A Black Prince 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 **TOLD IN THE VPRA^'^AH' 
 
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A BLACK PRINCE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
A BLACK PRINCE 
 
 ^ntr a^tf)rr ^tonrs 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOLD IN THE VERANDAH." 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LAWRENCE & BULLEN 
 
 i6 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, \V.C. 
 1^93 
 
mENRY morse STETHEIMS 
 
r 57 
 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Some of the stories in the present Volume have appeared 
 in the Madras Mail. For permission to republish them 
 I am indebted to the courtesy of the Editor. " A Jilack 
 Prince," "'How we Jubilated,'" and other papers are pub- 
 lished for the Jirst time. 
 
 5147G7 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ^[,ss B ... 1 
 
 BUKNT FiXGEKS ... ... 19 
 
 SEKGE.A.NT SPELTEll ... 35 
 
 "Who was Mrs. Dl'beksoiie ?" 43 
 
 A Night ix ax Old Foet . 63 
 
 The Juxgle Fee 76 
 
 Me. Magxus ... 89 
 
 The Ki.-<hi axd the Sacred Diamoxd 101 
 
 A Black Pkixce . 119 
 
 Shameful Behavigui: ... 201 
 
 Ol'r Statiox ... ... 225 
 
 H'lw WE Jubilated at Saxdriei ... 237 
 
MISS B 
 
 Ox a ^arcli evening, not many years ago, two 
 young men were dining togetlier at the tSovitli- 
 Western Railway Hotel, Southampton. Tliey were 
 subalterns in a light cavalry regiment, and on the 
 follo\\dng morning were to embark for India to join. 
 
 Charlie Fancourt and Yyvian Dale were two of 
 tlie best-looking youngsters in the service. Fate 
 had been kind to them in various ways, but in the 
 Victorian, as in the Augustan, age, black Care 
 frequently sits on a cavalry crupper, and these young 
 officers were not leaving their native land in that 
 cheerful frame of mind which the call of duty 
 should inspire. 
 
 " IIuUo ! you sportsmen ! What have you done 
 with Jack ? " 
 
 The speaker had just entered the room, and, recog- 
 nizing the young men, made his Avay to their table. 
 He was an elderly man, sliort and thick-t-ct, A\itli a 
 
 H 
 
2 Miss B 
 
 bronzed face, lighted up by shrewd grey eyes, and 
 as lie had more than once been heard to declare, no 
 safer man for a touch-and-go operation held a surgeon's 
 commission in the mounted branch of the ser\ice 
 than Hector Macnab. 
 
 " What's become of Jack h " he again inc^uired, 
 after mutual greetings had been exchanged. 
 
 " Can't say ; may have missed the train. Perhaps 
 he has been nabbed b}' the Jews,'' was the careless 
 reply. 
 
 " What, lucky Jack a bondsman to the Israelite ! 
 Fortunatus in fetters ! No, I don't think that''s 
 likely," said the Doct(U', laughing. 
 
 Macnab was right, it was not likeh'. Jack Smith 
 was not without reason known throughout his 
 brigade as " Lucky Jack." His good fortune was 
 phenomenal. His star shone with a perennial lustre 
 that reduced the luminaries of other men to the 
 condition of ephemeral sparks. Out big-game shoot- 
 ing, his performances went nigh to rival the feats 
 peculiar to the hero of a 3'ouug lady's novel. If he 
 essaj^ed his chances at a lottery, men grew mourn- 
 full}^ profane, for they held the result to be a 
 foregone conclusion. He got his troop quicker than 
 had been the case with any other lieutenant since 
 
Mtss B 3 
 
 the regiment was embodied, and he gained his 
 V. C. by cantering out of action with the body of the 
 man to whose vacancy he was afterwards promoted. 
 But to recount every instance of the lucky Lancer's 
 good fortune would lead my readers to believe me 
 to be straying into the regions of romance. 
 
 " And what's the row ^nth ijou ? " continued the 
 Doctor ; '' down on your luck at parting with Polly ? 
 Poor fellows ! what are you drinking ? '' and with- 
 out waiting for a reply he poured out half a tumbler- 
 ful of champagne, and, heartily invoking luck upon 
 the party, tossed off the gooseberry with a reckless- 
 ness that denoted an advanced stage of thii'st. 
 
 "We have been cursing the chosen people. 
 Doctor," remarked Dale after a pause. 
 
 " Oh, that's the way the eat jumps! Are you 
 badly hit too, Fanny ? " 
 
 Fancourt nodded and Dale Avliistled carelessly. 
 
 " Well," said the Doctor, tm-ning to Dale, ^\■ith 
 mock severity, " if I were your respected sire. Master 
 Yyvian, I would cut you off with a bob and my 
 blessing, and less too, if ropes were cheaper." 
 
 " Just what the governor said this morniug," said 
 Dale, " and I told him that as life in the East was 
 uncertaiu, and I might not live to come into my coin, 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Miss B 
 
 I would have the shilling down, but he might keep his 
 blessing till he saw fit to lot Cox honour my cheques." 
 
 " And what does yonv Relieving Officer say, Fan- 
 court ? " asked the elder man, after laughing at Dale's 
 irreverence. 
 
 "I am to live on two hundred a year, till I 
 get my troop, or go to " 
 
 " To old Hornie ? Eight, perfectly right," said the 
 Doctor approvingly. 
 
 "No, to Queensland: much the same sort of thing I 
 fancy, place where fellows live on tea and kangaroo." 
 
 '• Very wholesome diet," replied Macnab, " cheap, 
 and no gout in it. I'll tell you what you fellows 
 should do," he suddenly remarked. The young men 
 eyed him with an air of gloomy inquiry. " You 
 should both of you marry coln.^'' 
 
 " I consider a man who marries for money a very 
 poor sort of a sportsman," observed Dale. 
 
 " Fancy, having to ask your wife for pocket-money," 
 remarked Fancourt, with lofty scorn. 
 
 " And having to tell her how you spend it," added 
 Dale, with a laugh. 
 
 The Doctor lifted up his hand deprecatingly. " My 
 dear boys — listen to me — listen, Fancourt. Doesn't 
 the Laureate say, ' Proputty, proputty, prop -' " 
 
Miss B 5 
 
 "No, Macnab," broke in Dale, "never mind the 
 Laureate, we must pull through without putting our- 
 selves into the slave-market." 
 
 The conversation was here inteiTupted by a waiter 
 who approached mth a letter. " Either o' you gen- 
 tlemen Dr. Xab?" 
 
 " Mac, if you please," answered the Doctor, with 
 an air of dignity. " Yes, it is for me," and taking 
 the missive, he broke the seal. 
 
 " Why, here's the very thing for you," he ex- 
 claimed, with sudden animation; " at least for one of 
 you," he added. "Listen to this now. My friend 
 Deedes — Deedes & Willes, attornej^s, Lincoln's 
 Inn — writes on business and ^\dnds up : ' You will 
 have as a fellow-passenger Miss Bull — Butt — ' 
 Bullion it looks like, ' a relative of the Gr. Gr., who is 
 being shipped off to Calcutta to get her out of 
 the way of a detrimental. She has £30,000 a 
 year under her late father's will, and as much 
 more to follow when her mother dies — but they 
 try to keep it dark to save her from fortune- 
 hunters.' There's your chance, my beamish boys," 
 cried the Doctor, with enthusiasm. " I only wish 
 I hadn't a wife and five young Macnabs. Now go 
 in one of you and win." 
 
6 Miss B 
 
 " Sixty thou' a year," miu'mm'ed Dale contem- 
 platively. 
 
 " What did you su}' lier nnme is ? " inquired Fan- 
 court, with an appearance of awakening interest. 
 
 " Can't read it," said Macnah. " Deedes doesn't 
 write copper-plate. ' Bullion ' it can't be, no such 
 name — ap2-)ropriate to the lady though. Here, waiter, 
 bring a list of passengers going by the Rix.mldar.'''' 
 
 There were only two single ladies whose names 
 began with B — these were Miss BuUer and Miss 
 Butler. " Well, it's one of them," said Macnab. 
 " It's for 3"ou to find out which. Don't fight over her." 
 
 "Wonder if she's prettj'," mused Fancourt. 
 
 "Bet you she's as ugly as old boots," muttered Dale. 
 
 " All very rich women r/>r," sighed the other. 
 
 " Never mind her face, my lads, think of her 
 figure," said the Doctor sententiously. " Now, I'm 
 off to roost — we sail at eight, remember." 
 
 As the Doctor left the room, a 3'oung lady of 
 ordinary appearance and of homely habiliments, w]io 
 had been dining by herself at an adjacent table, shot 
 a penetrating glance at the subalterns, and, rising 
 slowly, went into the sitting-room. 
 
 The young men descended to the hall, and lighted 
 their cigars. The^' had exchanged barely a syllable 
 
Miss B—— 7 
 
 since Maenab left them, and both appeared to be 
 absorbed in reverie. As they put on their cover- 
 coats preparatory to a post-prandial stroll, they 
 simultaneously exclaimed — 
 
 " Deuced fortunate Jack Smith's not here ! " 
 The voyage commenced auspiciously. The 
 RkmJday was an excellent vessel. The passengers 
 were agreeable people, the weather was delightful, 
 and Jack Smith did not turn up, but at the last 
 moment telegraphed to say that the sudden illness of a 
 wealthy and venerable relative, concerning whom 
 it was known that he cherished the most 
 encom-aging expectations, would detain him in 
 England until the departure of the following steamer. 
 Thus the young soldiers felt that they had before 
 them a clear field for whatever ventures their sense 
 of the expedient might impel them to engage in. 
 But for the first time during a long and intimate 
 acquaintance the two friends became sensible of a 
 restraint in one another's society, and, as though by 
 tacit agreement, it soon fell out that they seldom 
 found themselves together. They sat apart at meals, 
 and even the nightly pipe, that bond and sacrament 
 of good fellowship, was smoked with some other 
 conijianion. 
 
8 Miss B 
 
 On the second evening after leaving Southampton, 
 as Dale was sauntering on deck with the officer of 
 the watch, the latter chanced to inquire whether 
 Dale knew a ladj' on board named Butler. This 
 was the plainlj-dressed young lady whom we 
 observed dining at the hotel. "Tho}^ ^^jT 
 continued the sailor, " that the girl is hard hit about 
 some smart fellow in England, and that her people 
 are shipping her off to Calcutta for change of scene. 
 She told Mrs. Cackle the whole story." 
 
 This was important news for Dale. It harmonized 
 with one of the particulars related in Mr, Deedes' 
 letter. It was a gleam of light, and he treasm-ed it 
 as a turf tout hugs a straight tip on a real good thing. 
 The chances of travel had made Dale Miss Butler's 
 vla-a-i'k at table, and the practised eye of tlie Lancer 
 had already noted that the lady's glance fell not 
 unfrequently in the direction of his own good-looking 
 face. 
 
 The day after liis conversation with the ship's 
 officer, he picked up the 3'oung lady's thimble for 
 her and made its presentation the vehicle of a self- 
 accomplished introduction. They discoursed upon 
 the delightful weather and the graceful lliglit of the 
 sea-gulls, and both agreed that aquamarine was a 
 
Miss B 9 
 
 colour of uurivalled beauty. The damsel, who was 
 as plain in featui'e as she was in raiment, held 
 but little intercourse with the other passengers, 
 and occupied herself from morning till night with 
 some abstruse description of needlework ; occasion- 
 ally, but that was in the absence of Dale, she 
 amused herself with a novel. It is needless, there- 
 fore, to say that the sagacious soldier at once 
 found himself in easy and unchallenged possession. 
 
 Miss Buller was a being of a very different order. 
 She was a strikingly handsome girl, and everything 
 about her, from her boots to her brilliants, betokened 
 wealth as plainly as Miss Butler's surroundings 
 indicated poverty. 
 
 She was vivacious and sociable, and talked fluently 
 about the doings of the ujDper ten thousand. Her 
 diamonds anrl emeralds were disj^laj'ed perhaps a 
 little more copiously than good taste might desire, 
 but then she had small and w'ell-shaped hands, and 
 the rings suited them. 
 
 Fancourt regarded her at first critically, then 
 approvingly, and at last admiringly. He was 
 satisfied that the heiress was not Dale's friend, and 
 that the prize could consequently be none other than 
 Miss Buller. Yet at times he was sorely perplexed. 
 
lo Miss D 
 
 He was a })ast-master in all that relates to the ways 
 of women, and his experience, deep and comprehen- 
 sive though it was, afforded liim no instance of a 
 well-born girl of enormous wealth and no little 
 beauty, who had been out in the world for some 
 time — Miss Buller confessed to three seasons — and 
 had yet been suffered to complete the term of her 
 legal infancy without the tutelary interposition of a 
 husband hi esse or in posse. But after long and 
 anxious deliberation he came to the conclusion 
 that the young lady in question formed a brilliant 
 and unique exception to the general rule. She was 
 a Koh-i-noor among maidens, and Lieutenant Fan- 
 court was her discoverer. But was he destined ever to 
 wear this radiant gem ? Alas ! rumours were soon 
 busy about the ship, rumours that occasioned him 
 the utmost disquietude, for he was not the only 
 captivator of dames on board, and attention to Miss 
 Buller became exasperatingly general when it was 
 whispered that she abeady counted her income by 
 lacs, and in the not far distant future would reckon 
 it by crores. 
 
 It is to be suspected that this report had its origin 
 in certain unguarded confidences with which Surgeon- 
 Major Macnab had favoured the ship's doctor over a 
 
Miss B 1 1 
 
 very late glass of whisky-toddy on the night follow- 
 ing their departiu-e from Southampton ; but to 
 whatever cause it may be attributed, the competition 
 for Miss Buller's good graces soon became strenuous 
 and unremitting. 
 
 A young Indian Civilian (first of his year), of 
 undeniable classical attainments, celebrated the 
 lady's charms in several beautiful choriambic pen- 
 tameters, which he handed to her one morning after 
 breakfast; and a stalwart gentleman from the 
 Antipodes fervently urged upon her acceptance a 
 well-matched team of chestnut thorough-breds, foaled 
 on his own run, and schooled with his own hands ; 
 but as the verses were in Latin, and the coursers were 
 in Queensland, these other-^dse formidable overtures 
 proved in no degree prejudicial to the interests of the 
 young Lancer, who, notwithstanding all opposition, 
 and in spite of occasional moonlight strolls and quiet 
 chats in secluded corners, half-scornfully conceded to 
 deluded rivals, was soon installed as first favourite, 
 and permitted steadily to improve his advantage. 
 
 By the time the Rissaldar anchored at Valetta, 
 Fancourt and Dale were friends again. They never 
 alluded even remotely to the subject of heiresses, but 
 spoke to one another in a vague, dreamy sort of way 
 
! 2 Miss B 
 
 about the superiority of the settled life of a married 
 man, to the chequered and aimless existence of a 
 bachelor. Sometimes they would become slightly 
 metaphysical, and one would solemnly remark that 
 affinities were deuced uncommonly curious things, 
 and the other would nod gravely and moralize upon 
 the wonderful influence that Fate has over a fellow's 
 destiny. And so the happy days sped by, while the 
 big toiling ship was ever steadily ploughing her way 
 eastward to the now not distant goal. 
 
 It was a charming moonlight night ; the sky 
 glittered like Streeter's shop-window on a bright June 
 morning ; the sea was as smooth as the pavement of 
 Pall Mall, and the keel of the good ship was as steady 
 as the foundations of "Westminster Abbey. It was 
 the last night of the voyage, and the passengers had 
 retired to bed early in order to prepare themselves for 
 the labours of the morrow. 
 
 The deck was deserted save by fom- people who 
 formed two couples, one of which lingered at the 
 stern, gazing down at the ship's coruscating track, 
 wliile the other loitered at the bulwarks, and directed 
 romantic glances towards the star-girt moon. 
 
 " Do you honestly despise wealth and position ? " 
 asked a soft voice at the stern. 
 
Miss B \i 
 
 " And you really love me for myself alone ? " 
 rippled from a rosebud moutli at the bulwarks. 
 
 A malicious twinkle gleamed from out the stellar 
 depths, and the infusoria broke into a thousand 
 laughing sparkles in the vessel's wake. The answers, 
 audible only to her to whom they were addressed, 
 were accompanied by precisely the same action ; an 
 arm encii'cled the waist of the querist, and a long 
 unresisted kiss terminated the dialogue. " &afe ! " 
 was the triumphant ejaculation uttered in the 
 inmost recesses of at least three quickly beating 
 hearts. The stars smiled with a chilly astral sneer ; 
 the giddy molecules rolled over and over in a 
 delirium of spiteful glee ; while a little cloud that had 
 been hovering above the moon droj)ped across it for 
 a moment like the lid of a winkiug eye. 
 
 Three days after the Bi^mlilar had glided to her 
 moorings at Mazagou,two marriages were celebrated 
 in that remarkable arrangement of masonry which 
 the inhabitants of Bombay accept as a Cathedral, 
 and the local journals in their next issue contained 
 the following items of domestic intelligence : — 
 
 ''On tlie 1st of A[)iil. at tlie Cathtdral, Bombay, hy the 
 Rev. .Toyne Ilaiides: ^yviaTl Dale, l.ieut., lioyal IJuby 
 Lancers, to Sarali lUitler, eldest daiii;liter of the late Patrick 
 
[4 Miss B 
 
 Arminius Butler, Esq., of Dublin : and at tlie same time and 
 place, Charles iledows Stanley Fancourt, Lieut., Eoyal liuby 
 J^ancers, to Florence Imogen Clarissa, sole surviving daughter 
 of Horace Fitzroy BuUer, l-'.sq., formerly of Belgrave Square, 
 London, and of the Grange, East Bulsted, Kent." 
 
 Ou the following day they all started for Jehan- 
 num, where the " Rabies " were in garrison. 
 
 " Now which of you two fellows has got the plum ?" 
 asked the Doctor, in a stage whisper, as the three men 
 were taking their tickets at the Boree Bunder 
 Railway Station. 
 
 " Don't know, and don't care," was the ready 
 response. 
 
 " Love in a cottage for one of you," said Macnab, 
 pursing his mouth. 
 
 " You're always so beastly mercenary, Macnab." 
 
 But as they spoke the young men in their hearts 
 respected the worldly wisdom of their senior, and 
 each felt a vague sort of pity for the other. 
 
 The Lancers had a cajiital Mess. Their Bungalow 
 was by far the coolest building in Jehaunum, Avhich, 
 as every well-informed person knows, is a proverbially 
 hot station ; and the pleasantly-shaded ante- room, 
 with its large punkahs and well-watered window- 
 mats, was a favoimte afternoon lounge on the days 
 when the English mail came in. 
 
Miss B 15 
 
 Ou tlie first pay-day after their arrival at their 
 new station the young Benedicts went with a light 
 heart into a committee of ways and means with their 
 respective wives. It was the first time that reference 
 had been made in either establishment to the not 
 unimportant subject of supply. 
 
 An horn' or two later h'ancoiu't strolled into the 
 ante-room of the Lancers' Mess with a gloomy, not 
 to say despairing, expression on his usually serene 
 featm-es : his hands were thrust deep into his 
 trousers pockets, and his white teeth were set with 
 vicious energy on the stump of an extinct cheroot. 
 As he entered the room he met Dale, who looked 
 as though he had just received sentence of death. 
 
 " Wisli you joy, Dale," 
 
 " Congratulate you, Fancourt." 
 
 There was a painful want of cordiality in their 
 greetings, and for a moment they glared at one 
 another fiercely. 
 
 " What the devil do you mean ? " was the recipro- 
 cal and discourteous rejoinder. 
 
 Dale was the first to speak. " I have just dis- 
 covered that my wife has not got a penny, so yours 
 
1 6 Miss B 
 
 possesses £30,000 a year, which," he added icily, " I 
 suppose is a subject for congratulation." 
 
 " Mrs, Dale wdthout a penny ! —Is nlie not the 
 heii'ess ? " asked Fancourt slowly. 
 
 " The /leiirss, my dear fellow ! — you know perfectly 
 well she's not ! " was the angry reply. 
 
 Fancourt appeared to be utterly bewildered, but 
 after a short pause resumed : " Mi/ wife told me 
 this afternoon that her father had just gone through 
 the Court, and that she was being sent out to live 
 with an uncle in a Sepoy regiment." 
 
 " And Mrs. Dale," said the other, with a bitter 
 laugh, " was coming out in connection with a 
 Zenana mission." 
 
 " Mail's in ! " cried Macnab, bustling into tlie room 
 followed by the Mess-Sergeant carrying a bundle of 
 newspapers. "Hullo ! " exclaimed the Doctor, glancing 
 df)wn the columns of the Home JVeic-i. " Did you 
 ercr hear of such luck ? Tust like him ! Listen : — 
 ' Miss Bulteel, the great Warwickshire heiress, who 
 was about to proceed to India on a visit to her relative 
 the Governor-General, is engaged to be married to 
 Captain John Smith, Y.C., Eoyal Euby Lancers. 
 The circumstances attending the engagement are of a 
 highly romantic character. Miss Bulteel and Captain 
 
Miss B 17 
 
 Smith, \\\w, we understand, were then perfect 
 strangers, had taken their passage to Bombay 
 by the SS. Rismldar, but being j)revented by 
 unforeseen circumstances from sailing in that 
 vessel, both of them made arrangements to 
 proceed to India in the following steamer. Miss 
 Bulteel proposed to join the ship in the Solent, 
 embarking from her uncle Lord Spynnacre's yacht, 
 but the day being stormy, it was with the utmost 
 diffieidty that the yacht's boat could be brought 
 alongside the steamer. In ascending the ladder 
 the young lady slipped and fell into the sea, 
 while at the same moment a large wave capsized the 
 boat, rendering all aid from that quarter impossible. 
 Miss Bulteel would, in all human probability, have 
 perished, had not the gallant Smith, who was viewing 
 the scene from the steamer's deck, immediately leaped 
 into the water and supported the half-dro\A'ned lady, 
 until a boat was lowered. Gratitude to her brave 
 preserver soon ripened into a w^armer feeling, and 
 before they arrived at Gibraltar they had become 
 engaged. They returned to England by the next 
 homeward-bound mail-boat, and prepaiations are 
 already in progress for the celebiation of the wedding 
 early in the autumn. It is reported in military 
 
 
 
1 8 Mus B 
 
 circles that Captain Smith sends in liis papc-rs and 
 retires from ihe service.' " 
 
 " Whcir ! " -whistled the worthy Doctor, looking 
 compassionately at tlie two blank faces before him; 
 " well, at any rate, you both get a step; and, after all, 
 the young woman would have been thrown away 
 upon either of you, as it is not your form to nutrry 
 money, don't ye see ? " 
 
 There was an interval of silence. Neither of the 
 younger men had any remark to offer ; one sat with 
 his gaze fixed upon the ceiling, the other with his 
 eyes riveted upon the floor — their legs were stretched 
 out to the fartliest length, and their hands were 
 buried in their ^lockets. The Doctor continued 
 impertm'bably : " You see, you fellows married for 
 love " — the miserahle subalterns winced — " and quite 
 right too — that is to say, regarding life from your 
 point of view ; but," he added, with a wicked twinkle 
 of the eye, and a sly shake of the head, " I think, 
 taking all that you have told me into consideration, 
 that if I had been in yoiir place, my dear boys, I 
 should have been mean enough to go in for coin. 
 Mess-boy, bring me a peg." 
 
BURNT FINGERS. 
 
 A. BEAUTIFUL jouDg woman stood gazing at the sun 
 * as it sank in a confused glory of orange and purple 
 behind the mountain barrier that sliields the little hill- 
 station of Baowao from the fury of the summer 
 monsoon. Lounging carelessly by her side was a 
 middle-aged man of small statui'e and homely features. 
 He carried a stout umbrella, and was arrayed in 
 garments of the subdued tint affected by the Indian 
 cleric out for a holiday. 
 
 During some moments neither of them spoke. 
 The silence was at length broken by an exclamation 
 from the lady. 
 
 " Oh, Joltn ! how foolish of me !_I have dropped 
 my sunshade." 
 
 They were leaning over the parapet of a lichen- 
 covered stone bridge which spanned a narrow but 
 deep gully, along which a shallow stream babbled 
 among tangled undergrowth and boulders. Half- 
 
20 Burn I Fiuqcrs. 
 
 way down tbo Lank grew a small guava-tree, from a 
 straggling branch of which the sunshade was now 
 helplessly suspended. 
 
 " Allow me to get it for you." 
 
 The tones were deep and musical. Now, John's 
 articulation was void of melody, and the voice 
 clearly was not his. The lady turned her head 
 and saw a stranger in the act of lightly vaulting 
 over the parapet. He returned in a moment, 
 and as he gave her the sunshade he bowed with 
 the easy grace of a finished squire of dames. 
 He was a tall, good-looking fellow of the rakish 
 heavy dragoon order, which, according to a certain 
 eminent lady-novelist, typifies all that is excellent 
 in man. 
 
 " Lovely evening," he remarked. " Have you just 
 come up ? " 
 
 " We arrived this morning," replied John. 
 
 *' Staying at the hotel ? " 
 
 " No ; we have taken a little house called ' Eglan- 
 tine,' near the church." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I know the place, little house with a 
 gable. I shall, with your permission, do myself the 
 honour of calling upon you. Grood evening," and 
 with an admiring glance at John's companion, the 
 
Ihiriit Fill errs. 2 i 
 
 v> 
 
 interesting stranger gracefully lifted his sombrero 
 and strolled away. 
 
 The next day being Sunday, the new arrivals 
 attended church, and the entire station spent the 
 remainder of the afternoon in discussing them. 
 
 It was discovered at the Post-Offiee that their 
 name was Birt, and it was stated, with some show of 
 authority, that tlie gentleman was a Nonconformist 
 minister ; this statement was at once accepted, all 
 conflicting theories being excluded by the stranger's 
 appearance and demeanour. Opinion, however, 
 was not so united regarding the personal attributes of 
 the lady. The men with one voice declared her to 
 be the handsomest woman it had been the good 
 fortune of Baowao to behold for years ; but the 
 ladies found a something in her eyes, or her 
 mouth, or her nose, or her expression that was 
 hopelessly inconsistent with any well - founded 
 claim to real beauty. But it was ever the same 
 — from the day when Lilith criticized the newly- 
 arrived Eve, and the world first heard the accents 
 of detraction. 
 
 On the following morning, as Mrs. Birt was sitting 
 in her little verandah attempting to sketch the peak 
 of Mount Marguerite, which formed the most promi 
 
2 2 Biirnt Fingers. 
 
 nent object in the landscape before her, a card was 
 
 brought in : — 
 
 Captain LoimAiNE, 
 40th Hussars. 
 
 She handed it to her husband, remarking that it 
 probably appertained to tlie obliging gentleman that 
 had rescued her sunshade at the bridge. 
 
 She was right. Captain Lorraine had promised to 
 call, and he was a man who scrupulously fulfilled all 
 engagements of that nature when made with a pretty 
 woman. 
 
 The visit was not of long duration,, and the talk 
 was of the commonplace order peculiar to first calls; 
 but the gallant soldier went home strangely discom- 
 posed, and with a confused vision of two small black 
 brodequins and a pair of large blue ej^es, which 
 rendered him unusually contemplative during the 
 remainder of the da}'. 
 
 tSome portion of the result of the Captain's reflec- 
 tions may be gathered from the subjoined letter which 
 arrived at ' Eglantine ' a day or two after this inter- 
 view : — 
 
 "The Nest, Wednesday . 
 
 " Dear Mk. Birt— Will you and Mrs. Birt give me the 
 pleasure of your company at a little picnic which I am getting 
 up for to-morroAV. We are going to the large Cascade, and 
 
Burnt Fino^ers. 23 
 
 ride by the Upper Road. I will send ponies for j'ou both, 
 and will, if you allow me, act as your pioneer. 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 '• "\'lCTOR LORRATXF.'" 
 
 The picnic was a delightful outing. Mr. Bii-t 
 happened to have brought his own pony, but the 
 Captain's offer of a mount was thankfully accepted 
 on behalf of the lady. 
 
 Lorraine was assiduous in his solicitude for their 
 comfort throughout the day ; and seeing that Mr. 
 Birt was deeply engaged with a cheroot and a 
 brandy-and-soda, the Captain, with his usual 
 thoughtfulness, offered to show Mrs. Birt the 
 famous view of the Cascade, which is seen to such 
 advantage from the opposite side of the torrent ; 
 but, after crossing by the stepping-stones to the 
 other bank, he was doubtless mucb gratified to find 
 that Mr. Bu-t had silently joined tliem, and that tlie 
 " Padre " therefore would not be deprived of the 
 pleasure whicli that charming prospect never fails to 
 afford a stranger. 
 
 After this Mr. Birt attended his wife so closely 
 throughout tlie day that the obliging Captain found 
 it impossible to show her even a tree-fern or a wild 
 bee's nest without the escort of tlie faithful Jolm. 
 
24 Burnt Fingers. 
 
 The picnic was much enjoyed by all, except 
 perhaps by the host, who appeared to be suffering 
 from some concealed vexation ; and when a com- 
 parison of watches placed it beyond doubt that the 
 time had arrived to set out for home, the regrets were 
 eloquent and universal. 
 
 Captain Lorraine, owing to the exigencies pre- 
 sented by a narrow bridle-path, found himself on 
 the return journey riding in the rear of the column 
 with an elderly lady, of high local rank, who 
 detained him as her escort until he was called away 
 by a sudden confusion at the head of the line. 
 
 Mr. Birt's pony was obstinately refusing to pass 
 a fallen tree that lay across the road, leaving but a 
 narrow passage between its farthermost branches and 
 a precipice. The animal had passed it in the morn- 
 ing without trouble, but not liking the aspect 
 from this side, reared, snorted, and showed unmis- 
 takable signs of vicious and determined refusal. 
 
 In vain his rider plied both heels and umbrella, 
 the steed had hardened its heart, and Mr. Bu-t was 
 compelled to draw up on one side and let his more 
 comfortably mounted companions proceed. When 
 all had gone by, Captain Lorraine, who had promptly 
 taken the vacant place by the side of Mrs. Birt — she 
 
Burnt Fingers. 25 
 
 looked more lovely than ever in her anxiety for 
 John's safety— cheerfully called out to the " Padre " 
 that they were only three miles from home, and that 
 as soon as they got back, he would send a quiet pony 
 for the derelict, and a syce to bring home the refrac- 
 tory animal by the lower road. 
 
 Mr. Birt, however, not relishing the prospect of an 
 hour's delay upon the (jlrnt, slowly trotted his pony 
 •back for some fifty yards, and, suddenly turning its 
 stubborn little head, came down towards the gap at 
 a smart canter. On approaching the opening the 
 pony, either swerving or jdelding to an impulse 
 communicated by its rider, went straight as an 
 arrow at the prostrate trunk and cleared the timber 
 like a deer. 
 
 " Well done ! " shouted Lorraine, with a touch of 
 disappointment in his tone, " you must run that pony 
 of yours for the Baowao Cup, Mr. Birt." 
 
 " All right," was the reply, "you can enter him 
 for me if you like." 
 
 •' Owners up, you know," said Lorraine, "svith a 
 quizzical smile. 
 
 " I'm agreeable," said Mr. Birt resignedly, " so 
 long as it's not owners down." 
 
 They all laughed at the little joke, and that 
 
2 6 Burnt Fingers. 
 
 evening Lorraine entered the pony for the steeple- 
 chase. 
 
 The Captain shared his Bungalow with a young 
 gentleman of his own regiment, who was known 
 among his familiars as " the Boy." To this appella- 
 tion the Baowao ladies had seen fit to add a qualifica- 
 tion, and called him "the Pretty Boy," but his name 
 stood recorded in the Army List as Thomas Latch- 
 ford. 
 
 Observing that, since the picnic, his chum had 
 been gradually lapsing into despondency, and readily 
 divining the cause, the sagacious subaltern proposed 
 to his senior that they should give a tennis-party 
 followed by a small and early dance. 
 
 The suggestion was adopted with alacrity, and the 
 Captain, restored and comforted, again betook him- 
 self to pen and ink. On this occasion, however, he 
 confined himself to the inscription of a few words 
 upon a card : — 
 
 " Captain Lorraine and Mr. Latcliford at home. 
 " Monday, L'Jth May. 
 " Lawn-Tennis, Dancing. 
 "Thk Nkst." -11.8. V.P." 
 
 The above, after several transcripts of it had been 
 made by Latchford, was placed in one of the Captain's 
 
Btirnt Fingers. 27 
 
 best envelopes and carefully dii'eeted in that officer's 
 own hand to Mrs. Birt, who on behalf of herself and 
 the faithful John g-raciously accepted the invitation. 
 
 The party was attended by all the station, for the 
 occupants of "The Nest" were as popular as they 
 were hospitable, and the gaieties of Baowao were 
 not so numerous as to clash one with another. 
 
 Considerable diversion was occasioned by the awk- 
 wardness displayed in the tennis-court by Mr. Birt, 
 who was not a proficient in the popular game, but all 
 allowed that the light and graceful waltzing of his 
 wife in the dance that followed left nothing to be 
 desired even by the most fastidious. 
 
 " The Boy," who was no mean performer in his 
 pumps, was Mrs. Birt'smost favoured partner; while 
 the elder warrior, now more dejected than ever, was 
 obliged to content himself with the well-meaning but 
 ponderous pirouetting of a local belle, who more than 
 once took occasion to remark to her mournful cavalier 
 that she could not understand what the men saw to 
 rave about in that milk-and-water child, Mrs. Birt. 
 
 When the two Hussars met the next day at a very 
 late breakfast, Captain Lorraine gloomily congratu- 
 lated his junior on the good luck that had befallen 
 him on the previous evening. " You made great 
 
2 8 Buiiil Fing-ej's 
 
 •> 
 
 running with Mrs. B., Tom," he observed, as he 
 wearily cracked an egg. 
 
 " I did so, old fellow," replied the ingenuous Boy ; 
 " I had five dances with her off the reel, and what's 
 more, she's asked me to dine with them to-morrow." 
 
 The Captain dropped his egg- spoon and stared 
 long and sternly at the favoured subaltern : his 
 feelings then found vent in a subdued whistle. 
 
 After the night of the dance Latchford dined 
 frequently at " Eglantine," and something in the nature 
 of a coldness gradually arose between the two comrades 
 in arms. Luckily, however, for their mutual friend- 
 ship, Lorraine, who was the Honorary Secretary to 
 the Grymkhana, was during the next few days too 
 busily employed in making arrangements for the 
 coming race-meeting to brood over the caprices of 
 fortune and the vanity of human wishes. 
 
 It was remarked by those who paid attention to 
 such matters that the jumps on this occasion were 
 much stiff er than usual ; and, moreover, that for the 
 first time in the history of the meeting a repulsive- 
 looking double formed one of the obstacles. 
 
 On the morning of the race all the station met at 
 the little library to make up their books and 
 discuss the coming events. 
 
Bum/ Finoers. 29 
 
 Captain Lon-aine, a betting-book in Lis hand and 
 a pencil between bis teeth, was absorbed in abstruse 
 calculations. " Will you back your mount, Mr. 
 Birt ? " he asked, as that gentleman entered the 
 room ; " I'll give you ten to one." 
 
 " Ten to one, eh ?— ten to one. What in ? " 
 "Mohurs or rupees, just as you like," replied the 
 Captain carelessly. 
 
 "Oh, do bet gold-mohurs, John," cried Mrs. 
 5irt ; " you know how I want a coin necklace." 
 " Mohui's, then," said John. 
 
 " Tens or hundreds ? " asked Lorraine. He was 
 getting angry, and felt inclined to plunge, 
 
 " Hundreds," answered John, with sturdy resolu- 
 tion, as he proceeded to book the bet in a ch-opsieal 
 old pocket-book. 
 
 There was a large gathering to ^\itness the races. 
 Planters rode in from all quarters, and many people 
 came up from the plains, for the Baowao pony-meet- 
 ing afiForded a very pleasant holiday. 
 
 Before the great event of the day came off, several 
 
 flat races and a match were run, and while these 
 
 minor matters were in progress, Mr. Birt, imibrella 
 
 ■ in hand and cheroot in mouth, sauntered quietly 
 
 round the steeple-chase course. 
 
30 Bu7'nt Fingers. 
 
 He liugered a little at the double, and the faintest 
 trace of a smile played over his solemn features as his 
 eye fell upon the stalwart form of the Honorary 
 Secretary towering among a distant group of ladies. 
 
 There were five entries for the steeplechase, and 
 each animal was ridden by its owner. The follow- 
 ing was the list : — 
 
 Captain l.orraine's l>. a. p. J 1st. 12 lbs. ,,Tlie Pet. 
 
 Mr. Latchford's ch. a. p. 9st. 7 lb«. ...Monkey. 
 
 „ Noakes' g. cb. p. lOst. ...Indigo. 
 
 „ Stokes' 1)1. cb. p. lOst. olbs. ...Lightning. 
 
 „ ]'.ii-t's cli. aus. p. 9st. ...Kangaroo. 
 
 Wlien the ponies assembled at the starting-post, 
 Captain Lorraine looked with profound surprise, not 
 unmingled mth dismay, at Mr. Bu't, who, in his 
 racing dress, wore a very different appearance from 
 the semi-clerical John of private life. 
 
 That gentleman now Avore coloui's that once were 
 dark blue, but by much hard work had been worn 
 to a serviceable brown ; his tops and breeches were 
 unexceptionable, but his jockey cap still carried an old 
 stain which spoke of too close a contact with mother 
 earth. His keen grey eyes flashed with demure 
 roguery, and his saturnine face beamed as though 
 with the light of coming pleasure. 
 
Burnt Fing^ers 
 
 '<b 
 
 KdXijaroo was a }>ietiire of racing form ; aud liis 
 rider, as lie brought him into line, looked from cap 
 to spm' a horseman. 
 
 Mr. Bii-t nodded good-humouredly to " the Boy," 
 and told him to sit fast at the double. 
 
 " Hein back there ! Steadj^ a bit on the left — 
 go!!!" 
 
