Damocles found that he was not doomed to
discontinue his riding, fencing, boxing, and “dismounted drill without
arms”.
General Seymour Stukeley sent for a certain Sergeant Havlan (once a
trooper in his own regiment), rough-rider, swordsman, and boxer, now a
professional trainer, and bade him see that the boy learned all he
could teach him of arms and horsemanship, boxing, swimming, and general
physical prowess and skill. Lucille and Haddon Berners were to join in
to the extent to which their age and sex permitted.
The General intended his great-nephew to be worthy of his Stukeley
blood, and to enter Sandhurst a finished man-at-arms and horseman, and
to join his regiment, Cavalry, of course, with nothing much to learn of
sword, lance, rifle, revolver, and horse.
Sergeant Havlan soon found that he had little need to begin at the
beginning with Damocles de Warrenne in the matter of riding, fencing or
boxing, and was unreasonably annoyed thereat.
In time, it became the high ambition and deep desire of Dam to overcome
Sergeant Havlan’s son in battle with the gloves. As young Havlan was a
year his senior, a trained infant prodigy, and destined for the Prize
Ring, there was plenty for him to learn and to do.
With foil or sabre the boy was beneath Dam’s contempt.
Daily the children were in Sergeant Havlan’s charge for riding and
physical drill, Dam getting an extra hour in the evening for the more
manly and specialized pursuits suitable to his riper years.
He and Lucille loved it all, and the Haddock bitterly loathed it.
Until Miss Smellie came Dam was a happy boy—but for queer sudden spasms
of terror of Something unknown; and, after her arrival, he would have
been well content could he have been assured of an early opportunity of
attending her obsequies and certain of a long-postponed resurrection;
well content, and often wildly happy (with Lucille) … but for the
curious undefinable fear of Something … Something about which he had
the most awful dreams … Something in a blue room with a mud floor.
Something that seemed at times to move beneath his foot, making his
blood freeze, his knees smite together, the sunlight turn to darkness….