 At the first fence there was a sudden fall in IndUjo ; 
 at the water Mr. Stokes performed a remarkable feat 
 of acrobatic horsemanship, clearing the brook all by 
 himself ; but as probably he was a bad conductor, 
 LUjlitn'uKj remained on the other side. Birt then 
 found himself alone with the two Hussars. Both 
 his opponents rode well, and their ponies, which were 
 above the average, had been carefully schooled. 
 Lorraine lay a little behind, but " the Boy " kept 
 Monkey well abreast of Kangaroo. Mr. Bii't now 
 slightly forced the pace, and brought Latchford up to 
 a stone wall a trifle quicker than that astute young 
 gentleman would have travelled had he not been 
 afraid of losing touch of Kangaroo, whose rider took 
 a pull just in time to steady him for the jump. The 
 result was as Bii't had intended : Monkey shot 
 a-head and fell, and although " the Boy " was soon 
 in the saddle again, the course was so short tliat he 
 
32 Durul Fingers. 
 
 was practically out of the race. Lorraine now came 
 np and raced Birt neck and neck to the double, both 
 entered it together, but Birt left it by himself. It was 
 too stiff for the Fd, good beast though he was, to 
 get out of with such a welter weight as Lorraine. 
 Kangaroo having thus squandered the field, romped 
 home an easy winner by several lengths, the panting 
 and perspiring 3Ionkey struggling in gamely, a 
 very indifferent second 
 
 Mr. Birt left Baowao after an exceedingly profit- 
 a.ble settling-day ; for, in addition to his heavy bet 
 with Lorraine, he had, before dressing for the 
 race, backed Kangaroo extensively : the " Padre's" 
 general appearance, and especially his umbrella, in- 
 ducing the confiding highlanders to give him more 
 satisfactory odds than would have been obtainable 
 had the dark sportsman been seen in his racing colours. 
 
 As he walked, gingham in hand, down the gMt, 
 followed by Mrs. Birt on Kangaroo, and a train of 
 coolies carrjdng their baggage, he ever and anon 
 hummed softly to himself a few lines of a good old 
 English song which has for its simple refrain the 
 words : " I'm a young man from the country, but 
 you don't get over me.'" 
 
Burnt Fingers. 33 
 
 A few days after Mr. Birt's departure, a Major 
 Hamilton of the 40th arrived at Baowao and put up 
 with his brother-officers at " The Nest." As the 
 tliree sat smoking and talking about the race- 
 meeting the Major remarked : "So you have had 
 Jack Birt and his pony up here ; of coiu'se, you had 
 no chance for the Cup." 
 
 "And who the mischief k Jack Birt?" asked 
 Lorraine, with much interest. 
 
 " Birt," replied Hamilton, " is the new Waler 
 jock. Haven't you heard about him ? He has 
 come over to ride for the Eajah of Skurri. The 
 pony was well known in Melboiu'ne. They called it 
 over there the Curate's Cob. Birt, you may have 
 noticed, looks more like a parson than a jockey." 
 
 The Captain changed the conversation. 
 
 " Vic, old boy, will you lend me a thou' ? " asked 
 Latchford, as he and Lorraine were winding up their 
 affau's at the close of their leave. 
 
 "I'm pretty well cleared out by Mr. Birt," said 
 Lorraine, " but I think I can manage it. Can't you 
 write a cheque, though ? You are well enough 
 known up here." 
 
 1) . 
 
34 Burnt Fingers. 
 
 " No use," said " the Boy " ruefully. " Birt had 
 a cheque for all my balance at Tinny's." 
 
 " Bets ? " laconically inquired Lorraine. 
 
 " No — f'carte,^^ miirmured Latchford, almost blush- 
 ing. " You see, whenever I dined up there I played 
 ecarte after dinner with Mi'S. B., while Birt looked 
 on ; he said he never touched cards, it was against 
 his principles. Madame, though, was a nailer at it, 
 
 and she had the luck of the very d 1 in holding 
 
 the king." 
 
SERGEANT SPELTER. 
 
 " Deserters are easy enough, they mostly all get 
 into civilians' dress, and then thej're nabbed." The 
 speaker was Mr. Robert Runnymead, formerly an 
 Inspector of the Madras City Police. He spoke 
 with an air of authority, and I felt tliat I was con- 
 versing with an expert. 
 
 " You mean," said I, " that theii- military bearing 
 betrays them." 
 
 "Exactly so. I once caught two of them by 
 going into a railway-station waiting-room, on 
 suspicion like, and suddenly shouting 'attention,' 
 when up jumps a couple of gunners that had made a 
 run of it from Mhow. They pretended they'd got up 
 just to look at the clock. 
 
 " I suppose there is not much difficulty when they 
 wear unifonn ? " I remarked. 
 
 " Well, there ought not to be ; but I've had my 
 
 D 2 
 
36 Sergeant Spelter. 
 
 disappointments in deserters as in most other things. 
 I recollect once being nicely sold by a deserter. 
 
 " Ten or fifteen years ago a good many of them 
 used to make their way down to the seaport towns, 
 and if they could once manage to get on board ship 
 they were pretty safe ; for we couldn't wire after 
 them as they do now, there being no submarine 
 cable in those days. 
 
 " I was in charge of the B division at the time, 
 and as I had the roadstead under me, I caught a tidy 
 few of them as they tried to slip through. In fact, 
 my name stood rather high in the force in the matter 
 of deserters. I used to be called in the Department, 
 Inspector Run-'em-in — ha! ha! Run-'em-in was what 
 they used to call me. So when I read one morning 
 that Richard Spayne, Uuarter-Master Sergeant of 
 the Hallamshire Buffs, had bolted with a large sum 
 of money, and that five hundred rupees had been 
 offered by the civil authorities for his capture — for it 
 seems that he had committed some oifence under the 
 Penal Code as well — I said to myself, ' Well, 
 Sergeant Spayne, if you find your way to Madras 
 you're booked to me.' 
 
 " That afternoon, as I was writing up my diary, a 
 bit of paper was brought to me with the words 
 
Sergeant Spelter, 2i7 
 
 ' Sergeant Spelter, H.M.'s Hallamshii-e Light 
 Infantry ' written on it. So I put my work aside 
 and told tlie boy to show the Sergeant in. 
 
 " My visitor was a very intelligent-looking man, 
 and, in point of fact, was about as knowing as they're 
 made. He handed me a chit from the Commissioner 
 stating that the bearer was Sergeant Spelter, of the 
 Hallamshii-es, who had come do^Ti in search of 
 deserter Spayne, and I was to help him, and let him 
 have a police-boat and so forth. I didn't like this ; 
 I felt that it was interfering with my natural work ; 
 besides, you see, there was five hundred rupees on it ; 
 the rupee was then at par, and fifty pounds was a 
 consideration with me in those days — in fact, I don't 
 know the time when it has not been a consideration. 
 However, I had to be civil to the fellow, so I told 
 him to sit do^-n, and I gave him a cheroot and a 
 drink, and tried to get something out of him, but he 
 was close, close as wax. He evidently wanted that 
 five hundi-ed rupees as much as I did, and I 
 could hardly get so much as a description of 
 Spayne out of him. The roll sent from the Orderly 
 Room was very incomplete, and would have applied 
 to a hundred men in any regiment you like to name. 
 In point of fact, Spelter himself was not unlike 
 
38 Sergeant Spelter. 
 
 Spayne, only Spelter's liair was black, and Spayne's 
 was red, and Spelter's manner was soft and silky, 
 and Spayne's was said to be rougli and rude. 
 
 " I tell you I began to get a bit shirty with him at 
 last, and it struck me that it wouldn't be a bad move 
 to run liim in — on suspicion you know, only on 
 suspicion — and keep him till I had nabbed Spayne, 
 when I could say, * So sorry — over-zeal — stupid 
 mistake,' and all that. I wish now I had done 
 it, for Spelter was one too manj^ for me in the end. 
 
 " ' Well, Sergeant,' I said at last, ' I mil give you 
 all the help I can ; you can have a boat whenever 
 you want it. Do you require local information of 
 any kind to start with ? ' 
 
 " ' What steamers are in the roads ? ' he asked, 
 careless like. 
 
 " ' None. The Khatmandoo sailed this morning. 
 We sha'n't have another in for a week.' 
 
 " ' I know about the Khathiandoo,^ he replied ; 
 * she went an hour before I arrived, or I would have 
 gone aboard,' and he seemed a bit put out to have 
 missed her. 
 
 " ' Well, Sergeant,' I said, ' you come and see me to- 
 morrow and I'll tell you all I can gather; ' but I meant 
 to tell him just as much as I chose and no more. 
 
Sergeant Spelter. 39 
 
 " He then asked me to recommend him a quiet 
 hotel, so I took him round to the Strasburg ; and as 
 he was a stranger in Madras, and had little or nothing 
 in the way of luggage with him, the landlord wanted 
 a guarantee, so I stood security for his expenses. This 
 was going a little beyond what the Commissioner 
 had ordered, but I knew that we could arrange 
 matters afterwards with the regimental Adjutant. 
 
 " A week passed, and the Sergeant and I met every 
 day. Each time that he called upon me he wanted 
 a drink and a smoke, and then he had a way of always 
 getting me to lend him something or other : one 
 morning he borrowed five rupees ; another day he 
 asked for the loan of an umbrella ; the next time he 
 came he marched away with a box of my best 
 clieroots ; but he never had any news to give, and I 
 began to think that Spayne must have slipped off in 
 the KhatmcmdoOy or, maybe, had made for some 
 other port. 
 
 " At last two steamers came into the roads : the 
 Emu^ for Ceylon and Australia, and the Lachj Nishett, 
 for Calcutta. 
 
 " I knew that if Spayne was hiding anywhere in 
 Madras this would bring him out, so I had all my 
 men on the alert. I posted a Sergeant and three men 
 
40 Sergeant Spelter. 
 
 on the pier, and another mth a part}' on the fore- 
 shore ; a third I sent to the Lady Nishett, while I 
 myself went on board the Emu, where I remained 
 for foiu'-and- twenty mortal hoims, and left only when 
 the mails came on hoard. 
 
 "Not a single one among the passengers or the 
 ship's company had escaped my eye, and I was satis- 
 fied that the E)nu didn't hold the man. 
 
 "As I went down the side, up dashed a police- 
 boat ydih. Sergeant Spelter in it. He was smoking 
 one of my cheroots and sitting under my umbrella. I 
 shook my head and shouted, ' No go ; he's not on 
 board, and they're just off.' In fact, the lascars were 
 standing by, ready to haul up the ladder. 
 
 " ' I've certain information that he has left the 
 shore,' said Spelter, as he ran up the side. 
 
 " If so, he's on board the Ladi/ Nisheft, I thought, 
 but I only said, ' They'll take you to Ceylon, Spel- 
 ter.' 
 
 " ' Don't care if they do, so long as they take 
 Spajme too,' he cried. 
 
 " As soon as he got on deck the ladder was pulled 
 up, the screw began to move, and the ship steamed 
 out to sea. 
 
 " Thank the Lord ! I thought ; at any rate he's out 
 
Sergeant Spelter. 41 
 
 of the way, aud now I have a free hand. Tlic Lady 
 M.sbcti had her hlue Peter flying, so I boarded her 
 at once and had a good look round; but no one 
 answering in the smallest particular to Spayne was 
 among either passengers or crew. 
 
 " I remained in the vessel till she sailed, and as I 
 and my Sergeant went on shore we had a real hearty 
 laugh, I can tell you, over the trap Spelter had run 
 his clever head into. 
 
 " That evening I got a note from the landlord of 
 the Strasbui-g to say that Sergeant Spelter had 
 forgotten to pay his bill ; the account was enclosed, 
 and, believe me, it was a startler. The man drank 
 champagne-cup for early tea, and as for whisky, he 
 must have bathed in it. There was a tidy sum, too, 
 to pay for carriage-hii'e, and he had borrowed the 
 landlord's watch and chain. A queer sort of a 
 Sergeant, I thought, to send after a deserter ; but I 
 supposed the regimental authorities knew what they 
 were about. 
 
 " The next day I got an order to attend at the 
 Commissioner's office. When I entered the Colonel's 
 private room with the hotel-bill in the heel of my 
 fist, I saw a non-commissioned ofiicer in the Hallam- 
 shire uniform standing at attention in front of the 
 
42 Se7'geant Spelter. 
 
 table ; be was in the middle of a statement, and I 
 halted in the doorway so as not to interrupt him. 
 
 " ' He dyed his hair and whiskers black, your 
 honour,' he was saying, ' and he deserted with his 
 full Sergeant's uniform, and wherever he went he 
 gave out that he was on the track of deserter Spay ne. 
 He gave a new name at every place he went to : I 
 believe in Madras he called himself Spelter.' 
 
 " The Colonel looked at me, and I looked at the 
 Colonel." 
 
 " What did the Colonel say ? " I asked. 
 
 The old Inspector's eye twinkled. 
 
 " Never mind, sir, what the Colonel mid ; he paid 
 the bill." 
 
"WEIO WAS MRS. DUBERSOMEV 
 
 EvEKYBODY knew who Mr. Diibersome was. The 
 last-joined Civilian could have told you that he was 
 first in Council at Fort St. Greorge or, in the quaint 
 phraseology of our native fellow-subjects, "the 
 Second Grovernor ; " and the better informed could 
 have added that he was a son of Jack Dubersome, 
 late Judge of the twenty-four Pergunnahs, whom 
 his contemporaries, in a spirit of delicate irony, 
 dubbed " Truthful John." 
 
 Although Mr. Dubersome was far too astute a man 
 to earn for himself any such equivocal sobriquet as 
 that borne by his father, it must be admitted that he 
 was in no degree remarkable for his candour, and 
 that he had a way of so managing his speech as to 
 carry his frugality of the truth to the confines of 
 avarice. 
 
 It need not be said that from such a man it was 
 difficult to gather more of a subject than he thought 
 
44 ■' ^^0 zvas Mrs. Diibo'some ? " 
 
 fit to impart to you. So wiien after au unbroken 
 sojoui'n of more tlian tliirty years in the Carnatic he 
 suddenly departed westward on three months' 
 privilege leave, and returned at the expiration of that 
 period with a wife, people waited in painful anxiety 
 for some indication from him to satisfy their curiosity 
 as to the lady's connections, fortune, and position, 
 and the circumstances in which he had become 
 acquainted with her. 
 
 But John Dubersome made no sign, and as the 
 lady herself was equally uncommunicative, society 
 resorted to conjecture ; the logical basing their 
 theories upon inference, while the merely imagi- 
 native raised airy structures upon romance. 
 
 Some of the ladies expressed their absolute con- 
 viction that they had seen the new hurra Mem Sahib 
 before — but where ? — ah ! where ? 
 
 The men shook their heads sapiently, and wondered 
 where old Dubersome could have picked her up. 
 
 Doctor Cockle did not scruple to aver that she must 
 have been a hospital nm-se ; while clever Captain 
 Macready, of dramatic fame, held it to be self-evident 
 that she had been upon the stage : "In the pro- 
 vinces, don't you know." 
 
 Mrs. Argus coneuiTed in the latter opinion ; 
 
" TV/w zuas Airs. Diibersomef" 45 
 
 perhaps she was influenced therein by the belief that 
 such an extraction would not only impeach the new- 
 comer's social position, but might at the same time 
 reflect vaguely on her moral character. She there- 
 fore arranged a little plan "^-ith the adroit Captain by 
 means of which their pleasant hypothesis might be 
 brought to the proof. 
 
 But irhere had Mi'. Dubersome met the woman ? 
 It was established to the satisfaction of all that he 
 had not made her acquaintance in England ; for it 
 was no secret that his wanderings had not extended 
 beyond the little town of Sion in Switzerland, where 
 he was laid up with a sharp attack of bronchitis ; and 
 what would a hospital nurse, or an actress during the 
 height of the London season, be doing in an obsciu^e 
 village in the Canton of Yalais ? 
 
 The scheme concocted by Mrs. Argus and the 
 histrionic Captain was to persuade Mrs. Dubersome 
 to assist at some amatem- theatricals got up for 
 the occasion, in which a leading part was to be 
 assigned to the stranger, when it would be evident 
 fi-om the manifest superiority of her acting that 
 she was a genuine daughter of Thespis. 
 
 " You will detect it in a moment," declared the 
 Captain, '• by her manner of pronouncing e a r — 
 
46 " TV//0 was Mrs. Dnbersomef" 
 
 all her tears will be ' teeers/ and all her dears, 
 ' deeers.' " 
 
 Mrs. Dubersome good-naturedly accepted the Cap- 
 tain's invitation, but warned him, with a smile on her 
 comely face, that she could not assure liim that she 
 would not be overcome by stage-fright, for she had 
 never acted in her life. 
 
 The politic emissary of Mrs. Argus smirked 
 benignly, and said that he had not the slightest mis- 
 giving as to her success. 
 
 The play selected was the " Lady of Lyons," and 
 Mrs. Dubersome was cast for the heroine. 
 
 Expectation was at its height ; the place that did 
 duty for a theatre was crowded ; Captain Macready 
 excelled himself in his efforts to play up to Mrs. 
 Dubersome, and was well supported by the rest of the 
 company. In the centre seat of the second row sat 
 Mrs. Argus, her keen eyes assisted by a pair of 
 powerful opera- glasses, intently fixed uj)on the 
 debutante : but when the curtain fell, the general 
 verdict was that a more wooden and uninteresting 
 Pau title could not have been found within the confines 
 of broad Asia. Nevertheless Mrs. Argus was more 
 than ever convinced that Captain Macready was right : 
 " The woman is a born actress," she exclaimed, as 
 
" Who luas Mrs. Ditbersomef 47 
 
 she swept from the hall, " only instead of giving us 
 Pauline she was playing the part of Agnes'^ 
 
 Popular belief, however, now inclined to the view 
 propounded by Dr. Cockle, upon whom all eyes were 
 turned for a solution of the distressing problem, for 
 society was beginning plaintively to tell itself that 
 Mr. Dubersome had taken a cruelly unfaii" advantage 
 of it, and had introduced something contraband into 
 its sacred circle. 
 
 The Doctor was a man of infinite resource, and 
 before long he informed Mr. Dubersome that the 
 medical authorities were getting up an ambulance 
 class, and that if Mrs. Dubersome would kindly con- 
 sent to join it, her example he felt sure would be 
 followed by others, and the movement would be 
 safely inaugurated. 
 
 Mrs. Dubersome was delighted to have an oppor- 
 tunity of acquiring a knowledge of nursing. It was 
 so useful ; she would certainly join the class, only she 
 hoped the Doctor would not expect her to cut up 
 dead people : this she really could not undertake to 
 perform, even as an amateur. 
 
 The Doctor amply reassured her upon this point, 
 and in the course of a few days he had organized a 
 large class of ladies, not one of whom cared a hau-pin 
 
48 " JV/io zuas Mrs. Dubersomef 
 
 for the art of healing ; the common object being to 
 diagnose the wife of the Senior Member of Council, 
 and to discover in her the skill of an old practitioner. 
 
 But, unfortunately, Mrs. Dubersome was not a 
 better performer at the bedside than she was upon 
 the boards, and proved to be as clumsy in manipulat- 
 ing splints and bandages as Mrs. Ai'gus herself. 
 
 " No, she has never been a nurse," mused that 
 lady, " and yet, oh where, oh xchcrc could I have seen 
 her before ? " 
 
 After these disastrous failures, conjecture regard- 
 ing Mrs. Dubersome assumed luxuriously fantastic 
 shapes ; but each theory upon being subjected to the 
 test which its propounder considered the most certain 
 for its verification dissolved into thin air in the 
 crucible, leaving a caput mortimm of nescience to 
 distract the brain of the baffled inquirer. 
 
 It having oeciuTed to somebody that he or she had 
 once seen a face resembling that of Mrs. Dubersome 
 in a circus-troupe, Mrs. Ai-gus, after long and skilful 
 manoeuvring, succeeded in subjecting that much- 
 enduring lady to the ordeal of a gallop round the 
 island ; but as the Councillor's wife swayed about 
 during the exercise lilce a bear on a pole, and finished 
 by assuming a sitting posture on the Moimt Road, 
 
•' IF/io zc/as Mrs. Dnbcrsonief" 49 
 
 it was decided that she had never posed as the rider 
 of six abreast. 
 
 Then another ingenious person discovered a like- 
 ness between her and a certain provincial concert- 
 singer, but her singing-voice, which, by the way, 
 she was not chary of exercising, disclosed neither 
 natural melody nor culture, and her ignorance of 
 the very rudiments of music blighted the growing 
 hope that she would turn out to have been a 
 governess. 
 
 People now began to despair of solving the 
 mystery, but the ladies were unanimous in declaring 
 that whatever Mrs. Dubersome's previous life had 
 been, the lines of it had fallen in places not exactly 
 within the sphere of good society. There was a 
 " something," you know, a " something." 
 
 Eepulsed at all points, Mrs. Argus was not yet 
 beaten : she was a true Briton in her inability to 
 recognize defeat ; and, discomfited in the direct 
 attack, she resolved to adopt the slower but more 
 insidious process of sap and mine. 
 
 Acting upon this principle, she exercised her mani- 
 fold powers of pleasing in endeavouring to gain Mrs. 
 Dubersome's friendship, hoping that when complete 
 intimacy was established that lady might in an 
 
 E 
 
50 " JV//0 2uas I\Irs. JJudcrsonic f 
 
 unguarded moment impart to her tlie well-kept 
 secret of her former life. 
 
 To a certain extent Mrs. Arg'us was successful in 
 her advances, but she never secured what was her 
 main object, a footing of familiar friendship ; Mrs. 
 Dubersome, nevertheless, preferred her companion- 
 ship to that of the other ladies of the place, 
 and this qualified success was not altogether barren 
 of result. 
 
 One evening as Mrs. Argus was walking on the 
 beach, she saw her friend and confidante Mrs. Keane 
 di'iving by ; whereupon she stopped the carriage, and, 
 entering it, drove off with her ally. 
 
 " A very singular fact has turned up, dear," she 
 said gravely. " I wonder whether w^e are all of us 
 mistaken about that woman. What do you think I 
 discovered this afternoon ? There was archer}^ going 
 on at their house, and in shooting I split my bodice 
 and had to go into her room to be stitched up. 
 While her maid was aw\ay with the dress I examined 
 the books on the table, and, would you believe it, on 
 the fly-leaf of every one of them was w^ritten ' Lady 
 Eochester ' ! " 
 
 " Yery strange," murmured Mrs. Keane, much 
 interested in this disclosure — " very strange, and yet 
 
" U7w luas Mrs. Dubci'souief" 51 
 
 Mr. Beauclerk, you remember, told us that her name 
 appears in the Civil Fund records as Blacker. He 
 promised, you know, to go home by S'witzerland 
 and find out all about the business there. I think 
 next mail ought to bring me a letter." 
 
 " But how does she get the name and title 
 of Lady Rochester ? " urged Mi-s. Argus. 
 
 " Mystery on mystery," sighed Mrs. Keane. 
 
 A few days after this conversation the expected 
 communication arrived. Mr. Beauclerk had dis- 
 covered thus much : The Dubersomes had been 
 married by the British Chaplain at Berne ; the 
 lady's name was Blacker, she was a widow, and 
 the T\itnesses whose signatui"es were attached 
 to the marriage-register were Lord and Lady 
 Caerlyon. 
 
 Mrs. Ai'gus and her friend were now completely 
 batfled, and, being ignorant in what direction to 
 continue their efforts, remained in an attitude of 
 passive expectation, awaiting the revelation which 
 they were sanguine would sooner or later be afforded 
 by time and the chapter of accidents. 
 
 At length an event occurred which greatly elevated 
 Mrs. Dubersome in popular estimation and dealt a 
 crushing blow to the phalanx of her traducers. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 " JV/io was Mrs. Dubersoine?'' 
 
 During the cool season Madras was visited by no less 
 a person than the Duke of Dundee, who had come to 
 India on a shooting excursion. His destination was 
 Nepaul, but as his steamer anchored for a day or two 
 off Madras, he spent the time on shore as a guest at 
 Government House, where a dinner-party was given 
 in his honour. 
 
 Among the guests invited to meet him were, as a 
 matter of course, the Dubersomes ; and the party, a 
 small and select one, included also Mrs. Keane and 
 Mrs. Argus. The latter lady joined the Dubersomes 
 as they were ascending the large staircase, and 
 promised herself considerable amusement at witnessing 
 Mrs. Dubersome's demeanoui' when presented to a 
 real live Duke. 
 
 Mrs. Keane was already in the room, and as the 
 Dubersomes entered, Mi's. Ai'gus and her ally 
 exchanged a significant smile. 
 
 In another moment they stood aghast in speechless 
 amazement, for the Grovernor's illustrious guest, 
 breaking away fi'om His Excellency, with whom 
 he had till then been engaged in earnest dialogue, 
 approached Mrs. Dubersome, with a cordial smile 
 and outstretched hand, exclaiming joyfully, " Is it 
 really you^ How glad I am to meet you again. 
 
'• Who was Mrs. Dubersomef' 53 
 
 Tell me, what has brought you to such a distant 
 quarter of the globe ? " 
 
 " Let me introduce your Grace to my husband, 
 Mr. Dubersome, of the Madras Civil Service," said 
 the lady, courtesying not ungracefully. 
 
 The Duke extended his hand to Mr. Dubersome, 
 who bowed in silence. 
 
 During this little scene Mrs. Argus, with dilating 
 eyes and straining ears, had stood close behind Mrs. 
 Dubersome. 
 
 " And how are the Caerlyons ? " continued the 
 Duke. 
 
 " I have not seen either Lord or Lady Caerlyon 
 since my marriage, your Grrace ; I came to India for 
 my honeymoon, and have remained here ever since," 
 replied the Councillor's ■ndfe, who seemed quite at 
 her ease with her ducal friend. 
 
 " And your pretty yacht ? I heard of the mishap. 
 Was it a total wreck ? " 
 
 " Yes, it was completely broken up, and the 
 timbers were sold at Genoa for a mere song." 
 
 " Well, we passed some delightful days in her ; 
 the Duchess and Lady Kitty will never forget j'our 
 kindness to them at Palermo." 
 
 Shortly afterwards, dinner was annoimced, and as 
 
54 " IfVio zuas Airs. Diibersomef'' 
 
 the Governor was living en gargon, Mrs. Dubersome, 
 at His Grace's particular request, was taken in to 
 dinner by the Duke. During the long banquet, 
 Mrs. Argus sat as if in a dream ; slie ate and drank 
 mechanically, and spoke like an automaton to the 
 unfortunate man to whom she had been assigned as 
 a messmate. Her attention was concentrated upon 
 the Duke and Mrs. Dubersome ; and once she saw 
 the latter actually touch His Grace's arm with her 
 fan. The sight froze her very blood, and nearly 
 gave Mrs. Keane a fit. 
 
 If Mrs. Dubersome had lived among peers of the 
 realm from her girlhood, she could not have dis- 
 played more aplomh, and, what was worse, the Duke 
 w^as evidently delighted with her. Their conversa- 
 tion never flagged for an instant, and, as the dinner 
 proceeded and the chamjiagne imparted its generous 
 vigour to the lady's spirits, His Grace became more 
 and more entertained by her remarks, and his 
 laughter at her sallies, the piu-port of which Mrs. 
 Argus sat too far off to catch, was loud and frequent. 
 He sat with his friend dming the rest of the evening, 
 and very nearly persuaded her to sing a comic song, 
 but a look from Mr. Dubersome restrained her. 
 
 Few women have ever achieved a more complete 
 
" JV/io was Mrs. Dubersome'?''' 55 
 
 social triumph than was enjoyed that evening by 
 Mrs. Dubersome. After a long period of passive 
 resistance, the lioness had tiu'ned upon her foes. 
 She had torn Detraction into shreds, had struck 
 Malice to the earth, and had vindicated her title 
 to range over the high places. 
 
 Henceforward Mrs. Dubersome's position remained 
 unchallenged. Her secret was still in her own keep- 
 ing, and appeared likely to remain so. New topics 
 arose to distract the attention of her censors, and a 
 well-considered course of hospitality upon which she 
 now embarked had the effect of rendering her to 
 a certain extent even popular. Speaking generally, 
 no one who had come to know Mrs. Dubersome 
 disliked her, She was good-natured, jovial, and 
 withal modest. She never posed as the great lady, 
 though all her actions showed that she possessed a 
 due sense of what her position required of her in the 
 direction of generosity and hard work ; and then, 
 had she not hob-nobbed in the face of men and 
 angels with a Dulce, and had she not conferred 
 obligations upon a Duke's wife and daughter ? 
 
 Once, indeed, Mrs. Argus was on the verge of the 
 great discovery. The occasion in question ^Aas a 
 large musical party at the Commander-in-Chief's, to 
 
56 ''Who was Mrs. Ditbcrsouie?" 
 
 which all the fashionable world had been invited. 
 Among the guests was Captain Manly, the 
 commander of one of the last-launched steamers of 
 the P. and 0. fleet. Mrs. Argus, an old friend of 
 the Captain's, was in the act of accepting his 
 invitation to join a party to inspect the vessel on 
 the following morning, when she observed a curious 
 smile stealing over the sailor's weather-beaten face, 
 and following the direction of his eyes she saw that 
 they were fixed upon Mrs. Dubersome, who, with her 
 husband, was at that moment entering the room. 
 
 " Do you know Mrs. Dubersome ? " inquired Mrs. 
 Argus eagerly. 
 
 " Is that Mi-s. Dubersome who is now speaking to 
 Lady ? " asked her companion. 
 
 " Yes, the ladj^ in black and gold. She is Mrs. 
 Dubersome. Do you know her ? " 
 
 " I certainl}' do not know her under tJiat name, 
 and perhaps I may be mistaken in thinking that I 
 know her at all. Would you mind introducing me, I 
 have a sort of idea that we have met before." 
 
 The heart of Mrs. Ai'gus beat like that of a 
 panther which has crept within springing distance of 
 a kid. " I shall be onl}- too delighted," said she 
 with alacrity ; and taking the mariner's arm, she 
 
" PV/w was Mrs. Diibersomef 57 
 
 piloted him dexterously through the crowd to the top 
 of the room, where Mrs. Dubersome had taken her 
 place by the side of the hostess, 
 
 " Don't mention my present ship," whispered the 
 Captain, " just say of the Bcnown:' Mrs. Argus 
 nodded. 
 
 " Mrs. Dubersome, may I introduce a friend of 
 mine to you ? " she said, with the sweetness of sugar 
 of lead, and the gentleness of a vampii'e — " Captain 
 Manly, of the Ben own.'' 
 
 The effect was electrical. It surprised even Mrs. 
 Aligns, and the charitable soul, with a generous 
 regard for the happiness of others, looked anxiously 
 round the room for her friend, Mrs. Keane, in the 
 hope that she also might witness and enjoy what 
 was coming. 
 
 Mrs. Dubersome's merry brown face blanched ; she 
 rose with a slight tremor, and doubtfully extending 
 a lifeless hand to the Captain, murmured, what every 
 line of her countenance belied, that she was very 
 glad indeed to meet him again, and then, as though 
 her feet refused their support, slie sank with a faint 
 smile back into a chair. 
 
 The music now commenced, and effectually 
 prevented any further conversation. Captain Manly 
 
58 " Who was Mrs. Dubersome?'' 
 
 and Airs. Ai'giis— the latter tingling from head to 
 foot with pleasm-able excitement — sought a seat at a 
 sufficient distance from the piano to enable them to 
 hear each other's voices. Xo sooner were thej 
 seated than the lady began — 
 
 " Now, you must tell me all you know about her. 
 In the first place, who was she ? " 
 
 " You don't mean to say you don't know that r " 
 asked the Captain, smiling at Mrs. Argus's anxiety. 
 
 " No ; nobody knows it," she replied. 
 
 "And how long has she been here?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 " Oh, more than a year, and as yet we know 
 absolutely nothuuj about her. Now, do, like a dear 
 good man, clear up the mystery." 
 
 The Captain paused, and looked at her animated 
 face. 
 
 " What are they playing "? " he asked, his ear 
 detecting a familiar air. 
 
 " // *SVr/yyYo," replied the lady. 
 
 " Most appropriate — can you keep one ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," she replied, her eyes sparkling with the 
 light of coming triumph, and she brought her face so 
 close to his that the feather in her bonnet tickled his 
 nose. 
 
" IV/iO 7i>as Mrs. Diibcrsovief 59 
 
 " So cau I, Mrs. Ai'giis," said the wortliy tar, 
 rising and looking at his watch. " Time for me to 
 be on board— good-bye till to-morrow ! " and with a 
 careless nod he turned away and left the room. 
 
 So the victory remained with the wife of the 
 Senior Member until the time an-iyed for John 
 Dubersome to retire. 
 
 Then addi-esses began to pom- in upon that eminent 
 administrator, and for several days the city was in the 
 throes of farewell entertainments. 
 
 A handsome necklace w^as presented to Mrs. 
 Dubersome by the native merchants in consideration 
 of some trade fi^anchise which had been secured to 
 them by John's exertions ; but Mrs. Dubersome, to 
 her honom- be it stated, refused the glittering toy, 
 saying that the only person from whom sLe could 
 receive a gift was her husband. 
 
 The Press was loud in the praise of her manifold 
 good works. She was spoken of as one who, by the 
 powerful authority of her position and the generous 
 influence of her purse, had afforded encouragement 
 and support to every charitable institution in the 
 town. 
 
 The honom-s which were showered upon the 
 Dubersomes had such a prejudicial effect upon the 
 
6o " IV/io was Airs. DiLbersoine ? " 
 
 nerves of Mrs. Argus, that, before the week of festival 
 had closed, that kindly lady was confined to her bed 
 by an attack of jaundice, and while she lay propped 
 by pillows and wrapped in shawls, reading the last 
 and most flattering of the daily panegyrics upon 
 her enemy, she heard the cannon booming from the 
 fort, announcing to four-hundred-thousand people 
 that Martha Dubersome was leaving India for ever. 
 For ever ! and the great mystery remained unsolved. 
 The wily foe had triumphed over the best considered 
 and most ably conducted strategy, and was departing 
 in the odour of popularity and renown. 
 
 As she uttered the last word she thought of Captain 
 Manly, and how near she had once been to the dis- 
 covery of the great secret, and with a feeling of 
 complete prostration, the unhappy woman bui'iedher 
 yellow face in her pillows and wept the bitter tears 
 that spring from the Marah of foiled malignity. 
 
 As soon as Mrs. Argus was sufficiently recovered 
 to render her removal advisable, her doctor sent 
 her to England. 
 
 During the voyage she spent most of the time in 
 her cabin, speaking to no one but the ship's 
 
" IV/w was Mrs. Dubersome?''' 6i 
 
 surgeon, and wearing the appearance of one upon 
 whose life a scathing blight had fallen. 
 
 On the day preceding the ship's arrival at London 
 she came on deck for the first time, and passed an 
 hour sitting imder the lee of the skylight languidly 
 conversing with the chief officer. 
 
 An outward-bound vessel as it passed them dipped 
 her flag. " That's my old ship," said the sailor, 
 scanning her through his telescope, " the old Renown. 
 It's high time she was taken off the line." The 
 Renoxcn ! Captain Manly's old ship ! — At the name 
 of this vessel, Mrs. Argus began for the first time to 
 display some interest in her companion's remarks. 
 
 " By the way," he continued, " did you ever come 
 across a Mrs. Dubersome in yoiu' Presidency ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Dubersome!" almost shrieked the lady. 
 " Yes, I am very well acquainted with her. When — 
 where — what do you know about her ? " 
 
 " Lucky woman, wasn't she ? " remarked the 
 young man, still regarding the vessel through his 
 glass. 
 
 " Lucky ! How was she lucky ? " gasped Mrs. 
 Argus, whose instinct assured her that now at last she 
 stood upon the threshold of revelation. 
 
 " Didn't she marry a Member of Council, or some 
 
62 '" IV/io was Mrs. DubersomeY'' 
 
 one of that sort? " inquired her companion, closing 
 his telescope and looking at Mrs. Argus. 
 
 " Yes, yes," panted the invalid—" go on." 
 
 " Thousands a year, they get, don't they ? " — 
 Mrs. Argus gave a confii-niatory moan. — " And a 
 thousand a year pension ? " continued the sailor. 
 
 " Widows get only three hundred," quavered the 
 lady — " but do, do go on." 
 
 " And isn't that pretty well for a stewardess ? " 
 
 "A stewardess!" ejaculated Mrs. Argus, with 
 flaming eyes. 
 
 " Yes, she was for three years stewardess on board 
 the Renown, and left it for the Lady Rochester, Lord 
 Caerlyon's yacht. The Caerlyons took such a fancy 
 to her that they treated her more like a relative 
 than a dependant, and I believe it was when they 
 were all going home across the Continent, after their 
 yacht had been wrecked by a levanter, that she met 
 Mr. Dubersome. Mrs. Argus, you seem to be very 
 ill?" 
 
 "Take me below," sighed Mrs. Argus; "I am 
 fainting." 
 
A NIGHT IN AN OLD FORT. 
 
 At the close of the year 186 — my work led me into 
 the "wildest part of a district celebrated in Indian 
 annals for the stubborn contest waged in former days 
 by its local chiefs against the best Generals of 
 Aui'ungzebe, a resistance which, though in the end 
 overpowered by the superior resources of the Imperial 
 power, secured to the population a longer period of 
 immunity from Mohammedan exaction than was 
 enjoj'ed by any of the neighbouring provinces. 
 
 On the evening of the loth of November — this 
 date, as will afterwards be seen, has an interesting 
 significance — at the close of a long and wearisome 
 march, I reached a little village where I had made 
 arrangements to halt for the night. 
 
 I found, however, that my tent had not arrived, 
 and that my servants had placed the bed and other 
 component parts of my modest equipage under a 
 moss-covered stone archway that once formed one 
 
64 A Night in aii Old Fort. 
 
 of the gateways of a formidable liajput stronghold, 
 long since deserted, and now in ruins. 
 
 The gateway, which had been well swept out, 
 afforded complete shelter from both wind and rain ; 
 and, as there was no other accommodation available, 
 I thankfully accepted the situation. 
 
 As the sun had not quite set, I took advantage of 
 what daylight still remained, to stroll along the 
 ruined I'ampart in company with an intelligent old 
 villager, who, as he claimed descent from the last of 
 the Killedars, or fort commandants, I hoped might 
 be able to afford some information throwing light 
 upon the history of what had evidently been in 
 former days an important place of arms. 
 
 As we wandered among the fallen stones, half- 
 hidden by sand-binder and ground-ivy, my guide 
 pointed out the ruins of the various watch-towers 
 which, placed upon a higher elevation than the rest of 
 the fortifications, stood out sharp and sombre 
 against the sky. 
 
 That distant one was called the Tara-Bruj ; this, 
 the Miriam BrCij ; the one over there, the Sultan 
 Bruj — appellations which, from their etymology, had 
 clearly no earlier date than the period when the 
 place came into the possession of the Moghuls. 
 
A A'io/ii ill ail Old Fori. 65 
 
 We were standing npon the rampart that crowned 
 the old gatewa}' witliin whieli I was to pass the 
 niglit ; and, as I looked at the massive walls, now a 
 prey to that vegetation which in the East destroys 
 neglected masonry as sm-ely as rust corrodes iron, I 
 thought of the line of the Persian poet — " The 
 spider and the owl reign in the halls of Afrasiab." 
 
 My comi^anion could not tell me much regarding 
 the early history of the place. There had been wars, 
 frequent and severe, but in the end the Mohammedans 
 had triumphed. Then came the English, and the 
 power of the Crescent had waned. His grandfather 
 had been the last of the Killedars — he knew no more. 
 
 Returning to my impromptu chamber I ate my 
 simple camp dinner, and after smoking a cheroot or 
 two went to bed. I was tired out, and was soon in 
 the land of dreams. 
 
 I might have slept for an liom% when I became 
 aware of the pressure of a hand that was placed 
 firmly, but not roughly, upon my shoulder. 
 
 Starting up, I saw standing by my side a 
 European dressed in i\u\ garb of a soldier as one sees 
 it depicted in prints illustrating Indian military life 
 in the early part of the last century. His face, 
 which was of the most resolute type, wore an air of 
 
 F 
 
66 A Ntp-ht in an Old Fort. 
 
 %3 
 
 extreme anxiety, and tliough his manner was grave 
 and deliberate, he gave me the idea of one who was 
 conscious of some serious and immediate danger. 
 
 " Get up,'' he said to me. " Gret up, sir, I want 
 this gear," pointing to my scanty fm-nitm-e, " foot- 
 sacked at once." 
 
 Seeing that I hesitated, he expLained, " I want 
 fair phay for the guns." 
 
 " Gruns ! " I ejacuLated, " what on earth are you 
 talking about ? " 
 
 " There will be hot work in this gateway pre- 
 sently," was the reply ; " I have Avarned them inside, 
 but warn as you may, it's no use. Now the old chief's 
 dead, they let things take their chance. Come," he re- 
 sumed, with some asperity, " you had better get out 
 of this archway if you thick your life worth saving." 
 "Where shall I go?" I asked, utterly bewildered 
 as my ej'e fell upon some strange-looking natives, 
 who were busily closing and fastening an immense 
 gate, which till then I had not observed. 
 
 " Follow me," said the soldier, and, turning on his 
 heel, he led the way into the precincts of the fort. 
 
 He first ascended the rampart upon which I had 
 stood the previous evening. The night was dark, 
 save for the light afforded by the stars, but I could 
 
A Night in an Old Fort. 67 
 
 see that the place had undergone a complete change ; 
 there were now no loose stones to impede one's 
 progress; the pai-apet, no longer crumbling and 
 uneren, now stood as high as a man's breast, and 
 was furnished with a revetment of freshly hewn 
 stone. Lights were twinkling from the various 
 watch-tiuTets ; the Sidtan Bruj was brilliantly 
 illuminated, and from that direction came now and 
 again faint strains of festive music. 
 
 My companion, ^ith a disdainful jerk of the hand, 
 said bitterly, " Still sitting at the nautch, though I 
 told them fom^ hours ago we should be attacked to- 
 night. ^Tiy, sir, as I rode this evening by the banks 
 of the river, I saw the whole Moghul ai my encamped 
 this side of the ford. There they come ! " he exclaimed, 
 pointing to a large dark moving mass which his 
 practised eye readily recognized to be marching men, 
 " and they are moving straight upon this gateway, 
 the only weak point in the whole fort. What's 
 this ! " he continued — a rope hung over the crest of 
 the wall with a lantern at the end of it — " There's 
 treachery here," he muttered, as he hauled up the tell- 
 tale lamp ; " they liave got the direction now, and, at 
 the rate they are marching, five minutes brings them 
 to the gate, so we'll go down." 
 
 V '^ 
 
68 A NicrJit in an Old Fort. 
 
 cb 
 
 We accordingly descended, and my companion led 
 me to a small bastion, which had been hastily 
 thrown up in a re-entering angle of the inner ram- 
 part. In the little fieldwork stood two quaint-looking 
 Indian cannons, carefully trained upon the archway. 
 
 *' Grape and canister," grimly remarked the soldier 
 pointing to the battery round which were clustered 
 some dozen native soldiers dressed and armed in the 
 picturesque irregularity of a bygone age. Behind 
 them stood, grim and silent, a line of about a score 
 of musqueteers. 
 
 " Prime and load," was the low command. The 
 musqueteers had evidently been well trained, and the 
 order was obeyed with s^vift precision. 
 
 By the side of each gun stood a native eannonier, 
 upright and motionless, holding in his hand a burning 
 linstock, the dancing flame of which, as it lighted up 
 the warlike groups and the fantastic guns with their 
 dragon-shajied heads, formed a picture which might 
 have glowed from the canvas of Salvator Eosa. 
 
 The oppression of the solemn silence that ensued 
 was unendurable. My nerves w^ere strained to the 
 utmost pitch of tension and I panted for the 
 catastrophe. Suddenly I became aware of a faint 
 sound whicli might have been the wind in the trees 
 
A Night ill ail Old Fort. 69 
 
 outside, but whicli, to my anxious ear, fully prepared 
 for what was coming, appeared to be the distant, though 
 rapidly approaching tramp of men. As I listened, it 
 gradually developed into the subdued murmur of a 
 mighty host, advancing with the utmost caution. All 
 at once the sound was hushed ; the mute battalions 
 were at the walls ; but as yet on neither side had a 
 shot been fired, or a word spoken. 
 
 I glanced at the soldier, wondering what his next 
 act would be; he was leaning forward, listening 
 intently, his left hand grasped a spoke of the gun- 
 wheel, while his right held an old-fashioned Hint 
 carabine ; a slight breeze that had sprung up played 
 with a grizzled curl upon his bronzed forehead and 
 stiiTed the lappets of his coat; but for this he 
 might have been a figure cut in stone. 
 
 Ever and anon, from the Sultan Bruj, there came 
 borne upon the wind the faint sound of the dbolki 
 and the sitar, announcing that the yoimg chiefs 
 were still at their revels ; but saving these whispering 
 cadences the fort was voiceless as the citadel of Tadmor. 
 
 The torturing stillness was at length broken by a 
 stealthy footstep. Some one was descending the 
 ramp leading from the top of the gate. In a few 
 seconds I discerned a man carrying a flambeau ; he 
 
A Nio-ht ill an Old Fort. 
 
 <i 
 
 took the direction of the gate, and as he passed the 
 hatterj the light of the torch fell full upon his face ; 
 it was that of a Brahmin ; craft, eagerness, and fear 
 seemed to blend in its expression ; in his hand he 
 held a large key, but as his trembling fingers inserted 
 it in the lock of the gate, a shot from the soldier's 
 firelock rang out through the silence of the night, 
 and the traitor, leaving the key still pressing upon 
 the untm^ned wards, fell dead against the tlu^eshold. 
 
 The report of the musket was the signal for a 
 perfect hurricane of sound without. Kettle-drums 
 struck up, trumpets brayed, words of command were 
 uttered, and soon the roar of a field-piece rever- 
 berated througli the archway ; the shot hurtled through 
 the wooden door, ricochetted over our little battery, 
 and buried itself in some remote quarter of the fort. 
 
 " That ought to waken them," laughed the soldier 
 savagely. " There goes the gate," he cried, as the 
 discharge of several guns together hmded the obstruc- 
 tion into the arch, and strewed the floor with blazing 
 splinters and smouldering beams. 
 
 Our men, who were now crouching behind the 
 parapet, received no injury. I had stooped for 
 safety with the rest — the soldier alone stood erect. 
 " If I can only hold my own here till those curs 
 
A N(o/i/ III an Old Fort. 71 
 
 get underarms ! " he growled, as he looked anxiously 
 behind him for some sign of approaching succour. 
 
 The Moghul kettle-drums now beat the advance, 
 and a crowd of men surged headlong into the 
 gateway ; they were led by a tall warrior, whose 
 chain-mail coat and bright steel cap flashed in the 
 light of the burning timbers. 
 
 " By single guns from the right — Fire ! " shouted 
 the soldier. 
 
 A torrent of flame poured from the right-hand 
 gun ; and the archway, which a moment before had 
 been thronged with living men, was now heaped with 
 dead and writhing bodies. 
 
 Then, thank Heaven ! we could hear the sound of 
 drums and horns, shouts of command and cries of 
 warning in the interior of the fort, which told us 
 that the garrison was afoot : but would '(\\q reinforce- 
 ment be in time to save the gate ? 
 
 Once more the kettle-drums of tlie assailants 
 sounded the onslaught, and again the stormers rushed 
 forward, uttering mad yells of " Been.'''* When they 
 had penetrated half-way through the arch, the soldier 
 gave the order to fire the second gun ; the linstock 
 
 * The faith. 
 
72 - / Night ill an Old I'orl. 
 
 was applied to the veut, Lut the only resi^outse was 
 a flash of priming — the dragon-mouth was mute. 
 
 The soldier hurriedly bent over the breech. 
 " Spiked ! " he groaned between his set teeth, " spiked 
 by that infernal Brahmin ! " 
 
 The enemy's advance had in the meantime been 
 checked for the moment b}^ a well-aimed volley from 
 om' musqueteers, whose fire, delivered at less than 
 quarter point-blank range, swept through that closely 
 packed multitude with the effect of a scythe upon 
 meadow grass. 
 
 Seeing that the musqueteers were now engaged 
 in re-charging their pieces, and that the right-hand 
 gun was still unloaded, though the eannoniers 
 were busy at their work, the soldier drew his sabre, 
 and, calling to the nearest men to follow him, dashed 
 into the gateway, which was rapidly filling mth 
 shields and tulwars preparatory to a fresh irruption. 
 
 I could now see lights flitting about in all direc- 
 tions in the interior of the fort, and could also hear 
 the sound of men, though still at a distance, hasten- 
 ing towards the gate. 
 
 In the meantime the soldier and the dozen or two 
 sipahis who had followed him were hard at work 
 with cut, guard, point, and parry in the archway. 
 
A Night in ail Old Fori. y^ 
 
 The ludiaus were .suou all beateu down, yet the 
 Englislimau, by diut of a splendid courage, and what 
 appeared to me to be superhuman strength and activity, 
 for a few precious moments held his own. Man 
 after man fell beneath his powerful strokes, but the 
 enemy, continually reinforced from without, and 
 pushed forward by weight of numbers, steadily 
 pressed bim back. " Gun got ready," cried tbe men 
 at the fieldpiece, in their quaint rendering of 
 tbe English which they had learnt from their 
 commander. 
 
 Had the soldier tui'ned at this juncture, the 
 stormers would have entered the place witb him, and 
 tbe fort would have fallen : it was thus necessary 
 at all hazards to hold the gateway till support arrived. 
 
 The gallant fellow fully grasped the situation : he 
 saw the sacrifice that was demanded, and bis noble 
 soul decreed that the gate should be held yet a few 
 moments longer, though he bought the respite by his 
 own annihilation. liaising his voice till it resounded 
 clear and strong above the din of battle, he thundered 
 forth his last command — " Fire ! " 
 
 The gunner hesitated for an instant, then the 
 flaming match fell upon the priming, and the roar of 
 the cannon was the soldier's requiem. 
 
74 A Night in an Old Fort. 
 
 Once more the gate was swept clear of the enemy, 
 and ere the echoes of the discharge had well died 
 away, I heard shouts and the tramp of men advanc- 
 ing to our rescue at the double. Before the Mussul- 
 mans could gather head for a third assault, our men 
 had filled up the gateway with great stones and sand- 
 bags, of which a large number had previously been 
 collected near the spot, but by a procrastination that 
 had nearly proved fatal, had been allowed to remain 
 as a refuge for rats and squii-rels. The walls were 
 rapidly manned, and a brisk fire was opened from the 
 numerous jezails and other pieces that lined them. 
 The attempt at a surprise had failed, and the Imperial 
 army, after much uproar and a vast expenditure of 
 
 powder, slowly retreated. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 I turned in my bed, stretched myself, and awoke. 
 The sunlight was streaming between the stonework 
 of the arch and the massive side-posts, from which in 
 former days a gate had been suspended. The sound 
 of the lascar's mallet outside told me that my tardy 
 tent was being pitched, and as I drank the cup of tea 
 which my servant handed to me, I resolved to commit 
 my dream to writing. 
 
 Some years afterwards an opportunity presented 
 
A Night in an Old Fori. 75 
 
 itself of consulting an old history of tlie district, and 
 turning to tlie account given of the fort, I read with 
 much interest the following statement : — 
 
 " The importance of this ancient stronghold lay 
 mainly in its position, which, commanding the chief 
 ford of the river, enabled its possessors during a long 
 series of years to oppose a successful resistance to the 
 encroachments of the Moghuls. Not the least among 
 the many formidable perils through which this 
 fortress passed unscathed was a skilfully-planned 
 surprise on the night of the loth November, 1670. 
 The attempt was conducted by the redoubtable 
 Lushkar Khan, the most enterprising of the Imperial 
 Generals, but the assault, though of a determined 
 nature, and assisted by treachery from within, was 
 frustrated by an act of sublime devotion on the part 
 of an Englishman, a deserter from the Hon'ble 
 Company's Army. This man had been condemned 
 to death for some military offence, but contriving to 
 escape on the very morning appointed for his execu- 
 tion, had succeeded in gaining the territory of 
 
 with whose Chief he took service. The full details 
 of the act by which he saved the fort are now un- 
 known." 
 
THE JUNGLE FEE. 
 
 "Why do you call yoiu' house ' Tho Fee'?'" I 
 inquired of my old friend, Dr. Mactaggart, as we 
 sat after dinner in the snug smoking-room of his 
 little shooting-box in Fifeshire. 
 
 The Doctor cleared his throat. The whisky-toddy 
 and the fragrant honeydew were shedding their genial 
 influence over both of us. He was in the mood for 
 story-telling, and I was in the right frame of mind to 
 listen. 
 
 " It came about in this manner," he said. " "When 
 I was an army surgeon in India, medical men were 
 not so plentiful out there as they are now, and we 
 were moved from place to place as the necessity for 
 our services arose. It was during these frequent 
 marches that I made my natural history collection 
 that you were admii-ing this afternoon; for, whenever 
 time permitted, I never lost an opportunity of leaving 
 the high road for a day or two, and making a detour 
 
The Jungle Fee. y'j 
 
 through a likely -looking bit of jungle or an un- 
 frequented range of mountains. 
 
 " In the summer of 185 — I was suddenly ordered 
 from Masulipatam, on the Coromandel Coast, to 
 Secunderabad, in the Deccan. I was well aware of 
 the sort of country that I should have to pass through, 
 and knowing that very rapid travelling could not 
 be expected from me during that sultry season, I 
 got ready my rifle and fowling-piece. 
 
 " I determined to strike off the road for a few 
 marches in an endeavour to gain some rocks near 
 the Kistna river, my object being to secure a speci- 
 men of the small dog-leopard, which I had heard 
 was to be found there. I made my digression, but 
 did not bag my leopard, and, in trying to get back 
 to the main road, I lost my way. I was travelling 
 with all my baggage, no great amount in those 
 days, and had with me a small tent, which always 
 accompanied me on my excursions ; and as my 
 coolies were carrying a supply of food for three 
 days, there was nothing to occasion any great 
 anxiety in being lost for twenty-foiu' hours or so. 
 
 " I had marched without a halt from sunrise till 
 four o'clock in the afternoon, when a sudden turn 
 of the jungle-track brought me upon the very last 
 
78 The Junc^le Fee. 
 
 thing that I had expected to see in those wilds — a 
 theodolite. A man dressed like a second-rate sort 
 of European was heuding over it. He raised his 
 head with a smothered execration as he heard us 
 approaching, and stared at me defiantly. 
 
 " He was a gaunt, bony man of about five-and- 
 forty, with a good deal of strength in his tall, 
 loosely-knit frame. His face was a jieculiar one — 
 half tiger, half cobra. I had more than once 
 observed the type when I was in medical charge 
 of the European goal at Ooty, and by certain laws of 
 association, too subtle to analyse, the idea produced 
 by it in my mind was connected with coldly 
 calculated murder, carefully planned and pitilessly 
 carried out. The expression which this forbidding 
 countenance assumed at my sudden appearance 
 seemed to convey : ' What the deuce do you mean 
 by trespassing in mn jungle ? Vm master liere.' 
 
 " I wished him good day, and, in a friendly 
 manner, inc^uired how I should proceed in order to 
 strike the high road between two stages, the names 
 of which I had gathered from my route-book. 
 
 " He stared at me insolently for a monif nt, and then 
 in a strong Tipperary brogue told me to go straight 
 on for a quarter of a mile, when I shoiild come to 
 
The /iinglc Fee. 79 
 
 where the pathway branched to the right and left. I 
 was on no account to turn to the left, as it would 
 lead me, lie said, ' the divil knows where,' but the 
 right-hand turn would bring me in less than half an 
 hour to the high road. On reaching the turning, I 
 observed t vvo natives approaching from the left ; one 
 of them was carrying a basket, which I concluded 
 belonged to the man from whom I had just parted. 
 As they were coming from the du-ection which I had 
 been so especially cautioned to avoid, I stoj)ped, and, 
 questioning them as to my route, was much surprised 
 to hear that I was within ten minutes' walk of the 
 high road, which lay in the direction from wliich 
 they had just come. The right-hand track, they 
 said, ran to a deserted village lying in the very 
 heart of the jungle. ' Plenty tiger there,' they 
 added, with a grin. 
 
 " Conceiving that the European's directions arose 
 from a mistake — since he could have no object in 
 sending me so far adrift from my com-se — I followed 
 the instructions of the coolies, and in a short time, to 
 my great relief, for the sun was already sinking, I 
 emerged from the wilderness into an open space 
 shaded by a few lofty trees, under which stood three 
 tents of different sizes. 
 
8o TJic furiolc Fee. 
 
 " This little encampment I discovered belonged to 
 my friend of the theodolite ; I therefore determined to 
 pitch my own modest bit of canvas at a sufficient 
 distance from his belongings to make us at any rate 
 not quite next-door neighbours ; and as I proposed to 
 continue my journey early on the following morning, 
 I did not expect to see his ugly face again. 
 
 " While I was superintending the pitching of my 
 be-cJioba^ a servant came from one of the stranger's 
 tents, and, after exchanging a few words with one of 
 my people, approached me with a polite salaam, and 
 saying that he had just learnt that I was a Doctor 
 Sahib, begged that I would come over and see his 
 mistress, who, he said, looking at me earnestly, was 
 ' Very bad sick.' She had been taken ill shortly after 
 her husband went out in the morning, and although 
 word of her condition had twice been sent to him, he 
 had treated the report as exaggerated, and, saying 
 that he was engaged on some very important work, 
 had refused to come back, 
 
 "On entering the tent, I saw a homely -featured, 
 middle-aged woman Ipng on a bed ; she was com- 
 pletely dressed, and had evidently been surprised by 
 
 * Tent without a pole. 
 
The Jungle Fee. 8 1 
 
 the attack while engaged in her ordinary duties, for 
 a piece of needlework lay beside her, and her thimble 
 was still on her finger. 
 
 " I examined her very carefully, and, from the 
 symptoms displayed, I came to the conclusion that 
 she was under the influence of some powerful irritant 
 poison. 
 
 " Her account of the seizure was that she had lately 
 been suffering from intermittent fever of the 
 ordinary Indian type, that her husband, before going 
 out th^t morning, had given her some medicine 
 which lie had prepared himself, and that shortly after 
 taking it she had become alarmingly ill. 
 
 " I asked her if she had any of the medicine left. 
 The bottle was standing on a little table close bj", 
 and was nearly full. Putting my tongue to the cork 
 I was at once aware of a strong bitter taste resemb- 
 ling that of arsenic, and knowing that this poison 
 was sometimes administered in small C[uantities in 
 cases of fever, I suspected that she was suffering from 
 an overdose. 
 
 " In reply to my inquiry as to where her husband 
 kept his medicines, she pointed to a large box in a 
 comer of the tent, in which she said I should find a 
 s.Tiall medicine-chest. 
 
 o 
 
82 The J iinglc Fee. 
 
 " I opened the large box and extracted the little 
 chest from under a heap of clothes; but was unable to 
 examine it, as it was locked, and the man had the key. 
 
 " I gave my patient some calcined magnesia, and 
 set to work to analyse the solution, to which I 
 applied l-teinsch's test, and there were the octahedral 
 crystals of arsenious acid as plain, my dear fellow, 
 as the sugar in this tumbler. 
 
 " I then treated the woman regularly for arsenical 
 poisoning, and having a suspicion of possible foul 
 play I took the libert}' of impounding the little 
 medicine-chest ; being determined to see the contents 
 of it, come what might. 
 
 *' By the time of her husband's return, which was 
 very late, my patient was out of danger ; and as I 
 heard the man's harsh voice giving orders outside 
 the tent, I whispered to her not to take any more 
 medicine from him, but to proceed at once to the 
 nearest station and seek medical advice. She replied 
 by a grateful look of intelligence. 
 
 '"Hulloa, what are ye doin' in my tint, misther?' 
 The fellow had entered the tent and was evidently 
 startled to see me there. 
 
 " ' I am treating your wife, who has called me in.' 
 
 " ' She wants no tratement; the woman has only got 
 
The Jtuigie Fee. ^^ 
 
 the faver, and you don't inter this tint again unless 
 / send for ye. D'j^e hear that ? ' 
 
 '' ' May I ask what you have been giving your wife 
 for her fever ? ' I inquired niiklly. 
 
 " Gfivin' her 'i Why, qui-nine, to be shure. What 
 ilse shoukl I be afther givin' her ? ' 
 
 " ' Did you give her nothing else but quinine this 
 morning ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' Divil a thing else — why do ye ask ? Who are 
 ye ? Ye're not a docthor ? ' 
 
 " ' I am a doctor, and I am treating yoiu' wife, not 
 for fever, but for arsenical poisoning,' I said, looking 
 my man straight in the face. 
 
 " He changed colour and glanced round the tent. 
 ' Where's that midsin as I give ye this momin' 'i ' 
 he said, turning abiniptly to his wife, who lay tremb- 
 ling and silent during our dialogue. 
 
 '' I replied for her : ' The medicine is in my pos- 
 session. I have subjected it to analysis, and have found 
 it to contain sufficient arsenic to kill the three of us. 
 
 "The man with a smothered oath walked to the 
 large box, opened it, and peered in. I knew what 
 was coming, and, bidding the poor woman good-night, 
 hastened over to my tent and slipped a revolver into 
 my pocket 
 
 G 2 
 
84 The I miotic Fee. 
 
 *' In another moment the man was in front of me, 
 foaming \\'ith rage. ' Where's me black box, ye 
 thafe ? ' he shouted. ' Where's me midsin box ? ' 
 
 "'I have it carefully secui'ed among my baggage,' 
 I replied calmly, * and to-mori'ow both it and your- 
 self "^^ill be in the hands of the police.' 
 
 " ' I'll have it out of ye, ye plunderin' villin,' he 
 said, picking up a billet of wood that lay near, and 
 comiDg towards me with a threatening counten- 
 ance. I quickly drew my Colt and covered him. I 
 suppose I was getting excited myself, for I said, 
 ' You poisoning rascal, do you think I have not got 
 evidence enough to transport you again ? ' 
 
 " At these words he started, and moved by a sort of 
 inspiration, I added, ' I know you, you're an ex- 
 convict, and I'm the Inspector of Police of this 
 di\ision. You're my prisoner,' and I tapped him 
 on the shoulder in proper regulation form. 
 
 " The wretch dropped his stick, and stood glowering 
 upon me with his ghastl}" face, his eyes staring, and 
 his half-open mouth twitching con^iilsively. He 
 had not been shaved for three days, and his stubbly 
 chin and upper lip gave him the most utterly 
 scoundrel look I should think it possible for the 
 human face to wear. 
 
The [nno-le Fee. 85 
 
 " I had, flgm-ativelj speaking, floored him, but it was 
 necessary to say something more in order to carry 
 out my vole ; I therefore added, ' You will sleep to- 
 night in that tent,' pointing to the most distant of 
 the three, ' and you will approach your wife at your 
 
 peril. To-morrow I shall take you to B . 
 
 Right about face — quick march.' 
 
 "Hetui*ned as if in a dream, and walked slowly to 
 the little tent. As soon as he had disappeared, I 
 despatched a hm^riedly-pencilled letter to the senior 
 
 police officer at B asking him to come well 
 
 attended to the encampment without delay ; and 
 then I went to bed with my revolver under my pillow 
 and the medicine-box by my side. 
 
 " Early the following morning Mrs. O'Meara, for 
 that proved to be my patient's name, sent for me. I 
 found her pale and weak, but convalescent. She told 
 me that her husband had ridden off during the night, 
 and she had a presentiment that he would never 
 retm-n, but at the same time she entreated that I 
 would not leave her until I had placed her under the 
 charge of the Inspector of Police. 
 
 " Upon that officer's arrival Ave broke open the 
 medicine-box. It contained phials full of different 
 kinds of poisons, none of which had apparently been 
 
86 The Jungle Fee. 
 
 used except one holding arsenic, from which a certain 
 amount liad been taken. 
 
 " While we were conducting this examination one of 
 the constables who had accompanied the Inspector 
 appeared at the tent-door and silently beckoned to 
 him. 
 
 "In a few minutes the latter returned, and called 
 me out. 
 
 " ' I will show you something, sii',' he said, 'which 
 will throw a very clear light on this case,' and he 
 led me to a thick and tangled brake lying just within 
 the margin of the jungle. 
 
 " ' Look here,' he continued, pointing to a freshly- 
 dug hole, long and narrow, and some six feet in 
 depth. 
 
 " ' This is a grave ! ' said T, ' what does it all 
 mean ? ' My companion lifted the adjacent under- 
 growth with his whip, and disclosed a hastily-made 
 coffin. 
 
 " ' There is no doubt,' lie said, ' for whom these 
 preparations were made, and it is clear that but little 
 time would have elapsed between death and burial.' 
 
 The whole hideous affair was now clear to me, and I 
 returned with the officer in silence to the tent. 
 
 " In reply to the Inspector's questions, Mrs. 
 
The Jungle Fee. 87 
 
 O'Meara told us that she had been married to 
 O'Meara only recently, she had made his acquain- 
 tance in Calcutta, where she had for the last few 
 years been living on the interest of a small fortune 
 left to her by a former husband, a shopkeeper there. 
 O'Meara, when she first knew him, was in the Public 
 Works Department, but had afterwards been 
 dismissed for some serious irregularity ; he had 
 managed, however, to obtain an appointment under 
 a south-country Zemindar, for whom he was at the 
 present time doing some surveying work. She 
 supposed that O'Meara had married her for her 
 nionej', and now wished to get rid of her, seeing that 
 he liad obliged her to make her will in his favour, 
 and had treated her ever since their marriage with 
 daily increasing cruelty, dragging her about into the 
 most imhealthy localities, presumably in the hope 
 that slie would succumb to the climate, the effects of 
 wliich it was now apparent that he had resolved 
 upon supplementing by the administration of poison. 
 " The plot had been well laid. Had the woman 
 died, she would liave been buried as soon as the 
 breath had left her body, and the victim being the 
 wife of a European, no suspicion would have been 
 aroused. If by chance any rumour of foul play had 
 
<^S 7//r J 1111 o' I c fee. 
 
 got abroad, inquiry in such a wild locality would 
 liavo been futile ; for during the height of the 
 summer season in India a very brief period would 
 sufSce to render medical examination in such a 
 case an impossibility. 
 
 " A pursuit was organized, but the rascal made good 
 his escape. Australia was his point, but he was fated 
 never to reach it. The shij) in which he sailed was 
 caught in a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, and in the 
 height of the tempest O'Meara was washed over- 
 board, 
 
 " Mrs. O'Meara, after her return to Calcutta, more 
 than once wrote to beg my acceptance of some 
 valuable present, which I, believing her to be by no 
 means a rich woman, politely but firmly declined. 
 Imagine my surprise when, shortly after my retire- 
 ment from the service, I received a letter from her 
 lawyer informing me that Mrs. O'Meara had lately 
 died, leaving me as my fee for services rendered, a 
 legacy of her entire fortune. The amount was a 
 little over £5,000, the biggest honorarium that I 
 ever received or ever heard of ; and as it enabled me 
 to buy this cottage and bit of moor, I thouglit I 
 could not do better than call the place after it— the 
 ' Jungle Fee.' " 
 
MR. MAGNUS. 
 
 Mr. Lemuel Magnus, C.I.E., was Britisli Resident 
 at the Court of our faithful feudatory, the Eajah 
 of Lilipatam. 
 
 Diu-iug his long tenure of this appointment Mr. 
 Magnus had introduced not a few important reforms 
 into the administration. Before his accession the 
 pre-Hunterian conception of spelling which had 
 obtained for a couple of hundred years or so, still 
 lingered in Coui-t and Cutcherry ; and even in official 
 documents it was the custom to "WTite the Eajah's 
 dominions, Leilapatnam ; but the new Resident 
 changed all that with a stroke of his pen. He found 
 the Residency servants, in point of number, only very 
 slightly in excess of his actual requirements, and, in 
 the matter of liverj^ modestly attired in simple 
 raiment of white muslin : within a month they were 
 a legion gleaming in purple and gold, and whenever 
 Mr. Magnus cried, " What ho ! without there ? " or 
 
go Mr. Magims. 
 
 employed the Eastern equivalent of that summons, 
 his order Avas echoed by a responsive chorus of " My 
 Lord " from a dozen voices. 
 
 Under his predecessor, the Resident's hours for 
 the transaction of public business were definite and 
 well known to the profane crowd ; but the labours of 
 Mr. Magnus were esoteric : he sagely deemed that a 
 decent veil of mystery should enshroud an Eastern 
 Jupiter while he forged his thunderbolts, and to all 
 intents and purposes a Jupiter he meant to be. 
 
 In this determination, however, Jove somewhat 
 
 exceeded his warrant. A Resident at a native Court 
 
 is not sent there to govern ; but Mr. Magnus held 
 
 that his mission on earth was to rule his fellow-men, 
 
 who, in fact, were primarily created for that particular 
 
 pm'pose. From his earliest youth, from the days 
 
 Avhen, having established supreme control over his 
 
 smaller brethren in the nurserj^ he ruled unquestioued 
 
 over sugar-basin and jam-pot, and thus first tasted 
 
 the sweets of dominion, he had made it the business 
 
 of his life to subdue and enslave all people more 
 
 ductile than himself whom chance brought in his A^ay ; 
 
 and he had encountered many such in his Indian 
 
 career. 
 
 His personal appearance was in perfect harmony 
 
Mr. Magnus. 9 1 
 
 with his character : the pompous pose of the globular 
 waistcoat, the supercilious gleam of the tenacious 
 eye, the aiTogant set of the head, witli its great 
 bulge in the region of self-esteem, and the self- 
 assertive pitch of the aggressive nose — all unmistak- 
 ably announced the autocratic bully. 
 
 But as everj' creature in the organized world has 
 its oppressor, so there was one liuman being of whom 
 oui- autocrat stood in perpetual awe. 
 
 He lived in wholesome terror of his wife ; who, it 
 may be observed, was, at the period of which we 
 write, superintending the education of sundry minor 
 Magnuses in England. 
 
 The Eajah was a meek young man, devoted to 
 peace and pleasm-e, and so long as the indulgence of 
 his own personal gratifications was not interfered 
 with, he was only too willing to give the Eesident a 
 free hand in the management of whatever matters of 
 State that masterful person might take a fancy to 
 control. This, it is needless to say, was a disposition 
 that exactly suited the Eesident, and the Eajah was 
 always described by him as an " enlightened ruler." 
 
 One morning after breakfast while Mr. Magnus 
 was in his study, smoking a capital Havannah and 
 reading a questionable French novel, a resplendent 
 
9 2 Mr. Magiuis. 
 
 peon brought iu a card on a silver salver, which, like 
 everything engravable in the Residency, bore the 
 Magnus crest, namely, a peacock ov, with tail ex- 
 panded. 
 
 On the card, traced with a bad quill pen, was the 
 name : — 
 
 " Mr. De Lacey Sneape." 
 
 The potentate glanced at the modest piece of paste- 
 board with a fine scorn upon his haughty nose. 
 " Sneape — Sneape — Sneape ! — no such name in the 
 service — no such name iu the Presidency. Some 
 loafer ! " he muttered to himself. " Let him wait," 
 he growled with his eyes still upon the book, as he 
 arranged himself in a more comfortable attitude. 
 
 After about half-an-hour Mr. Magnus, having 
 finished his cigar,' rang a little silver bell. The 
 gorgeous attendant re-entered. 
 
 " Tell Mr. — ah — ," glancing at the card, " Sneape, 
 tliat he can come in," and seating himself at an 
 enormous table, the Resident opened a volume of 
 Government Orders that happened to be near, and 
 scattering a number of old documents in front of him, 
 began to write upon a large sheet of foolscap with 
 an air of the severest concentration. 
 
Mr. Magmis, 93 
 
 The peon retm^ned, but llr. Magnus, thougli lie 
 knew that someone was in the room, did not look up. 
 This was his favom-ite manner of receiving unvalued 
 visitors. 
 
 After two or thi"ee minutes of tliis show of self- 
 abandonment to toil he raised his head. 
 
 " The gentleman has gone," said the peon. 
 
 " Gone ! " shouted the Resident, throwing down 
 his pen. 
 
 " He said, nourisher of the poor ! that he was 
 staying in the public bungalow." 
 
 The Pro-Prfietor rose, and lighting a fresh cigar, 
 retired with Zola into the ease of a long aim-ehair. 
 
 An hour or two later, old Parusaram, the palace 
 Dewan, craved the honour of five minutes' interview 
 with the Eesident ; and after inquiring with much 
 respectful solicitude after that gentleman's health, pro- 
 ceeded to advert to the object of his visit. 
 
 " One Sneape Saib, a merchant, has arrived in this 
 place. Has he paid his respects to your Honour ? " 
 
 Mr. Magnus, Avith a pompous wave of the hand 
 towards the card on the table, intimated that the 
 stranger had not been oblivious of that sacred 
 duty. 
 
 "He called upon we yesterday," continued the 
 
94 ^^'- Ma onus. 
 
 Dewau, looking uarrowly at the liesident's broad 
 face, endeavouring to discover whether the visitor had 
 found fa\"om' in the eyes of the great man, " asking 
 about a grant of land, and the concession of certain 
 privileges with regard to a rliea-mill that he wants 
 to establish in this place." 
 
 In Lilipatam the leading product of the soil is 
 rhea grass, by means of which men of oj)timistic 
 tendencies have been heard to foretell for the Lili- 
 patians wealth beyond the dreams even of Eastern 
 avarice. But Mr. Magnus pronounced such views to 
 be the twaddle of the \dsionary, or the ranting of the 
 rogue ; so the rhea waved in futile luxuriance over 
 plains that never yielded the State a cowrie-shell of 
 revenue. 
 
 " And what answer, pray, did you give to Mr. 
 Sneape ? " inquired the great man, knitting his brows 
 ominously. 
 
 " I referred him to yoiu- Honour's lordship. What 
 power had / to give him any answer ? " replied the 
 Brahmin, who had long ago taken the measure of Mr. 
 Magnus' heavy foot. 
 
 The Resident glared majestic aj)proval. " Who 
 is this person ? " he asked. 
 
 " T gathered from his conversation, sir, that he 
 
J/r. Mag nits. 95 
 
 was in some way connected with a tirni of merchants 
 in Liverpool." 
 
 "Ah ! a Bagman ; I thought so. Well, Dewan, you 
 will tell Mr. De Lacey Sneape," said Mr. Magnus, in 
 liis most offensively autocratic manner, "that His 
 Highness declines, peremptorily declines, to concede 
 him either land or privileges; and mind that 3'ou say 
 it in such a manner that he will understand it to be 
 conclusive. It is no use his applying to me. You can 
 now take yom* leave." 
 
 The Dewan arose, and, respectfully placing two 
 small limes on the table, salaamed devcmtly, and with- 
 drew ; but as he left the room he thus inwardly 
 apostrophized the Resident : " son of an ass ! 
 pig ! how I should rejoice to beat your pompous 
 mouth with my oldest and dirtiest slipper ! " 
 
 " We don't want any factories here," soliloquized 
 Mr. Magnus, " poisoning the air with their filthy 
 smoke, spoiling the view with their ugly chimneys, 
 and rousing me in the morning with then- infernal 
 whistle. I had enough of that when I was a boy." 
 
 Lemuel Magnus was of humble origin, and had 
 been born and bred in a factory town, where he would 
 have gravitated to some mill as clerk or accountant, 
 had not a distant relative taken him by the hand, and. 
 
96 ■ Mr. Maonus. 
 
 finding that the youth possessed powers of applica- 
 tion and a good memory, ran him with success for 
 the Indian Civil Service. 
 
 Why so much about a single character in such a 
 short story ? Dear reader, you don't know Mr. 
 Magnus ; he takes the lion's share of everything. I 
 could not epitoDjize him after the manner of the 
 Dewan. 
 
 The European community of Lilipatam had been 
 bidden to a large dinner to be given that evening at 
 the Residency; and it occurred to Mr. Magnus that 
 he would invite also Mr. Sneape, so that the stranger 
 might be impressed with the might and majesty of 
 an Indian Eesident, and, returning to Liverpool, 
 recount to wondering and envious colleagues how 
 royally he had been entertained by Mr. Lemuel 
 Magnus, C.S. and CLE. 
 
 As he drove his high-stepping roans that afternoon 
 past the public bungalow, Mr. Magnus saw an 
 elderly man seated in the verandah reading a book. 
 That, then, must be Mr. Sneape ; so, dashing into 
 the compound with a prance and a clatter, the 
 Eesident pulled up his champing coiu-sers with the 
 flourish of an Imperial charioteer, and shouted 
 harshly for the attendant, who, hastily tying his 
 
Mr, Magmis. 97 
 
 turban the while, came running breathlessly from 
 some outlying quarter. 
 
 " Deliver this card to Mr. Sneape," commanded 
 the Resident, as he put his horses again in motion. 
 The domestic handed the card to the gentleman with 
 the book, who read the august words : — 
 
 " Mb. Lemuel Magnus, C.S., C.I.E., 
 
 " Resident at Lilipatam ; " 
 
 and on the reverse he deciphered a few lines scrawled 
 in pencil inviting him to dinner at eight o'clock that 
 evening. 
 
 The stranger played musingly with the card for a 
 few moments and then put it in his pocket. 
 
 " I will go," he said to himself, " anything is 
 better than this dreary hovel." 
 
 The dinner was what is called a " hurra khanar 
 In plain English, everything was exuberant, heavy, 
 and slow. 
 
 The guest from the bungalow was the last to 
 arrive, and the host, coldly giving him the tips of 
 his fingers, turned away, and in an audible tone 
 directed the butler, who was lurking in the doorway, 
 to bring dinner immediately. 
 
 During the interval that elapsed between the order 
 
 n 
 
qS Mr. Mamus. 
 
 <^ 
 
 and tlie announcement, the stranger found himself 
 among some dozen or fifteen people, all of whom 
 were too much engaged in talking among themselves 
 to bestow any attention ujDon him. The position 
 was an uncomfortable one, and Mr. Magnus intended 
 that it should be so. 
 
 When dinner was announced the guests trooped 
 into the room in recognized order, for in Lilipatam 
 precedence was studied as a fine art, and Mr. Sneape 
 found himself, unfriended and solitary, slowly bring- 
 ing up the rear. 
 
 As the party could have filled the table without 
 him, he was placed at one of the corners, where he 
 was forced to rely for conversation upon an old lady 
 who was deaf, and a young man who was patronizing. 
 Thus, long before the dismal dinner had dragged 
 itself through its appointed courses, he sighed for a 
 cup of tea and the slippered ease of the bungalow ; 
 thinking that even a damp cheroot among the 
 snakes in the compound would be preferable to 
 this. 
 
 At last tlie ladies rose to leave the room, and the 
 gentlemen, clutching their napkins and the backs of 
 theii" chaii's, smirked benignly and rearranged them- 
 selves. The patronizing young gentleman, who was 
 
]\h\ Mag7ms, 99 
 
 the Resident's assistant, now moved into the august 
 neighhoiu'hood of his chief, in order to receive 
 enlightenment touching certain leading topics of the 
 day upon which that eminent man was 
 pronouncing judgment. Although the stranger, 
 now more isolated than ever, was, owing to local cii'- 
 cumstances, excluded from the conversation, he 
 enjoyed on the other hand enlarged opportunities 
 of improving his mind as a listener. He heard 
 much that sm-prised him, but he marvelled most to 
 observe that at the table of this high Indian 
 official everything relating to Indian matters was 
 carefully eschewed, and that the most favom-ed 
 subjects of discom'se were European politics, scandal 
 in high life at home, and English racing; these, 
 with a Httle mild dilettantism, presented matter of 
 wider interest to the Resident than did the squalid 
 topics of local life. 
 
 " Mr. — ah, Sneape, will you have any more wine ? 
 No ? Then we wiU join the ladies," said Mr. Magnus, 
 rising from his chair ; and the person addressed 
 inwardly thanked him for not further prolonging the 
 purgatorial repast. 
 
 On the following morning the stranger left for 
 England. In the afternoon the English mail arrived 
 
 II 2 
 
loo Mr. Mao7ius, 
 
 i> 
 
 at Lilipatam ; it brought the usual weekly letter 
 from Mrs. Magnus, from which we extract the 
 following : — " I find it mod difficult to get into 
 society in this place. The county families form 
 a clique into which there appears to he no admission, 
 hut a chance has just presented itself which I 
 do hope and truaf you will not allow to slip. 
 The Lord Lieutenant, Lord Tymberdale, of Delacey 
 Comi, the finest place in the West, has gone to 
 India, incog., in order to see and hear for himself 
 all the ins and outs of trade and administration, 
 and so forth. I have only just heard that he includes 
 Lilipatam in his tour. Now, Lemuel, you will 
 of course show him all the attention in your power, 
 and make a friend of him — it will be of incalculable 
 service to us in the future. His nom de voyage is 
 De Lacey Sneape." 
 
THE RISHI AND THE SACRED 
 DIAMOND. 
 
 The following story was told me by my friend Jack 
 Danby, a gentleman-inspector of police on the 
 Madras establishment : — 
 
 Shortly after I joined the Police department, I 
 was posted to one of the Telugu districts. My head- 
 quarters were in a small town called Simgamkondah, 
 which stood at the foot of a great rocky hill not far 
 from the meeting place of the Mudiair and Isuka 
 rivers. 
 
 The jimction of these streams, forming what is 
 called a sunrjam, of course rendered the neighbour- 
 hood remarkably holy ; and the town, which was full 
 of Brahmins, contained a flourishing temple to 
 Akasaramana. 
 
 The temple formed, from a police point of view, the 
 most important f eatm-e of the place ; for the idol was 
 incrusted with precious stones, and wore in the centre 
 of its forehead an enormous diamond presented in 
 
ic?. Ti'.e RisJii and the Sacred Diaynond. 
 
 bygone ages by a pious Raj all ; the gem was said to 
 be worth several lakhs of rupees. 
 
 This shrine was the most prominent difficulty 
 that lay before me. Although the premises were 
 most carefully guarded, it was j^lain that a thief had 
 access to the sanctuary. Fourteen months before I 
 assumed charge of the division, a valuable pearl had 
 been removed from the god's girdle ; and this proved 
 to be the beginning of a series of remarkable thefts. 
 Thenceforward, at intervals of twenty-eight days, as 
 regularly as the moon waned, some gem or other 
 would be found missing. Large rewards for informa- 
 tion were freely offered by the temple authorities, 
 the bolts were strengthened, the locks were changed, 
 the guard was doubled, but still the thefts went on ; 
 and although special measiu'es were adopted by the 
 police, the best efforts of the force had hitherto been 
 unavailing. 
 
 On my arrival at Sungamkondah I called upon 
 the Durmakurta, or temple guardian. He was a 
 portly old Brahmin, with a fine sense of his own 
 importance, and a very imperfect perception of mine ; 
 but I cared very little for that, the object of my visit 
 being to secure the removal of the big diamond to a 
 safer place than the temple. But he was obdurate. 
 
The Rishi and t/ie Sacred Diamond. 103 
 
 " It would be saerilego," he cried indignantly, " to 
 extract the diamond from the sacred brow. ]\Iove 
 the god bodily ! Why, if it were even seriously 
 spoken of, he would smite the town with small- 
 pox. Besides, where is there a safer place than the 
 temple ? " and he added, with an air of scornful 
 incredulity : " Who will dare to touch the sacred 
 diamond ? " 
 
 " Well, for the matter of that," I interposed, 
 " who was it that dared to touch the sacred pearl, and 
 the sacred emerald, and the lapis lazuli, and the tur- 
 quoise, and the cat's-eye ? " 
 
 He waved his hand haughtily as he replied, "They 
 say all that was the work of a Rishi." 
 
 " A.nd who or what is a Rishi ? " I asked. 
 " A Rishi is a very holy being, more than a 
 thousand years old, who dwells in the most inacces- 
 sible regions of the rocks, and is seldom seen by 
 man." 
 
 " Has anybody seen thk Rishi ? " 1 inquired, with 
 a smile. 
 
 " Yes," answered the old man sternly, " this 
 Rishi has been seen. Penthiah, the })oojary, has 
 seen him, and has addressed liim, speaking to liim in 
 Sanskrit ; but the only reply vouchsafed was a 
 
I04 -l he Ivishi and the Sacred Diamond. 
 
 glance that caused Pentliiali to lie prostrate witli ague 
 for a fortuight. Yet even the Rishi will not venture 
 to touch the sacred diamond." 
 
 Failing to obtain the aid I had hoped for, I 
 proceeded to the temple, and caused all the priests 
 and attendants to be assembled. 
 
 A long and careful examination of these worthies 
 satisfied me that no conceivable precaution had been 
 omitted, beyond, perhaps, that of making some one 
 sleep near the image inside the building ; but although 
 the fame of the god extended over many districts, his 
 abiding place was an evil-smelling, ill-ventilated 
 structure about ten feet by twelve ; and to require a 
 man to pass a niglit in such a dungeon with closed 
 doors would have been to insm-e his suffocation. 
 
 The bars and locks were new and powerful, and 
 the keys, four in number, were at night lodged each 
 with a separate custodian, the great key of the outer 
 gate being deposited with the Durmakurta. The 
 temple, as well as the high walls that surrounded it, 
 was built of massive stone ; and several watchmen pa- 
 trolled the inner comi, both by day and night. Unless 
 the entire lot, Durmakurta, key-keepers, priests, 
 poojaries, and watchmen were in the swim, it was 
 impossible for a stranger to pass the threshold. 
 
The Rislii an.i the Sacred Diamond. 105 
 
 Dismissing the rest of tlie temple establishment, I 
 desired Penthiah to remain, and when we were alone 
 I questioned him closely concerning the strange 
 being referred to by Durmakurta. 
 
 He described the Rishi as an ancient man of 
 terrifying aspect, with a wrinkled skin hanging 
 loosely upon a gaunt fi-ame-work, and vdth. matted 
 hair and beard trailing on the ground, long 
 curved nails, like the claws of a bird of prey, and 
 deep simken eyes, which not only glowed like 
 live coals, but emitted a baleful heat that caused 
 the object of their regard to feel as though muscle, 
 nerve, and brain were dissoh^ing into vapour. 
 
 Twice when the poojary was on guard at the 
 temple door had this horrible creature appeared 
 to him, and on the morning succeeding each 
 visitation another valuable jewel was missed from 
 the idol. 
 
 The last theft had taken place exactly twenty-seven 
 days before the present interview, and, according to 
 what might now be regarded as an established pre- 
 cedent, the monthly outrage upon the Swami was to 
 be expected that very night. 
 
 Having ascertained these particidars, I determined 
 to mount guard myself, and entering the temple coiu-t 
 
io6 The Rislii and the Sacred Diamond. 
 
 at sundown, I took rip my post in front of the 
 threatened slirine. 
 
 It is dreary work pacing uj) and down at night with 
 nothing audible but one's own footsteps, and nothing 
 visible but the stars. After a very few hours of it, 
 eyes grow heavy, and limbs become weary ; so about 
 three o'clock I sat down to rest a little, leaning my 
 back against the temple door. I did not know that 
 sleep was stealing over me, or I would have got up 
 and shaken it off by a brisk walk ; but so it was, and 
 when I opened my eyes the East was reddening with 
 the dawn. 
 
 I arose, and carefully examined tlie bolts and bars ; 
 everything was in its place, and the seals upon the 
 locks were intact. I accordingly rejoiced that I had 
 no cause to reproach myself for my chance sur- 
 render to a common weakness. 
 
 When the priests came to open the door in order 
 to make the ordinary morning oiferiugs of flowers, I 
 told them confidently that they would find their 
 treasures safe, at any rate this time. But I was 
 grievously deceived ; a very valuable sapphire that 
 had formed a pendant to Akasaramana's right ear 
 had disappeared. I was fairly nonplussed ; but 
 worse was to follow. 
 
The Rishi and tJie Sacred Diauiond. 107 
 
 Another month passed, and I again went to my 
 post, this time after fortifying myself against 
 drowsiness by an afternoon sleep and a heavy 
 draught of black coffee. 
 
 I had just heard the stroke of two from a neigh- 
 bom-iug gong when a light sound from inside the 
 temple fell upon my ear. I inclined my face against 
 the door, and, sure enough, I could discern a delicate 
 click as though some sharp instrument were being 
 cautiously driven into hard concrete. The thief 
 w^as at work, but he was trapped. Hastily 
 arousing the watchmen, who, after their manner 
 were sleeping heavily, I made them surround 
 the building, into which it seemed to me that 
 the thief must have entered by the roof; I then 
 despatched some one to bring the custodians of 
 the keys; it was, however, several hours before I 
 could secure the presence of these magnates, but 
 in tlie meantime I never stirred from my position 
 at the door. 
 
 "When all the custodians had assembled, the sun 
 was rising, and the priests were approaching with 
 their flowers. " Here is yom- thief," I exclaimed 
 triumphantly to the old Durmakurta, as I produced 
 a pair of handcuffs from my pocket. The door 
 
io8 The Rishi and the Sacred Diamond. 
 
 swung open, and I pointed into the interior. 
 " Bring liim out," I ordered. 
 
 The Durmakurta adjusted his spectacles. "Where 
 is the thief ? " he inquired blandly ; "I cannot per- 
 ceive him." 
 
 The place was empty ! 
 
 Four weeks later I was retui'ning from a tour 
 through my division. The country being new to me 
 I had lost my way, and it was not till long past mid- 
 night that I found myself in the neighboiu-hood of 
 Sungamkondah. 
 
 When I had come within a hundred yards or so of 
 the Akasaramana temple, I nearl}^ ran up against a 
 heap of ruins that lay in my path. It was so dark that 
 I had to pull up my horse and strike a fusee in order 
 to see what lay in front of me. The brief blaze lighted 
 up the surroundings for the space of several yards, 
 and just as the flame died out, I saw — standing not 
 ten paces from me —the Rishi ! just as Penthiah had 
 described him, — hide, hair, beard, claws, and all, but 
 I did not observe the flaming eyes. I spurred my 
 horse forward, and in another moment we were 
 rolling over a block of masonry. I rose to my feet 
 half-stunned, and it was some moments before I 
 could recover myself sufficiently to remount ; by 
 
The Rishi and the Sacred Diamond. 109 
 
 that time, however, there were no indications to 
 guide pursuit. 
 
 The next day the usual periodic theft was reported. 
 This time the missing stone was an exquisitely 
 coloured amethyst that I had observed only the 
 week before flashing on the idol's shoulder. 
 
 It was to be remarked that as yet the Eishi had 
 not abstracted two stones of the same sort ; he 
 evidently delighted in variety, and the sole constant 
 feature of his depredations was the regularity of their 
 recurrence. The only stones remaining now un- 
 touched were the large rub}' and tlie sacred diamond. 
 
 Twenty-eight days after the foregoing incident, 
 without declaring my intentions to any one, I took 
 up my ground near the ruins. I had with me a 
 good dark-lantern, which I flashed every minute or 
 so in all du'ections. Judging by the stars, it might 
 have been half-past one, when, on flashing my light 
 for the hundredth time, I saw stealing away in the 
 direction of the mountain the shadowy form of the 
 Rishi. 
 
 I followed with great caution, keeping just within 
 ear-shot of his footsteps, which, as the ground was 
 covered with loose stones, was not difficult to 
 accomplish. Suddenly the sound of his progression 
 
no The Rishi and the Sacred Diamond. 
 
 ceased ; and I found that I liad arrived at the hill, 
 which on this side was formed of a great shelving 
 sheet of rock, some hundreds of yards high, and 
 impracticable to any but naked feet. 
 
 Hastily divesting myself of my boots, I slowly 
 ascended to a considerable height in the dark, and 
 then, turning on my lantern, I swept the hill from 
 base to summit. Far away near the crest stood the 
 Eishi, but as I gazed he vanished behind a project- 
 ing ledge. Further pursuit was useless, but I felt 
 that I was one step nearer the solution of the mystery. 
 
 Next day I received a report of the loss of the 
 ruby, and the notification was accompanied by a 
 harsh letter from the Durmakmia, saying that he 
 was about to recommend my superintendent to 
 remove me for gross and continued neglect of duty. 
 The threat did not trouble me much ; I had a bit of 
 a clue now, and there were four weeks in which to 
 work it out. But things were drawing to a culmina- 
 tion ; unless the Eishi abandoned his practice of not 
 taking two stones of the same sort, there was nothing 
 now left to steal but the big diamond, which the 
 thief had worked up to by a regular climax of depreda- 
 tion, and if the diamond went, I knew that I should 
 probably be removed in disgrace. 
 
The Rishi and the Sacred Diamond. 1 1 1 
 
 During the twenty- eight days that were left to me 
 I spent most of my time in roaming about the moun- 
 tain, for I was eon^dnced that the key to the mystery 
 was to be found there, and there alone. My other 
 duties I simply allowed to sHde. One day, as I was 
 climbiug over a sort of hillock, the ground beneath 
 me suddenly gave way, and I fell into a large cave. 
 In one comer was a faint gleam of light, which proved 
 to come from the entrance ; and as I emerged into 
 the sunshine, I found myself standing on the edge of 
 the sheet of rock up which I had seen the Eishi 
 climbing. Had it not been for this lucky accident I 
 might have searched that great rocky bush- clad 
 mountain for a year before I chanced upon the 
 discovery. 
 
 Within the space of half an horn- I had explored 
 every nook and cranny of the cave ; to all appearance it 
 was empty, and I was about to depart, when my eye 
 fell upon a long white hair that seemed growing out 
 of the rock ; closer inspection proved that the hair 
 was kept in its place by a broad stone ; this I easily 
 removed, and fouud that it served to close a small 
 aperture in which were concealed a large false beard, 
 behind which were rolled up an enormous horse-hair 
 wig, an old tattered gaberdiue, and a paii' of 
 
112 The Rishi and the Sac7^ed Diamond. 
 
 long leather gauntlets furnished with formidable 
 claws. The mystery was now in a fair way of 
 solution. My plan was soon formed, but I kept it 
 to myself. 
 
 On the evening of the twenty-eighth day, having 
 furnished myself with some phosphorus, I made my 
 way cautiously to the cave. On arriving there I 
 donned the Rishi's dress and appurtenances, and 
 having rubbed the phosphorus liberally upon the 
 walls of the cavern, I lighted my pipe, and sat down 
 to await events. 
 
 At about eleven o'clock I heard the sound of 
 heavy breathing outside — evidently that pull up the 
 face of the rock was a trying one. Then came the 
 crunch of a step upon the gravel at the entrance to 
 the cave, and in another moment appeared the dark 
 and indistinct figure of a man. 
 
 On seeing him I rose to my feet, and extending my 
 arms began slowly to approach him. I anticipated a 
 sharp struggle, and was prepared for it ; but the back- 
 ground of lambent flame and the unexpected appear- 
 ance of what seemed to him to be the real Simon Pm-e, 
 was too much for the stranger's nerves. He uttered 
 a loud cry, and fell forward senseless. 
 
 I rolled him upon his back, and, tm-ning my 
 
The Rishi and tJic Sacred Dianioud. i i 3 
 
 lantern on bis face, beheld to my intense astonisb- 
 ment tbe featm-es of the Durmakurta ! 
 
 After a moment's consideration I determined upon 
 adopting ^sitb bim a course different from tbat which 
 I should have followed in the case of an ordinary 
 offender. Maintaining tbe role oi tbe Eisbi, I took 
 a lump of phosphorus, and, kneeling down, traced in 
 large characters upon his chest the word Bonga, 
 which in Telugu signifies " thief," then, leading him 
 to recover at bis leism^e, I proceeded to cany into 
 execution tbe remainder of my project, llaking my 
 way to the temple, I got over the wall by the aid of 
 two bamboos, with which I was provided, and walked 
 warily towards the shrine. 
 
 At tbe door- way, snoring heavily, lay Pentbiah, 
 the poojary. Placing my hand upon bis forehead I 
 bade him arise ; he opened liis eyes, but, as I had 
 anticipated, seemed in no degree disconcerted at 
 seeing a Eisbi bending over bim. 
 
 " Why have you not come by the secret passage ? " 
 be asked, yawning. 
 
 "Because it is blocked, my son," I whispered in 
 Telugu. " Come, help me to clear tbe way." 
 
 He arose sluggishly, and shouldering a ladder that 
 lay hidden in the long grass behind tbe slmne, 
 
 1 
 
114 J- ''-'■' A'/i^/« and the Sacred Diamond. 
 
 unsuspectingly led me over the wall to the heap of 
 ruins. 
 
 After searching al)Ovit for a few moments he 
 stooped, and lifted a large flat stone. 
 
 " There is no obstruction," he muttered, as he 
 peered into the cavity below ; " the way is clear, my 
 father, you can descend." 
 
 " Good," I replied, in a low voice, " return to the 
 temple ! " an order which, half asleep though he was, 
 he was not slow to obey. 
 
 Descending into the hole I turned on my lantern, 
 and saw that I was in a stone vaulted passage of 
 great antiquity and much out of repair. Proceeding 
 for about a hundred yards, I came to some steps at 
 the top of which was another flat stone, which, work- 
 ing on a hinge, yielded to a j)ush, and I found 
 myself in front of the shrine. I directed my bull's- 
 eye to the idol, and a brilliant gleam told me 
 that the diamond was undistm'bed. I had seen 
 enough, and being satisfied that the gem was safe 
 against any attempt that night, I retm-ned to my 
 quarters. 
 
 The next day I sought an interview with the 
 Durmakui'ta, but w^as told that he was down mth 
 fever, and was too ill to be disturbed. As I turned 
 
The Rislii and the Sacred Diamond. 115 
 
 to go I ran against the poojary. " Whither so fast, 
 my Mend ? " I asked. 
 
 " The Durmakurta desires ray presence on emer- 
 gent business in connection \A\\\ the temple," he 
 answered, as he tried to pass me. 
 
 *' The Durmakurta is too ill to see anybody," said 
 I. " Come to my house. I, too, have to discuss 
 with you emergent business connected with the 
 temple " and I took his arm. 
 
 Finding resistance unavailing, the poojary 
 doggedly accompanied me. Leading him into my 
 private room, I closed the door. 
 
 " Was there a theft from the temple last night 'i " 
 I asked. 
 
 " No," was the somewhat relieved reply. 
 
 " Did you not see the Eishi ? " 
 
 " No," said the poojary, regarding me suspiciously. 
 
 " Then how did that saintly person remove the 
 stone of the secret passage ? " 
 
 He turned green with terror, and I thought I saw 
 my chance. 
 
 " Where are the precious stones that have been 
 removed from the idol dui'ing the past year and a 
 quarter ? " 
 
 But lie instantly recovered himself, and, assuming 
 
 I 2 
 
1 1 6 The Rishi and tJic Sacred Diamond. 
 
 an ail- of stolidity, replied : " The stones ? Ah ! I 
 wish I could tell you. Wlio knows the secrets of 
 Eishis ? " 
 
 " / know them, and 1 arrest you as an abettor of 
 systematic burglary," I answered, as I clapped a pair 
 of handcuffs on his wrists. 
 
 Before the week was over I had prevailed upon the 
 managers of the temple to call together all the people 
 who were in any way connected with its administra- 
 tion. The number was too great to admit of their 
 being all brought together in my house, so the meet- 
 ing was held in the temple compound 
 
 Among those present, though much against his 
 will, was the Durmakurta. He looked wasted and 
 haggard, and was, in fact, so ill that he had to be 
 provided with a chair. 
 
 In the back-ground was Penthiah, ironed, and 
 escorted by tv\ o constables. 
 
 All being assembled, and the doors of the court- 
 yard closed, I addressed the meeting in my choicest 
 Telugu. I said that during the space of many months 
 a great sacrilege had been going on, a sacrilege 
 so artfully conducted that the discovery of its per- 
 petrators had bafSed the intelligence of man ; but 
 what ingenuity could enable sin to foil the vengeance 
 
The Ris/ii and the Sacred Diamond. 1 1 7 
 
 of the gods ! At last Akasaramana had arisen in his 
 wrath, and had commanded a sacred E-ishi from the 
 hills to avenge his outra'^'^ed shrine. The thief, I 
 continued, had been permitted for a time to pui-sue 
 his impious course unscathed, but when his hand was 
 raised to violate the sacred diamond he was bianded 
 on the breast by a finger of fire. The thief is in this 
 assembly ; it is not for me to point him out, let the 
 writing of the god reveal him. Lay bare, all of you, 
 yoar breasts, and prove your innocence to the world. 
 
 Thus adjured, every one, except the Diu'makurta, 
 at once threw aside his upper cloth, 
 
 " Respected father," I said gently, " be pleased to 
 show us that you also are guiltless of this deadly 
 sin." 
 
 But the old man had sunk backwards in his 
 chair, and was gazing into the sky with the vacant 
 stare of death. 
 
 Ever since tliat awful night upon the mountain 
 he had believed that the hand of an offended god 
 had fallen upon him, and that his days were 
 numbered ; from that hour his decline had been 
 rapid, and the present ordeal had proved more than 
 his enfeebled frame could bear. 
 
 One of the by-standers uncovered the old man's 
 
I r 8 The RisJii and the Sacred Diaiuond. 
 
 cliest in a vain endeavour to revive him, and there, 
 seared into the flesh, were the fatal characters. 
 
 Calling the poojary to the front, I pointed to the 
 dead man. " See," I cried, " liow Heaven rewards 
 the violators of its shrines ; that traitor made no 
 sign, and is now in Nerckum ; * as for 9/011 I can see 
 already growing upon your forehead a fiery scroll in 
 which your sins also are set forth. Confess ere it be 
 too late where you have hidden the stolen jewels." 
 
 "The well," he gasped — "the dry well in the 
 corner of the court." 
 
 Search was immediately made, and in an old tin 
 box concealed among the rubbish at the bottom of 
 the well lay the plundered regalia. 
 
 The Diu'makurta assumed that particular disguise 
 as a protection against possible capture, for the 
 boldest man would hesitate to tackle a Rishi ; the 
 other circumstances were of course designed to 
 further tlie idea of supernatural agency. A profes- 
 sional thief would have come at uncertain periods, 
 and would probably have taken the pick of tlie 
 basket at his first visit. 
 
 Poojary Penthiah got seven years. 
 
 * Hell. 
 
A BLACK PEINCE. 
 
 The Resident of Lilipatam had completed his monthly 
 inspection of the civil dispensary, and, accompanied 
 by the honorary surgeon in charge, was moving with 
 measm-ed steps and dignified deportment towards the 
 outer door. 
 
 " What are you going to do with that long-legged 
 son of yours, Mr. Manuel ? " inquired the Resident, 
 pausing on the threshold and regarding the lionorary 
 siu'geon with stately condescension. 
 
 The honorary surgeon smiled weakly and played 
 with a stethoscope that he was carrying, 
 
 " When a lad has turned twenty, it is higli time 
 he was out in the world," continued the Resident. 
 " Why, I was earning my own living at eighteen." 
 
 At the very idea of the Resident of Lilipatam 
 finding himself under the necessity of working for 
 his living, Mr. Manuel's smile expanded into a 
 deprecatory grin. And as lie grinned he displaced a 
 
I20 A Black Pi'ince. 
 
 set of excellent teeth that gleamed the whiter bj con- 
 trast with the dark olive of his ample cheeks. 
 
 " "What are you going to do with him ? " repeated 
 the Eesident. 
 
 " I thought of making him either a doctor, sir, or 
 a liyar," replied the surgeon. 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 " A liyar, sir — a pleader." 
 
 " Oh, you mean a lawyer. You should be more 
 accurate in your pronunciation. No, he is too big a 
 fool for a lawyer; let him stick to his father's trade. 
 Send him to England and make him walk the hos- 
 pitals. Good day to you." As he spoke, Mr. Magnus 
 mounted his dog-cart, and acknowledging the doctor's 
 low bow by a curt nod, di'ove back to the Residency. 
 
 Mr. Magnus did not often deign to interest himself 
 in the affairs of his subordinates, and the few chance 
 words spoken that morning sank deejjly into the 
 mind of the honorarj^ sm-geon. Acted upon 
 promptly and intelligently, the advice thus given 
 might eventually constitute a claim upon the 
 Resident's good offices. The value of a j)owerful 
 patron was known to few men more clearly than to 
 Mr. Manuel; — had not he himself, a poor Eurasian 
 orphan, been taken by the hand when a child by a 
 
A Black Prince. 121 
 
 large-hearted planter, who had given him as good an 
 education as the circumstances of the time permitted, 
 and had ultimately obtained for him an appointment 
 to the Indian Medical Service ? True, the nomina- 
 tion was to the lowest of the subordinate 
 grades, and it was by his own steady perseverance 
 and plodding industry that the planter's proU(j(' had 
 attained his present position, but it was to his 
 patron that he owed the start. Why should the son 
 not begin where the father ended — nay, why should 
 he not begin a step higher and enter the commissioned 
 ranks ? Delirious thought, but withal possible. 
 Joseph was shy and timid, somewhat inclined to self- 
 indulgence and averse from work ; but Mr. Magnus 
 was wi'ong in liis estimate of the lad's mental calibre, 
 he was certainly not a fool. 
 
 Exactly a month after the conversation at the 
 dispensary, a tall, shambling, whitey-brown youth 
 entered the Eesident's private room. Although Joseph 
 came by appointment, Mr. Magnus was not present 
 to receive him. The gorgeously dressed peon who 
 discharged the ofhce of door-keeper stated that the 
 Eesident Sahib had not returned from his morning 
 drive, and tliat Mr. Joseph Manuel was to await him 
 in the private room. 
 
122 A Black Prince. 
 
 The visitor's appearance was not prepossessing ; 
 his loose and lanky frame was clad in thin jail- made 
 cloth of a grey-green hue ; his scraggy neck was girt 
 with a soiled collar encircled by a pale blue tie, and 
 his splay feet were encased in clod-hopping boots. In 
 one hand he held his hat — a large oval structure of 
 pith and canvas — and in the other he grasped a thick 
 bamboo walking-stick. His long black hair was 
 radiant with oil, his brown face streamed with 
 perspiration, and his languid eyes were heavy as 
 though from recent tears. 
 
 Selecting a chair that, judged by its rigid and unin- 
 viting appearance seemed set apart for the accommo- 
 dation of persons of the baser sort, he seated himself 
 diffidently on its verge, and drawing forth a small 
 pocket-handkerchief, proceeded to mop and scour 
 his face. 
 
 The roll of approaching wheels was now heard, 
 and a moment or two later a carriage drew uj) under 
 the porch, then there was a rattling of bits and curb- 
 chains, a patting of horses' necks, and a pawing of 
 hoofs eager for the stable. As the carriage was led 
 away, the voice of Mr. Magnus broke upon the ear ; 
 he was speaking with asperity, he was annoyed. 
 Mr. Magnus suave and mannerly was sufficiently 
 
A Black Prince. 1 2 3 
 
 trying to weak nerves, but that gentleman moved to 
 anger was dread and direful to the strongest. Joseph 
 rose trembling, and stood, hat and stick in hand, 
 gazing at the door. 
 
 Mr. Magnus entered huniedly, with some official 
 papers in his hand ; he glanced sharply at Joseph and 
 told him to be seated, then standing at the "WTiting- 
 table he took up a large blue pencil and began to 
 endorse remarks upon the documents. Seeing that 
 Joseph remained standing, he testily repeated his 
 command that his visitor should take a chair. 
 
 In com2:)lying with the mandate, Joseph let liis 
 stick fall with a thud upon the floor, and in his 
 effort to recover it nearly j^arted company with his hat. 
 Ml'. Magnus frowned at this display of clumsiness, 
 and the delincpient experienced a sensation of faint- 
 ness coupled with a desire for fresh air and solitude. 
 
 Mr. Magnus, having finished writing, solemnly 
 enthroned himself in his great chau% crossed his 
 legs, and tapped his knee gracefully with his gold- 
 framed glasses. 
 
 Joseph Manuel ])erched on the extreme edge of his 
 uncomfortable seat, and tightly grasping his hat and 
 stick, regarded the great man with cataleptic terror. 
 He had never before held converse with the Resident, 
 
124 -"^ Black Prince. 
 
 indeed, his intercom^se with that gentleman had been 
 confined to obeisances in the public thoroughfares, or 
 humble replies to patronizing inquiries at the dispen- 
 sary ; and here he was in the royal sanctum, enjoy- 
 ing the privilege of a private interview, and seated, 
 actually seated, in the presence of the king ! 
 
 His reflections were disturbed by a rasping voice 
 from the chair of state. Mr. Magnus was haranguing 
 him, and the tone of the speaker resembled that of a 
 judge addressing a criminal whom he had determined 
 upon hanging. 
 
 " Joseph Manuel, you are about to take the most 
 
 important step in a young man's life. You are 
 
 about to embark in a career, useful, honourable, and — 
 
 ahem ! lucrative. I am gratified to learn that my 
 
 counsel has had due weight with your father ; let it 
 
 have equal influence with yourself. My advice to 
 
 you is to keep out of debt, work hard, beat all your 
 
 competitors, and remember the words of the Roman 
 
 poet — 
 
 " 'Qui slndet optatam cursii contingere nietam 
 Multa tnlit fecitqne puer, sudavit et alsit.' 
 
 " Sudavit et alsit," repeated Mr. Magnus, as Joseph 
 Manuel mopped himself. 
 
 " You are going to England," continued the 
 
A Black Prince. 125 
 
 speaker, " far away from the acquaintances of join- 
 youth "— 
 
 Joseph blew his nose, 
 
 " Far away from your relatives " — 
 
 Joseph sniffled. 
 
 " Far away from liome and all its sunny 
 memories" — 
 
 Joseph sobbed. 
 
 " Don't be a child," interrupted the Eesident 
 harshl3\ " What are you crying for ? — a great hulk- 
 ing fellow like you crying ! " 
 
 " I'm going to a place where I've no friends, no 
 ac — ac — acquaintances, no ho — — — me," moaned 
 Joseph. 
 
 Mr. Magnus waved his hand majestically. 
 
 " Dismiss all such craven repinings. I shall 
 entrust you with a letter to Mrs. Magnus, to whom 
 you are at liberty to pay your respects at her house 
 in Kensington. I will write the letter now." And 
 wheeling his chair to the table, he wi-ote as follows : — 
 
 " Dear Marian, 
 
 " The bearer is Joseph Manuel, the son of the 
 honorary surgeon in charge of our dispensary — a 
 very worthy old Eurasian whom I have known for 
 
126 A Black Prince. 
 
 many years. The lad is begiuniug- his studies for 
 the Medical Department ; he is a boor, an idler, and 
 a fool. In England he will be as helpless as a sick 
 monkey. Show him a little attention, and, if you 
 and the girls can stand him, have him up now and 
 then to Sunday tea. 
 
 " Your affectionate husband, 
 
 " Lemuel Magnus.'' 
 
 Sealing the envelope with the Magnus peacock, he 
 rose and handed the missive to the young Indo- 
 Briton, who received it with due servility. 
 
 " Here is the letter," said Mr. Magnus, " and now 
 farewell to you," and he extended two fingers. 
 
 Joseph clasped the proffered digits with fervid 
 deference, and placing the precious document in his 
 pocket, slunk home along the dusty pathway under 
 the shade of the Persian trees like a man in a dream. 
 
 On tui-ning the corner at the end of the broad 
 avenue leading from the Residency, Joseph's ear 
 caught the rattle of rapidly approaching wheels and 
 hoofs. Recognizing in the sound the advent of a 
 familiar but nevertheless keenly-favoured pageant, 
 he ascended a heap of stones by the wayside in order 
 the better to behold the spectacle. In a few moments 
 
.-i Black Prince. 127 
 
 some half-dozeu horsemen clothed in gay but grimy 
 habiliments and mounted on ill-fed and worse- 
 groomed country-bred horses, cantered past him in 
 picturesque disorder. They were followed at a short 
 distance by a fom'-horse coach, painted yellow, with a 
 huge coat of arms sprawling across the panels. On 
 the box was a long-bearded Mohammedan coachman 
 who worked his team more with his voice than with 
 whip and reins. Inside the vehicle was a stolid-look- 
 ing youth in a blue silk jacket and a gold-embroided 
 cap. He was of about the same age and colour as 
 Joseph, but somewhat fatter in face and more 
 Paphian in eye. This was the Rajah of Lilipatam, 
 at whose court Mr. Magnus represented the might 
 and majesty of the suzerain power. 
 
 The monarch, who was engaged in chewing areca- 
 nut, vouchsafed to young Manuel's salute the acknow- 
 ledgment of a dull stare and a slow movement of the 
 hand. He passed on, and the carriage was succeeded 
 by more ill-clad and unwashed horsemen seated on 
 fluffy steeds. 
 
 As the cortege with its enveloping dust-cloud dis- 
 appeared round the corner, Joseph, stung with 
 admiring envy, smote his stony pedestal with his stick 
 and mused aloud : — 
 
128 A Black Prince. 
 
 " Oh, to be a Rajali ! and to have lacs and lacs of 
 rupees, with all sorts of cuiTies, the best of sweets, 
 and fruit and liqueurs, and nothing to do hut eat 
 and drink, smoke and sleep, ride in a coach" — he called 
 it a cooch — " and marry the prettiest women in the 
 place. And best of all, always to stay at home — 
 while I — I have to go away thousands, millions of 
 miles to earn my daily rice." 
 
 Oppressed by the bitterness of his reflections, he 
 belaboured the heap of stones with much severity, 
 and then, descending to the foot-way, resumed his 
 slouch in the direction of his father's house. 
 
 Turning into a weedy and arid enclosure laid out 
 as a garden and surrounded by a wall of sun-dried 
 mud, he entered a rambling white- washed house with 
 a thatched roof and green, sun-blistered Yenetiau 
 blinds. A hum of voices and the click of cutlery from 
 an inner room informed Joseph that the family were 
 at breakfast. Briskly hanging his hat on a peg in 
 the verandah, the young man opened the door and 
 joined the social gathering. 
 
 Joseph's family circle consisted of the honorary 
 surgeon, that gentleman's wife, a pm'sy old lady of 
 bistre hue, and five terra-cotta children whose respec- 
 tive ages ranged from seven to thirteen ; those that 
 
A Black Prince. 129 
 
 had filled the gap between the eldest of these and 
 Joseph had been nipped in their earlj bloom. 
 
 When Joseph entered the room the honorary 
 surgeon was distributing curry to the family from 
 a capacious bowl. He paused in the exercise of this 
 patriarchal function, and regarding his son and heir 
 with grave anxiety, inquired how he had sped. 
 
 " First-rate," replied Joseph, with a heavy wink. 
 
 " Well done, my boy. What did he say to you ? " 
 
 " Give me some curry and rice, and then I'll tell 
 you," replied Joseph, holding out a plate for his share 
 of the savoury compound. His father j)iled his plate 
 and his mother filled his cup. An expectant silence, 
 broken only by the prattling of the little ones, was 
 maintained by the party while the heir of the house 
 broke his fast. At length Joseph, who although a 
 worm in the presence of Mr. Magnus was a vertebrate 
 animal in his own family, condescended to satisfy the 
 general curiosity. 
 
 " He has given me a letter to Mrs. Magnus." 
 
 " To Mrs. Magnus ! " exclaimed liis mother 
 delightedly. 
 
 " Ah, to Mrs. Magnus, and toM me to call on her 
 at Ken — Kensinpatara, and she's got to be kind to 
 me. 
 
 K 
 
1 30 A Black Prince. 
 
 " Why, I rec'lect her, 'Dolphus," said Mrs. Manuel, 
 addressing her husband, " I rec'lect her when she 
 stayed at the Residency last Christmas five years, 
 and she was the haughtiest haughtiest I ever see. 
 You remember her, sui'ely ? " 
 
 But Mr. Manuel did not reply, liis thoughts were 
 with his sou. 
 
 " My dear boy, you'll do well — a good beginning, 
 that letter. I s'pose she'll introduce you to the 
 Surgeon-General, and the Lord Mayor, and the 
 Bishop of St. Paul's, aud " — Mr. Manuel's loiowledge 
 of London failed to carry him further, so he concluded 
 comprehensively, " the rest of the Government 
 officers." 
 
 " Josey will be coming back quite a Eiu'ope 
 gentleman," observed the child of thirteen. 
 
 " So he will, Chustie, and with a moustache and 
 gold lace down his trousers," smiled the lionorary 
 surgeon, whose fine teeth had never ceased to beam 
 upon his first-born since the mention of the letter. 
 
 " And with a blue-eyed wife, I'll be bound," 
 added his mother, with a waggish leer. 
 
 "Let us see the letter, Josey, bo}^," said his father. 
 And the Resident's missive was delved for, and 
 exhumed from Joseph's breast-pocket. 
 
A Black Prince. 1 3 i 
 
 Having been made to perform sundry flourishes in 
 the air expressive of high triumph, it was handed 
 round for admiring inspection. The hand-wiiting, 
 the paper, the seal, and the general appearance 
 were minutely criticized ; the seniors weighed the 
 envelope and the juniors solemnly smelt it. Finally, 
 the honorary surgeon held it up to the light in the 
 hope that some of the verbal treasures within might 
 be visible through the covering. Clearly, the Eesi- 
 dent's caution in affixing the peacock seal was not 
 misplaced; gum could be managed, but, as Airs. 
 Manuel observed, sealing-wax was troublesome. 
 
 When the billet was returned to its possessor, the 
 general verdict was that it looked verj^ business-like 
 and was worth to Joseph at least a thousand rupees. 
 A few days later the young adventm-er was lying 
 horribly sea-sick in a second-class cabin on board the 
 screw-steamer Diver, homeward bound from Bombay. 
 The voyage was uneventful. Joseph travelled 
 from port to port with the listless unintelligence of a 
 bullock ; the only mental exercise that he allowed 
 himself was the devising of cunning j)lans for return- 
 ing to India before the end of the year; the rest of 
 his time was spent in sea-sickness and tears. 
 
 At Southampton he presented a piteous spectacle 
 
 K 2 
 
132 A Black Prince. 
 
 of helplessness, and it was solely owing to the good- 
 nature of his cabin companion — a retired sei-geant of 
 dragoons — that he was able to gather his luggage 
 together and take train for London. 
 
 Joseph Manuel's luggage consisted of three 
 wooden cases : the first contained wearing apparel ; 
 the second, curry-powder for his sustenance while in 
 England ; and the third, several dozen bottles of 
 omuni-water, distilled by his father and regarded by 
 that veteran practitioner as a sovereign prophylactic 
 against the harmful vapours of London town. 
 
 His first care on arriving in London was to find a 
 lodging suited to his modest requirements, and after 
 a day's desultory research he installed himself, 
 together with his curry-powder and his omum-water, 
 in two small rooms over a dingy shop in a back 
 street near the British Museum. Then having paid 
 his fees and complied with the necessary formalities, 
 he commenced work as a student at St. .(Esculap's 
 Hospital. 
 
 Leaving him thus usefully employed we must 
 for a short time return to Lilipatam, where Mr. 
 Magnus, seated at early tea in the ujiper verandah, is 
 enjoying the weekly treat of the Englishman in 
 India — a ramp through the English mail. Letters, 
 
A Black Prince. 133 
 
 circulars, newspapers, and magazines are strewn in 
 lavish profusion upon the wide table before him, and 
 while, paper-knife in hand, he deliberates as to the 
 first point of his attack, his eye falls upon the hand- 
 writing of ^rs. Magnus, and the sight of the familiar 
 characters decides him. 
 
 Brevity has been declared to be the soul of wit, 
 but some people hold profuseness to be the spirit of 
 scripture ; and if the apothegm is sound, Urs. Magnus 
 was an excellent correspondent. We have not space 
 at command sufficient to reproduce the whole of her 
 letter, but will extract a portion from the conclud- 
 ing page: 
 
 "After this account of our doings at York, 
 you will not be surprised to hear that we are glad to 
 get back to quiet Snooseby — especially Trelise. 
 Jack Aventayle has been over to see us twice ; the 
 death of his Gruardsman cousin leaves him now tJiird 
 for the peerage. Angelica has grown quite extrava- 
 gant since she came into her three-hundred a year, 
 and spends quite a fortune on dress. Her last exploit 
 was to buy a forty-guinea frock at Descou's — light 
 blue and pale pink. She certainly looks well in it, 
 
 with her fair hair and clear complexion As 
 
 we are not in town this season, youi* East Indian 
 
134 A Black Prince. 
 
 protege posted your letter of iutroduction to me. 
 I sliall show him what attention I can when 
 we ^:i up in the winter, and have written to say we 
 
 shall be at the usual address in Kensington 
 
 Mind and come home if you have any more trouble 
 with that horrid gout." 
 
 II. 
 
 A YEAR later Mrs. Magnus concluded her weekly 
 letter as follows : " Oui' party on Wednesday went 
 off very well. Lady Helmethame promised, but did 
 not come; we had, however, the Dudley- Jenkinsons 
 and the Trawlers, and other good people; about eighty 
 came out of a hundred-and-twenty asked. Jack 
 Aventayle spent the whole evening with Trelise— he 
 is now only two from the title. Young Mr. Manuel 
 played on the concertina, and sang — not at all well ; 
 but as he was from India the people were interested. 
 They thought ' The Cottage by the Sea ' was an 
 Indian ballad sung in the vernacular. A lady wrote 
 to me the next day asking as a great favour if I could 
 
A Black Pnucc. 135 
 
 get her a copy of Tha Khiitaj hni tlimi from the 
 Indian gentleman. Some people would have it that 
 he was a Eajah — I believe that sillv boy Aventajle 
 was at the bottom of it. Mr. Manuel is a very quiet, 
 well-behaved young man ; always ready to be of use 
 to us. The girls rather sit upon him, but he takes 
 it very good-naturedly." 
 
 Twelve months had elapsed since Josejjh Manuel, 
 limp, despairing, and unclean, had staggered from 
 the lively deck of the good ship Blrcr to the more 
 welcome footing of the Southampton qua}-. 
 
 The year in London had wrought a striking change 
 both in the outer and the inner man of the exile. A 
 drooping moustache now concealed his large flaccid 
 lips ; his hair, no longer glistening with odorous 
 unguents, was decently cut ; his clothes were well 
 made, and set off his burly figure to advantage ; for 
 Joseph the lanky, loose-set hobbledehoy had become 
 actually burly. By a fortunate chance that befell 
 shortly after his amval in London, he discovered in 
 a secluded corner of Bloomsbury a culinary temple 
 in which the chief priest was a skilled composer 
 of the spiced stew which in England counterfeits 
 a curry. This accomplished artist understood, more- 
 over, the preparation of kicheri and pilau, and of 
 
136 A Black Prince. 
 
 many other pungent and greasy aliments favoured in 
 the East. Here thrice a day had Joseph feasted 
 unctuously. His own private store of curry-powder 
 he had sold at a handsome figure to the keeper of 
 the restaurant, but had failed to induce that uu- 
 enterj)rising tradesman to extend his speculation to 
 the omum-water. 
 
 After battening for a year u]jon stimulating and 
 succulent confections, Joseph had begun to grow 
 corpulent, and now presented to the careless eye the 
 outlines of a stalwart man. Indeed, the Miss Mag- 
 nuses were not indisposed, /(/i//^ de mieux, to retain the 
 services of so tall and portly a cavalier as escort in 
 ordinary. It is true that there were points in him that 
 still requu'ed improving : he was, perhaps, a little 
 too fond of bright-coloured raiment ; his taste for 
 jewellery might with benefit have been chastened; and 
 it was generally considered that his fondness for j^at- 
 chouli was misplaced. As has already been shown, 
 Joseph had made the acquaintance of Mrs. Magnus, 
 and had been advanced from five-o'clock teas to mid- 
 night crushes. Society in England was at that time 
 directing a drowsy attention to India, it was the 
 year of the Prince of Wales' visit to our great 
 dependency, and in certain quarters no evening 
 
A Black Prince 
 
 J/ 
 
 party was considered complete without the presence 
 of some ethnological specimen of the East, so Joseph 
 found himself in request not only at the " at homes" of 
 Mrs. Magnus, hut at more amhitious entertainments 
 at the houses of her friends. These extended 
 experiences taught him to converse easily on the 
 ordinary topics of the day, and invested him with a 
 manner and a style that were greatly to his advantage. 
 
 It was a fine afternoon in July. ^Irs. Magnus having 
 been disappointed by a man who was to have made a 
 fourth in her carriage, had bidden Joseph at the 
 shortest notice accompany her and two of her 
 daughters to Hurlingham. 
 
 Mrs. Magnus by means of rigid economy in her 
 Yorkshire cottage during nine months of the year 
 was able, when in London during the season, not 
 oaly to give smart parties, but to allow herself a 
 carriage. They were on the ground early, and fell 
 into a good position near the pavilion, where 
 they could observe the entrance of later arrivals and 
 discuss the appearance of their friends. 
 
 " There's the Rawleys' drag, ma; it's got into the 
 wrong place, and the policemen are turning it back," 
 said Angelica Magnus, with animation. " Captain 
 Rawley looks as though he would like to whip them." 
 
138 A Black Prince. 
 
 '• Here's Ladj Helmethame, ma, dear," whispered 
 Trelise, who sat by her mother's side, " and ]Mr. 
 Aventayle's with her." 
 
 " Look at the Dudley- Jeiikinsons,'' cried Angelica, 
 " with their new team of bays. Oh, what lovely 
 horses ! Who are those two girls with the wonderful 
 hats ? " 
 
 " They are the Duke of Cranberry's daughters, 
 Lady Betty and Lady Moggy Tartlet, great 
 friends of Flora Dudley-Jenkinson," replied Mrs. 
 Magnus, who knew most people about to'wn — by sight. 
 
 " Mr. Aventayle's coming this way, ma, dear. 
 May I walk with him if he asks me ? " whispered 
 Trelise. 
 
 " Yes, dear, but only for an half an lioiu* ; and 
 remember not to eat strawberries in that frock — 
 recollect what happened to your mauve at the 
 Orleans." 
 
 "Do you know what this match is?" inquired 
 Joseph, who felt rather out of the conversation and 
 wanted to say something. 
 
 " Oh, the Blues and the Lancers, or the Grreys and 
 the Inniskillings, I forget which," replied Mrs. 
 Magnus absently. " How de do, Mr. Aventayle ? 
 \V^hat a time they are beginnin' ; I suppose they're 
 
A Black Prince. 139 
 
 waitin' for the Princess, thougli." Mrs. Magnus 
 always droj)ped her (/'.s- when she had her quality 
 manner on. 
 
 " Here she is," said Aventayle, turning and lifting 
 his hat as the Marlborough House carriage swept by. 
 The ladies bent low, but Joseph, who had never 
 before been in such close neighbourhood to British 
 royality, was so dazzled by the kindly smile from the 
 passing victoria that he forgot to bow to its gracious 
 occupants, and recovered himself in time only to 
 bestow a liimible salutation iipon an out-rider in the 
 rear. 
 
 After exchanging greetings with the ladies, Aven- 
 tayle turned to Joseph, with whom he already had a 
 how-d'ye-do acquaintance, and asked him to go for a 
 stroll. Joseph, whose long legs were becoming pain- 
 fully cramped in the carnage, readily compKed. As 
 they walked away Aventayle remarked : — 
 
 " My aunt, I^ady Helmethame, wants me to intro- 
 duce you to her ; she wants to hear about India. Do 
 you miud? " 
 
 Joseph had no objection to offer, and the young 
 men turned towards a barouche manned by a fat 
 coachman with a short curly wig, and two footmen 
 with heavily-powdered hair. 
 
140 A Black Prince. 
 
 " I say," Aventayle went on, " my aunt believes 
 you're a Raj all ; it's a capital joke — mind you keep it 
 up." And before Joseph could reply he found him- 
 self standing at a carriage-door and bowing to two 
 elderly ladies, one of whom was addressing him. 
 
 "I am delighted to know you, Rajah. The 
 Duchessof Daylesford — "and she glancedtowards the 
 lady at her side — " also wishes to become acquainted 
 with you. Duchess, this is the Rajah of — ? " 
 
 " Liliput ! " supplied Aventayle. 
 
 " No, you silly boy ; that's in Gulliver's Travels. 
 What is it. Rajah, that they call your place — yom- 
 dominions, I should say ? " 
 
 " Lilipatam," stammered Joseph, lifting his hat 
 to the Duchess, and feeling very hot and choky. 
 
 " The Rajah of Lilipatam," continued Lady 
 Helmethame, " and he is now in England study- 
 ing ? " and she looked inquiringly at Aven- 
 tayle. 
 
 " The sanitary and therapeutic systems of the 
 British Isles," responded her nephew. 
 
 " Insanity and the reputed systems of the British 
 Isles," repeated the old lady. " And now, Jack, we 
 will release you ; we want to have a long talk with 
 His Highness — so, dear boy, au fcvoir ! " 
 
A Black Prince. 141 
 
 " I have had many friends in India/' began the 
 Duchess, in a weary voice ; " some of my relatives 
 have been Grovernors of Presidencies. Did you ever 
 meet Lord Tresby — no ?— ah I he was perhaps a little 
 before your time, but you would have known my 
 cousin Stranraer ; he commanded the army of 
 occupation in— all I I always forget your terrible 
 Indian names — it begins with a B, or a D, or a C, 
 and ends with povc or ahad. Did you know him? 
 Such a nice fellow, so fond of sport; a fine rider, and, 
 I have heard, a first-rate soldier. I am sure you 
 would have liked him. Talking of sport, are you 
 giving the Prince an}' tiger-shooting ? or does he 
 not go to lillypore ? " 
 
 " N — no — no. I have not heard that he is 
 expected in our part of India," bleated Joseph. 
 
 " Oh no. Duchess," interposed Lady Helmethame. 
 " If the Prince had been expected at Lillybad, we 
 should not have the pleasure of seeing the Kajali in 
 England — should we, Rajah ? " 
 
 Joseph smiled a ghastly smile, and faintly replied, 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 Now, to do him justice, it must be stated that 
 Joseph Manuel was not a willing accessory to this 
 imposture ; had he been allowed time to thiuk, his 
 
142 A Black Prince. 
 
 fears would have safeguarded him. He was 
 keenly alive to the folly of the position — he had 
 not yet realized the danger of it —and would have 
 given all he was worth to be able to laugh 
 gaily, and gracefully explain how that incor- 
 rigible farceur, Jack Aventayle, was enacting 
 a merry jest, and that he, Joseph, had for the 
 moment allowed himself to fall into the humour 
 of the frolic, but that in sober truth he was no 
 lion, but only Snug the joiner. This he would have 
 done had he possessed the power, but alas ! when he 
 essayed it, he felt as though his nerves of volition 
 were sheathed in lead, and he could no more have 
 explained matters now than he could have lifted the 
 barouche. He was as a man launched in a toboggan 
 — he had no option but to sit tight and go forward. 
 
 As it happened, he found but little difficulty in 
 sustaining the role thus unexpectedly thrust upon 
 him. The conversation that ensued was entirely upon 
 India. Its missions, its schools, its infant-marriages, 
 its zenanas, its poverty, its wealth, all by turns 
 received passing attention. Both ladies preferred 
 talking to listening, and their knowledge of Indian 
 subjects was so confused and indistinct, that Manuel's 
 immature pronouncements and hesitating confirmation 
 
A Black Prince. 143 
 
 of tlieii' own nebulous theories passed as the utterance 
 of a man who was profoundly conversant with every 
 detail of the administration. 
 
 Josejih stood by Lady Helmethame's carriage for 
 more than an hour ; although conscious that he was 
 failing in his duty to the Magnus party, he did not 
 well know how to withdraw, and waited in the 
 Eastern manner for some hint of dismissal; but still 
 the ladies prattled on. Suddenly her Ladyship 
 exclaimed, " Look, the Princess is going to present 
 the cup. Rajah, the Duchess wants to see it given ; 
 will you be good enough to escort Her Grrace to the 
 pavihon ? I shall stay in the carriage." 
 
 One of the powdered footman opened the door and 
 the Duchess descended. Joseph was at first doubtful 
 whether he should walk in front of her after the 
 manner of a chobdar clearing the way for the llajah 
 of Lilipatam, or whether he should follow her like a 
 peon in attendance on Mr. Maguus ; but as the old 
 lady talked to him without cessation, he concluded 
 that, after all, the proper place of the escort to a 
 Duchess was by his cliarge's side. 
 
 When, half-an-hom- later, he bid Lady Helmet- 
 hame and the Duchess good-bye, the latter expressed 
 a hope that he was not engaged on the following 
 
144 '^ Black Prince. 
 
 Wednesday fortniglit, as slie particularly wished him 
 to dine with her that evening. 
 
 After a decent show of memory exercise, Joseph 
 discovered that his numerous engagements would not 
 prevent his dining with the Duchess on the night in 
 question, and this being satisfactorily established, he 
 rejoined the Magnuses. 
 
 The return journey to London was performed in 
 almost funereal silence. Mrs. Magnus was huffed. 
 She had not brought this young man to Hurlingham 
 in order that he might serve as squire to other dames. 
 She and Angelica, poor things, had sat alone in the 
 carriage from start to finish. Trelise had walked 
 about for ten minutes or so with Jack Aventayle, 
 who liad afterwards been seen payiug marked 
 attention to a pretty girl in dark blue, believed to be 
 an American and consequently dangerous, on the 
 box-seat of a neighboui'ing drag. 
 
 Mrs. Magnus' next letter to her husband contained 
 the following : " Jack Aventayle has most imexpect- 
 edly become next for the peerage ! the present Earl 
 can't last out the year. And I am convinced that 
 when Jack is Lord Morion he will jiroj^ose to 
 Trelise .... That young Manuel is getting quite 
 spoilt, and I'm sure is neglecting his studies." 
 
A Black Prince. 145 
 
 III. 
 
 The Duchess's dinner party was remarkable for the 
 quality rather than for the number of the guests. 
 Among them were a German Prince and an English 
 Duke, two ex-Cabinet Ministers, a highly distin- 
 guished and many- wounded old Cavah-y Greneral, a 
 Bishop, an Earl, two Viscounts, and a lyric poet. 
 There was also a due proportion of ladies, among 
 whom was a certain cousin of Jack Aventayle's — one 
 Lady Louisa Bever, poet, enthusiast, and ex-beauty, 
 who bore her bm-den of thirty-seven summers with the 
 vivacity of seventeen. It was for this lady's especial 
 behoof that Joseph Manuel had been bidden to the 
 board. 
 
 The guests had all assembled in the drawing-room, 
 and the extreme limit of grace was on the point of 
 being reached, when the doors were thrown open and 
 the head footman announced in sonorous accents 
 " 'Is 'Ighness the Rajjer of Lilybedam." 
 
 There was a general tm'ning of heads in the 
 direction of the door, and the curiosity of the 
 assembly w^as amply rewarded by the spectacle that 
 met their gaze. 
 
 I, 
 
146 A Black Prince. 
 
 A tall and portly persou of olive eomplexiou and 
 stately presence advanced slowly into the room and 
 bowed ; he was clothed in the flowing .robes of aii 
 Eastern king ; his enormous turban sparkled with 
 diamonds, gems gleamed from his embroidered 
 waist-belt, from his short dagger, from the liilt of his 
 long curved sword, from his fingers, from his fore- 
 head, from liis ears — from wherever it was possible to 
 attach a jewel there shot a luminous ray. 
 
 Coruscating as he moved, he advanced another 
 pace or two and bowed to the Duchess, who, 
 holding out her hand, exclaimed, " Eajah, it is so 
 good of you to oblige me ; " and, lowering her 
 voice a little, she added, " Mr. Aventayle tells me 
 that you do not wish to be treated en roi, so I shall 
 sacrifice my own vanity and go down to dinner with 
 Prince Yon Tapferkeit, magnanimously surrender- 
 ing you, Kajali Manool, to my cousin, Lady Louisa 
 Bever." 
 
 The introduction was barely accomplished when 
 dinner was announced, and the company descended 
 to the dining-room. 
 
 It may be asked whether Joseph Manuel had 
 suddenly qualified for admission to the Colney 
 Hatch lunatic asylum, that he appeared in public 
 
A Black Prince. 147 
 
 thus disguised; the circumstance certainly requires 
 explanation. The way it came about was this : On 
 her way back from Hurlingham, the Duchess ex- 
 pressed satisfaction that she had secured the Eajah 
 for her dinner-party, and added a hope that he might 
 be induced to attend in his royal robes, for dear 
 Louisa was coming, and Louie did so love " barbaric 
 pearl and gold." Whereupon Jack Aventayle, re- 
 garding the di'aping of Joseph as a step that would 
 render the jest more excellent than ever, had under- 
 taken to convey the proposal to the " Rajah." 
 
 On the follomng afternoon by a hajDpy chance 
 meeting Joseph turning from the Park into Piccadilly, 
 he took him into the Xaval and Military Club for a 
 smoke and a quencher. Before they had got half 
 through their cigars Aventayle had persuaded his 
 companion to himiom' the Duchess. It was, he urged, 
 merely an innocent masquerade that need never be 
 repeated ; and as for the costume, Abiram, the 
 theatrical property man in Wardom' Street, would 
 supply it, together with any number of paste 
 diamonds and martial cutlery, for a sum of money 
 which he, Aventayle, would willingly provide ; 
 indeed, he considered the expense to be a legitimate 
 charge upon him, seeing that it was o^^ing to his 
 
 L 2 
 
148 A Biack Prince. 
 
 initiative that Manuel found himself in his present 
 position. 
 
 Thus it Avas that the cmiositj of the Duchess was 
 gratified, and Lady Louisa Bever enjoyed the ful- 
 filment of her darling aspiration — a tete-u-tefc with 
 an Eastern king. 
 
 "India simply fascinates me," began her Ladyship, 
 as they descended the stairs. " Eastern travel has long 
 been the dream of my life. Your voluptuous country, 
 where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine, 
 with its wealth, its teeming population, its strange 
 vegetation, its magnificent scenery, is to me as a fairy- 
 tale, but a fairy-tale which is capable of being 
 brought to the test of actual experience, and which I 
 begin even now to realize. Now, do tell me. Rajah 
 Manool, all about yoiu" gorgeous realm." 
 
 " Over how many milKons do you wield the 
 sceptre? " asked Lady Louisa, not waiting for a reply 
 to her former remark. They had by this time sat 
 down, and Joseph had begun his soup ; he attentively 
 examined his suspended spoon as though it were a 
 calculating machine which the vastness of the com- 
 putation made it necessary for him to consult ; he 
 then, in a dubious tone, uttered the monosyllable 
 " um," and went on with his consoDime. 
 
A Black Prince. 149 
 
 Dearly as Joseph loved the carminative cookery 
 of his native land, his palate was rapidly learning to 
 appreciate very keenly the choicer productions of 
 "Western chefs ; but he found his enjoyment of her 
 Grace's good cheer sadly marred hy the necessity of 
 replying to the fusilade of questions maintained 
 without intermission by the lady at his side. 
 
 " I suppose you rule many more than the entire 
 population of Grreat Britain ? " continued his fair 
 querist, looking full into her companion's brown 
 face. 
 
 Compelled to reply, Joseph muttered something 
 to the effect that possibly the number of his subjects 
 was a few millions greater than that of the inhabi- 
 tants of the British Isles. 
 
 " And the pomegranites, and the bulbuls, and the 
 ' shrines of fretted gold, ' " proceeded Lady Louisa, in 
 enthusiastic inconsequence ; '' and your unspeakable 
 regalia ? Oh, what splendid jewels you must have in 
 your treasure-house I " and she glanced admiringly on 
 Abiram's paste. 
 
 Joseph grinned feebly as he fingered his pinchbeck 
 rings. 
 
 "You smile; they are trifles to you, no doubt; but — 
 thank you, champagne — but oh, what a treat to us 
 
150 A Black Prince. 
 
 Europeans to gaze even for a few moments upon the 
 rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and pearls 
 lying heaped in prismatic splendour on the floors of 
 your palace vaults ! " 
 
 Joseph stared at Lady Louisa, but, seeing that he 
 was expected to say something, observed that he 
 thought it must be " very prettee indeed." 
 
 " What I require," said Lady Louisa, " is informa- 
 tion. I want facts, truths, certainties." Joseph 
 winced. " I know so little of yom' marvellous 
 country, and that little I have acquired by the most 
 desultory reading ■" 
 
 " Newspapers ? " inquired Joseph. 
 
 " Oh, no ; newspapers, essays, and books of travel 
 I abjure. My teachers are the novelist and the poet. 
 I once began to write a poem on India. I called it 
 ' The Scimitar and the Sari.' It opens like this — 
 
 " ' The moonlight rose from its couch on tlie sea, 
 It slid through the ivory arch, 
 And crept o'er the cedar floor ; 
 While the l)reeze sighed low in the cypress tree, 
 And the Nubian guard held his weary march 
 In front of the golden door.' 
 
 " Do you employ Nubians for that purpose ? " she 
 asked, after Joseph had testified his admii'ation of 
 what he called her "nice lines." 
 
A Black Prince. 151 
 
 " For what purpose ? " inquired Manuel, who had 
 failed to grasp the allusion. 
 
 " To — to guard the — palace, to keep watch and 
 ward over you, and — and — yoiu-s at night. I 
 suppose you always sleep in that romantic banana ? " 
 
 " I sleep in a banyan," replied Joseph, feeling now 
 upon firmer ground. 
 
 " And your sultanas, I suppose there are many of 
 them in Lilipatam?" 
 
 " We don't call them sultanas out there," said 
 Joseph ; and forgetting for the moment that he was 
 posing as the Eajah added, " There are, of course, 
 a good many women in the palace." 
 
 " 0-oh ! " ejaculated Lady Louisa, much interested 
 in the announcement . " Ah, poor things ! I presum e 
 you keep them closely veiled and immured behind 
 their gilded bars. Now, why. Rajah, di'i you not 
 bring one or two of them with you to this country ? 
 May I ask you the name of your favourite queen ? " 
 
 At that moment the Duchess rose, and Manuel was 
 relieved fi'om the embarrassment into which the last 
 remark had thrown him. 
 
 When the ladies had withdrawn, a gentleman who 
 had been sitting on the other side of Lady Louisa 
 moved into lier place, and, addressing Joseph, 
 
152 A Black Prince. 
 
 observed, with a coiu'teous smile, that he feared the 
 Rajah must find the climate of England very trying. 
 
 Joseph said that it was certainly colder than in 
 India. 
 
 " I have been somewhat intimately connected with 
 your country," continued the gentleman. " I was 
 once Under Secretary of State for India for a short 
 time, and have served on several Parliamentary Com- 
 mittees dealing with Indian affairs." 
 
 Joseph shuddered ; he felt cold all over. 
 
 " I spent a delightful fortnight last winter in Cal- 
 cutta with the Viceroy. Do you know Lord Lytton ? " 
 
 Joseph's shake of the head might have implied 
 that he was aequaiuted with his Lordship, hut that 
 owing to strained relations between the Com-t of 
 Lilipatam and Fort William, his friendship with the 
 Go vemor- General was not so cordial as heretofore. 
 
 " I met some very interesting people in Calcutta," 
 observed the politician ; "• among them the Hajah of 
 Lacca, a highly educated and most intelligent man. 
 Do you know him? Ah, no — he lives in the North, and 
 you are fi-om the South. There was also a most enter- 
 taining fellow — Babu something or other — the great 
 reformer — dear me, what is his name ? " Joseph had 
 no suggestion to make, and the speaker went on. 
 
A Black Priftce. 153 
 
 " His fluency was remarkable, and liis knowledge of 
 English seemed to be perfect. They are wonderful 
 orators, those Babus." 
 
 " Yes," said Joseph, " wonderful." Oh, if he could 
 only talk like a Babu ! 
 
 " Do you think now," asked the other, speaking very 
 slowly and deliberately, "that it would be for the good 
 of India if the people were granted representative 
 government ? " 
 
 Joseph did not clearly understand the question, but 
 at a venture replied " No," and tossed off a glass of 
 wine. 
 
 " Precisely my o's\ti view," said the gentleman 
 complacently; "but let me question you fLQ-ther. 
 Why should they not have tbeir representatives in 
 Parliament — they are taxed ? " 
 
 Joseph turned upon his interlocutor a gaze of such 
 plaintive misery that the latter, seeing he was causing 
 his companion pain, remarked, with apologetic good 
 humour, " I see, I see — you would rather not pursue 
 this theme. Any expression of opinion from you 
 would of course be of great weight and importance, 
 and you would naturally prefer not to proclaim your 
 views until the Imperial Government collects the 
 sentiments of the great feudatories." 
 
r54 A Black PjHnce. 
 
 Joseph breathed more freely, and drank his fourth 
 glass of the Duchess's '47. 
 
 " Now, tell me," said the statesman, speaking in a 
 frank, confidential tone, " what do you think of your 
 Resident, or your Political Agent, whatever you call 
 him ? " 
 
 " Do you mean Mr. Magnus ? " asked Joseph, with 
 some show of animation in his manner. " Do you 
 mean Mr. Lemuel Magnus, CLE. ? " 
 
 " Yes, Magaus is the name — Lemuel Magnus. I 
 occasionally came across it in documents from the 
 Viceroy when I was at the India Office. How do 
 you get on with him — are you good friends ? " 
 
 " No, we are not good friends," replied Joseph 
 solemnly; the generous qualities of the royal wine 
 were beginning to assert themselves, and he saw no 
 reason why he should not deal a blow at the dreaded 
 and hated autocrat five thousand miles away. " He 
 treats me like the dirt under his feet — he is a stuck-up, 
 swaggering, haughty beast ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said the other softly, " I grieve to hear 
 this, I grieve extremely to hear it ; no Resident is worth 
 his salt who cannot keep ou good terms with his 
 Prince. But I have no doubt that the fault rests with 
 Magnus. From my experience of him when I was 
 
A Black Prince. 
 
 DD 
 
 louder Secretary, I could see that he was a difficult 
 man to deal with ; far too arrogant and domineering 
 — pardon me," they had risen to go upstairs, " if I 
 ask you where a letter will find you — the Duchess 
 tells me that you are at home almost i)ico(j., you 
 would, therefore, j)erhaps not wish any reference 
 made to the India Office." 
 
 Joseph assured his friend that, on the whole, 
 perhaps it would be better if tlie India Office were 
 not troubled about his movements, and desired that 
 communications should be sent him for the present 
 to the care of the Honom-able John Aventayle, 
 
 On entering the drawing-room Joseph found him- 
 self standing by the side of the Grermau Prince in front 
 of an arrangement of miniatures. Seeing this, the 
 Duchess rose and joined them, saying with a pleasant 
 glance at Manuel — 
 
 " I really must introduce you two royal person- 
 ages to each other — Prince Von Tapferkeit and 
 Rajah Manool will have much in common to talk 
 about." 
 
 The two men bowed, and the Prince, speaking 
 in a strong foreign accent, asked Joseph whether he 
 had a large army. 
 
 " A very large one," rejilied Joseph, who had 
 
156 A Black Prince. 
 
 drunk enough wine to make him reckless. " An 
 enormous army." 
 
 " So ! " ejaculated the German, regarding the 
 other with much interest. " Then you are a man to 
 be reckoned with." 
 
 Joseph opined that he certainly was not a neglig- 
 able quality. 
 
 " Do you adopt the French or the English drill in 
 your fine army ? " asked the Prince. 
 
 " Oh, both — sometimes one, sometimes the 
 other." 
 
 " Ah, change is goot, but it must not be too 
 frequent. For the attack now, do you favour the 
 column, the line, or the loose formation ? " 
 
 "All, all," said Joseph, waving his hand com- 
 prehensively. " I like 'em. all." 
 
 " Ya wohl ! May I ask," continued the Prince, 
 with a keen look of curiosity, " have you performed 
 much campaign i^ " 
 
 " Do you mean have I drunk much champagne ? " 
 
 " No ; have you fought in wars and battles ? " 
 
 "Nothing of that sort for me," said Joseph, 
 shaking his head jocosely. " Why, if I found my- 
 self in a battle I should run away." 
 
 The Prince gazed at him steadily through his 
 
A JUack Prince. 157 
 
 pince-nez for a moment, and then resumed his 
 examination of the miniatures. 
 
 Shortly afterwards the party broke up, and on 
 returning to his rooms near the Museum, Joseph 
 found the following letter awaiting him : — 
 
 " LiLiPATAM, June lOt/i, 1878. 
 " My pear Joseph, 
 
 " Tour letters received since Christmas troubled 
 me and your mother very much indeed. You are 
 always complaining that reading and studying makes 
 your head ache, and are always asking for more 
 money that you may give yourself recreation. Do 
 you think I am made of money ? I have told you 
 again and again that the two hundred poimds a year 
 which I allow you is part of a sum that I have been 
 all my life saving for your education. If I increase 
 your allowance I must out short your time of study. 
 ^Vhat will happen then ? You will not pass for a 
 doctor, and must serve in my dispensary as a dresser — 
 and I hoping to see you a ge.itleman and married to 
 an English lady. You complain of yom- debts. 
 Why do you run them up ? Now, these are my last 
 words to you. I am sending you a bill for £100 to 
 pay youi' debts and put you straight, and this 
 
15^ --^ Black Prince. 
 
 is the veiy last money that you will get from me 
 besides your regular allowance, which, if you dare 
 again to exceed it, shall be stopped and you re-called 
 to Lilipatam. 
 
 " Mr. Magnus, youi- honoured patron, is leaving 
 for England next week, and he has promised me to 
 give you a good talking to. He will call for your 
 accounts, so have them ready." 
 
 The letter concluded with domestic news, which, 
 as it has no bearing upon our story, need not be 
 repeated. Joseph, having carelessly read the missive 
 through, lauglied pot- valiantly and scrambled into 
 bed. 
 
 When Manuel opened his ej^es next morning the 
 possible results of his fooling overnight at first 
 dawned upon him but dimly. In the course of his 
 reflections, however, certain complications that might 
 conceivably ensue from his recent escapade presented 
 themselves to his awakening mind more distinctly ; 
 the leading thought, and it smote his brain as with 
 a scourge, was that Mr. Magnus was coming to Eng- 
 land, to London, to him. Slowly and painfully 
 recalling the incidents of the preceding night, he told 
 himself that he, humble Joseph Manuel, had, in a 
 
^4 Black Prince . 159 
 
 passing momeut of unaeeoimtable frenzy, vituperated 
 the dread dictator in terms the very thought of which 
 sent a tlrrill darting down his spinal marrow and vibra- 
 ting through every nerve and ganglion in his body. 
 He — the worm, the insect — had actually denounced 
 the Resident at the Court of Lilipatam, and this to a 
 stranger occupying a high social position and possess- 
 ing enormous influence in the State by reason of his 
 close and intimate connection with the Government. 
 He recalled, too, with a clammy brow and a sinking 
 heart, how this influential statesman had demanded 
 and obtained his, the accuser's, address. Now, why 
 did the powerful and illustrious unknown desire this 
 information P The reason was abundantly, luridly 
 clear. What had been uttered by Joseph in his role 
 of Indian sovereign would in the natural course of 
 administrative routine be conveyed to Her Most 
 Gracious Majesty the Indian Empress, with the 
 inevitable result that Lemuel Magnus would be 
 impeached for cruelty to his Eajah, and Joseph 
 Manuel would be appointed chief prosecutor and 
 leading witness. 
 
 Electrified by this preposterous figment of his 
 imagination, Joseph bounded out of bed, and, 
 cla^iping his large head with his liands, strode, in 
 
i6o A Black Prince. 
 
 an agony of fear and remorse, up and down the 
 room, moaning. 
 
 As lie passed the table on which lay his father's 
 letter, his eye fell upon the bill of exchange. Joy 
 ineffable ! There lay the means of escape. He 
 would take ship and sail for India before the Resi- 
 dent arrived. He would place seas and continents 
 between himself and Mr. Magnus. The intermission 
 which this cheering thought gave to his lamentations 
 enabled him to become aware of a knocking at 
 his door which had been proceeding for several 
 minutes. 
 
 " Who's there ? " 
 
 "A gentleman wants to see you, sir." 
 
 Joseph's heart for a moment ceased to beat. Un- 
 doubtedly this was a messenger from the India 
 Office, or from Parliament, or Windsor Castle. 
 
 " Out, out ! I am out ! " he shouted ; " say I am 
 on the Scotch hills, in the Irish jungles — for a week, 
 a month." 
 
 " No, no, my boy. You're at home all right," 
 said a voice that he recognized as Aventayle's. "May 
 I come in ? " and without more ado Jack opened the 
 door and entered the room. 
 
 " I've come to hear how the show went off last 
 
A Black Prijice. i6i 
 
 night; it must have been worth a 'thou.' to see — 
 tell us all about it, old chappie." 
 
 Hastily disencumbering his only chair of the 
 theatrical finery that had rendered him such ques- 
 tionable service, Joseph begged his visitor to be 
 seated, then wrapping himself in an old dressing- 
 gown, and squatting on his chest of omura-water, he 
 proceeded to regale Aventayle with a prolix and 
 lugubrious account of the dinner-party. 
 
 Aventayle laughed so uncontrollably at the recital, 
 that the speaker was several times compelled to pause 
 in order to allow his listener to recover himself 
 sufficiently to hear what was said. That which 
 especially delighted Jack was the account of Joseph's 
 introduction as a brother royalty to the German 
 Prince. 
 
 " I know Von Tapferkeit," he said ; " never met 
 such a keen soldier in all my life — and you pulled 
 his leg — ha ! lia I lia ! — told him all about your army, 
 and then said — ha I ha ! ha I — that you always bolted 
 out of action. Well, if that don't take the cake 
 The sportsman you talked to at dessert must have 
 been Warberry. Was he a tall, thin, cadaverous- 
 looking Johnnie, witli a bald head and a hooked 
 nose i 
 
 M 
 
i62 A Black Prince. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And wore an eye-glass ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oil, that was Warberry — Lord Warberry, 
 Secretary of State for Feudatory Affairs ; he'd be 
 mucb interested in you, and I've no doubt is at this 
 moment engaged in looking up Lilipatam in the 
 gazetteer. What a score — what a score ! I bet you 
 he sends for Magnus, and asks why you have not 
 been taken to Court and regularly introduced into 
 London society. He seemed to acquiesce in your 
 i)H'0(jJiito, did he ? — that's Warberry all over. He'll 
 raise such a breeze about it at the India Office — enough 
 to blow the clerks out of tlie windows. Hope he 
 didn't ask for yoiu' address ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Joseph hesitatingly " that's just 
 what he did." 
 
 " You never gave it him ? " 
 
 " Oh, no. I told him to address to me care of 
 you," replied Joseph, with a dubious smile. 
 
 " Whew ! " whistled the Honourable Jack ; and 
 the perspiration gathered in beads on Joseph's brow. 
 
 There was a pause, and in the interval Jack lighted 
 a cigarette ; he then suddenly observed — 
 
 " By the way, have you heard that old Magnus 
 
A Black Prince. 163 
 
 turned up last night quite unexpectedly at Kensing- 
 ton ? Doctors sent him off at short notice — gout I 
 believe it was — and his letter to Mrs. Mag. mis- 
 carried. What are you going to do with yourself 
 this next fortnight ? " 
 
 Joseph had intended to spend part of the next 
 fourteen days on the broad ocean, but Tvith the foe 
 at his very gates there was no time to make arrange- 
 ments for the voyage ; his sole consideration now was 
 to secm-e his safety for the immediate hour, and when 
 Aventayle proposed that our hero should accompany 
 him to Clovenhelm — Lady Helmethame's place in 
 Yorkshire — Joseph accepted the offer with almost 
 abject gratitude. 
 
 " The only bother about it is this," continued 
 Jack : " I must start at once, having to see that the 
 house is ready for my aunt and a heap of visitors 
 that she always has down at this time of year. In 
 point of fact, my man has gone to the station with 
 my kit, and I am now on my way to King's Cross. 
 I suppose you will want a day or two longer in town 
 to work off your engagements ? " 
 
 Josej^h hastened to assure his friend that on no 
 account would he miss the opportunity of travelling 
 down to Yorksliire with so pleasant a companion. 
 
 M 2 
 
t64 a Black Prince. 
 
 Suiting the action to the word, he dived under the 
 bed and emerged with a travel-stained portmanteau 
 and valise, and, after half-an-hour's frantic exertion, 
 he had packed up his things, dressed himself, and 
 paid his bill. 
 
 " Your letters, sir — where are they to be sent ? " 
 inquired the landlady, as he got into the cab. 
 
 " Letters I oh, keep 'em till I return ; and if any 
 one calls, say I have gone up country." 
 
 As the young men took train for York, Mr. 
 ^Magnus, with a severe expression of countenance, 
 ascended with a slow and gouty gait the doorsteps 
 of Joseph's late abode. 
 
 It may be supposed that Jack Aventajde's new-born 
 desire for Joseph Manuel's society arose from the 
 young soldier's sudden appreciation of certain sterling 
 qualities that possibly lurked low down beneath the 
 East Indian's unpromising exterior; this, however, 
 was not the case : Aventayle regarded Manuel as the 
 whimsical product of an incomprehensible land. At 
 their first meeting he had recognized that between 
 Joseph's faculties, sentiments, and propensities and 
 his o\\Ti there was absolutely nothing in common, 
 but after hearing what had passed at the Duchess's 
 dinner-party, it occurred to him that the boredom of 
 
A Black Prince. 165 
 
 coimtry-liouse life might be relieved by making poor 
 Manuel play Eajali to Lady Helmetbame's im- 
 conseious guests. "With this in view, he had prevailed 
 upon the facile Lilipatian to take his Oriental plumage 
 with him to Yorkshii-e, and on the evening of theii' 
 arrival, had duly sent Mr. Abiram a cheque for a 
 handsome figure in payment. Among the guests at 
 Clovenhelm were Lady Louisa Bever and Miss Angelica 
 Magnus, who, with her elder sister, had been invited 
 at the instance of Jack Aventayle, but at the last 
 moment Trelise had caught cold and could not come. 
 On seeing Miss Magnus at breakfast, Joseph's 
 first impulse was to flee, for he feared that beholding 
 him arrayed in robe and turban, she would expose' 
 the impudent deception and would cause his ^asit to 
 end in obloquy. Jack Aventayle, however, soon 
 lulled his teiTors by assuring him that he had already 
 persuaded Miss Magnus, who, unlike the rest of her 
 family, was of a credulous and confiding disposition, 
 that Joseph was in very fact the E ijah of Lilipatam, 
 but that having come to England on a secret mission 
 on behalf of the Indian Government, he had hitherto 
 concealed his identity for purposes of State, and the 
 object of his jom-ney being now attained, the 
 necessitv for concealment no longer existed. 
 
1 66 A Black Prince. 
 
 The increased respect infused into the young lady's 
 demeanour towards him satisfied Joseph that Aven- 
 tagle's version had been accepted ; and when that 
 23olitic young gentleman added that Angelica had 
 been expressly cautioned to abstain from all mention 
 of the Rajah in her letters home, as H. H. was taking 
 a little holiday unknown to the Indian authorities, 
 who believed him to be on his way back to his 
 Principality, Joseph once again enjoyed existence. 
 No ephemeral animalcule basking in the sunshine of 
 its single summer-noon lived more thoroughly in the 
 passing hour ; he highly appreciated this country- 
 house life — it was so quiet, luxurious, and regular ; 
 and he delighted with childlike glee in his gorgeous 
 Indian costume, and in the gleams and flashes of his 
 Brummagem gauds. His vanity, moreover, was 
 gratified by the deference with which he was treated 
 by every one with whom he came in contact. Atavism 
 was asserting itself, and his former humility gave 
 place to pride that soon swelled into arrogance. He 
 began to give himself airs, and the deference accorded 
 to him increased ; he grew presumptuous, and respect 
 became homage. As the days passed by without 
 any circumstance of alarm, his early fears of discovery 
 and exposure gradually vanished. His reliance, 
 
A Black Prince. 167 
 
 moreover, in the last resort was on Jack, who, if there 
 should be a scandal, would be involved in it equally 
 with the leading character ; and the Honourable 
 Aventayle, as Joseph called him, had influential friends 
 who could protect them both. 
 
 Jack Aventayle marked with much amusement 
 Joseph's increasing insolence ; the peacock strut, the 
 pompous pose, the supercilious glance, were to Jack 
 the occasion of increasing diversion as the hour of the 
 inevitable downfall approached. Snooseby was 
 within five miles of Clovenhelm, and Jack had learnt 
 from Angelica that the Magnus family were to return 
 to their country quarters in a week's time. 
 
 In order that the farce should not be ended prema- 
 turely, Aventayle did all in his power to prevent any 
 untimely catastrophe ; and when Lady Tymberdale, 
 actuated by a healthy spii-it of emulation, ran a 
 Nawab, a genuine article lately imported from 
 Bengal, guaranteed too by the Secretary of State, and 
 proposed to bring tlie two Eastern kings together, so 
 that the country might be set a-blinking by their 
 combined radiance, Jack, seeing strong barbed ^ire 
 ahead, earnestly represented to his aunt that their 
 Eajah was a Hindoo and the other fellow, a Moham- 
 medan, between wliieh races there existed so murderous 
 
i68 A Black Prince. 
 
 an antagouism, that if the two potentates, armed 
 as tliej" were with sword and dagger, were allowed 
 to meet, the delicate parquet flooring of De Lacey 
 Court might be stained with royal blood, in which 
 case, persons without potentates would have an oppor- 
 tunity of making unfriendly and damaging remarks. 
 
 Chance threw Lady Louisa and Joseph much 
 together at Clovenhelm ; neither of them rode or 
 eared for walking, so it fell out that diu'ing the 
 greater part of the day they, among the entire house 
 party, were the only peoj)le that remained at home. 
 They sat on the terrace, for the weather was 
 exquisite, or strolled in the gardens and conserva- 
 tories; but their favom-ite resort was the palm-house, 
 where, seated among tropical ferns or under the 
 drooping vegetation of the cocoa-nut and the fan- 
 shaped leaves of the palmetto, Lady Louisa dis- 
 coursed with what to any one but the torj)id Joseph 
 would have been maddening iteration, upon her 
 darling theme. Indeed, how could she do otherwise 
 with such harmonious suiTOundings — palms, tree- 
 ferns, a rajah, and the thermometer at 85° ? Why, 
 it was a perfect eidolon of the East. 
 
 Lady Helmethame, indulging her relative's 
 humour, had placed her near Josepli at table, and 
 
A Black Frince. 169 
 
 people began to remark iu a half -joking way that 
 her Ladyship and his Highness were becoming un- 
 commonly good friends. Joseph, who, as we have 
 heard his father observe, was no fool, could not long 
 be insensible of the favour in which he was held by 
 the romantic though middle-aged beauty, and soon 
 an incident oecuiTcd that inspired him with delirious 
 imaginings. 
 
 One evening at dessert they had pulled a cracker 
 together, and the motto part being with Joseph, he 
 was told to read it ; but when his eyes fell upon the 
 lines he displayed such confusion and made so 
 clumsy an attempt to excuse himself that Lady 
 Louisa's curiosity was aroused. 
 
 " Rajah, I insist on your reading it," said she, 
 laughing at his embarrassment. 
 
 " I reely, reely can't," replied the blushing Joseph, 
 with a nervous giggle. " Let's pull another," and 
 he ti'ied to hide the paper under his plate. 
 
 " Grive that motto to me, Eajah," commanded her 
 Ladyship, with the pretty, spoilt-child imperiousness 
 that had proved so irresistible to the gallants of 
 twenty years ago — " immediately, if you please, 
 sir," and she held out her lieavilj^-ringed haul. 
 
 Joseph, with many shifty glances round the 
 
I 70 A Black Prince. 
 
 table and murmured protests to his companion, 
 reluctantly complied with the mandate ; but to his 
 profound sui'prise the perusal of the poesy produced 
 no more effect upon the reader than upon the 
 bonbon that it had enclosed. The verse ran thus: — 
 
 " Some Phyllis soothes each lover's life ; 
 No shepherd is without a wife ; 
 What happiness would be my lot, 
 If you, dear girl, would share my cot." 
 
 "I wonder what sort of people write cracker poetry," 
 she asked, as she unconcernedly handed the paper back 
 to Joseph. 
 
 "Men who have failed in the sugar-plum business," 
 replied Jack, who sat on the other side of her. 
 " What was in that motto ? " 
 
 " Only some trash about a shepherd's cot," said she. 
 
 But as Joseph reflected upon the composui^e with 
 which the sentiment had been received, his thoughts 
 grew blissfully temj)estuous. 
 
 "Look at that silver Queen, 'that orbed maiden 
 with white fii'e laden, whom mortals call the moon,' " 
 sighed Lady Lousia, as she sat after dinner with Joseph 
 in the niche of the hall window, gazing out on the 
 great park. The full moon rising over the top of 
 the dark wood that formed a distant background was 
 
A Black Prince. 171 
 
 beginning to turn the pnrk into fairyland, and Joseph, 
 replied that it was " veree elegant indeed." 
 
 "It is the gift of the East, that wonderful 
 mysterious East, wherein lies India, the land of my 
 longing," continued the lady. " Oh, Eajah ! have 
 we not from that generous quarter everything that 
 is g^od ? " 
 
 "Yes," assented Joseph; "good tobacco, good 
 axrack, veree good curry-stuff." 
 
 Not attending to his prosaic reply, the poetess 
 went on : " It is there that the heavenly bodies rise ; 
 it is thence that the wise men came with their 
 gifts ; it is from there that we received the nascent 
 arts and sciences — and more, unspeakably more, than 
 these." 
 
 " All sorts of best supjolies," put in Joseph. 
 
 "Ah, what does it not supply? " said she. "It gives 
 us all that adorns our life : gold, silk, pearls, precious 
 stones ; and while with one hand it dazzles om- eyes 
 with the diamonds of Grolcondah, with the other it 
 delights our palate with the spices of Ceylon. Oh, 
 beloved and bounteous East, what would I not give 
 to breathe thine aromatic air, and to repose upon thy 
 golden sands ! " 
 
 As she sat witli her hands clasped and her still 
 
172 A Black Prince. 
 
 beautiful eyes gazing rapturously into space, she 
 looked in the dim light of the hall remarkably hand- 
 some. Joseph, partly carried away by the speaker's 
 enthusiasm, and partly impelled by the episode of 
 the cracker, suddenly took the leap that he had for 
 some days past been screwing up his resolution to 
 essay. 
 
 " Pardon my imprudence," he gasped, "but I will 
 take you, dear my Lady " — and he regarded her with 
 an amorous ogle intended to be a glance of the 
 tenderest meaning — " I will take you to the sweet and 
 spicee East, if you will honour me by becoming my 
 nuptial \Nife, and — and sharing my 'umble leetle 
 cot ! " 
 
 Lady Louisa started, she had never suspected the 
 possibility of this. Joseph appeared to be so staid, 
 so unimpressionable, and already so heavily- wived. It 
 pleased her to indulge in poetic fancies with this 
 Eastern priuee ; his actual presence in turban and 
 caftan, diamonds and dagger, gave local colour to 
 her sentimental utterances, and enabled her to realize 
 certain favomite passages in Lallali Rookh and 
 The Giaour in a vivid and satisfactory manner. The 
 Hajah was useful as an ornamental background, or 
 as an object in a lesson ; but to marrj' him ! — and the 
 
A Black Prince. 173 
 
 blood rushed to her face as she said with a smile : 
 •' And the other poor dears — the queens and sultanas 
 — what would thej say ? " 
 
 " There are no others — you would be the only 
 ' dear,' " blurted Joseph. " What queens and sultanas 
 have I got ? " 
 
 " Fie ! " exclaimed Lady Louisa, holding up her 
 finger reprovingly — " fibs. Rajah, naughtyfibs ! You 
 confessed to me at the Duchess of Daylesford's 
 that there were a good many ladies in your 
 palace at Lilipatam." 
 
 Joseph's face fell ; he had altogether forgotten 
 that damaging admission. 
 
 Lady Lousia continued : "And, Ilajah, I am told 
 that you are a Hindu. Now, if you should unfor- 
 tunately die before I do, I should have to be burnt 
 alive, you know, like the wives of Arvalan in The 
 Curse of Kchama : — 
 
 " ' At once on every side 
 The circling torches drop, 
 At once on every side 
 The fragrant oil is poured ; 
 At once on every side 
 The rapid flames rush up.' 
 
 " Now, I don't want to play the part of Azla and 
 Nealliuy." 
 
I 74 A Black Prince. 
 
 " No, no, you sba'n't be burnt ; tbere is no suttee 
 now. I will see to it, my clearest madam — I will take 
 particular care of you." 
 
 " But unbappily you would not be in a position to 
 enforce yoiu* commands." 
 
 Joseph was silent ; what should he do now ? He 
 had learnt from romances and plays how effectually 
 a proposal of mamage is assisted at the critical 
 moment by supplicating the treasured object on 
 bended knee — ought he to kneel at once, or would 
 it be advisable to delay the playing of this trump 
 card ? Perhaps the lady was already won, and there 
 was no necessity for risking gymnastic feats unsuited 
 to corpulent and unelastic people. Had she or had 
 she not picked up the handkerchief ? Her next words 
 set that question decisively at rest. 
 
 " Well, I will not be hard upon you," she laughed — 
 Joseph rubbed his hands convulsively — " I will not 
 be too hard upon you, for I consider 3'ou have paid 
 me a very pretty compliment in inviting me to 
 become a queen ; and though I must decline your 
 extremely flattering offer, please observe, dear Eajah 
 Manool, that I do so with my warmest thanks. Xow, 
 let us go into the dramng-room, for I am afraid that 
 after this we can have no more tetc-Ci-tetes.^^ 
 
A Black Prince. 175 
 
 Joseph, who could have wept with vexation, had 
 no further plea to urge, no new exj)lanation to offer ; 
 he was beginning to slide forward on his chair pre- 
 paratory to plunging on his knees, when Lady 
 Louisa rose and moved towards the drawing-room. 
 The baffled wooer cast a half-languishing, half-spite- 
 ful glance at her retreating form, and then, grinding 
 his teeth and sighing deeply, sheepishly followed her 
 across the hall. 
 
 On entering the drawing-room he sat down on the 
 nearest vacant chair; it seemed to him as though every 
 one in the room had divined what had passed, and 
 was secretly laughing at his discomliture, and the 
 idea added gall to the wormwood of his failure. 
 
 Near the spot where he had taken refuge sat Miss 
 Angelica Magnus examining a coj)y of the //^^s■- 
 t rated London Neics, in which were delineated various 
 episodes in the Prince of "Wales' visit to India. 8he 
 was looking at a picture of H. R. II. 's reception at 
 a native court in the Doab. Turning to Joseph slie 
 asked — 
 
 " Is your joalace anything like this, Rajah 
 Manool ? " 
 
 " Like flint !'" he replied pettishly — " oh, no, mucli 
 larger, very much finer." 
 
176 A Black Prince. 
 
 " And have you as many elephants ? " 
 
 " More, many more. I have also camels, hippo- 
 potamuses, bears, rhinoceroses, monkeys, tigers, 
 hunting-leopard s — every thin g. " 
 
 " You must be very rich ? " 
 
 " I am eemraensely rich — I have lacs and lacs of 
 rupees. Nobody in India is richer than I am, and 
 yet people in this country do not value me." 
 
 " Eajah," said Lady Helmethame, coming from the 
 piano where she had been playing one of Beethoven's 
 symphonies, " we want you to sing ; may I send for 
 your concertina ? " 
 
 To the very simplest request made by any one but 
 his hostess Joseph would at that moment have returned 
 a sullen refusal, but he had not quite satisfied himself 
 as to the safety of disobliging Lady Helmethame, so 
 after some demur he ruefully consented to perform. 
 
 In the course of a few minutes the sweet singer 
 was seated on an ottoman in the centre of the room 
 surrounded by an admiring chcle, to which he droned 
 through his nose, to his own doleful accompanying, 
 Tha Khataj ben t//((-si. As he sang he kept his 
 ej^es upon Lady Louisa, and did his utmost to instil a 
 strain of sentimental despair into the words of the 
 song, at the same time endeavouring to heighten the 
 
A Black Prince. 177 
 
 effect bj piteous shakes and quavers, wagging his 
 head the while until the feather in his paste aigrette 
 quivered as though in sympathetic pain. 
 
 But Lady Louisa was reading tlie " Light of 
 Asia," and paid no attention to the forlorn looks and 
 melancholy gestures of her sombre swain. His woe- 
 stricken appearance, however, was not lost upon 
 Ano^elica ^Xlag^nus, who observed the above-mentioned 
 indications of sensibiUty with much interest and 
 curiosity, and recalling the Rajah's last words to 
 her, wondered exceedingly why people in 
 England did not appreciate him. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A FEW days after the events just recorded, Jack 
 Aventayle drove a coach-load of his aunt's guests to 
 Scarborough for the day. 
 
 Lady Louisa being of the party, Joseph, anxious to 
 repair the breach between them, gladly accepted 
 Jack's offer of a seat on the roof. 
 
 Our fat friend had picked up enough information 
 about Aventayle's family to be aware that Lady 
 
 N 
 
178 A Black Prince. 
 
 Louisa, though it pleased her to bewail her inability 
 to afford to travel in India, was an uncommonly 
 rich woman, and it was clear to the astute but 
 sluggish adventurer that he could fhid no better way 
 of settling himself in life than to hang up his liat, or 
 rather his turban, in Lady Louisa's lobby. He knew 
 that a painful scene would follow the discovery of his 
 deception, but that was a detail with which he was 
 prepared to reckon ; whatever happened, his main 
 object would be secured, namely, the maintenance of 
 Joseph Manuel in some form or other during the 
 term of his natural life. But if this praiseworthy 
 effort for independence was to be made at all, now 
 was the time for action. Joseph had an uneasy 
 sensation that the days of sunshine were rapidly 
 drawing to an end, and that the long drear winter 
 in which there is no harvesting of heiresses was near, 
 very near, at hand. 
 
 As Lady Louisa occupied the box-seat, Joseph Lad 
 no opportimity of conversing with her during the 
 drive, but he determined to attach himself to her on 
 their arrival at Scarborough. Since the scene in the 
 hall she had changed her seat at table, and had 
 restricted her intercourse with Joseph to the ordinary 
 social greetings — the dazzling Orient had lost its charm. 
 
A Black Prince. 179 
 
 It was high time, so Joseph reliected, that this 
 lovers' quarrel, as he fondly deemed it, should cease ; 
 he told himself that he was a man of very distiu- 
 guished appearance ; with a tine tigui'e, a handsome 
 face, and a manner — when he chose to make himself 
 pleasant — that no woman with eyes and ears could 
 long withstand. Yes, Lady Louisa should without 
 further loss of time be whistled back like a stray 
 pigeon to its cote. 
 
 But as Fate would have it, when the coach dis- 
 charged its passengers in the coiu-t-yard of the inn, 
 the portly Eastern had so much difficulty in getting 
 down the ladder that when he reached the ground he 
 found every one, excej^t himself and Miss Magnus, 
 paired. Jack, accompanied by Lady Louisa, was 
 busily engaged in seeing to the stabling of his team ; 
 and Angelica, looking very forlorn, stood in the arch- 
 way of the court as though undecided what to do. 
 
 " Will you walk with me, Miss Magnus ? " asked 
 Joseph, who despaired of reclaiming Lady Louisa 
 from her cousin. " Ah, please," he added, with his 
 most seductive smile. 
 
 Had Joseph come to Scarborough in his royal 
 robes nothing would have induced Angelica to face 
 the curiosity tliat liis appearance in public must 
 
i8o A Black Prince. 
 
 have excited; but the Eajah was to-day incog., and 
 no one would turn to gaze at the stout, olive-coloured 
 gentleman in cheek tweed. 
 
 Angelica, however, hesitated ; her eyes were fixed 
 somewhat reproachfully upon Jack, who evidently 
 intended to escort his cousin, for he was at that 
 moment ordering a victoria to take them to some 
 distant point of interest, 
 
 " Yes," she replied slowly—" yes, Rajah, I will go 
 with you." 
 
 She laid a little stress upon the last word, and 
 Joseph, who, in the interpretation of look or accent 
 possessed all the keenness of an Asiatic, was puzzled. 
 Angelica evidently would have preferred to walk 
 with Aventayle. Was she trying to supplant 
 Trelise ? Possibly she had done so already, and yet 
 Joseph's quick eye had observed no sign of trans- 
 ferred devotion on the part of the Honourable Jack. 
 
 *' You seem veree sad. Miss Magnus," began 
 Joseph, in the sort of human purr that he affected 
 when he wished to be particularly tender. 
 
 " You were sad the other night," she rejoined. 
 
 " Perhaps I had cause ; but you," with a sympa- 
 thetic glance into the girl's sorrowful eyes, " you can 
 have no anxietees ? " 
 
A Black Prince. i8i 
 
 " How can you know, Rajah, what my trouhles 
 are ? " 
 
 " She is certainly in love with the Honourable 
 Jack," thought Joseph. " I -vsoLl try to lead up to the 
 subject." 
 
 " What a strange thing love is," said he, " none of 
 us can make any one else love us — isn't it peculiar ? 
 Here am I — young, good-looking, rich, royal, and 
 even I cannot make people love me — that is to say, 
 people whose love I want to secure — and you, 
 perhajis, are in the same position?" He uttered the 
 last words in a tone of gentle inquiry, and with a 
 look intended to invite confidence, but which would 
 in a nature more sophisticated than Angelica's have 
 aroused the liveliest suspicion. Angelica was silent, 
 she was debating how far she should imburden her 
 soul to the smootli-spoken gentleman who appeared 
 to be so anxious to console her. 
 
 " Ton also are young, good-looking, and, I think 
 I am right in adding, rich ? " murmured Joseph, who, 
 with the volatility of his nature, was beginning to 
 form a new plan of action. " Have I not heard } our 
 mother say you have five hundred a year ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, liajah. I am not rich ; you with your 
 millions must think us all very poor. No, I have 
 
1 82 A Black Prince. 
 
 only a tiny little three-hundred a year ; bnt it pays 
 for my dresses.'' 
 
 There was another pause, during which Joseph was 
 engaged in mentally converting three hundred pounds 
 into rupees at the current rate of exchange. The 
 silence was broken hy Angelica, who resumed : — 
 
 " But, Hajah Manool, I can't understand what you 
 mean when you say that you are not appreciated. I 
 should have thought everybody liked you. All your 
 subjects must love you. Surely my father does ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Joseph, feeling that he must not 
 indulge in any personal attacks upon Mr. Magnus in 
 this quarter. " A good and noble man is 3'our 
 honourable father — a good and noble man. Yes, he 
 loves me — veree much; like a son, I might even say 
 like a son-in-law ; indeed, he once said to me that 
 nothing would give him greater satisfaction tlian to 
 welcome me in that capacitee into his household.'" 
 
 " He will be so glad to see you, Eajah," returned 
 Angelica ; " he often mentioned j'our name in his 
 letters, and called 3'ou an enlightened young ruler." 
 
 " When — when does your honourable father 
 return?" asked Joseph, with a slight tremor in his 
 tone. 
 
 " I am sorry to say not for a fortnight ; he has 
 
A Black Prince. 183 
 
 been detained in London by Lord Warberry on a 
 snbject connected, I believe, with Lilipatam; but you, 
 of course, know all about it." Joseph thought he 
 could guess the subject of his Lordship's solicitude. 
 " And," continued Angelica, " Lord Warberry's time 
 is so taken up with other things that he can't make a 
 definite appointment till the end of the month, but 
 may want to see father any day between this and 
 then ; so poor father can't leave London." 
 
 They had now crossed the Cliff Bridge and were 
 about to follow the rest of the party to the South 
 Bay, but Joseph suddenly proposed that they should 
 explore the old town, in which pleasant occupation 
 we will for the present leave them. 
 
 " I am so glad you let me take possession of you, 
 Jack," laughed Lady Louisa, as she and Aventayle 
 drove out of the inn-yard ; " it was so good of you. 
 I know you wanted to go with one of the girls ; but 
 the trutli is. I am beginning to be a little afraid of 
 your royal friend. T am sure he meant to make 
 himself my convoy to-day, for as we were driving 
 down I could see, whenever I tm-ned my head, his 
 eyes fixed on me in his half-bold, half-obsequious 
 way. I don't like that man's eyes." 
 
 " Oh ! he's liarmless enough," said Jack contemp- 
 
184 A Black Prince. 
 
 tuously ; " if he's cheeky to you, hit him on the head 
 with your sunshade, and you'll soon bring him to 
 his bearings." 
 
 Joseph and Miss Magnus were late in rejoining the 
 coach. They had each been photographed by a new 
 process, the operation had been long and tedious, and 
 the negatives would take some time to develop — 
 they were to return in a fortnight for the colour- 
 ing. 
 
 The journey back was as uneventful as the drive 
 out, but all declared that they had spent a most 
 delightful day. 
 
 Time at Clovenhelm passed like the days in Lotus- 
 land ; the weather was brilliant, and the heat intense. 
 To Joseph it was always afternoon, for he indulged 
 his constitutional laziness to its fullest extent, and 
 never appeared in public till the luncheon-bell had 
 sounded. 
 
 Lunch was over, and Joseph, smoking one of 
 Aventayle's regalias, was lying on the terrace, 
 basking luxuriously in the full blaze of the after- 
 noon sun. And as he lay stretched out at full 
 length upon the easiest of garden-chairs, and watched 
 " with half-di'opt eyelid still " the delicate little 
 wreaths of white smoke floating away in the warm 
 
A Black Prince. 185 
 
 air, the picture was suggestive of a pampered bacon- 
 pig that dozes and battens through summer and 
 autumn regardless of the coming of that blue- 
 aproned Nemesis who will knock at the sty-door 
 when the leaves are sere. His complacency increased 
 day by day, and he lived his Satrap life as though 
 it were terminable by death alone. 
 
 Yet that very morning he had gazed upon the 
 writing on the wall. The Tekel., TJphar^in was con- 
 tained in a letter from Mrs. Magnus to Aventayle, 
 which Jack lost no time in handing to Manuel, 
 remarking as he did so that the game appeared 
 to be about up. There was no doubt that matters 
 had now passed from the bright region of pleasantry 
 into the grim domain of hostile investigation. The 
 part of the letter having interest for Joseph ran 
 thus : — 
 
 " What has become of Mr. Manuel ^ An inquiry 
 is proceeding at the Feudatory Office at which his 
 presence is absolutely necessary. He left town 
 without giving an addi^ess, and my husband, though 
 cruelly disabled by gout, is trying every available 
 means of discovering his whereabouts. It appears 
 that there is a person going about under the title of 
 Eajah of Lilipatam. Can that be Mr. flannel ? 
 
1 86 A Black Prince. 
 
 The Eesident declares that if this should prove to be 
 the ease he will hand him over to the police as an 
 impostor." 
 
 Joseph received this communication with a serene 
 composure that astonished his allv, and it required 
 the exertion of all Jack's influence to induce the 
 bland pretender to agree to leave Clovenhelm on the 
 following day. It was known that Mr. Magnus 
 was to return to Snooseby that evening, and Jack, 
 though willing enough to take part in a practical 
 joke on the largest scale, had no wish to inflict upon 
 his aunt the pain of seeing one of her guests marched 
 off under the charge of the police. 
 
 As Joseph had pleaded his inability to leave York- 
 shire without paj'ing his second visit to the Scar- 
 borough photographer, with whom, in fact, the 
 appointment stood for that very day, Aventayle 
 undertook to drive him over on his drag that after- 
 noon, and at once went off to make up a party ; 
 leaving Joseph, dreamily enjoying the genial sun- 
 shine and lazih' smoking his claro, to await the 
 arrival of the coach. 
 
 The party was composed of the same people, 
 excepting Lady Louisa who had returned to London, 
 as on the last occasion ; and on arriving at Scar- 
 
A Black Prince. 187 
 
 borough, Miss Magnus and Joseph having business 
 at the i^hotographer's walked away together ; they, 
 however, brouglit home no proofs of the pictiu'es, the 
 process having proved to be longer than had been 
 anticipated even by the artist. 
 
 That evening the entire house-party at Clovenhelm 
 drove five miles to a grand ball given in honour of 
 the Rajah of Lilipatam by a Mrs. Cleophas W. 
 Mends. This lady was a fabulously rich American 
 wddow, who had recently taken one of the finest 
 places in the North Riding, and with transatlantic 
 grace and adroitness had with the least practicable 
 delay vaulted into the front rank of count}' society. 
 
 " They tell me you are to have quite a royal 
 reception, Maharajah." Joseph had that morning 
 promoted himself a degree in rank. " I hope it will 
 not annoy you," said Lady Helmethame, as they 
 drove up Mrs. Mends' avenue, " but you are, of course, 
 accustomed to that sort of thing." 
 
 Joseph was silent ; when he was puzzled he held 
 his peace. In a few minutes more they entered the 
 gravel sweep leading to the door. The garden looked 
 like fairyland ; the trees were crowded with Chinese 
 lanterns. From dark corners magnificent fu'eworks 
 threw out showers of variegated sparks. Coloured 
 
1 88 A Black Prince. 
 
 lights were cast on the fountains, and a large trans- 
 parency depicted Joseph Manuel mounted on a fiery 
 charger leading his forces to battle. 
 
 As the carriage drew up under the portico, a 
 stentorian voice shouted the command — 
 
 " Present arms ! " 
 
 Then a drum began to roll, and a fife band broke 
 into some martial strain. 
 
 " The volunteers," explained Lady Helmethame. 
 
 On descending from the carriage, Joseph beheld 
 some hundred men in military uniform drawn up 
 two deep on each side of the door, the privates pre- 
 senting arms and the officers saluting. Joseph 
 acknowledged the compliment by a low salaam, and 
 offering his arm to Lady Helmethame, mounted the 
 steps with great majesty. 
 
 When the guest of the evening entered the ball- 
 room, the dancing ceased, the assembly forming a 
 lane through which Joseph, following a gentleman of 
 very dignified deportment, who had been specially 
 selected for the occasion, proceeded to the end of a room, 
 where a dai's covered with red cloth had been prepared 
 for him ; the centre of the dais was occupied by a 
 magnificent throne composed of gilded wood-work and 
 purple velvet cusliions. While he paced up the hall. 
 
A Black Prince. 189 
 
 every nerve in his large body vibrating deliciously 
 ^•ith a fool's vainglory, the band thundered out the 
 "Eajah's March," a piece that had been composed 
 for the occasion by the band-master. As he passed 
 in his haughty progress up the large room, the ladies 
 courtesied and the men bowed with becoming 
 reverence. 
 
 On the dais stood Mrs. Cleophas W. Mends, who, 
 taking the " Eajah's " hand in both her own, 
 effusively welcomed him to her " poor abode." 
 
 When Joseph was satisfactorily installed, Mrs. 
 Mends sat down on a low chair by the side of the 
 thi-one, and dancing recommenced. After the dance, 
 people were brought up and presented to H.H. 
 Kajah Manool, after which dancing was resumed ; 
 then followed more presentations, and after about an 
 hour of this the hostess led her regal guest into a 
 charming little boudoir, arranged in green and gold, 
 where supper had been laid exclusively for him, as 
 though he were the Prince of Wales. Then back to 
 the ball-room, and again to the boudoir, and yet 
 again to the boudou', and again, for Joseph, with 
 sorrow be it recorded, was growing very swinish, and 
 not only ate, but drank more than was good for him. 
 
 " You will think it peculiar, Eajah," simpered his 
 
190 A Black Prince. 
 
 hostess, as tliej sat on tlie dais regarding the gay 
 throng circling before them — " very peculiar I am 
 sure, that an American should feel so greatly honoui'ed 
 by youi' presence in her house ; for we States people, 
 you know, profess to despise crowns and sceptres. 
 But I tell you, sir, I love them ; I do not scruple to 
 confess that I would gladly ^^•ear a cro^ai myself if I 
 had the right." 
 
 Joseph thought it was a pity he had not met this 
 lady at an earlier period of his brief career, but he 
 merely bowed and observed: "Some one has said. 
 Ma'am, ' the head that lies, uneasy wears the 
 crown.' " 
 
 " Yes, sii-, I think I have heard that before. L)o 
 you know the Queen of England ? " 
 
 "Well, no, not intimately.'' 
 
 " I suppose, now, she does not possess half the 
 power over her subjects that you do over yours ? 
 You, for instance, could order a woman to be tied 
 up in a sack and thrown into the sea ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I could do that easily." 
 
 " Or have a man stamped on by an elej)hant ? " 
 
 " Oh dear, yes ; or burnt or skinned alive," 
 replied the audacious impostor, who had discovered 
 that the interest which he excited was heightened 
 
- / Black Prince. 1 9 1 
 
 by the OL-casiuual suggestion that he had power to 
 commit hideous barbarities. 
 
 " Really now ! And is every one in your State, 
 white or black, obliged to obey you y "' 
 
 '' I should rather think so," said the unblusliiug 
 Joseph ; '' not a European in //?// country dare sliake 
 a finger at me. Why, I should have liis head off in 
 no time." 
 
 At this moment an elderly gentleman entered the 
 ball room, and, approaching the dais, stood with eyes 
 blazing with wrath and indignation in front of the 
 puppet king. Never before had so fierce a light 
 beaten round a throne, yet the occupant of the gilt 
 and velvet structure of Mrs. ^Xlends appeared utterly 
 unaware of the radiance that was being shed upon 
 him. 
 
 The wrathiid old gentleman seemed to be some- 
 what infirm, for one hand rested upon a stick and 
 the other was supjported by the arm of a young 
 lady. After regarding Joseph scorchingly for a 
 moment or two, the new-comer drew forth a pan- of 
 gold pince-nez glasses, and, carefully adjusting them, 
 stared at Mrs. Mends' royal guest with increasing 
 combustion. 
 
 " That person appears to be acquainted "with you, 
 
192 A Black Prince. 
 
 Eajali," said Mrs. Mends — she had seen some rough 
 work in the West, and read mischief in the 
 stranger's eye. " Do you know him ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Joseph, who from the first had 
 recognized Mr. Magnus and Trelise, " his name is 
 Lemuel Magnus ; he was once Eesident at my court, 
 but he went mad, and I had to dismiss him. He 
 believes that my father, the late Eajah, is still alive, 
 and that I have no right to the thi-one. He will, 
 perhaps, be abusive, but you have servants, dear 
 madam, who can turn him out." 
 
 Whether it was to be ascribed to the good cheer of 
 the boudoir or to some other cause that this history 
 has not yet elucidated, Joseph Manuel maintained a 
 perfect composm-e, and met the Eesident' s angry eyes 
 with a stolid equanimity that for one in Joseph's pecu- 
 liar position was perhaps the best defence that could 
 be adopted. 
 
 Mr. Magnus having completed his survey, nodded 
 his head emphatically to his companion, and with a 
 terrible expression of countenance proceeded to mount 
 the dais. Planting himself in front of the tlirone 
 where Joseph sat gleaming in paste and tinsel, he bent 
 forward like a fighting-cock about to strike, and in 
 his most rasping growl ejaculated—" Mountebank ! " 
 
A Bla^k Prince. 193 
 
 Joseph took no heed of this flattering salutation, 
 but cabnlj continued his conversation with Mrs. 
 Mends. 
 
 Mr. Magnus' face flushed a fine mthenean red ; 
 he struck his stick violently on the floor in order to 
 command attention, and in a louder and more strident 
 kej exclaimed, ^ith a sharp rap of his stick on the 
 ground between each word — 
 
 " Charlatan, look me in the face ! " 
 
 But Manuel maintained his conversation with the 
 ladv bj his side as unconcernedly as though Mr. 
 Magnus were a slave of the palace repeating some 
 trite formula of Eastern adidation. 
 
 Stung to fury by this studied contempt on the part 
 of the wretch whom he had come to pull down and 
 pulverize, Mr. Magnus grasped Joseph's velvet sleeve 
 and bellowed in his ear — 
 
 "Despicable hound I you >ihaU hear me I — -you 
 shall — you shall — you shall ! " and with each 
 "shall " the speaker gave a fierce tug at his intended 
 victim's arm. 
 
 Finding that he could no longer ignore the Resi- 
 dent, Joseph calmly turned his head, and haughtily 
 twisting his moustache with his disengaged hand — a 
 close observer might have noticed a slight trembling 
 
194 ^ Black Prince. 
 
 of the fingers— addressed Mr. Magnus in Hindu- 
 stani. The Eesident understood that language 
 perfectly, but he was determined that the dialogue 
 should be conducted in a tongue that all present 
 could understand. 
 
 " Aha I you miserable swindler, so you desire a 
 private interview at my house to-morrow, do you ? 
 To prevent a scandal, eh 't No, sii-, no ! what lias to 
 be said shall be said hero, and in English, before all 
 these ladies and gentlemen — whom you insult by 
 your presence among them. Now, mumming rogue 
 and jackanapes, wliat have you to say for your- 
 self ? " 
 
 Joseph smiled sadly at his hostess, who replied by 
 an intelligent nod. 
 
 " Infamous impostor ! remove that frippery and 
 leave this house!" panted Mr. Magnus, his words 
 struggling with one another in the frenzy of his 
 denunciation. " You, you, you on a throne ! — abject, 
 crawling cheat ! don't I know you, and your whole 
 family ! — don't I know yom- father ? " 
 
 Again Joseph smiled mournfully at Mrs. Mends, 
 who glanced significantly at the fast-assembling 
 crowd and tapped her forehead with her finger. 
 
 '' Will you come otf that throne, you usurping 
 
A Black Prince. 195 
 
 r-r-rascal ? " roared Mr. ATagniis, now almost "beside 
 liimself at Joseph's calm indilference. " Listen to 
 me," he vociferated, turning to the crowd, "that 
 pitiful humbug there is no more a Rajah than I am; 
 his father lives at Lilipatam and is " 
 
 By this time Joseph had risen from his regal chair, 
 and was standing by the speaker's side. " Listen to 
 me, Mr. Magnus, before you say what perhaps you 
 will to-morrow wish unsaid." 
 
 Joseph spoke so impressively that Mr. Magnus 
 paused in his harangue, and glared in wonder at the 
 bold adventurer. Before the Resident had recovered 
 from his surprise, Joseph had added a few, a very few, 
 words in a low tone ; the whispered accents reached 
 no ear save that for which they were intended, and 
 upon the owner of that ear the effect was potent 
 indeed. 
 
 As he listened, Mr. Magnus trembled violently, 
 then he began to rock a little on his feet as thouo-h 
 he would fall from the dais, but when the speaker 
 concluded, the Resident drew his arm from that of 
 his daughter, straightened himself by a mighty effort, 
 grasped his stick in both hands, aud dealt such a 
 blow on Joseph Manuel's head that had not 
 Abiram's turban been closely and heavily wadded, 
 
 o 2 
 
196 A Black Prince. 
 
 society would have had to deplore the loss 
 of its latest lion. As it was, the stroke brought 
 Manuel to his knees, and he might have fallen 
 further had not a dozen hands, outstretched at 
 IMrs. Mends' agonized entreaty to " save the Rajah," 
 caught him as he sank. 
 
 The injured man having been carried with exceed- 
 ing care into the boudou", and there tenderly laid 
 upon a couch, an eminent surgeon, who providen- 
 tially was among the guests, after a long and minute 
 examination pronounced His Highness to have 
 sustained no injury whatever, and the cheering report 
 was rapidly circulated among the anxious assembly. 
 But in spite of the reassui-ing diagnosis, Joseph was 
 not permitted by his hostess to go home immediately, 
 as he fervently desired, but was detained upon the 
 sofa for the space of an hour told by the ormolu 
 clock on the mantelpiece ; during which period Mrs. 
 Cleophas W. Mends, assisted by the three prettiest 
 women in the room, alternately fanned the patient's 
 broad face and bathed his temples with eau-de- 
 Cologne ; dry champagne being administered inter- 
 nally at five-minute intervals. 
 
 As Mr. Magnus, now in the foaming and inarticu- 
 late stage of mental tempest, was by tm-us led. 
 
A Black Prince. 197 
 
 pushed, and carried to kis conveyance, Joseph, 
 petted by beauty and surrounded by luxury, lay 
 sipping the choicest brand of Widow Clicquot, and 
 smiling as he heard the thunders of his late assailant 
 growing fainter in the distance. 
 
 It was the culmination of the rocket. 
 
 The next morning Joseph Manuel, pleading a 
 pressing summons from Lord Warberry, returned 
 by the earliest train to London, and a caniage 
 came to Clovenhelmto convey Miss Angelica Magnus 
 to Pillula Cottage, the rm'al abode of her family. 
 
 On aiTiving at the cottage, which lay within an 
 easy drive of Lady Helmethame's, Angelica was 
 summoned to her father's private room. 
 
 Both Mr. and Mrs. Magnus were present, and 
 each presented a sufficiently awe-insj)iring appearance. 
 
 For a moment there was a petrifying silence, then 
 Mr. Magnus spoke. 
 
 " Is it true ? " 
 
 " "W — w — what ? " stammered Angelica, turning 
 very pale and cold, for she knew what her father 
 meant. 
 
 " That you were married to that black scoundi-el 
 at a registrar's office in Scarborough yesterday 
 afternoon ? " 
 
198 A Black Prince. 
 
 " I married tlie Maliara — a — a — a — jah," sobbed 
 Angelica. 
 
 " The Maliarajali ! " shouted Mr. Magnus, with 
 infinite scorn. " The Maharajah, forsooth ! You 
 know he's no Rajah, but a poor, mean, pitiful 
 jerry-sneak of an apothecary's son — you shameless 
 minx ! " 
 
 " Leave her to me, Lemuel," interposed Mrs. 
 Magnus, who saw that her husband was on the verge 
 of madness, and, unless checked, might say things 
 that would upset his daugliter utterly. 
 
 At this juncture a servant knocked at the door 
 and announced Mr. Aventayle " for Mr. Magnus 
 alone." 
 
 The congress was thereupon hastily prorogued, 
 Mrs. Magnus leading the tearful Angelica to her own 
 room for a quiet talk, and possibly a little sympa- 
 thetic weeping too, while Mr. Magnus cleared his 
 brow and endeavoured to summon the gracious smile 
 with which he received choice and v-alued visitors. 
 
 The conference was brief, and when the door had 
 closed upon the caller, Mr. Magnus rang his bell 
 with a force sufficient almost to tear it from the 
 wall. 
 
 " Send yoiu' mistress to me," shouted he hoarsely 
 
A Black Prince. 199 
 
 to the scared maid-servant, wlio afterwards declared 
 in full kitchen that if this sort of thing went on she 
 must either give warning or die of spangles in the 
 heart. 
 
 " Marian," he groaned, as his wife hurriedly 
 entered the room, " young Aventayle came over to 
 propose for " 
 
 " Trelise ? " gasped llrs. Magnus, casting up her 
 eyes in pious gratitude. " Heaven be thanked ! " 
 
 " No — for Angelica," said Mr. Magnus, adminis- 
 tering a kick to the footstool tliat drove it thi'ough 
 
 the window. 
 
 ♦ * * * 
 
 \Vlien Angelica became a'u are of the deception to 
 which she had fallen a victim, she declared, and she 
 adhered to the decision, that nothing on earth should 
 induce her to link her life to that of such a shameless 
 impostor. 
 
 Joseph, however, showed unexpected determina- 
 tion, and, stimulated and supported by a low firm of 
 attorneys, threatened legal proceedings. Mr. 
 Magnus, on his side, talked of a criminal prosecution, 
 upon which Joseph snapped his fingers and pointed 
 to the effects of the expose upon Miss Angelica, and 
 in the end the quarrel drifted into a compromise ; 
 
200 A Black Prince. 
 
 the terms of which were that Joseph should hold 
 his tongue about the marriage, and should abandon 
 all claim to his wife, in consideration of receiving 
 two-thirds of her income, namely, £200 a year, to 
 be duly paid and delivered to him quarterly in India. 
 
 AVhen last heard of he was living with his father 
 and mother on the Plaintain Hills, where he was 
 doing something in coffee ; he had grown enormously 
 stout, and had become so confirmed a toper that his 
 death might be expected at any moment. When he 
 was overcome by his potations, it was his custom to 
 twine a napkin round his head and sit upon the table, 
 insisting upon all present saluting him under the style 
 and title of His Majesty the Maharajah of Asia. 
 
 Mr. Magnus " retired," shorn of his adventitious 
 attributes and reduced to his natural dimensions, 
 occupies a minor position in county society ; he has 
 grown moody and splenetic, and his friends observe 
 that his testiness increases should the conversation 
 turn upon Eastern subjects, that his humour becomes 
 actively morose should reference be made to an 
 Eastern potentate, but that he becomes absolutely 
 unmanageable should any stranger be so ill-advised 
 as to mention in his hearing the apparently innocent 
 appellative — Maharaj ah. 
 
SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOUR 
 
 Some men blamed the Major, others condemned the 
 Captain, but all the women were down upon 
 Polly Reynard. They said she had behaved 
 " shamefully," with a strong accent on the "shame." 
 For my part, I offer no opinion on the matter, I 
 merely relate the facts as they occuiTed. 
 
 Lovelace Grey was as devil-may-care a Captain of 
 Horse as could be found in the wildest cavalry regi- 
 ment in Europe. His manners were engaging, and 
 his face was handsome, but alas ! his morals were 
 bad. This young officer's career, up to the date 
 when our tale begins, may be described in a few 
 words. A peer's son, and the heir to a fine fortune, 
 he was naturally sent to Eton, whose classic and 
 humid precincts he abandoned, after the customary 
 noviciate, for the more congenial surroundings of 
 White's and the Gruards' Club. About this period 
 of his life his name for the fii'st time figured in the 
 
202 Shamefrd Bchaviotir. 
 
 reports of Doctors' Commons, where he suffered 
 heavy amercement at the hands of a married jury 
 and a draconic judge. Having in the space of 
 eighteen months run through most of his money, 
 he found it convenient, with a view to squander 
 the remainder more at leisure, to hid farewell 
 to the corpa (V elite, and accordingly exchanged into 
 a cavalry regiment of the line. A few weeks 
 after his transfer he appeared for a second time as 
 a leading character in the court for the dis- 
 posal of matrimonial causes, and on this occasion, 
 the particulars being less to his credit than 
 were those even of his previous escapade, the 
 damages were proportionately rigorous. From this 
 epoch he so arranged his life that the Queen's 
 Proctor knew him no more, for the expenses attend- 
 ing upon this last event had exhausted what 
 remained to him of unearned increment arising fi-om 
 mortgages and post-obits. After a brief but 
 terrifically rapid career in the 3rd Light Spears, 
 Grey found himself obliged by the ever-increasing 
 pressure of debt to exchange into the 4th Heavy 
 Sabres, then under orders for India. The Sabres, in 
 the ordinary course of relief, found their way to 
 Drumgalore, where the 60th Native Infantry were in 
 
Shaiueful Behaviour. 203 
 
 gaiTison ; aud this brings us to Polly Reynard, and 
 opens our tale. 
 
 Major and Mrs. Reynard were at breakfast. The 
 English mail had arrived that morning, and 
 an overland letter addressed to Major Reynard, 
 60th N. I., lay open on the table. The Major 
 played gloomily with the missive, while his wife 
 spread anchovy paste on slender slices of toast and 
 placed them invitingly before him. When the Major 
 was upset, he proclaimed a personal fast, and on such 
 occasions his wife would save him from starvation by 
 luring him with dainty particles, as though he were 
 a canary. The Major, be it known, was a con- 
 firmed invalid, prematurelybrokendownby the Indian 
 climate and grievously harassed by an immovable 
 incubus of debt. Hope had long been a stranger to 
 his languid heai-t, and it was e^-ident that imder the 
 combined influence of an enlarged liver and an 
 attenuated balance-sheet, he was slowly, but surely 
 drifting to the station cemetery. He just managed 
 to struggle through the work that the day brought 
 forth ; but like a worn-out old boot which is 
 always being sent to the cobbler, he was hardly 
 ever out of the hands of the regimental doctor. 
 The doctor, who was weary of vamping and 
 
204 Shameful Behaviour. 
 
 welting this perpetual patient, would long ago 
 have sent him on medical certificate to England, 
 had it not been well known to every one that the 
 unfortunate man would have found it impossible 
 to raise the money required for the journey, if 
 indeed a legion of alert and avid creditors would have 
 allowed him to leave the country. Such was the 
 Major. 
 
 Mrs. lieynard was a being of a widely different 
 type ; beauty and never-failing health, together mth 
 a buoyant heart and a fund of mother-wit that 
 Talleyrand himself might have envied, rendered her 
 at once the most delightful of companions, the most 
 lovable of wives, and the keenest of domestic 
 administrators. 
 
 Husband and wife were discussing the letter that 
 lay on the table between them ; it was from Mrs. 
 Reynard's father, an opulent Yorkshii^e squire. 
 
 *' I expected nothing more, Polly," sighed the 
 Major; "he offers me the very thing that I can't 
 take advantage of, and he knows it." 
 
 "Oh, Dick! " 
 
 " Well, if he doesn't know it, he ought to. Every- 
 body knows that I can't leave the country." 
 
 " Nothing's impossible, Dick ; and if we could get 
 
Shameful Behavmir. 205 
 
 away, there's an end to all our trouble. You were 
 always well in England. You will have peace of 
 mind, plenty of riding and shooting, and no more 
 guard-duty and parades. Yorkshii-e, too, is your 
 favourite county, Dickums." 
 
 *' Aye," replied the Major, with a groan ; " but how 
 are we to get to Yorkshire ? I might as well try to fly 
 to the moon." 
 
 " Leave it to me, Dicky boy, and see if I don't 
 manage it somehow or other," and his angel on the 
 hearth shed upon him the cloud-dispelling sunshine 
 of her sweetest smile. It may be stated that Mrs. 
 Eeynard had at that moment no more idea how the 
 feat was to be accompKshed than she had of squaring 
 the circle or of satisfying her husband's creditors, but, 
 like Napoleon, she refused to admit that anything 
 was impossible. The letter under consideration was 
 a reply to the last of a long series of appeals for 
 subsidies, which the Major ever since the time of his 
 marriage, seven years before, had periodically 
 addressed to his father-in-law. At first ^Mr. Baxterly 
 had assisted his daughter's husband in a sufiiciently 
 liberal manner, but as the step-debts and the 
 compound interest on the money-lender's bills 
 accumulated, the Squire's generosity waned, and he 
 
2o6 Shameful Behaviour. 
 
 had at last announced his ultimatum. The Major 
 must straightway leave the army and go home, where 
 he would be appointed land-steward of the Baxterly 
 estates ; he and his wife were to live at the Abbey 
 with the Squire, at whose death Mrs. Reynard would 
 receive a very liberal settlement. But the Squire's 
 munificence had its limits ; the letter said nothing as 
 to the means by which the ensnared warrior was to 
 escape from the land of bondage. 
 
 That night there was a large ball at the 
 Sabres' mess. The Cavalry always gave the ball of 
 the season, and the dance in question promised to 
 eclipse all its predecessors. Mrs. Eeynard and her 
 husband were of com'se among the guests. It was 
 an article of that admirable woman's creed that her 
 *' Dicky boy " should be present at every scene of 
 gaiety garrison life afforded. " It did him good," she 
 said. In point of fact, the }3oor man on these 
 occasions suffered, both in mind and body, more 
 acutely than ever ; but his wife, who was the so id 
 of every social gathering, most thoroughly enjoyed 
 herself, and never failed to absorb stores of happi- 
 ness, which, after the manner of certain lustrous gems, 
 she assimilated and carried away with her, diffusing 
 the hived radiance upon her poverty-darkened home. 
 
Shameful Behaviour. 207 
 
 The mess-Louse was superbly decorated ; the walls 
 jrlowed with flowers and g'leamed with burnished 
 weapons and accoutrements ; the rooms were brilliant 
 with smart frocks and gay uniforms, and many a 
 dainty little arbour, cunningly wrought with lattice- 
 work and greenery, tempted the tired dancers to 
 snatch a few moments' rest free from the glare of 
 lamp and candle. 
 
 On the arrival of the Reynards, all the men who 
 happened to be standing near the entrance gathered 
 round the lady, and gleefully booked her for as 
 many dances as the laughing beauty deigned to 
 bestow, after which she was whuded away by 
 one of them, and her husband saw but little of her 
 till the time arrived for going home. As for him, 
 he spent the intervening hours drooping in doorways 
 or propping himself against walls; sometimes he 
 would drift into a seat among the chaperones, or would 
 gloomily nibble a biscuit in company with some 
 other stiff limbed senior who was owned by a 
 dancing wife. 
 
 Chief among Mrs. Eeynard's army of admirers 
 was Captain Grrey, and this evening he had succeeded 
 in seeming her for the first two round dances, all the 
 supper waltzes, and an extra. He had a great deal to 
 
2o8 Shameful Behaviour. 
 
 say to her, and he certainly made the most of these not 
 inconsiderable opportunities. His conversation, I 
 am bound to record, bore upon his hopeless adoration 
 of his bewitching partner. 
 
 " He spoke of love [not] such as spirits feel 
 In worlds whose course is equable and pure." 
 
 He moaned through his moustache a prose lyric of 
 weary longing — he described his joyless heart upon 
 which her beauty rose like some pm-e star upon a lonely 
 mere, and he spoke of the present moment as the tui'n- 
 ing point of his life, vowing that it rested with her 
 whether he chose the upward or the downward path. 
 She was wrong to let him go on, I hear my gentlest 
 reader say ; she could not have been arfr/Z/ynice woman. 
 Madam, did you ever observe the peculiar quality with 
 which nature has endowed the back of the Tsdld-duck — 
 a property admirably adapted for the rejection and 
 extrusion of water ? Even so was the mind of Mrs. 
 Eeynard in its relation to flattery. Flattery !— she 
 had been immersed to the eyes in it ever since she 
 was a child. Her father never spoke of her but as 
 his Hebe or his Iris, and all his hunting friends 
 readily admitted that she was lovelier than any goddess 
 in the heathen Pantheon. She had received nearly 
 
Shajucfiil Behaviour. 209 
 
 twenty proposals from eligible persons, to say nothing 
 of the raving of detrimentals, before, with the sweet 
 inconsequence of womankind, she committed the 
 first and only blunder of her life, and threw herself 
 away upon the dismal invalid whom she continued 
 to love as dearly as husband was ever loved by 
 wife ; while from the moment of her arrival at 
 Drumgalore, incense of such subtile flavour had been 
 burnt upon her altar, and hymns of such fervid 
 import had been chanted at her shrine, as would 
 have turned the heads of a London beauty in her 
 third season, but which this bright, sensible, winning 
 young person shook off like a grey mallard scattering 
 water fi"om his crest after a dive. 
 
 " But I mean it," whispered Captain Grey, with, for 
 him, an unusual air of earnestness. Mrs. Eeynard, 
 leaning upon his arm, had paused in an ante-room 
 to admire a trophy of arms. " I swear I do, Mrs. 
 Eeynard." So well did she keep the men in hand, 
 that even Grey dared not call her Polly. 
 
 " I will think it over," she whispered, as they moved 
 into the dancing-room. 
 
 Some ten days after this episode the post brought 
 another letter to the Eeynards' breakfast-table. 
 This time it was for the lady, who, after skimming 
 
 p 
 
2 1 o Shameful Behaviou7\ 
 
 its contents, put it carelessly in her pocket without 
 showing it to her languid lord. After breakfast she 
 went into her bedroom, and sitting on a low chair 
 by the window, again perused the missive. Her 
 eyes continued fixed upon the paper, while her brow 
 became clouded and her lower lip was pressed between 
 her teeth. She read the lines again and again ; 
 she was evidently sorely perplexed. At last, some- 
 thing like a tear, an unusual visitant, stole into 
 her lively eyes and trickled "down lier cheek. It was 
 followed by another and another, and this went on 
 for five minutes or so. Suddenly a change came over 
 her, the shadow vanished from her face, the moisture 
 was brushed from her lashes, her lip released from its 
 ivory vice again formed itself into a smile, and, 
 crushing the paper firmly in her hand, she sprang to 
 her feet, a heroine prepared for all emergencies. 
 The letter ran thus : — 
 
 " Madras Club, Bee. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Eeynaru, 
 
 " I was dining last night with an old chum of 
 mine, an attorney here, who told me that a writ 
 was out to arrest the Major at the suit of Gohlum 
 Doss, the money-lender, and that a High Court 
 
Shameful Behaviour. 2 1 1 
 
 bailiff — a European — would start at once for Drum- 
 galore : so Rejnard had better look out. 
 
 " Yours always very sincerely, 
 
 " Charles Fairfiei,d. 
 " P.S. — My friend says tJwi/ cmi't enter your house if 
 you keep the doors locheiiy 
 
 Fairfield was a subaltern in the Major's regiment, 
 and, like all other boys in the station, was Mrs. 
 Reynard's sworn bond-slave. Charlie, before going 
 on leave, had been strictly enjoined to discover what 
 this particular money-lender was about, for the man, 
 who was one of poor Eeynard's heaviest creditors, 
 had recently displayed ominous signs of angry im- 
 patience. The first thing to be done, said Mrs. 
 Reynard to herself as she put on her sim-hat, is to 
 have Dick placed on the sick-list. There was 
 no difiiculty in accomplishing this, the doctor's only 
 anxiety regarding his patient arose when he had to 
 pronounce him fit for duty. The Major had now 
 been more than three months out of the doctor's 
 hands, and it was but natural that the convalescent 
 should suffer from the effects of such prolonged 
 activity. 
 
 Whenever Reynard was on the sick-list, his wife 
 
 p 2 
 
212 Shameful Behaviour. 
 
 undertook the task of exercising his charger — the 
 solitary occupant of his stable. So the morning 
 after the doctor had reported her husband unfit for 
 duty, Polly cantered slowly down the Madi'as Road 
 revohing many things in her fertile mind. When 
 Mrs Reynard went out riding there was never any lack 
 of cavaliers in her train ; all the horses and ponies in 
 the place were as friendly with Mrs. Reynard's 
 inexpensive mount as the riders were with its 
 mistress ; but from this day forth she shunned the 
 path of the riders, and every morning and evening 
 patrolled the quiet and secluded road leading to the 
 Presidency town. One friend alone had been made 
 aware of her new haunt, and on these occasions, 
 unless stables or some other duty intervened, Captain 
 Grrey was seldom absent from her side. 
 
 I may state the fact, though it may not be 
 accepted, that Grrey, in spite of his long contact with 
 the gayest portion of the gay world, had still a weak 
 point in his ease-hardened heart, and was as deeply 
 in love with Polly Reynard as was the last- joined 
 boy from the depot. It may be stated that all who 
 came to the station caught the epidemic more or less 
 severely, the intensity of the attack being generally 
 in inverse proportion to the sufferer's age. 
 
Shamefid Behaviour. 213 
 
 At tliis stage of the story it becomes necessary 
 to explain Captain G-rey's intention with regard 
 to our heroine. On the night of the ball he 
 had deliberately proposed that she should run away 
 with him to England, and after being divorced from 
 her poor broken-down husband should become the 
 Honourable Mrs. Grrey, and live happily — oh ! so 
 happily — ever after ; to which enterprising and 
 comprehensive project the lady had so far consented 
 as to vouchsafe it her consideration. Upon which 
 the Captain, gleefully reflecting that the woman who 
 considers is lost, at once wrote to his agents telling 
 them to remit him a large sum of money, and then 
 quietly made his arrangements for leaving the 
 station. They had since the ball spoken many times 
 upon the momentous subject, and Mrs. Reynard had 
 at length brought herself to ask for a fuller exjDOsi- 
 tion of her adorer's plans. 
 
 In those days the railway, though it was under 
 rapid construction, had not reached the cantonment 
 of Drumgalore, and the nearest station was still thirty 
 miles off. This distance the Captain proposed to get 
 over at night in his dog-cart, posting a horse half- 
 way. Then the train was to be taken to Bombay, 
 and affairs were to be so an-anged that their arrival 
 
2 14 Shaviefid Behaviour. 
 
 at that port would fit in with the departiu'e of the 
 mail steamer for Brindisi. Mrs. Eeynard promised 
 to think over the scheme, and to give its ingenious 
 author a definite reply as soon as she was able 
 to come to a conclusion. Thus matters rested 
 until the arrival of Fairfield's letter, when the lady 
 advanced the negociations by consenting to tlie 
 elopement under certain definite conditions, one of 
 which was that the passage should be secured in the 
 name of Major and Mrs. Reynard; she could not 
 bear to think of travelling under a false name — " it 
 was so like a criminal, you know ; " the other stipula- 
 tion being that the ticket should be lodged in her own 
 hands. The smitten Captain, although he protested 
 against the latter article as reflecting upon his own 
 faith, nevertheless readily agreed to the terms. 
 
 As she rode one morning to her usual exercise 
 ground, Mrs. Reynard saw Captain Grey waiting, 
 according to the custom, at the top of the avenue. 
 As she approached, he rose in his stirrups and waved 
 a letter in the air. It was the passage-ticket. The 
 envelope, though it came enclosed in a letter to 
 Captain Grey, was addressed to Major Reynard, 
 60th N. I. 
 
 As she placed the precious document carefully in 
 
Shameful BehavioiLv. 2 1 5 
 
 her saddle-pocket, Mrs. Reynard told Captain Grey 
 with a faltering voice that she was henceforward in his 
 hands. 
 
 The delighted warrior proposed to leave Drum- 
 galore that very night ; his dog-cart should be at 
 her compound-gate at ten o'clock ; they would take 
 the early train to Bombay, and would be in time to 
 catch the next homeward-bound steamer. 
 
 This was hurrying matters to a crisis far more 
 rapidly than Mrs. Reynard had contemplated, and a 
 plea for delay was rising to her lips, when she saw 
 coming down the road that which she had for the 
 last seven days strained her eyes night and morning 
 to discover — Dick's peril. 
 
 A tall, heavily-built man, keen-eyed and grey- 
 bearded, with a cheroot in his mouth and a stout 
 bamboo in his hand, was plodding along in the 
 direction of Drumgalore. He was followed by a 
 countrj^-cart, in which apparently he had slept, for it 
 contained, in addition to sundry articles of luggage, 
 a mattress and pillow. As the riders passed him he 
 scanned the Captain's face with much curiositj', while 
 Mi's. Reynard's eyes were riveted with an equal 
 eagerness u]3on his own. Instinct told her that this 
 was the man who was coming to arrest lier husband. 
 
2i6 Shameful Behaviour. 
 
 " I think we have gone far enough," she said, 
 turning to her companion, " I am tired this morning, 
 I j)assed such a wretched night." 
 
 As she spoke she took the Captain's letter from her 
 pocket and again read the address — " Major 
 Eeynard, 60th N. I." She slipped the ticket into 
 her glove, and playing carelessly mth the cover, 
 managed to let it fall full in front of the pedestrian 
 as they passed him on their return The stranger at 
 once picked up the envelope, and, having read it, 
 quickened his pace and called after Grrey. " Here, 
 sii', you've droj^ped something." Grrey turned his head. 
 
 " It's only an empty envelope that I threw away," 
 said Polly, with an air of unconcern. " Come along, 
 the sun is getting hot." 
 
 The man pulled out a bulky pocket-book, and 
 began fumbling among its contents. 
 
 " Stop, sir, I want to speak to you," he cried, as 
 he extracted a small piece of paper. 
 
 " Lovelace," said Mrs. Eeynard hurriedly, seeing 
 that Grey was about to pull ujd, " I shall be ready at 
 ten o'clock to-night ; only promise me to bring your 
 dog-cart to the door, for I can't walk to the gate in 
 the dark," and as she spoke she put her horse into a 
 canter. 
 
Shameful Behavioiir. 217 
 
 Captain Grey, in the whirl of delight into which 
 these words had plunged him, at once lost all thought 
 of the stranger, and setting spurs to his horse, galloped 
 after the lady. 
 
 The intelligent reader will abeady have divined 
 the bearing of ICrs. Eeynard's plan. Like many a 
 a high measure of statesmanship, it was remarkable 
 for its simplicity. Her intention was nothing less 
 than to make Captain Crey pay for her husband's 
 escape. " He would have deceived Dick," she 
 argued, " why should I not deceive him .^ " 
 Matters were now in fair train, and it remained only to 
 eliminate the Captain fi'om the arrangement to ensure 
 complete success. Mrs. Reynard's first idea was to 
 have Grrey seized that evening and confined by some 
 of her young friends in the 60th, who would mount 
 guard over him till the morning, by which time she 
 and her husband would be in safety. She had no 
 fear of the consequences to her allies, she felt that she 
 could rely upon the Captain's prudence for their full 
 indemnity. 
 
 Affairs had, however, now assumed a new 
 phase, and she decided that her admirer should be 
 removed by the more constitutional method of arrest 
 on civil process. Accordingly when she reached 
 
2 ] 8 Shamefiil Behaviour. 
 
 home she communicated to her husband as much of 
 her intentions as she deemed necessary and prudent, 
 and during the remainder of the day she employed 
 herself in making preparations for their journey. 
 Among these preliminaries was the composition and 
 despatch of a short anonymous note to the bailiff, who 
 she accurately divined would be putting up at the 
 rest-house, the usual place of residence for travelling 
 Europeans. The note informed him that Major 
 Reynard of the 60th Regiment would leave his 
 house in a dog-cart at ten o'clock that night for the 
 Tara Railway Station. The missive was signed " A 
 friend of the law." 
 
 When the appointed hour rang out from the main- 
 guard, Mrs. Reynard, dressed in a plain serge 
 travelling dress, stood with glittering eyes and a 
 palpitating heart under the porch of her verandah. 
 She had left Reynard waiting in the dining-room, 
 and had assured him with many kisses that she 
 would come back for him in two minutes. The 
 sound of wheels stealthily approaching told her that 
 her lover was true to time, and she felt sure that the 
 tryst would be equally well kept by the bailiif. 
 Grey drew up under the porch and, whispering some 
 loving words suitable to the occasion, told her to give 
 
Shauiefitl Behaviour. 219 
 
 him her hand and jump up. Putting her foot upon 
 the wheel, she seized his proffered hand and climbed 
 lightly to his side. He tried to kiss her, hut she 
 found it necessary at that moment to stoop for her 
 handkerchief, and, as the horse was restive, the gallant 
 warrior was obliged to start without that enchanting 
 stirrup-cup. 
 
 As they passed out of the compound-gate Mrs. 
 Eeynard looked keenly around her for the bailiff. 
 The moon shone brightly and every little bush and 
 stone was discernible, but the tipstaff was not there. 
 Misery ! — not a soul was to be seen. As she realized 
 her position a chilling horror gripped her heart, and 
 she laid her trembling hand upon the Captain's arm. 
 
 "Oh! stop — stop for just one little minute! I 
 have — forgotten my jewel-ease." 
 
 "Never mind your jewel-case," said Grey, flicking 
 his horse into a canter ; " I mil give you heaps and 
 heaps of jewels, darling." 
 
 Mrs. Reynard's nerves were of the pui-est temper, 
 her brain was of the clearest, and her heart was 
 as stout as Bayard's ; yet it must be admitted that 
 for a moment this unexpected turn of events nearly 
 overwhelmed her. As she was hurried through the 
 now deserted station she saw more and more clearly 
 
2 20 Shameful Behaviour. 
 
 the hideousness of her peril ; every yard they covered 
 diminished her chance of escape, and the first shock 
 nearly caused her to faint outright, but the cool night- 
 air rushing past her temples soon revived her, and she 
 gallantly endeavoured to collect her scattered 
 thoughts. That she would never leave the railway 
 station in Captain Grrey's comjoanionship she was 
 firmly resolved, but thoughts of his indignation at 
 her change of mind, of the possibility of his carrying 
 her into the train against her will, of the terrible 
 scandal that must in any case ensue, and, last though 
 not least, of the complete failure of her carefully 
 arranged plans, coupled with the sudden conviction 
 that the bailiff had by some occult skill fathomed her 
 intentions and was even then laying his heavy hand 
 upon poor Dick Reynard's feeble arm, nearly drove 
 her frantic with terror and despair. 
 
 " I have arranged everything capitally," said her 
 companion, in a satisfied tone. " The Brigadier made 
 no difiiculty about my leave, and Gus Trevellian has 
 taken all my horses. Shall we go by Paris or 
 Vienna ? What a topping good time we'll have ! 
 Can you see what that is just ahead of us ? Is it a 
 bullock-cart ? Heigh ! heigh ! clear the road 
 there," he shouted ; but as the cart remained 
 
Shameful Behaviour. 221 
 
 obstinately fixed in its position, lie had to slacken his 
 breakneck pace, and was at length obliged, though 
 most unwillingly, to draw up. The cart with its 
 bullocks tvas standing right across the road, which it 
 completely blocked. 
 
 " The driver is either drunk or asleep," muttered 
 the Captain ; " catch hold of the reins for a moment, 
 dear, while I get down and wake him up ; " and, as 
 he had sent his syce in advance, so that they might 
 travel the more hghtly, he leaped dowm to clear the 
 road himself. 
 
 At that moment a tall man approached from 
 beneath the shadow of a banyan-tree, and, touching 
 the astonished Captain's shoulder, growled : " I aiTest 
 you, Major Eeynard, at the suit of Soucar Gfohlum 
 Doss, on a High Court warrant." 
 
 " Gro to the d II " shouted the Captain angrily, 
 
 disengaging his shoulder from the bailifi's finger. 
 " I am not Major Eeynard — you have got hold of 
 the wrong man." 
 
 " So they all says," replied the baiM imper- 
 turbably, adding, " I know you well enough, I see 
 you a-riding along this very road only this 
 morning." 
 
 " I am Captam Grey of the 4th Sabres," said 
 
2 22 Sha77ieful Behaviour. 
 
 that officer haughtily, " and you touch me at your 
 peril." 
 
 " If you be Captain Grrey, what be you a-doing 
 with Major Reynard's letters ? " said the man know- 
 ingly, at the same time holding up the envelope that 
 Mrs. Reynard had di-opped in the morning. 
 
 " Ask this lady who I am, if you won't believe 
 me," said the Captain, in desperation, for he began to 
 perceive that this most unfortunate encounter was 
 imperilling his enterprise. 
 
 " Who might you be, ma'am ? " inquired the man, 
 looking at Mrs. Reynard. 
 
 " I am Mrs. Reynard " replied that lady 
 demurely. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " laughed the bailiff, turning towards 
 Grrey, "if you ain't the Major, what be you a-doing 
 along o' his wife ? You're the man, right enough. 
 Ah! would you?" 
 
 The last exclamation was evoked by the Captain's 
 making a sudden spring for the dog-cart, but the 
 experienced officer of the law had for the last minute 
 or so been fully prepared for that movement, and 
 in the twinkling of an eye he had caught the Captain 
 by the collar and had laid him full length upon the 
 groimd. 
 
Shameful BeJia-jiour. 223 
 
 Mrs. RejTiard's opportimitj had now amved. 
 Swiftly tuming the horse's head, she drove at full 
 speed back to the cantonment. She found her hus- 
 band anxiously pacing the verandah. 
 
 " You've been a precious long two minutes, Polly," 
 he said, looking at his battered old silver hunter, 
 "nearer half-an-hom', my girl." 
 
 Eeserving all explanation for a more convenient 
 opportunity, llrs. Eeynard ordered the servants to 
 place the luggage in the dog-cart, and paying them 
 their wages, wrapped her husband up in a tweed shawl 
 and helped him into the vehicle. The Major made no 
 inquiry as to the ownership of the tm-n-out— any man 
 in the place would have been proud to put the best 
 thing in his stable at Polly's disposal — and as to the 
 main arrangement, that, it had been agreed, was to 
 remain a secret until they were on board ship. 
 
 In less than ten minutes they were clear of 
 Drumgalore, and were bowling merrily along the 
 road to the railway-station. When they had pro- 
 ceeded about three miles they flew past a bullock- 
 cart that was pursuing its sluggish course in the same 
 direction. A tall man walked behind it chuckling 
 softly to himself, while from the inside depths could 
 be discerned the fierce glow of a cheroot that was 
 
2 24 Shameful Behavioti}'. 
 
 evidently being smoked by some one under the 
 influence of strong emotion. Thanks to the second 
 horse so thoughtfully posted by Captain Grey, they 
 were just in time to catch the mail-train to Bombay, 
 where they went straight from the station to the 
 wharf, and thence on board the steamer, which an hour 
 or so afterwards cast off from her moorings and 
 
 steamed out of the harbour. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 A few weeks later Captain Grrey received a cheque 
 from Mrs. Eeynard in full payment of the passage- 
 money, together with a sweet little note in which 
 that lady prettily expressed her contrition at the un- 
 warrantable manner in which she had deceived him, 
 and her concern at the indignity to which he had 
 been subjected, pleading as an excuse the stem 
 necessity of the occasion, and entreating his forgive- 
 ness for her naughty little trick, and quite too 
 shameful behaviour. 
 
OUR STATION. 
 
 The term as applied to Sanclriri is a misnomer, there 
 is nothing whatever stationary about it. Here even 
 mere molecular change is accelerated ; the roads 
 oscillate violently between a state of disruption and 
 repair; our public buildings, of which we are so proud, 
 are for ever drifting from a condition justifying 
 popular reprehension and alarm to one of successful re- 
 cuperation and general joy ; while our dwelling-houses 
 either totter, cracked and tarnished, to their fall, or, 
 just " done up," stand, white-robed candidates for the 
 lodger sufferage. The very name of our mobile burgh 
 is the victim of unrest. Within the recollection 
 of the least retentive memory it was familiarly 
 known among men as Sundreary, and we are only 
 now beginning to get reconciled to seeing our old 
 friend caricatured in print as Sandriri. But here 
 there is a schism among us. The Judge is uncom- 
 promisingly for the new jargon, and in this he 
 
 Q 
 
2 26 Our Station. 
 
 receives the support of the salt-Wcallah and the Statu- 
 tory ; but the Collector, except when he is penning an 
 ofl&cial document, when even he bows the knee to 
 Rimmon, adheres sturdily to the old rendering, and 
 his manful protest commands the respectful approval 
 of the Doctor, the Policeman, and me. This rift 
 within the lute is widening, but it does not as yet 
 effect our social intercourse ; after all, it is a small 
 matter — Sandriri, like the rose, will under any other 
 name exhale the same odours. 
 
 But this is a digression. Sandriri is not a station, 
 it is a mirage, a tiuxion, a dream. Its society is 
 constantly changing; if not actually on the wing, 
 we are all preening our feathers for a Hight ; 
 not a man of us is pucka, all are acting for some 
 one else. We are like marionettes suspended by 
 metallic threads, the Chief Secretary touches our 
 wire, and off we skip to a distant corner of 
 the stage, and hang, quivering with expecta- 
 tion, awaiting our next removal. Shakespeare 
 had us in his eye when he declared all the world 
 to be a stage. But our stage- world is a work- 
 a-day one ; though "vagrom" men, we are no rascal 
 players ; we are actors in the sense only that we are 
 all waiting for the Gazdtc'H call-bell to ring our 
 
Our Station. 227 
 
 successors on. Each house has its price-list ready 
 for issue ; every particular in these price-lists is 
 familiar to each of us, for it has long ago been 
 exhaustively discussed in racket- court and club- 
 room, and each item has been conclusively appraised. 
 Though we attend auctions as regularly as we attend 
 church, nobody ever buys anything ; for what is the 
 use of residual tubs and sedimentary dog-carts to a 
 man who to-morrow may find himself in orders for 
 Jerichobad ? 
 
 Another marked feature in our condition is the 
 pleasureable sunshine of anticipation in which we 
 bask. All of us being in the pupa stage of official 
 existence, we are naturally expectant of a glorious 
 transformation when we rend our present husk. 
 Each has a splendid futm-e dancing on his mental 
 retina, and the humblest among us cherishes the 
 hope of a gorgeous development. Although we do 
 not confide these precious anticipations to one 
 another categorically, we dimly hint at them in 
 after-dinner dialogue, or embody them in vague 
 references over a cheroot. We therefore know 
 as much about our neighbour's prospects as we 
 do about his property. Thus we are all aware that 
 the Collector is calmly expectant of honours from 
 
 u 2 
 
2 28 Our Station. 
 
 afar, and that any day may see him invested with 
 highly-coveted distinctions. Even om^ Zemindar, 
 who believes that the world rests upon a tortoise, 
 knows this. The following beautifully-expressed 
 sentiment adorns and terminates the last letter that 
 the Collector received from this Eastern nobleman : 
 " May the inexhaustible British Alphabet discharge 
 its choicest treasures on the brow of the Humphrey 
 Buckley, and may neither of the precious triads 
 (C. S. I. and C. I. E.) be absent from the chaplet." 
 Without going quite so far as our Statutory Civilian, 
 it must be admitted that our Collector's accession 
 will add lustre even to the ranks of the three lettered 
 men. It may be observed that with our Statutory, 
 admiration of the District Chief has grown into a 
 cult. He describes him as a man whom merely to 
 know is a middle-school training ; whom to be fairly 
 well acquainted Avith is a Madras University course ; 
 but to be honoured with whose intimate confidence 
 confers an encyclopaedic education, boundless in 
 extent and unfathomable in profimdity. Our 
 Statutory is a poet. In addition to a poem containing 
 one thousand and odd verses laudatory of Vishnu, he 
 has written " Lines in Honour of the Planet Saturn," 
 " A Centum of Verse in Praise of the Victorious 
 
Oiii" Statioit. 229 
 
 Eama," " A Standard Poem on the Merit of a Yow 
 to Siva on the Evening of the Twelfth Day of each 
 Fortnight," illustrated by the legend of a Prince 
 who, by his strict observance of the oath, was blessed 
 with all possible mundane prosperity. Last Chi'ist- 
 mas he hailed the Collector in the spirited verses 
 here subjoined : — 
 
 Who makes dakait and thao; to quail 
 At tlionghts of cat of poly-tail, 
 And kanji fare in District jail ? 
 
 Kallecta. 
 
 Who is it that with lightning blow 
 
 Lays the striated tiger low, 
 
 Fox, \iilture, jackal, snipe, and crow ? 
 
 Kallecta. 
 
 Who when the sniall-pox smote the town 
 Urged his career in bagi brown 
 And cast zymotic structures down ? 
 
 Kallecta. 
 
 A\'ho brings monsun's prolific rain, 
 Fecundates fields with grass and grain, 
 "With calves and kidlings throngs the plain ? 
 
 Kallecta. 
 
 Wlio when Lard-Governor H. E. 
 Arrived by dak, all things to see, 
 With him ate rice, with him drank tea ? 
 
 Kallecta, 
 
230 O^ir Station. 
 
 Wlio, worthy of Valmiki's lays, 
 Reckless of censure as of praise, 
 Gives good appointments to B.A.'s '1 
 
 Kallecta. 
 
 Who scorns the potent argent lure, 
 Contemns the vile, supports the pure ? 
 Long may his clement rule endure, 
 
 Kallecta. 
 
 The Collector ministers to our spiritual require- 
 ments by reading us a sermon every Sunday, and 
 attends to our corporal wants by giving us a dinner 
 afterwards for listening to liim. 
 
 Our Judge has his eye upon the High Com-t, and 
 it is believed that the High Court has its eye upon him ; 
 several of liis decisions having lately been severely 
 reversed upon appeal. Yet he is a man of whom all, 
 saving the Policeman, speak v^•ell, and the bobby's 
 growl is confined to session-time. The motto is trite, 
 " Cum nocens absolvitur judex damnatur," by the 
 Superintendent of Police. 
 
 The Policeman is a meritorious person, well ac- 
 quainted with courts and scamps, and many a tangled 
 web can weave round him whose practice is to thieve. 
 We like him ; his helmet alone inspires us with con- 
 fidence, its scarlet tm"ban reflects the blushes of the 
 detected rogue, while the spike and chain, eloquent 
 
Our Station. 231 
 
 emblems of the Bastile, are a standing menace to evil- 
 doers. 
 
 Om' Doctor aspires to the management of the 
 Powder Factory. He is much respected in the 
 station, for in his hands lie priceless possibilities — 
 leave in India, to Australia, to Europe Im-ks within 
 the wrinkles of his unfee'd palm. His favourite 
 axioms are that blue water beats blue pill, and that 
 leave is better than leeches. We applaud these 
 tenets, their adoption by our medical adviser com- 
 mands our warm and sympathetic approval, and 
 we heartily encom'age him in their freest translation 
 into practice. 
 
 I must not forget to mention that the district con- 
 tains an Assistant-Collector, one Spraggin. He is a 
 Socinian or a Socialist, I forget which, and he \\Tites 
 epigrams, and admires Greorge (not the Duke) , and I 
 don't know what. He sneers at everything, and 
 has been heard to speak disrespectfully even of 
 the tropics ; we have therefore dubbed him Fooli-lxili. 
 We do not esteem this young man. 
 
 Much interest was excited one morning, when 
 at our usual rendezvous in the Judge's verandah, 
 Buckley, without the slightest preparatory proem, 
 announced that the French Academy of Science had 
 
232 Our Station. 
 
 despatclied a savant to India in order to observe the 
 approaching osculation of Venus, a subject that was 
 creating no little stir among the astronomers of the 
 northern hemisiihere, and that the place selected as 
 in all respects most favourable for the observation was 
 Sandriri. 
 
 That day five letters were privately indited and 
 secretly despatched to a bookseller in Madras. And 
 in the course of the week the post-peon distributed 
 among us five packets, each contained (for, after our 
 usual manner, we confessed it afterwards) a French 
 grammar and a Jlaimcl de ])hrases. 
 
 Our visitor. Chevalier Achile Hjpolite Dumaresq, 
 was an officer of the Legion of Honour, a Member of 
 the Institute, a Professor of the College de France, a 
 Lecturer of the Athenee, and a Fellow of half the 
 scientific and literary bodies in Europe. The care of 
 such a distinguished person could devolve upon only 
 one man. The Chevalier, in the order of natui'e, 
 became the guest of the Collector. 
 
 The day after his arrival, the station was summoned 
 to a banquet in his honour. It might have been 
 observed that we were all deeply absorbed in thought, 
 and had the air of men trying not to lose the recol- 
 lection of something. The Chevalier spoke but little 
 
02ir Station. 233 
 
 English, and that was of an inferior quality ; it was 
 therefore tacitly understood that the conversation was 
 to be in French. 
 
 We consumed the soup in silence, and although 
 the Chevalier addressed several remarks to the 
 company at large we only smiled and bowed, we 
 .were waiting for Buckley to begin. I had learnt 
 two beautiful sentences from the Manuel, and had 
 skilfully adapted them to the present occasion. 
 Suddenly Buckley gave a preparatory cough ; we 
 listened intently. 
 
 " II fait bien chaud aujourd'hui, Monsieui- le 
 Chevalier," 
 
 This from the Collector did not come up to our 
 expectations, but it sufficed to tap the pent-up stream 
 of the foreigner's loquacity. At the first lull the 
 Judge delivered his little speech : 
 
 " N'est ce pas que vous trouvez la chaleur des Indes 
 accablante ? " 
 
 Again the Chevalier went off at score. By this 
 time the champagne had been twice round, and the 
 Doctor, the Policeman, and I began to pluck up 
 courage. I could see by the anxiety depicted on the 
 countenances of my neighbours that they were going 
 to strike in, so, with my usual modesty, I reserved 
 
234 ^^^^ Station. 
 
 my remark. In their eagerness thej both spoke 
 together. 
 
 " On vous attendait, Monsieur, la semaine 
 derniere, le temps n'etait pas si lourd et des hrises 
 legeres entretiennent une douce fraioheur." 
 
 Misery ! that was one of mine. Off again went 
 the Chevalier, addressing either speaker alternately. 
 They listened with facile nods and hypocritical grins 
 — the impostors ! as though they understood him. 
 At last he put a direct question to the Doctor, to 
 which that worthy with a ghastly smile responded : 
 " Mais oui." 
 
 " Comment ! " inquired the Chevalier, with an aii" 
 of surprise dashed with horror. There was a dead 
 silence. The Doctor had evidently gone wrong. 
 
 " Do I comprehend you to say zat you have here 
 ze peste, ze plague !^ " 
 
 " Non, non, non," said the Doctor, blushing, " pas 
 le plague, mais maintenant et puis le cholera." 
 
 Our spirits rose at the Doctor's discomfiture ; his 
 ignorance presented a good background for our own 
 more brilliant scholarship, and we listened with great 
 good-humour, albeit with imperfect comprehension, 
 to the Chevalier's account of the ravages of the 
 plague at Jaffa and Beyrout. 
 
Oiir Station. 235 
 
 There was then a short silence. The others had 
 shot their bolt, and it was now my turn for an 
 innings. With an air of proud humility I delivered 
 myself, my companions listening critically. 
 
 " Xous avons eu beaucoup de moustiques ici, 
 Monsieur, et il faisait chaud. Par bleu ! bien 
 chaud." 
 
 This unfortunately led to a complicated question 
 about our Indian seasons, and the extent of country 
 affected by the monsoon. Being most anxious to 
 impart to my inquirer the exact limit of the rainfall 
 to a fi'action, I refeiTed in English to Buckley, and 
 then found myself engaged in conversation with 
 the Policeman about a small case in which I 
 suddenly remembered that I was profoimdly 
 interested. 
 
 In the middle of dinner, who should turn up but 
 Spraggin, who, being a mathematical genius, had 
 been called in to assist the Chevalier at the osculation. 
 Buckley would not hear of his delaying to change 
 his coat, but made him join us in his riding-gear. 
 He sat opposite the Chevalier and at once engaged 
 him in an animated conversation. His j)owers of 
 speech were marvellous, he positively rippled over with 
 French, and spoke it witli tlie ease and grace of the 
 
236 Our Station. 
 
 Chevalier himself ; moreover, he had the Grallic shrug 
 to perfection, and to our untutored eyes and ears his 
 accent was as Parisian as his gestures. 
 
 We always disliked the Assistant Collector for his 
 absurd affectation of superiority, but that night we 
 detested him. Even Buckley seemed annoyed. 
 Spraggin and Dumaresq spoke so fast that we could 
 not follow them, and we were too much dazzled by 
 this manifestation of a new power on the part of the 
 former to talk much among ourselves, so we finished 
 our dinner in silence, and felt it a relief when we 
 adjourned to the verandah for cigars, leaving 
 Spraggin and the Chevalier hard at it on a point, 
 as it seemed to me, of astronomy, but Buckley said 
 they were talking about protoplastic generation. 
 
 It turned out afterwards that their dialogue had 
 reference to the dcmi-moiide of Vienna. 
 
HOW WE JUBILATED AT SAXDRIRL 
 
 " I SUPPOSE we must have a meeting ? " observed the 
 Judge. 
 
 "Undoubtedly," replied the Collector, and the 
 word was echoed by the Doctor, the Policeman, and 
 me. 
 
 AVe were all seated in the Collector's verandah, 
 drinking early tea. 
 
 " Of course," remarked the first speaker, lighting 
 a long cheroot — " of coui'se we must have the 
 Zemindar." 
 
 " We must have the Zemindar," said the Collector 
 authoritatively. 
 
 " "We must have the Zemindar," was the un- 
 animous remark. 
 
 Let it not be thought that we were servile 
 followers of the Collector. We loved him and 
 admired him, and he, being a man of masterful mind, 
 appeared to lead us. 
 
~0 
 
 8 I/oza we fnhilated at Sandriri. 
 
 " And 8oucar Laksha Paisa too," added the Judge. 
 
 " Very much so," answered the Collector, with the 
 magisterial analogue of a wink. 
 
 The Doctor, the Policeman, and I also winked as 
 magisterially as we could, and laughed sarcastically 
 at the bare idea of excluding the local Eothschild 
 from deliberations of which a leading feature would 
 be the question of supply. 
 
 " Then I'll communicate with old P. P.," said the 
 Collector, taking a blue pencil and an envelope fi'om 
 his waistcoat pocket. 
 
 P. P., signified Pamia Pimtalu, the district 
 Sheristadar. 
 
 " And 111 tell him to have a subscription-list 
 handy." This remark, it is needless to say, was, like 
 every other ■v\ase suggestion, readily endorsed by the 
 Doctor, the Policeman, and me. 
 
 The meeting was held that day week, and was 
 attended by a numerous and enthusiastic company, 
 vide P. P.'s report in the local journal. 
 
 Of course we were all there. The Judge, the 
 Collector, the Policeman, the Zemindar, the Doctor, 
 the Soucar, the whole box and dice of us, besides a 
 phalanx of fifteen native gentlemen marshalled and 
 inspired by the venerable P. P. 
 
How lue Jubilated at Saudriri. 239 
 
 The Collector's speech was au immense success, 
 eliciting in its more serious portions frequent and pro- 
 longed applause, and provoking in its lighter sallies 
 bursts of exuberant merriment. The young native 
 gentleman, who held and adorned the position 
 of Statutory Civilian, showed himself on this 
 occasion to be endowed with a truly abnormal sense 
 of humour ; and what was of infinitely greater impor- 
 tance, both the Zemindar and Laksha Paisa dis- 
 played an earnest interest in the proceedings. 
 
 The speech concluded by an eloquent appeal to 
 the liberality of the audience, representing, as it did, 
 all the rank, wealth, and solid respectability of the 
 town and its neighbourhood, an audience which, the 
 speaker was satisfied, needed no incitement from him 
 to support the undertaking in a manner worthy 
 alike of the occasion, of themselves, and of the 
 ancient renown of Sandriri. 
 
 We ajiplauded the orator to the echo, and when 
 the Judge proposed that an address should be 
 forwarded to Her Majesty from her loyal and grate- 
 ful Sandririans, we with one accord named our 
 Collector as the fittest person to draw it up. 
 
 The Zemindar, speaking through his agent, 
 suggested that the address should be enclosed in a 
 
240 Hoiv ive Jubilated at Sandriri. 
 
 gold casket, and the Soucar added a rider that the 
 the box should be incrusted with diamonds, inciden- 
 tal! j remarking that he himself dealt largely in 
 precious stones. 
 
 These proposals were followed by others equally 
 bountiful and large-hearted, and the Collector, 
 noting the fervid state of generosity into which the 
 meeting had worked itself, made a sign to R. P., 
 who produced the subscription-list. 
 
 We raised exactly a thousand rupees, the sum 
 being made up as follows : — 
 
 Rs. 
 
 M. R. Ry. The Zemindar of Sandriri 500 
 
 The Judge 1-50 
 
 TheCoUector 150 
 
 The Doctor 50 
 
 The Supt. of Police 50 
 
 I 50 
 
 R.P 25 
 
 Fourteen Native Gentlemen 14 
 
 Our Statutory 6 
 
 Soucar Laksha Paisa 5 
 
 N.B. — The last donation has not yet been paid. 
 
 We then formed a committee to decide how we 
 should spend the funds. As all present were sub- 
 
Hozv we [ubilatcd at Saiidriri. 241 
 
 scribers, to exclude any of us would have been 
 invidious, so we voted ourselves into committee and 
 set to work. 
 
 After some slight consultation it was agreed that 
 our address should be transmitted to Her Majesty in 
 a government envelope, instead of in a box, the 
 former being a more natural vehicle for the convey- 
 ance of printed matter. We then began our resolu- 
 tions. 
 
 The first proposition, moved by R. P., and seconded 
 enthusiastically by the Statutory, was that w^e shoidd 
 erect a pandal. 
 
 At Sandriri nothing festive can be accomplished 
 without the aid of a pandak Whenever Sandriri 
 rejoices, the effluence and symbol of its gladness 
 takes the form of bamboos and palm-leaves, fruit- 
 bearing plantain-trees, and margosa-leaves tied to 
 horizontal strings. We carried the pandal unani- 
 mously. It was at once cheap and effective, and 
 was strictly in accordance with tradition. 
 
 The second proposal also was carried nem. con. — 
 we were to have fireworks. 
 
 The third proposal emanated from the Zemindar. 
 It was that we should liave a locomotive battle after 
 the manner of a ram-fight. Two opposing engines 
 
 K 
 
242 Hoiv zve Jnbilatcd at Saiidriri. 
 
 launched at full speed were to meet in front of 
 the railway station, where the assembled company 
 would be seated under a pandal, of course a pandal, to 
 witness and perhaps experience the effect. 
 
 This suggestion was negatived as one tending to 
 lead to a massacre of the spectators. 
 
 The fourth proposal Avas that Her Imperial 
 Majesty's picture should be placed upon the Zemin- 
 dar's rhinoceros, the animal being decked out with 
 lotuses and lured tlu'ough the town by means of 
 sweetmeats, while all the most respectable nautch- 
 girls available danced in front. A difficulty was here 
 encountered. The Zemindar at once most obligingly 
 placed his rhinoceros'" at our disposal, and R. P. 
 undertook to provide the dancing-girls; but none of 
 us was fortunate enough to possess a copy of the 
 Imperial picture, so it was decided to affix a new 
 rupee to an ebony board and to place it on a velvet 
 cushion in a covered howdah, which was to be carried 
 by the garlanded rhinoceros under the shadow of 
 gilded umbrellas. 
 
 We were also to have sports. There were military 
 pensioners in the town, and these were under the 
 control of the Collector, so R. P. was instructed to 
 arrange an assault-at-arms. 
 
How lue Jubilated at Samh'iri. 243 
 
 Here we paused; it was felt that our resources 
 would not carry us much further, and when some- 
 body proposed that " something of a permanent 
 nature " should be undertaken for the good of the 
 town, we did not like it, for it savoured of a supple- 
 mentary subscription list. However, the question 
 having leen started, various plans were presented 
 for discussion. 
 
 The Soucar, having a piece of ground that he 
 wanted to get rid of, proposed to create a .Jubilee 
 cemetery. This notion was rejected on the score of 
 extravagance — the station burial-ground not being 
 yet full. The Statutory Civilian suggested that a 
 picture of the Collector should be himg in the 
 Cutcherry. This was a good proposal, but it was 
 promptly negatived by the officer in question before 
 either the Doctor, the Policeman, or I could rise to 
 our feet to second it. 
 
 It occurred to me that I should like to have a 
 Jubilee pension, but I refrained from proposing ir, 
 fearing to incur the reproach of avidity. 
 
 The Superintendent then advocated the establish- 
 ment of a Jubilee lock-up ; the Doctor proposed a 
 branch-hospital ; some one else wanted to have a 
 bridge over a nullah that was dry eleven months in 
 
 R 2 
 
244 Ho2v ive fuhilated at Sandriri. 
 
 the year, aud seldom fidl during the twelfth ; a 
 foiu'th person considered Sandriri incomplete with- 
 out a triumphal arch ; while a fifth insisted upon 
 the unique grace and heautj of an obelisk. All 
 these proposals had been successively debated and 
 rejected, when R. P., having gone into private 
 committee of ways and means at an old desk in tlie 
 corner, came forward and announced that after meet- 
 ing the expenses abeady voted, we should have in 
 hand only some twenty rupees, and to achieve even 
 that result we should have to curtail the supply of 
 sweetmeats to the rhinoceros ; so at the instance of 
 the Collector, supported by the Doctor, the Police- 
 man, the Statutory, and me, we decided upon 
 confining ourselves to the erection of — a Jubilee 
 Pump. 
 
 * * * # 
 
 The sports were not an unqualified success. The 
 Zemindar had lent us all his elephants, and we went 
 in procession to a neighbouring plain, which had 
 been selected as the best theatre for the toui-na- 
 ment. 
 
 The Zemindar, preceded by spearmen, led the 
 way on a black monster with bells fastened to its 
 hammer-cloth, and a fine yellow-wash of ochre on its 
 
How -K'c Jubilated at Saudriri. 245 
 
 forehead. The Collector and the Judge, each in red 
 howdahs, and also accompanied by spearmen, were 
 carried side by side by two quadrupeds that would 
 have put Jumbo himself to shame ; while the 
 Doctor, the Policeman, and I brought up the rear 
 in an old shooting howdah borne by an undersized 
 hathni.* 
 
 Wc had no retinue. 
 
 On our arrival at the groimd we were met by 
 E,. P., who, with a somewhat crestfallen au', 
 announced to the Collector that he had been unable 
 to discover " many " military pensioners who were 
 in a condition to perform great feats of arms, 
 but he had procured three veterans who had been 
 noted champions at military gatherings in days of 
 yore. 
 
 The days of their vigour were, however, a little too 
 much of yore ; one of the athletes, it turned out, had, 
 just before our arrival, been suddenly affected with 
 rheumatic pains in the knee-joints, and the other 
 had as suddenly found himself suffering from vertigo, 
 but they helped to swell the body of spectators. 
 The assembly consisted of ourselves, the spearmen, 
 
 * Female elephant. 
 
246 Hozu zue J ltd Haled at Sandriri. 
 
 the Cuteheny peons, and tlie maliouts, before whom 
 the remaining pensioner, who was an active old man 
 for his years, went verj^ creditably through the 
 sword exercise; he then wiithed round some 
 old clubs, and leapt painfully over a stick held at a 
 low elevation. Stimulated by our plaudits and by 
 R. P.'s whisjjered announcement of coming reward, 
 his invalid comrades now arose, and, slapping their 
 withered biceps, grappled convulsively together in a 
 species of gladiatorial contest, which, R. P. told us, 
 was a wrestling match. In this struggle, although 
 it was maintained for over sixty seconds, neither 
 combatant was overpowered. 
 
 The three athletes then formed line, and making 
 their obeisance to the company, received each 
 a guerdon of two rupees from the Collector, and a 
 packet of sweetmeats from R. P. With this the 
 display terminated. 
 
 The rhinoceros-march afforded unalloyed pleasm'e 
 to all beholders, although to some extent our pro- 
 gramme was departed from. The beast was to have 
 perambulated all the chief thoroughfares of the 
 town, halting at intervals and emitting at each halt 
 a loud grunt expressive of loyalty and devotion to 
 the British Raj ; but having got to the end of the 
 
How ivc Inbilated at Sandriri. 247 
 
 first street, the pachyderm stopped, and although 
 cheerfully accepting the confectionery that was 
 lavished upon it, refused contumaciously either to 
 grunt or to proceed a step further on its pilgrimage. 
 The ereatiu'e, moreover, began to eat its lotuses. The 
 driver stood near with a formidable goad, which, 
 however, he did not deem it prudent to appl3^ 
 Wlien the comestibles and the lotuses were consumed, 
 the ungrateful unicorn tirrned round and solemnly 
 carried back the Queen's image to his stable. 
 
 Upon this the Collector very happily remarked that 
 it was the first time in the history of the town that 
 any difficulty had been found in circulating coin of 
 the realm. 
 
 The pandal was a charming structure, and cost us 
 a trifle over five-hundred rupees ; while the fireworks 
 ran us on far into the thousand, but they were very 
 good, and made a tremendous noise and no end of 
 smoke. 
 
 The Zemindar came late, thereby losing the best 
 of the display ; but the Collector, the Judge, the 
 Policeman, the Doctor and I, each of us with a large 
 garland of yellow flowers round his neck, a gilded lime 
 in one hand, and a small bouquet tied to a stick in 
 the other, sat in state in the front row, while li. P. 
 
248 Holu we Jubilated at Sanciriri. 
 
 sprinkled us at intervals, as though we were plants, 
 with a weak solution of rose-water and cloves. 
 
 The great feature of the evening was a large 
 transparency of the Queen-Empress copied from her 
 effigy on the new postage stamps, the heads of the 
 Judge and the Collector appeared on each side of 
 her, and the inscription " God defend qui* rulers " 
 blazed in large letters underneath ; but the wind 
 blew out all the second word with the exception of 
 the first letter, and thus the effect of the sentiment 
 was marred. 
 
 When the Zemindar arrived, he was received 
 affectionately by us all, and was placed on a silken 
 couch between the Collector and the Judge, where he 
 sat for an hour in silence and chewed cardamoms. 
 During this period a native musician discoursed 
 Hindu melodies on a small fiddle. 
 
 Then the Collector rose and read the address, 
 which we all vociferously applauded, while the fiddler 
 struck up the national anthem. After this the Judge 
 thanked the Collector for all the trouble that he had 
 taken, and the Collector in a graceful speech thanked 
 the Judge for all the trouble that he had taken ; and 
 the Doctor, on behalf of every one present, thanked 
 the Superintendent of Police for his efficient arrange- 
 
Holu lue Jubilated at Sandinri. 249 
 
 ments, and particularly for his admirably successful 
 precautions against fire. At this moment a rocket 
 fell on the roof, and we adjourned somewhat 
 precipitately to the street. When the fire had burnt 
 itself out, the Police Superintendent thanked the 
 Doctor and acknowledged the justice of his kind 
 remarks. R. P. then thanked the European gentle- 
 men for their attendance, and I thanked Heaven 
 that it was all over. 
 
 We then gave tlu-ee cheers, and under copious 
 showers of rose-water rained upon us by the zealous 
 Statutory and the indefatigable P. P., the jubila- 
 tion ended. A\Tien we got home we found that we 
 had all been severely " burgled." There had been 
 a Jubilee jail-delivery that morning : the heaviest 
 sufferers were the Doctor, the Police Superintendent, 
 and I. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Henderson & Spalding (Limited), Printers, Marylebone Lane, W. 
 
October, iSqj. 
 
 MESSRS. 
 LAWRENCE & BULLEN'S 
 
 2List of Puijlicatious. 
 
 LONDON: 
 1 6, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 Allen, Grant ... 
 
 Anacreon 
 
 Andersen, Hans Christian ... 
 
 Barrett, C. R. B 
 
 Beck ford, William 
 
 Boccaccio, Giovanni... 
 
 Bullen, A. H 
 
 Catullus 
 
 Churchill, Charles ... 
 Crane, Walter 
 D'Aulnoy, Madame... 
 
 Davidson, John 
 
 Earle, A. M 
 
 Edmonds, Mrs. 
 
 Gift, Theo 
 
 Gissing, George 
 
 Harraden, Beatrice 
 
 Jokai, Maurus 
 Knight, Joseph 
 Linton, W. J. 
 
 Miscellanies — 
 
 Salomon and Marcolphus 
 Antonio de Guaras 
 Caxton .. 
 InformaconforPylgrymes 
 
 3 
 
 Muses' Libraiy — 
 
 
 3 
 
 William Browne 
 
 ... lO 
 
 J 
 
 William Blake .. 
 
 ... lO 
 
 -3 
 
 John Donne 
 
 ... lO 
 
 O 
 
 Robert Herrick... 
 
 ... lO 
 
 4 
 
 Andrew Marvell 
 
 ... lO 
 
 4 
 
 Edmund Waller 
 
 ... lO 
 
 5 
 
 John Gay 
 
 ... lO 
 
 5 
 
 O'Neill, Moira 
 
 ... II 
 
 5 
 
 Orme, Temple 
 
 ... II 
 
 5 
 
 Owen, J. A 
 
 ... II 
 
 6 
 
 Pearce, J. H 
 
 ... II 
 
 6 
 6 
 
 Powell, G. H. 
 
 ... II 
 
 Prideau.x, Miss S. T. 
 
 ... II 
 
 Rabelais, Francis 
 
 ... 12 
 
 6 
 
 Roberts, Morley 
 
 ... 13 
 
 6 
 
 Roberts, Cecil 
 
 •• 13 
 
 7 
 
 Robinson, 11. J. 
 
 • 13 
 
 7 
 
 Russian Fairy Tales... 
 
 ... 14 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 .Scarron, Paul 
 
 .. 14 
 
 Strang, W'illiam 
 
 .. 14 
 
 " Told in the Verandah " 
 
 •■ 15 
 
 7 
 
 "A Black Prince" ... 
 
 - 15 
 
 
 Vanbrugh, Sir John ... 
 
 • 15 
 
 8 
 
 Wallis, Henry 
 
 - 15 
 
 9 
 
 Wells, Charies 
 
 ■• 15 
 
 9 
 
 Wills, C. J 
 
 •• 15 
 
 9 
 
 Yeats, W^B 
 
 •• 15 
 
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 artist, Mons. L. Chalon, to paint a series of oil-colour 
 illustrations, which have been reproduced by Dujardin. 
 The originals were lately exhibited at the " Blanc et Noir," 
 Paris, where they were awarded a First Medal. 
 
 Prefixed to the translation is an essay on Rabelais 
 (specially written for this edition) by a scholar of European 
 reputation, M. Anatole de Montaiglon, whose knowledge 
 of early French literature is certainly unsurpassed and 
 probably unequalled. Facsimiles of rare tille-pages of 
 early French editions accompany the Introduction. 
 
 The volumes are printed by Messrs. Whittingham in 
 the best stvlc of the Chiswick Press. 
 
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS. 13 
 
 ROBERTS, MORLEY.— KING BILLY OF 
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14 jVESSJ^S. LAWRENCE 6- BULLEN'S 
 
 RUSSIAN FAIRY TALES.— Translated by R. 
 NiSBET Batx. Illustrated by C. M. Gere. 
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 * Also 150 copies on Japanese vellum. ;^2 2s. net. 
 
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LIST OF PUBLICATIONS. 15 
 
 TOLD IN THE VERANDAH.— Passages in the 
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 Adjutant. Crown 8vo. '^s. 6d. 
 
 [ Third edition. 
 
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 BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOLD IN THE 
 VERANDAH." — A Black Prince and 
 Other Stories. Crown 8vo. 3^-. 6d. 
 
 VANBRUGH, SIR JOHN.— WORKS. Edited by 
 W. C. Ward. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. (With a 
 Portrait.) £\ "^s. net. 
 
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 TAL CERAMIC ART. Parts I. and II. 
 Folio. 14^'. net. 
 
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 NATURE. With a Preface by W. J. LiNTON. 
 Fcp. 8vo. "js. 6d. net. 
 
 * The edition consists of 400 numbered copies. 
 
 " The tales, with all their rouge and frippery of form, 
 breathe a singularly clear and upright morahty, and are 
 rich in examples of noble manhood and gracious woman- 
 hood." — A thence urn. 
 
 WILLS, C. J.— JOHN SQUIRE'S SECRET. A 
 
 noN'cl. I vol. 3J-. 6d. \^Neiu and eJieaper edition. 
 
 YEATS. W. B.— THE CELTIC TWILIGHT. 
 
 1 8 mo. 3^'. (id. 
 
i6 
 
 LIST OF run LIGATIONS. 
 
 Books published at £3 3s. net. 
 
 Boccaccio's Decauieron. 2 vols. 
 Urquhart's Rabelais. 2 vols. 
 
 3-Yol. Novels at £1 lis. 6d. 
 
 (1. GissiN"i;'.s Odd Women. 
 JoKAl's Eyes Like the .Sea. 
 
 £1 5s. net. 
 
 Vanbrugh's Plays. 2 vols. 
 Portraits illustrating 
 Churchill's Rosciad. 
 
 £1 Is. net. 
 
 Anacreon. i Beckford's Vathek. 
 Churchill's Rosciad. 
 Paul Scarron. 
 
 16s. net. 
 
 Catullus. 
 
 16s. 
 
 Robinson's Colonial Chronology. 
 Earle's China Collecting. 
 
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 Parts I. and tl. of Wallis's 
 Oriental Ceramic Art. 
 
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 Barrett's Essex. 
 
 10s. 6d. net. 
 
 Salomon and Marcolphus. 
 
 Antonio de Guaras. 
 
 Sex quam elegantissime Ens- 
 
 TOLE. 
 
 Informacon for Pyi.grymes. 
 
 10s. 6d. 
 Linton's Eiiropea>i Republicans. 
 
 7s. 6d. net. 
 Linton's Catoninetales. 
 Wells' Stories After Nature. 
 Walter Crane's Decorative Art. 
 
 7s. 6d. 
 
 D'Aulnoy's Fairy Tales. 
 MoRLEY Roberts' Land Travel. 
 
 6s. net. 
 
 Miss Prideaux's Bookbinding. 
 
 6s. 
 
 G I SSI NO, G. , Dcnzil Qiiarrier. 
 
 „ ,, The Emancipated. 
 
 Knight's Theatrical Xotes. 
 
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 William Browne, of Tavistock. 
 William Blake. | John Donne. 
 John Gay. | Robert Herrick. 
 Andrew Marvell. 
 Edmund Waller. 
 
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 Grant Allen's Science in Arcady. 
 
 Bullen, a. n. Lyrics from Song- 
 Books. 
 
 BULLEN, A. W. L^yrics from 
 Dramatists. 
 
 Gift, Theo. Fairy Tales. 
 
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 Roberts, C. Adrift in America. 
 
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 Davidson's Sentences. 
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 " Told in the Verandah.''^ 
 ' ' A Black Prince. " 
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 General Library 
 
 Universiry of California 
 
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514767 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY