SNAKE AND SWORD BY THE SAME AUTHOR DEW AND MILDEW. Semi-detached Stories from Karabad, India. Crown 8vo, 65. FATHER GREGORY: or, Lures and Failures. A Tale of Hindostan. Crown 8vo, 65. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS SNAKE AND SWORD A NOVEL BV PERCIVAL CHRISTOPHER WREN AUTHOR OF "DEW AND MILDEW," "FATHER GREGORY," ETC. Sotal yap re iriKai a/mcvTjvwv clcrtv ovetpwv * al fi-ev yap ttepaeaai TeTevx^Tai, oi 8' eKe^avri • Twv 01 ney K ekOutri, 5td irpttrTov «Xe<^avT05f ot p' eAe^aipoi'Tai, eire* a/cpaavra (^epovre? • oi fie Sia feiTTif Kepawf e\9uari. fivpafe, 01 p' erv/uia KpaCvovai, ftporStv ore kmv ris Ifiijrat. LONGMANS, GREEN AND ^^. " ** We needed the Haddock, you see. Miss Smellie," confirmed Lucille. ** How many times am I to remind you that H addon Berners' name is Haddon, Lucille," in- quired Miss Smellie. '* Why must you always prefer vulgarity ? One expects vulgarity from a boy — but a girl should try to appear a Young Lady." With an eye on Dam, Lucille protruded a very red tongue at surprising length, turned one eye far inward toward her nose, wrinkled that member incredibly, corrugated her forehead grievously, and elongated her mouth disastrously. The resultant expression of countenance admirably expressed the general juvenile view of Miss Smellie and all her works. Spurred to honourable emulation, the boy strove to excel. Using both hands for the elongation of his eyes, the extension of his mouth, and the depres- sion of his ears, he turned upon the Haddock so horrible a mask that the stricken child burst into a howl, if not into actual tears. ** What's the matter, Haddon ? " demanded Miss Smellie, looking up with quick suspicion. 6* :-^ 84 SNAKE AND SWORD "Dam made a fathe at me," whimpered the smitten one. "Say 'made a grimace' not 'made a face,'" cor- rected Miss Smellie. " Only God can vci2k.^ faces!' Dam exploded. "At what are you laughing, Damocles?" she asked sternly. * * Nothing, Miss Smellie. What you said sounded rather funny and a little irrevilent or is it irrem- brant ? " " Damocles ! Should /be likely to say anything Irreverent ? Should / ever dream of Irreverence ^, What can you mean ? And never let me see you make faces again." " I didn't let you see me, Miss Smellie, and only God can make faces " " Leave the room at once, Sir, I shall report your impudence to your great-uncle," hissed Miss Smellie, rising in wrath — and thq bad abandoned boy had attained his object. Detention in the nursery for a Sunday afternoon was no part of his programme. Most unobtrusively Lucille faded away also. '' Isnt she a hopeless beast," murmured she as the door closed. " Utter rotter," admitted the boy. " Let's slope out into the garden and dig some worms for bait." " Yes," agreed Lucille, and added, " Parse Smellie!' whereupon, with one voice and heart and purpose the twain broke into a paean, not of praise — a kind of tribal lay, and chanted : — LUCILLE 85 '' Smellie — Very common noun, absurd person, singular back number, tutor gender, objectionable case governed by the word /," and so da capo. And yet the poor lady strove to do her duty in that station of life in which it had pleased Providence (or a drunken father) to place her — and to make the children ** genteel". Had she striven to win their love instead, her ministrations might have had some effect (other than infinite irritation and bitter dislike). She was the Compleat Governess, on paper, and all that a person entrusted with the training of young children should not be, in reality. She had innumerable and admirable testimonials from various employers of what she termed "aristocratic stand- ing " ; endless certificates that testified unto her successful struggles in Music, Drawing, Needle- work, German, French, Calisthenics, Caligraphy, and other mysteries, including the more decorous Sciences (against Physiology, Anatomy, Zoology, Biology, and Hygiene she set her face as subjects apt to be, at times, improper), and an appearance and manner themselves irrefragible proofs of the highest moral virtue. She also had the warm and unanimous witness of the children at Monksmead that she was a Beast. To those who frankly realize with open eyes that the student of life must occasionally encounter indelicacies upon the pleasant path of research, it may be revealed, in confidence, that they alluded 86 SNAKE AND SWORD to Miss Smellie as '' Sniffy " when not, under ex- treme provocation, as *' Stinker ". She taught them many things and, prominently, Deceit, Hate, and an utter dislike of her God and her Religion — a most disastrous pair. Poor old ** Grumper " ; advertising, he got her, paid her highly, and gave her almost absolute con- trol of the minds, souls, and bodies of his young wards and "grandchildren ". *' The best of everything " for them — and they, at the average age of eight, a band of depressed, resentful babes, had " hanged, drawed, and quartered " her in effigy, within a month of coming beneath her stony ministrations. In appearance Miss Smellie was tall, thin, and flat. Most exceedingly and incredibly flat. Im- possibly flat. Her figure, teeth, voice, hair, manner, hats, clothes, and whole life and conduct were flat as Euclid's plane-surface or yesterday's champagne. To counter-balance the possession, perhaps, of so many virtues, gifts, testimonials, and certificates she had no chin, no eyebrows, and no eyelashes. Her eyes were weak and watery ; her spectacles strong and thick ; her nose indeterminate, waver- ing, erratic ; her ears large, her teeth irregular and protrusive, her mouth unfortunate and not guaranteed to close. An ugly female face is said to be the index and expression of an ugly mind. It certainly was so in the case of Miss Smellie. Not that she had an LUCILLE 87 evil or vicious mind in any way — far from it, for she was a narrowly pious and dully conscientious woman. Her mind was ugly as a useful building may be very ugly — or as a room devoid of beauti- ful furniture or over-crowded with cheap furniture may be ugly. And her mind was devoid of beautiful thought- furniture, and over-crowded with cheap and ugly furniture of text-book facts. She was an utterly loveless woman, living unloving, and unloved — a terrible condition. One could not like her. Deadly dull, narrow, pedantic, petty, uninspiring. Miss Smellie's ideals, standards, and aims were in- credibly low. She lived, and taught others to live, for appear- ances. The children were so to behave that they might appear "genteel ". If they were to do this or that, no one would think they were young ladies or young gentlemen. ** If we were out at tea and you did that, I should be ashamed," she would cry when some healthy little human licked its jammy fingers, and ** Do you wish to be considered vulgar or a little gentleman, Damocles ? " Damocles was profoundly indifferent on the point and said so plainly. They were not to be clean of hand for hygienic reasons — but for fear of what people might ** think " ; they were not to be honourable, gentle, brave and 88 SNAKE AND SWORD truthful because these things are fine — but because of what the World might dole out in reward ; they were not to eat slowly and masticate well for their health's sake — but by reason of "good manners" ; they were not to study that they might develop their powers of reasoning, store their minds, and enlarge their horizons — but that they might pass some infernal examination or other, ad majorem SmellicB gloriam; they were not to practise the musical art that they might have a soul-developing aesthetic training, a means of solace, delight, and self-expression — but that they might "play their piece" to the casual visitor to the school-room with priggish pride, expectant of praise ; they were not to be Christian for any other reason than that it was the recommended way to Eternal Bliss and a Good Time Hereafter — the whole duty of canny and respectable man being to " save his soul " there- fore. Her charges were skilfully, if unintentionally, trained in hypocrisy and mean motive, to look for low reward and strive for paltry ends — to do what looked well, say what sounded well, to be false, veneered, ungenuine. And Miss Smellie was giving them the commonly accepted " education " of their class and kind. The prize product of the Smellie system was the Haddock whose whole life was a pose, a lie, a re- fusal to see the actual. Perhaps she influenced him more strongly than the others because he was caught younger and was of weaker fibre. Anyhow LUCILLE 89 he grew up the perfect and heartless snob, and by the time he left Oxford, he would sooner have been seen in a Black Maria with Lord Snooker than in a heavenly chariot with a prophet of unmodish garment and vulgar ancestry. To the finished Haddock, a tie was more than a character, and the cut of a coat more than the cut- ting of a loving heart. To him a "gentleman" was a person who had the current accent and waistcoat, a competence, the entree here and there — a goer unto the correct places with the correct people. Manners infinitely more than conduct ; externals everything ; let the whitening be white and the sepulchre mattered not. The Haddock had no btoodful vice, but he was unstable as water and could not excel, a moral coward and weakling, a liar, a borrower of what he never intended to return, undeniably and incurably mean, the complete parasite. From the first he feared and blindly obeyed Miss Smellie, propitiated while loathing her; accepted her statements, standards, and beliefs ; curried favour and became her spy and informer. "What's about the record cricket-ball throw, Dam?" inquired Lucille, as they strolled down the path to the orchard and kitchen-garden, hot-houses, stream and stables, to seek the coy, reluctant worm. ** Dunno," replied the boy, " but a hundred yards wants a lot of doing." 90 SNAKE AND SWORD " Wonder if / could do it," mused Lucille, pick- ing up a tempting egg-shaped pebble, nearly as big as her fist, and throwing it with remarkably neat action (for a girl) at the first pear-tree over the bridge that spanned the trout-stream. Aty but not into. With that extraordinary magnetic attraction which glass has for the missile of the juvenile thrower, the orchid-house, on the opposite side of the path from the pear-tree, drew the errant stone to its hospitable shelter. Through the biggest pane of glass it crashed, neatly decapitated a rare, choice exotic, the pride of Mr. Alastair Kenneth Mac II wraith, head gardener, released from its hold a hanging basket, struck a large pot (perched high in a state of un- stable equilibrium), and passed out on the other side with something accomplished, something done, to earn a long repose. So much for the stone. The descending pot lit upon the edge of one side of the big glass aquarium, smashed it, and continued its career, precipitating an avalanche of lesser pots and their priceless contents. The hanging basket, now an unhung and travelling basket, heavy, iron-ribbed, anciently mossy, oozy of slime, fell with neat exactitude upon the bald, bare cranium of Mr. Alastair Kenneth Macllwraith, head gardener, and dour, irascible child and woman hater. LUCILLE 9^ '* Bull's-eye ! " commented Dam — always terse when not composing fairy-tales. " Crikey ! " shrieked Lucille. " That's done it," and fled straightway to her room and violent earnest prayer, not for forgiveness but for salvation, from consequences. (What's the good of Saying your Prayers if you can't look for Help in Time of Trouble such as this ?) The face of Mr. Alastair Kenneth Macllwraith was not pleasant to see as he pranced forth from the orchid-house, brandishing an implement of his trade. " Ye'U be needing a wash the day, Mon Sandy, and the Sawbath but fower days syne," opined Dam, critically observing the moss-and-mud streaked head, face and neck of the raving, inco- herent victim of Lucille's effort. When at all lucid and comprehensible Mr. Mac- llwraith was understood to say he'd give his place (and he twanty-twa years in it) to have the personal trouncing of Dam, that Limb, that Deevil, that predestined and fore-doomed Child of Sin, that Dam pocketed his hands and said but : — ** Havers, Mon Sandy ! " ** I'll tak' the hide fra y'r bones yet, ye feckless, impident " Dam shook a disapproving head and said but: — ** Clavers, Mon Sandy ! " "I'll see ye skelped onny-how — or lose ma job, ye 92 SNAKE AND SWORD More in sorrow than in anger Dam sighed and said but : — ''Hoots, Mon Sandy!" "I'll go straight to y'r Grandfer the noo, and if ye'r not flayed alive ! Aye! I'll gang the noo to Himself " ** Wi fower an twanty men, an five a7i thairrty pipers,'' suggested Dam in tuneful song. Mr. Alastair Kenneth Macllwraith did what he rarely did — swore violently. ** Do you think at your age it is right ? " quoted the wicked boy . . . the exceedingly bad and re- prehensible boy. The maddened gardener turned and strode to the house with all his imperfections on his head and face and neck. Taking no denial from Butterson, he forced his way into the presence of his master and clamoured for instant retributive justice — or the acceptance of his resignation forthwith, and him twanty-twa years in the ane place. ''Grandfather," roused from slumber, gouty, liverish, ferociously angry, sent for Dam, Sergeant H avian, and Sergeant H avian's cane. " What's the meaning of this. Sir," he roared as Dam, cool, smiling, friendly ever, entered the Sanctum. *' What the Devil d'ye mean by it, eh ? Wreckin' my orchid-houses, assaultin' my servants, waking me up, annoying Me ! Seven days C. B.'^ and bread and water, on each count. What d'ye ^ Confined to barracks. LUCILLE 93 mean by it, ye young hound ? Eh ? Answer me before I have ye flogged to death to teach ye better manners ! Guilty or Not Guilty ? and I '11 take your word for it." " The missile, describing a parabola, struck its subjective with fearful impact. Sir," replied the bad boy imperturbably, misquoting from his latest fiction (and calling it a ''parry-bowler," to ** Grand- father's" considerable and very natural mystifica- tion). ''What?'' roared that gentleman, sitting bolt upright in astonishment and wrath. " No. It's (?3jective," corrected Dam. '* Yes. With fearful impact. Fearful also were the words of the Mon Sandy." " Grandfather " flushed and smiled a little wryly. ** You'd favour me with pleasantries too, would you ? I'll reciprocate to the best of my poor ability," he remarked silkily, and his mouth set in the unpleasant Stukeley grimness, while a little muscular pulse beat beneath his cheek-bone. " A dozen of the very best, if you please. Sergeant," he added, turning to Sergeant H avian. *' Coat off. Sir," remarked that worthy, nothing loath, to the boy who could touch him almost as he would with the foil. Dam removed his Eton jacket, folded his arms, turned his back to the smiter and assumed a scientific arrangement of the shoulders with tense muscles and coyly withdrawn bones. He had been there before. . . . 94 SNAKE AND SWORD The dozen were indeed of the Sergeant s best and he was a master. The boy turned not a hair, though he turned a little pale. ... His mouth grew extraordinarily like that of his grandfather and a little muscular pulse beat beneath his cheek-bone. ''And what do you think of 7ny pleasantries, my young friend ? " inquired Grandfather. '* Feeling at all witty now ? " '* H avian is failing a bit, Sir," was the cool reply. *' I have noticed it at fencing too- Getting old — or beer perhaps. I scarcely felt him and so did not see or feel the point of your joke." ** Grandfather's" flush deepened and his smile broadened crookedly. " Try and do yourself justice, H avian, "he said. *' 'Nother dozen. 'Tother way." Sergeant H avian changed sides and endeavoured to surpass himself. It was a remarkably sound dozen. He mopped his brow. The bad boy did not move, gave no sign, but retained his rigid, slightly hunched attitude, as though he had not counted the second dozen and expected another stroke. *' Let that be a lesson to you to curb your damned tongue," said ''Grandfather," his anger evaporating, his pride in the stiff-necked, defiant young rogue increasing. The boy changed not the rigid, slightly hunched attitude. " Be pleased to wreck no more of my orchid- LUCILLE 95 houses and to exercise your great wit on your equals and juniors," he added. Dam budged not an inch and relaxed not a muscle. " You may go," said ** Grandfather ". . . . **Well — what are you waiting for? " *'I was waiting for Sergeant Havlan to begin!' was the reply. ** I thought I was to have a second dozen." With blazing eyes, bristling moustache, swollen veins and bared teeth, *' Grandfather " rose from his chair. Resting on one stick he struck and struck and struck at the boy with the other, passion feeding on its own passionate acts, and growing to madness — until, as the head gardener and Sergeant rushed forward to intervene, Dam fell to the ground, stunned by an unintentional blow on the head. " Grandfather " stood trembling. ..." Quite a Stukeley," observed he. ** Oblige me by flinging his carcase down the stairs." " * Angry Stookly's mad Stookly * is about right, mate, wot ? " observed the Sergeant to the gardener, quoting an ancient local saying, as they carried Dam to his room after dispatching a groom for Dr. Jones of Monksmead. ** Dammy Darling," whispered a broken and tear- stained voice outside Dam's locked and keyless door the next morning, *' are you dead yet ? " "Nit," was the prompt reply, " but I'm starving to death, fast." " I am so glad," was the sobbed answer, " for I've got some flat food to push under the door." 96 SNAKE AND SWORD "Shove it under," said Dam. ''Good little beast!" ** I didn't know anything about the fearful fracass until tea-time," continued Lucille, " and then I went straight to Grumper and confessed, and he sent me to bed on an empty stummick and I laid upon it, the bed I mean, and howled all night, or part of it anyhow. I howled for your sake, not for the empty stummick. I thought my howls would break or at least soften his hard heart, but I don't think he heard them. I'm sure he didn't, in fact, or I should not have been allowed to howl so loud and long. . . . Did he blame you with anger as well as injustice ? " '* With a stick," was the reply. " What about that grub ? " ** I told him you were an innocent unborn babe and that Justice had had a mis-carriage, but he only grinned and said you had got C.B. and dry bread for insilence in the Orderly Room. What is * in- silence ' ? " " Pulling Havlan's leg, I s'pose," opined Dam. "What about that grub? There comes a time when you are too hungry to eat and then you die. I " " Here it is," squealed Lucille, " don't go and die after all my trouble. I've got some thin ice- wafer biscuits, sulphur tablets, thin cheese, a slit-up apple and three sardines. They'll all come under the door — though the sardines may get a bit out of, shape. I '11 come after lessons and suck some brandy- LUCILLE 97 balls here and breathe through the key -hole to com- fort you. I could blow them through the key-hole when they are small too." ** Thanks," acknowledged Dam gratefully, *' and if you could tie some up and a sausage and a tart or two and some bread-and-jam and some chicken and cake and toffee and things in a handkerchief, and climb on to the porch with Grumper's longest fish- ing-rod, you might be able to relieve the besieged garrison a lot. If the silly Haddock were any good he could fire sweets up with a catapult." ''I'd try that too," announced Lucille, **but I'd break the windows. I feel I shall never have the heart to throw a stone or anything again. My heart is broken," and the penitent sinner groaned in deep travail of soul. *' Have you eaten everything. Darling ? How do you feel ? " she suddenly asked. ** Yes. Hungrier than ever," was the reply. *' I like sulphur tablets with sardines. Wonder when they'll bring that beastly dry bread ? " "If there's a sulphur tablet left I could eat one myself," said Lucille. *' They are good for the in- side and I have wept mine sore." ** Too late," answered Dam. *' Pinch some more." ''They were the last," was the sad rejoinder. *' They were for Rover's coat, I think. Perhaps they will make your coat hairy. Dam. I mean your skin." '* Whiskers to-morrow," said Dam. 7 98 SNAKE AND SWORD After a pregnant silence the young lady announced : — ''Wish I could hug and kiss you, Darling. Don't you ? . . . I'll write a kiss on a piece of paper and push it under the door to you. Better than spitting it through the key-hole." *' Put it on a piece of ham, — more sense," an- swered Dam. The quarter-inch rasher that, later, made its dif- ficult entry, pulled fore and pushed aft, was pro- bably the only one in the whole history of Ham that was the medium of a kiss — located and indi- cated by means of a copying-ink pencil and a little saliva. Before being sent away to school at Welling- borough Dam had a very curious illness, one which greatly puzzled Dr. Jones of Monksmead village, annoyed Miss Smellie, offended Grumper, and worried Lucille. Sitting in solitary grandeur at his lunch one Sabbath, sipping his old Chambertin, Grumper was vexed and scandalized by a series of blood- curdling shrieks from the floor above his breakfast- room. Butterson, dispatched in haste to see "who the Devil was being killed in that noisy fashion," returned to state deferentially as how Master Damocles was in a sort of heppipletic fit, and foaming at the mouth. They had found him in the General's study where he had been reading a book, apparently ; a big Natural History book. LUCILLE 99 A groom was galloping for Dr. Jones and Mrs. Pont was doin' her possible. No. Nothing appeared to have hurt or frightened the young gentleman — but he was distinctly eard to shout : ** // is under my foot. It is moving — vtoving — moving out ..." before he became un- conscious. No, Sir. Absolutely nothing under the young gentleman's foot. Dr. Jones could shed no light and General Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley hoped to God that the boy was not going to grow up a wretched epileptic. Miss Smellie appeared to think the seizure a judg- ment upon an impudent and deceitful boy who stole into his elders' rooms in their absence and looked at their books. Lucille was troubled in soul for, to her, Damocles confessed the ghastly, terrible, damning truth that he was a Coward. He said that he had hidden the fearful fact for all these years within his guilty bosom and that now it had emerged and convicted him. He lived in subconscious terror of the Snake, and in its presence — nay even in that of its counter- feit presentment — he was a gibbering, lunatic coward. Such, at least, was her dimly realized conception resultant upon the boy's bald, stammer- ing confession. But how could her dear Dammy be a coward — the vilest thing on earth ! He who was willing to fight anyone, ride anything, go anywhere, act any- how. Dammy the lx)xer, fencer, rider, swimmer. 7* 100 SNAKE AND SWORD Absurd ! Think of the day " the Cads " had tried to steal their boat from them when they were sail- ing it on the pond at Revelmead. There had been five of them, two big and three medium. Dam had closed the eye of one of them, cut the lip of another, and knocked one of the smaller three weeping into the dust. They had soon cleared off and flung stones until Dam had started running for them and then they had fled altogether. Think of the time when she set fire to the curtains. Why, he feared no bull, no dog, no tramp in England. A coward ! Piflle. And yet he had screamed and kicked and cried — yes cried — as he had shouted that it was under his foot and moving out. Rum ! Very rum ! On the day that Dam left Monksmead for school Lucille wept till she could weep no more. Life for the next few years was one of intermittent streaks of delirious joy and gloomy grief, vacation time when he was at Monksmead and term time when he was at school. All the rest of the world weighed as a grain of dust against her hero, Dam. CHAPTER VI. THE SNAKE'S " MYRMIDON ". For a couple of years and more, in the lower School at Wellingborough, Damocles de Warrenne, like certain States, was happy in that he had no history. In games rather above the average, and in lessons rather below it, he was very popular among his fellow '* squeakers " for his good temper, modesty, generous disposition, and prowess at foot- ball and cricket. Then, later, dawned the day when from this comfortable high estate a common adder, preserved in spirits of wine, was the cause of his downfall and Bully Harberth the means of his reinstate- ment. . . . One afternoon Mr. Steynker, the Science Master, for some reason and without preliminary mention of his intent, produced a bottled specimen of a snake. He entered the room with the thing under his arm and partly concealed by the sleeve of his gown. Watching him as he approached the master's desk and spoke with Mr. Colfe, the form- master. Dam noted that he had what appeared 102 SNAKE AND SWORD to be •along^obWrtg .glass box of which the side turned .to.\vards:hini was white and opaque. When Mr. Steynk^r stepped on to the dais, as Mr. Colfe took up his books and departed, he placed the thing on the desk with the other side to the class. . . . And there before Dam's starting, staring eyes, fastened to the white back of the tall glass box, and immersed in colourless liquid was the Terror. He rose, gibbering, to his feet, pale as the dead, and pointed, mopping and mowing like an idiot. How should a glass box restrain the Fiend that had made his life a Hell upon earth ? What did Steynker and Colfe and these others — all gaping at him open-mouthed — know of the Devil with whom he had wrestled deep beneath the Pit itself for ten thousand centuries of horror — centuries whose every moment was an aeon ? What could these innocent men and boys know of the living Damnation that made him pray to die — provided only that he could be really dead and finished, beyond all consciousness and fear. The fools ! ... to think that it was a harmless, concrete thing. It would emerge in a moment like the Fisherman's Geni from the Brass Bottle and grow as big as the world. He felt he was going mad again. " Help! " he suddenly shrieked. *' // is under 7ny foot. It is moving . . . moving . . . moving out.'' He sprang to his astounded friend, Delorme, and screamed to him for help — and then realizing THE SNAKE'S " MYRMIDON " 103 that there was no help, that neither man nor God could save him, he fled from the room screaming like a wounded horse. Rushing madly down the corridor, falling head- long down the stone stairs, bolting blindly across the entrance-hall, he fled until (unaware of his portly presence up to the moment when he re- bounded from him as a cricket-ball from a net) he violently encountered the Head. Scrambling beneath his gown the demented boy flung his arms around the massy pillar of the Doctor's leg, and prayed aloud to him for help, between heart-rending screams. Now it is undeniable that no elderly gentleman, of whatsoever position or condition, loves to be butted violently upon a generous lunch as he makes his placid way to his arm-chair, cigar, book, and ultimate pleasant doze. If he be pompous by pro- fession, precise by practice, dignified as a duty, a monument of most stately correctness and, to small boys and common men, a great and distant, if tiny, God — he may be expected to resent it. The Doctor did. Almost before he knew what he was doing, he struck the sobbing, gasping child twice, and then endeavoured to remove him by the ungentle application of the untrammelled foot, from the leg to which, limpet-like, he clung. To Dam the blows were welcome, soothing, re- assuring. Let a hundred Heads flog him with two hundred birch-rods, so they could keep him from the Snake. What are mere blows ? 104 SNAKE AND SWORD Realizing quickly that something very unusual was in the air, the worthy Doctor repented him of his haste and, with what dignity he might, inquired between a bleat and a bellow : — " What is the matter, my boy ? Hush! Hush!" " The Snake ! The Snake ! " shrieked Dam. " Save me ! Save me ! It is under my foot ! It is Tnoving- . . . moving . . . moving out!' and clung the tighter. The good Doctor also moved with alacrity — but saw no snake. He was exceedingly perturbed, be- tween a hypothetical snake and an all too actual lunatic boy. Fortunately, *' Stout " (so called because he was Porter), passing the big doors without, was attracted by the screams. Entering, he hastened to the side of the agitated Head, and, with some difficulty, untied from that gentleman's leg, a small boy — but not until the small boy had fainted. . . . When Dam regained consciousness he had a fit, recovered, and found himself in the Head's study, and the object of the interested regard of the Head, Messrs. Colfe and Steynker, the school medico, and the porter. It was agreed (while the boy fought for his sanity, bit his hand for the reassuring pleasure of physical pain, and prayed for help to the God in whom he had no reason to believe) that the case was "very unusual, very curious, v-e-r-y interesting indeed ". Being healthier and stronger than at the THE SNAKE'S "MYRMIDON" 105 time of previous attacks, Dam more or less recovered before night and was not sent home. But he had fallen from his place, and in the little republics of the dormitory and class-room, he was a thing to shun, an outcast, a disgrace to the noble race of Boy. Not a mere liar, a common thief, a paltry murderer or vulgar parricide — but a coward, a blubberer, a baby. Even Delorme, more in sorrow than in anger, shunned his erstwhile bosom-pal, and went about as one betrayed. The name of ** Funky Warren " was considered appropriate, and even the Haddock, his own flesh and blood, and most junior of ** squeakers," dared to apply it ! . . . . The infamy of the Coward spread abroad, was talked of in other Houses, and fellows made special excursions to see the cry-baby, who funked a dead snake, a blooming bottled, potted, dead snake, and who had blubbed aloud in his terror. And Bully Harberth of the Fifth, learning of these matters, revolved in his breast the thought that he who fears dead serpents must, even more, fear living bullies, put Dam upon his list as a safe and pliant client, and thereby (strange instrument of grace !) gave him the chance to rehabilitate him- self, clear the cloud of infamy from about his head, and live a bearable life for the rest of his school career. . . . One wet Wednesday afternoon, as Dam, a wretched, forlorn Ishmael, sat alone in a noisy crowd, reading a "penny horrible" (admirable, io6 SNAKE AND SWORD stimulating books crammed with brave deeds and noble sentiments if not with faultless English) the Haddock entered the form-room, followed by Bully Harberth. *' That's him, Harberth, by the window, reading a penny blood," said the Haddock, and went and stood afar off to see the fun. Harberth, a big clumsy boy, a little inclined to fat, with small eyes, heavy low forehead, thick lips, and amorphous nose, lurched over to where Dam endeavoured to read himself into a better and brighter world inhabited by Deadwood Dick, Texas Joe, and Red Indians of no manners and nasty customs. " I want you. Funky Warren. I'm going to torture you," he announced with a truculent scowl and a suggestive licking of blubber lips. Dam surveyed him coolly. Of thick build, the bully was of thicker wit and certainly of no proven courage. Four years older than Dam and quite four inches taller, he had never dreamed of molesting him before. Innumerable as were the stories of his brutalities to the smallest ''squeakers" and of his cruel practical jokes on new boys, there were no stories of his fighting, such as there were about Ormond Delorme, of Dam's form, whose habit it was to implore bigger boys of their courtesy to fight him, and to trail his coat where there were "chaws " about. ''I'm going to torture you, Funky. Every day you must come to me and beg me to do it. If you THE SNAKE'S "MYRMIDON'* 107 don't come and pray for it I'll come to you and you'll get it double and treble. If you sneak you'll get it quadru — er — quadrupedal — and also be known as Sneaky as well as Funky. See?" he continued. ** How will you torture me, Harberth, please?" asked Dam meekly, as he measured the other with his eye, noted his puffiness, short reach, and inward tendency of knee. "Oh! lots of ways," was the reply. *' Dry shaves, tweaks, scalpers, twisters, choko, tappers, digs, benders, shinners, windos, all sorts." ** I don't even know what they are," moaned Dam. "Poor Kid!" sympathized the bully, "you soon will, though. Dry shaves are beautiful. You die dotty in about five minutes if I don't see fit to stop. Twisters break your wrists and you yell the roof off — or would do if I didn't gag you first with a cake of soap and a towel. Tappers are very amus- ing, too, for me that is — not for you. They are done on the side of your knee with a cricket stump. Wonderful how kids howl when you understand knee-treatment. Choko is good too. Makes you black in the face and your eyes goggle out awful funny. Done with a silk handkerchief and a stick. Windos and benders go together and really want two fellows to do it properly. I hit you in the wind and you double up, and the other fellow un- doubles you from behind — with a cane — so that I can double you up again. Laugh ! I nearly died io8 SNAKE AND SWORD over young Berners. Shinners, scalpers, and tweaks are good too— jolly good ! . . . but of course all this comes after lamming and tunding. . . . Come along with me. ..." ''Nit," was Dam's firm but gentle reply, and a little pulse began to beat beneath his cheek bone. ''Oh! Ho!" smiled Master Harberth, "then I'll begin here, and when you're broke and blubbing you'll come with me — and get just double for a start. Dam's spirits rose and he felt almost happy — certainly far better than he had done since the hap- less encounter with the bottled adder and his fall from grace. It was a positive/d?)/ to have an enemy he could tackle, a real flesh-and-blood foe and tor- mentor that came upon him in broad daylight and in mere human form. After countless thousands of centuries of awful nightmare struggling — in which he was bound hand-and-foot and doomed to failure and torture from the outset, the sport, plaything, and victim of a fearful, intangible Horror — this would be sheer amusement and recreation. What could mere man do to him, much less mere boy ! Why, the most awful torture-chamber of the Holy Inquisition of old was a pleasant recreation-room compared with any place where the Snake could enter. Oh, if the Snake could only be met and fought in the open with free hands and untrammelled limbs, as Bully Harberth could ! Oh, if it could only inflict mere physical pain in- THE SNAKE'S "MYRMIDON" 109 stead of such agonies of terror as made the idea of any bodily injury — mere cutting, burning, beating, blinding — a trifling nothing-at-all. Anyhow, he could imagine that Bully Harberth was the Snake or Its emissary and, since he was indirectly brought upon him by the Snake, regard him as a myrmidon — and deal with him accordingly. . . . " How do you like this ? " inquired that young gentleman as he suddenly seized the seated and unsuspecting Dam by the head, crushed him down with his superior weight and dug cruelly into the sides of his neck, below the ears, with his powerful thumb and fingers. ** It is called 'grippers'. You'll begin to enjoy it in a minute." ... In a few seconds the pain became acute and after a couple of minutes, excruciating. Dam kept absolutely still and perfectly silent. To Harberth this was disappointing and after a time he grew tired. Releasing his impassive victim he arose preparatory to introducing the next item of his programme of tortures. " How do you like this?'' inquired Dam rising also — and he smote his tormentor with all his strength beneath the point of his chin. Rage, pain, rebellion, and undying hatred (of the Snake) lent such force to the skilful blow — behind which was the weight and upward spring of his body — that Bully Harberth went down like a nine-pin, his big head striking the sharp edge of a desk with great violence. He lay still and white with closed eyes. no SNAKE AND SWORD "Golly," shrilled the Haddock, '^ Funky Warren has murdered Bully Harberth. Hooray ! Hooray ! " and he capered with joy. A small crowd quickly collected, and, it being learned from credible eye-witnesses that the smaller boy had neither stabbed the bully in the back nor clubbed him from behind, but had well and truly smitten him on the jaw with his fist, he went at one bound from despised outcast coward to belauded, admired hero. "You'll be hung, of course, Warren," said Delorme. "And a jolly good job," replied Dam, fervently and sincerely. As he spoke, Harberth twitched, moved his arms and legs, and opened his eyes. Sitting up, he blinked owl-like and inquired as to what was up. " You are down is what's up," replied Delorme. "Oh — he's not dead," squeaked the Haddock, and there was a piteous break in his voice. "What's up?" asked Harberth again. " Why, Funky — that is to say, Warren — knocked you out, and you've got to give him best and ask for pax, or else fight him," said Delorme, adding hopefully, "but of course you'll fight him." Harberth arose and walked to the nearest seat. "He hit me a 'coward's poke' when I wasn't looking," quoth he. " It's well known he is a coward." "You are a liar, Bully Harberth," observed THE SNAKE'S " MYRMIDON " in Delorme. *' He hit you fair, and anyhow he's not afraid of you. If you don't fight him you become Funky Harberth vice Funky Warren — no longer Funky. So you'd better fight. See?" The Harberth bubble was evidently pricked, for the sentiment was applauded to the echo. '* I don't fight cowards," mumbled Harberth, holding his jaw — and, at this meanness, Dam was moved to go up to Harberth and slap him right hard upon his plump, inviting cheek, a good resounding blow that made his hand tingle with pain and his heart with pleasure. He still identified him somehow with the Snake, and had a glorious, if passing, sensation of success- ful revolt and some revenge. He felt as the lashed galley-slave must have felt when, during a lower-deck mutiny, he broke from his oar and sprang at the throat of the cruel over- seer, the embodiment and source of the agony, starvation, toil, brutality, and hopeless woe that had thrust him below the level of the beasts (fortunate beasts) that perish. ''Now you've got to fight him, of course," said Delorme, and fled to spread the glad tidings far and wide. ** I — I — don't feel well now," mumbled Harberth, '* I'll fight him when I'm better," and shambled away, outraged, puzzled, disgusted. What was the world coming to } The little brute ! He had a punch like the kick of a horse. The little cad — to dare I Well, he'd show him something if he had * 112 SNAKE AND SWORD the face to stand up to his betters and olders and biggers in the ring. . . . News of the affair spread like wild-fire, and the incredible conduct of the extraordinary Funky- Warren — said to be no longer Funky — became the topic of the hour. At tea, Dam was solemnly asked if it were true that he had cast Harberth from a lofty window and brought him to death's door, or that of the hospital ; whether he had strangled him with the result that he had a permanent squint ; if he had so kicked him as to break both his thigh bones ; if he had offered to fight him with one hand. Even certain more or less grave and reverend seniors of the upper school took a well-disguised interest in the matter and pretended that the affair should be allowed to go on, as it would do Harberth a lot of good if de Warrenne could lick him, and do the latter a lot of good to reinstate himself by showing that he was not really a coward in essentials. Of course they took no interest in the fight as a fight. Certainly not (but it was observed that Flaherty of the Sixth stopped the fight most angrily and peremptorily when it was over, and that no sign of anger or peremptoriness escaped him until it was over — and he happened to pass behind the gymnasium, curiously enough, just as it started). . . . Good advice was showered upon Dam from all sides. He was counselled to live on meat, to be a vegetarian, to rise at 4 a.m. and swim, to avoid all THE SNAKE'S " MYRMIDON " 113 brain-fag, to run twenty miles a day, to rest until the fight, to get up in the night and swing heavy dumb-bells, to eat no pudding, to drink no tea, to give up sugar, avoid ices, and deny himself all ** tuck " and everything else that makes life worth living. He did none of these things — but simply went on as usual, save in one respect. For the first time since the adder episode, he was really happy. Why, he did not know, save that he was about to "get some of his own back," to strike a blow against the cruel coward Incubus (for he per- sisted in identifying Harberth with the Snake and in regarding' him as a materialization of the life- long Enemy), and possibly to enjoy a brief triumph over what had so loiig triumphed over him. If he were at this time a little mad the wonder is that he was still on the right side of the Lunatic Asylum gates. Mad or not, he was happy — and the one thing wanting was the presence of Lucille at the fight. How he would have loved to show her that he was not . really a coward — given a fair chance and a tangible foe. If only Lucille could be there — dancing from one foot to the other, and squealing. (Strictly between, and not during, the rounds, of course.) " Buck up, Dammy ! Ginger for pluck ! Never say croak ! " A very large and very informal committee took charge of the business of the fight, and what was ^.^^ 8 114 SNAKE AND SWORD alluded to as "a friendly boxing contest between Bully Harberth of the Fifth and de Warrenne — late Funky — " was arranged for the following Saturday afternoon. On being asked by a delegate of the said large and informal committee as to whether he would be trained by then or whether he would prefer a more distant date, Dam replied that he would be glad to fight Harberth that very moment — and thus gained the reputation of a fierce and determined fellow (though erstwhile '' funky " — the queer creature). Those who had been loudest in dubbing him Funky Warrenne were quickest in finding ex- planations of his curious conduct and explained it well away. It was at this time that Dam's heart went wholly and finally out to Ormonde Delorme who roundly stated that his father, a bemedalled heroic Colonel of Gurkhas, was " in a blind perishing funk " during a thunderstorm and always sought shelter in the wine cellar when one was in progress in his vicinity. Dam presented Delorme with his knife and a tiger s tooth forthwith. Saturday came and Dam almost regretted its advent, for, though a child in years, he was sufficiently old, weary, and cynical in spirit to know that all life's fruit contains dust and ashes, that the joys of anticipation exceed those of realization, and that with possession dies desire. With the fight would end the glorious feeling of successful revolt, and if he overcame one emissary THE SNAKE'S "MYRMIDON" 115 of the Snake there would be a million more to take his place. And if Providence should be, as usual, on the side of the " big battalions," and the older, taller, stronger, heavier boy should win ? Why — then he would bully the loser to his heart's content and the limit of his ingenuity. Good ! Let him ! He would fight him every day with the greatest pleasure. A chance to fight the Snake on fair terms was all he asked. ... Time and place had been well chosen and there was little likelihood of interference. Some experienced youth, probably Cokeson him- self, had made arrangements as to seconds, time- keeper, judges, and referee ; and, though there was no ring of ropes and stakes, a twenty-four-foot square had been marked out and inclosed by forms and benches. Seating was provided for the *' officials" and seniors, and two stools for the principals. A couple of bowls of water, sponges, and towels lent a business-like air to the scene. To his delight. Dam discovered that Delorme was to be his second — :a person of sound advice, useful ministrations, and very present help in time of trouble. . . . Delorme led him to his stool in an angle of the square of benches, bade him spread wide his arms and legs and breathe deeply ** for all he was worth, with his eyes closed and his thoughts fixed on jolly things ". Feeling himself the cynosure of neighbouring 8 * ii6 SNAKE AND SWORD eyes and able to hear the comments of the crowd, the last part of his second's instructions was a little difficult of strict observation. However, he con- tinued to think of licking Harberth — the " jolliest " thing he could conceive, until his mind wandered home to Lucille, and he enhanced the imaginary jollity by conceiving her present. . . . "Sturdy little brute," observed a big Fifth Form boy seated with a couple of friends on the bench beside him, " but I'd lay two to one in sovs. (if I had 'em) that he doesn't last a single round with Harberth ". " Disgrace to Harberth if he doesn't eat the kid alive," responded the other. ** Got a good jaw and mouth, though," said the third. '* Going to die hard, you'll see. Good little kid." " Fancy funking a bottled frog or something and fighting a chap who can give him about four years, four inches, and four stone," observed the first speaker. **Yes. Queer little beast. He knocked Har- berth clean out, they say. Perhaps his father has had him properly taught and he can really box. Ever seen him play footer ? Nippiest little devil / ever saw. Staunch too. Rum go," commented his friend. Dam thought of Sergeant Havlan and his son, the punching-ball, and the fighting days at Monks- mead. Perhaps he could " really " box, after all. Anyhow he knew enough to hit straight and put his weight into it, to guard chin and mark, to use THE SNAKE'S « MYRMIDON " 117 his feet, duck, dodge, and side step. Suppose Harberth knew as much ? Well — since he was far stronger, taller, and heavier, the only hope of suc- cess lay in the fact that he was connected with the Snake — from whom mere blows in the open would be welcome. Anyhow he would die or win. The positive joy of fighting It in the glorious day and open air, instead of in the Bottomless Pit — bound, stifled, mad with Fear — none could realize. . . . Bully Harberth entered the ring accompanied by Shanner, who looked like a Sixth Form boy and was in the Shell. Harberth wore a thick sweater and looked very strong and heavy. *' If the little kid lasts three rounds with that^' observed Cokeson to Coxe Major, '' he ought to be chaired." Dam was disposed to agree with him in his heart, but he had no fear. The feeling that his brief innings had come — after the Snake had had Its will of him for a dozen years — swallowed up all other feelings. Coxe Major stepped into the ring. " I announce a friendly boxing contest between Harberth of the Fifth, nine stone seven, and Funky Warren (said to be no longer Funky) of Barton's House, weight not worth mentioning," he declaimed. " Are the gloves all right," called Cokeson (whose father owned racehorses, was a pillar of the National ii8 SNAKE AND SWORD Sporting Club, and deeply interested in the welfare of a certain sporting newspaper). ** No fault can be found with Warren's gloves," said Shanner, coming over to Dam. *' There's nothing wrong with the gloves here," added Delorme, after visiting Harberth's corner. This was the less remarkable in that there were no gloves whatsoever. Presumably the fiction of a ** friendly boxing contest " was to be stoutly maintained. The crowd of delighted boys laughed. ** Then come here, both of you," said Cokeson. The combatants complied. '' Don't hold and hit. Don't butt nor trip. Don't clinch. Don't use knee, elbow, nor shoulder. When I call ' Break away,' break without hitting. If you do any of these things you will be jolly well disqualified. Fight fair and God have mercy on your souls." To Dam it seemed that the advice was superfluous — and of God's mercy on his soul he had had experience. Returning to their corners, the two stripped to the waist and sat ready, arrayed in shorts and gymnasium shoes. Seen thus, they looked most unevenly matched, Harberth looking still bigger for undressing and Dam even smaller. But, as the knowing Coxe Major observed, what there was of Dam was in the right place — and was muscle. Certainly he was finely made. " Seconds out of the ring. Time ! " called the THE SNAKE'S ''MYRMIDON" 119 time-keeper and Dam sprang to his feet and ran at Harberth who swung a mighty round-arm blow at his face as Dam ducked and smote him hard and true just below the breast-bone and fairly on the *'mark". The bully's grunt of anguish was drowned in howls of " Shake hands ! " *' They haven't shaken hands ! " *' Stop ! Stop the fight," shouted Cokeson, and as they backed from each other he inquired with anger and reproach in his voice : — "Is this a friendly boxing-contest or a vulgar fight?" adding, *' Get to your corners and when Time is called, shake hands and then begin." Turning to the audience he continued in a lordly and injured manner : '* And there is only one Referee, gentlemen, please. Keep silence or I shall stop the fight — I mean — the friendly boxing contest." As Dam sat down Delorme whispered : — *' Splendid ! //^fighting is your tip. Duck and go for the body every time. He knows nothing of boxing I should say. Tire him — and remember that if he gets you with a swing like that you're out." ** Seconds out of the ring. Time!'' called the time-keeper and Dam walked towards Harberth with outstretched hand, met him in the middle of the ring and shook hands with great repugnance. As Harberth's hand left Dam's it rose swiftly to Dam's face and knocked him down. *' Shame ! Foul poke ! Coward," were some of the indignant cries that arose from the spectators. I20 SNAKE AND SWORD ** Silence," roared the referee. " Will you shut up and be quiet. Perfectly legitimate — if not very sporting." Dam sprang to his feet, absolutely unhurt, and, if possible, more determined than ever. It was only because he had been standing with feet to- gether that he had been knocked down at all. Had he been given time to get into sparring position the blow would not have moved him. Nor was Harberth himself in an attitude to put much weight behind the blow and it was more a cuff than a punch. Circling round his enemy. Dam sparred for an opening and watched his style and methods. Evidently the bully expected to make short work of him, and he carried his right fist as though it were a weapon and not a part of his body. As he advanced with his right extended, quiver- ing, menacing, and poised for a knock-out blow, his left did not appear in the matter at all. Suddenly he aimed his fist at Dam like a stone and with great force. Dam side-stepped and it brushed his ear ; with his right he smote with all his force upon Harberth's ribs and with his left he drove at his eye as he came up. Both blows were well and truly laid and with good sounding thuds that seemed to delight the audience. Bully Harberth changed his tactics and advanced upon his elusive opponent with his left in the position of guard and his right drawn back to the arm-pit. Evidently he was going to hold him off with the one and smash him with the other. Not THE SNAKE'S "MYRMIDON" 121 waiting for him to develop his attack, but striking the bully's left arm down with his own left, Dam hit over it with his right and reached his nose and — so curious are the workings of the human mind — thought of Moses striking the rock and bringing forth water. The sight of blood seemed to distress Harberth and, leaping in as the latter drew his hand across his mouth, Dam drove with all his strength at his mark and with such success that Harberth doubled up and fetched his breath with deep groans. Dam stood clear and waited. Delorme called out, " You've a right to finish him, " and was sternly reproved by the referee. As Harberth straightened up, Dam stepped to- wards him, but the bully turned and ran to his stool. As he reached it amid roars of execration the time- keeper arose and cried ** Time ! " "■ You had him, you little ass," said Delorme, as he squeezed a sponge of water on Dam's head. " Why on earth didn't you go in and finish him ? " " It didn't seem decent when he was doubled up," replied Dam. " Did it seem decent his hitting you while you shook hands ? " returned the other, beginning to fan his principal with a towel. " Anyhow he's yours if you go on like this. Keep your head and don't worry about his. Stick to his body till you have a clear chance at the point of his jaw." ** Seconds out of the ring. Time ! " cried the time-keeper. 122 SNAKE AND SWORD This round was less fortunate for the smaller boy. Harberth's second had apparently given him some good advice, for he kept his mark covered and used his left both to guard and to hit. Also he had learned something from Dam, and, on one occasion as the latter went at his face with a straight left, he dropped the top of his head towards him and made a fierce hooking punch at Dam's body. Luckily it was a little high, but it winded him for a moment, and had his opponent rushed him then, Dam could have done nothing at all. Just as ** Time" was called, Harberth swung a great round-arm blow at Dam which would have knocked him head over heels had not he let his knees go just in time and ducked under it, hitting his foe once again on the mark with all his strength. ** How d'you feel ? " asked Delorme as Dam went to his stool. '* Happy," said he. ** Don't talk piffle," was the reply. *' How do you feel ? Wind all right ? Groggy at all ? " *' Not a bit," said Dam. '* I am enjoying it." And so he was. Hitherto the Snake had had him bound and helpless. As it pursued him in nightmares, his knees had turned to water, great chains had bound his arms, devilish gags had throttled him, he could not breathe, and he had not had a chance to escape nor to fight. He could not even scream for help. He could only cling to a shelf. Now he had a chance. His limbs were free, his eyes were open, he could breathe, think, act, defend himself and attack. THE SNAKE'S "MYRMIDON" ' 123 ** Seconds out of the ring. Time!'' called the time-keeper and Delorme ceased fanning with the towel, splashed a spongeful of water in Dam's face and backed away with his stool. Harberth seemed determined to make an end. He rushed at his opponent whirling his arms, breathing stertorously, and scowling savagely. Guarding hurt Dam's arms, he had no time to hit, and in ducking he was slow and got a blow (aimed at his chin) in the middle of his forehead. Down he went like a nine-pin, but was up as quickly, and ready for Harberth who had rushed at him in the act of rising, while the referee shouted '' Stand clear ". As he came on. Dam fell on one knee and drove at his mark again. Harberth grunted and placed his hands on the smitten spot. Judging time and distance well, Dam hit with all his force at the bully's chin and he went down like a log- Rising majestically, the time-keeper lifted up his voice and counted : " One — two — three— four — five — six'' — ^and Harberth opened his eyes, sat up, ** seven — eight — nine " — and lay down again ; and just as Dam was about to leap for joy and the audience to roar their approval — instead of the fatal " OUT" the time-keeper called ** Time ". Had Dam struck the blow a second sooner, the fight would have been over and he would have won. As it was, Harberth had the whole interval in which to recover. Dam's own luck ! (But Miss Smellie had always said there is no such thing as 124 SNAKE AND SWORD Luck !) Well — so much the better. Fighting the Snake was the real joy, and victory would end it. So would defeat and he must not get cock-a-hoop and careless. Delorme filled his mouth with water and ejected it in a fine spray over Dams head and chest. He was very proud of this feat, but, though most re- freshing, Dam could have preferred that the water had come from a sprayer. ** Seconds out of the ring, Time ! " called the referee. Harberth appeared quite recovered, but he was of a curious colour and seemed tired. Acting on his second's advice. Dam gave his whole attention to getting at his opponent's body again, and overdid it. As Harberth struck at him with his left, he ducked, and as he was aiming at Harberth's mark, he was suddenly knocked from day into night, from light into darkness, from life into death. . . . Years passed and Dam strove to explain that the mainspring had broken and that he had heard it click — when suddenly a great black drop-curtain rolled up, while some one snapped back some slides that had covered his ears, and had completely deafened him. Then he saw Harberth and heard the voice of the time-keeper saying: ''five — six — seven \ He scrambled to his knees, " eighty' swayed and staggered to his feet, collapsed, rose, ''nine'' and was knocked down by Harberth. The time-keeper again stood up and counted, THE SNAKE'S "MYRMIDON" 125 ** One — two — three ". But this blow actually helped him. He lay collecting his strength and wits, breathing deeply and taking nine seconds' rest. On the word ''nine " he sprang to his feet and as Harberth rushed in, side-stepped, and, as that youth instinctively covered his much-smitten "mark," Dam drove at his chin and sent him staggering. As he went after him he saw that Harberth was breathing hard, trembling, and swaying on his feet. Springing in, he rained short-arm blows until Har- berth fell and then he stepped well back. Harberth sat shaking his head, looking piteous, and, in the middle of the time-keeper's counting, he arose remarking, ** I've had enough " — and walked to his chair. Bully Harberth was beaten — and Dam felt that the Snake was farther from him than ever it had been since he could remember. '* De Warrenne wins," said Cokeson, and then Flaherty of the Sixth stepped into the ring and stopped the fight with much show of wrath and indignation. Dam was wildly cheered and chaired and thence- forth was as popular and as admired as he had been shunned and despised. Nor did he have another Snake seizure by day (though countless terrible nightmares in what must be called his sleep) till some time after he had left school. When he did, it had a most momentous influence upon his career. 126 SNAKE AND SWORD She is mine ! She is mine ! By her soul divine By her heart's pure guile By her lips' sweet smile She is mine ! She is mine. Encapture ? Aye In dreams as fair As angel whispers, low and rare, In thoughts as pure As childhood's innocent allure In hopes as bright In deeds as white As altar lilies, bathed in light. She is mine ! She is mine ! By seal as true To spirit view As holy scripture writ in dew. By bond as fair To vision rare As holy scripture writ in air, By writ as wise to spirit eyes As holy scripture in God's skies She is mine ! She is mine ! Elude me ? Nay, Ere earth reclaimed In joy unveils a Heaven regained, Ere sea unbound, Unfretting, rolls in mist — nor sound, Ere sun and star repentent crash In scattered ash, across the bar She is mine ! She is mine I A. L. Wren. CHAPTER VII. LOVE— AND THE SNAKE. Damocles de Warrenne, gentleman-cadet, on the eve of returning from Monksmead to the Military Academy of Sandhurst, appeared to have something on his mind as he sat on the broad coping of the terrace balustrade and idly kicked his heels. Every time he had returned to Monksmead from Welling- borough and Sandhurst, he had found Lucille yet more charming, delightful, and lovable. As her skirts and hair lengthened she became more and more the real companion, the pal, the adviser, with- out becoming any less the sportsman. He had always loved her quaint terms of endear- ment, slang, and epithets, but as she grew into a beautiful and refined and dignified girl, it was still more piquant to be addressed in the highly unladylike (or un-Smelliean) terms that she affected. Dam never quite knew when she began to make his heart beat quicker, and when her presence be- gan to act upon him as sunshine and her absence as dull cloud ; but there came a time when (whether she were riding to hounds in her neat habit, rowing with him in sweater and white skirt, swinging along 127 128 SNAKE AND SWORD the lanes in thick boots and tailor-made costume, sitting at the piano after dinner in simple white dinner-gown, or waltzing at some ball — always the belle thereof for him) he did know that Lucille was more to him than a jolly pal, a sound adviser, an audience, a confidant, and ally. Perhaps the day she put her hair up marked an epoch in the tale of his affections. He found that he began to hate to see other fellows dancing, skating, or playing golf or tennis with her. He did not like to see men speak- ing to her at meets or taking her in to dinner. He wanted the blood of a certain neighbouring spring- Captain, a hunter of " flappers " and molester of par- lour-maids, home on furlough, who made eyes at her at the Hunt Ball and followed her about all Cricket Week and said something to her which, as Dam heard, provoked her coolly to request him "not to be such a priceless ass ". What it was she would not tell Dam, and he, magnifying it, called, like the silly raw boy he was, upon the spring-Captain, and gently requested him to ''let my cousin alone. Sir, if you don't mind, or — er — I'll jolly well make you ". Dam knew things about the gentleman, and considered him wholly unfit to come within a mile of Lucille. The spring-Captain was obviously much amused and inwardly much annoyed — but he ceased his scarce-begun pursuit of the hoydenish-queenly girl, for Damocles de Warrenne had a reputation for the cool prosecution of his undertakings and the com- plete fulfilment of his promises. Likewise he had a reputation for Herculean strength and uncanny LOVE— AND THE SNAKE 129 skill. Yet the gay Captain had been strongly at- tracted by the beauty and grace of the unspoilt, unsophisticated, budding woman, with her sweet freshness and dignity (so quaintly enhanced by lapses into the slangy, unfettered schoolgirl . . .). Not that he was a marrying man at all, of course. . . . Yes — Dam had it weightily on his mind that he might come down from Sandhurst at any time and find Lucille engaged to some other fellow. Girls did get engaged. ... It was the natural and obvious thing for them to do. She'd get engaged to some brainy clever chap worth a dozen of his own mediocre self. ... Of course she liked him dearly as a pal and all that, an ancient crony and chum — but how should he hope to compete with the bril- liant fellers she'd meet as she went about more, and knew them. She was going to have a season in London next year. Think of the kind of chaps she'd run across in Town in the season. Intellectual birds, artists, poets, authors, travellers, distinguished coves, rising statesmen, under-secretaries, soldiers, swells, all sorts. Not much show for him against that lot ! Gad ! What a rotten look-out ! What a rotten world to be sure ! Fancy losing Lucille ! . . . Should he put his fortunes to the touch, risk all, and propose to her. Fellows did these things in such circumstances. . . . No — hardly fair to try to catch her like that before she had had at least one season, and knew what was what and who was who. . . . Hardly the clean potato — to take advantage of 9 130 SNAKE AND SWORD their long intimacy and try to trap her while she was a country mouse. It was not as though he were clever and could hope for a great career and the power to offer her the position for which she was fitted. Why, he was nearly bottom of his year at Sandhurst — not a bit brilliant and brainy. Suppose she married him in her inexperience, and then met the right sort of intellectual, clever feller too late. No, it wouldn't be the straight thing and decent at all, to propose to her now. How would Grumper view such a step ? What had he to offer her? What was he ? Just a penniless orphan. Apart from Grumper s gener- osity he owned a single five-pound note in money. Never won a scholarship or exam-prize in his life. Mere Public Schools boxing and fencing champion, and best man-at-arms at Sandhurst, with a score or so of pots for running, jumping, sculling, swimming, shooting, boxing, fencing, steeple-chasing and so forth. His total patrimony encashed would barely pay for his Army outfit. But for Grumper 's kind- ness he couldn't go into the Army at all. And Grumper, the splendid old chap, couldn't last very much longer. Why — for many a long year he would not earn more than enough to pay his mess-bills and feed his horses. Not in England certainly. . . . Was he to ask Lucille to leave her luxurious home in a splendid mansion and live in a subaltern's four-roomed hut in the plains in India .^ (Even if he could scrape into the Indian army so as to live on his pay — more or less.) LOVE— AND THE SNAKE 131 Grumper, her guardian, and executor of the late Bishop's will, might have very different views for her. Why, she might even be his heiress — he was very fond of her, the daughter of his lifelong friend and kinsman. Fancy a pauper making up to a very rich girl — if it came to her being that, which he devoutly hoped it would not. It would re- move her so hopelessly beyond his reach. By the time he could make a position, and an income visible to the naked eye, he would be grey-haired. Money was not made in the army. Rather was it becoming no place for a poor gentleman but the paradise of rich bounders, brainy little squits of swotters, and commission-without-training nonde- scripts — thanks to the growing insecurity of things among the army class and gentry generally. If she were really penniless he might — as a Captain — ask her to share his poverty — but was it likely shed be a spinster ten years hence — even if he were a Captain so soon ? Promotion is.not violently rapid in the Cavalry. . . . And yet he simply hated the bare thought of life without Lucille. Better to be a gardener at Monksmead, and see her every day, than be the Colonel of a Cavalry Corps and know her to be married to somebody else. . . . Yes — he would come home one of these times from Sand- hurst or his Regiment and find her engaged to some other fellow. And what then? Well — nothing — only life would be of no further interest. It was bound to happen. Everybody turned to look at her. Even women gave generous praise of 9* 132 SNAKE AND SWORD her beauty, grace, and sweetness. Men raved about her, and every male creature who came near her was obviously ^pris in five minutes. The curate, plump '' Holy Bill," was well known to be fading away, slowly and beautifully, but quite surely, on her account. Grumper's old pal, General Har- ringport, had confided to Dam himself in the smok- ing-room, one very late night, that since he was fifty years too old for hope of success in that direc- tion he'd go solitary to his lonely grave (here a very wee hiccup), damn his eyes, so he would, unwed, unloved, uneverything. Very trag(h)ic, but such was life, the General had declared, the one alleviation being the fact that he might die any night now, and ought to have done so a decade ago. Why, even the little useless snob and tuft-hunter, the Haddock, that tailor's dummy and parody of a man, cast sheep's eyes and made what he called "love" to her when down from Oxford (and was duly snubbed for it and for his wretched fopperies, snobberies, and folly). He'd have to put the Haddock across his knee one of these days. Then there was his old school pal and Sandhurst senior, Ormonde Delorme, who frequently stayed at, and had just left, Monksmead— fairly dotty about her. She certainly liked Delorme — and no wonder, so handsome, clever, accomplished, and so fine a gentleman. Rich, too. Better Ormonde than another — but, God ! what pain even to think of it. . . . Why had he cleared off so suddenly, by the LOVE^AND THE SNAKE 133 way, and obviously in trouble, though he would not admit it ? . . . Lucille emerged from a French window and came swinging across the terrace. The young man, his face aglow, radiant, rose to meet her. It was a fine face — with that look on it. Ordinarily it was some- what marred by a slightly cynical grimness of the mouth and a hint of trouble in the eyes — a face a little too old for its age. ** Have a game at tennis before tea, young Piggy- wig?" asked Lucille as she linked her arm in his. *' No, young Piggy-wee," replied Dam. '* Get- tin' old an' fat. Joints stiffenin'. Come an' sit down and hear the words of wisdom of your old Uncle Dammiculs, the Wise Man of Monksmead." '• Come off it, Dammy. Lazy little beast. Fat little brute," commented the lady. As Damocles de Warrenne was six feet two inches high, and twelve stone of iron-hard muscle, the insults fell but lightly upon him. " I will, though," she continued. ** I shan't have the opportunity of hearing many more of your words of wisdom for a time, as you go back on Monday. And you'll be the panting prey of a gang of giggling girls at the garden party and dance to-morrow. . . . Why on earth must we muck up your last week-day with rotten * func- tions '. You don't want to Hance and you don't want to garden-part in the least." ** Nit," interrupted Dam. 134 SNAKE AND SWORD "... Grumper means it most kindly but . . . we want you to ourselves the last day or two . . . anyhow. ..." ** D'you want me to yourself, Piggy- wee ? " asked Dam, trying to speak lightly and off- handedly. " Of course I do, you Ass. Shan't see you for centuries and months- Nothing to do but weep salt tears till Christmas. Go into a decline or a red nose very likely. Mind you write to me twice a week at the very least," replied Lucille, and added : — '* Bet you that silly cat Amelia Harringport is in your pocket all to-morrow afternoon and evening, ^//the Harringport crowd are coming from Folke- stone, you know. If you run the clock-golf she'll adore clock-golf, and if you play tennis she'll adore tennis. . . . Can't think what she sees in you. . . . " Don't be cattish, Lusilly," urged the young man. ** 'Melier's all right. It's you she comes to see, of course." To which, it is regrettable to have to relate, Lucille replied " Rodents ". Talk languished between the young people. Both seemed unwontedly ill at ease and nervous. *' D'you get long between leaving Sandhurst and joining the Corps you're going to distinguish, Dammy ? " asked the girl after an uneasy and pregnant silence, during which they had furtively watched each other, and smiled a little uncomfort- LOVE— AND THE SNAKE 135 ably and consciously when they had caught each other doing so. ** Dunno. Sure not to. It's a rotten world,'* replied Dam gloomily. " I expect I shall come back and find you " '* Of course you'll come back and find me ! What do you mean, Dam ? " said the girl. She flushed curiously as she interrupted him. Before he could reply she continued : — " You won't be likely to have to go abroad directly you join your Regiment, will you ? " " I shall try for the Indian Army or else for a British Regiment in India," was the somewhat sullen answer. " Dam ! What ever for ? " ** More money and less expenses." ''Dam! You mercenary little toad! You grasping, greedy hog ! . . . Why ! I thought. ..." Lucille gazed straight and searchingly at her life-long friend for a full minute and then rose to her feet. ** Come to tea," she said quietly, and led the way to the big lawn where, beneath an ancient cedar of Lebanon, the pompous Butterton and his solemn satellite were setting forth the tea ** things ". Aunt Yvette presided at the tea-table and talked bravely to two woolly-witted dames from the Vicar- age who had called to consult her anent the covering of a foot-stool '' that had belonged to their dear Grandmamma ". 136 SNAKE AND SWORD ("'Time somebody shot it," murmured Dam to Lucille as he handed her cup.) Anon Grumper bore down upon the shady spot ; queer old Grumper, very stiff, red-faced, dapper, and extremely savage. Having greeted the guests hospitably and kindly he confined his subsequent conversation to two grunts and a growl. Lucille and Damocles could not be said to have left the cane-chaired group about the rustic tables and cake-stands at any given moment. Independ- ently they evaporated, after the manner of the Cheshire Cat it would appear, really getting farther and farther from the circle by such infinitely small degrees and imperceptible distances as would have appealed to the moral author of *' Little by Little ". At length the intervening shrubbery seemed to indicate that they were scarcely in the intimate bosom of the tea-party, if they had never really left it. " Come for a long walk, Liggy," remarked Dam as they met, using an ancient pet-name. " Right-O, my son," was the reply. " But we must start off mildly. I have a lovely feeling of too much cake. Too good to waste. Wait here while I put on my clod-hoppers." The next hour was the Hour of the lives of Damocles de Warrenne and Lucille Gavestone — the great, glorious, and wonderful hour that comes but once in a lifetime and is the progenitor of countless happy hours — or hours of poignant LOVE—AND THE SNAKE 137 pain. The Hour that can come only to those who are worthy of it, and which, whatever may follow, is an unspeakably precious blessing, con- futing the cynic, shaming the pessimist, confound- ing the atheist, rewarding the pure in heart, reveal- ing God to Man. Heaven help the poor souls to whom that Hour never comes, with its memories that nothing can wholly destroy, its brightness that nothing can ever wholly darken. Heaven especially help the poor purblind soul that can sneer at it, the greatest and noblest of mankind's gifts, the countervail of all his cruel woes and curses. As they walked down the long sweep of the elm- avenue, the pair encountered the vicar coming to gather up his wife and sister for the evening drive, and the sight of the two fine young people gladdened the good man's heart. He beheld a tall, broad- shouldered, narrow-hipped young man, with a frank handsome face, steady blue eyes, fair hair and deter- mined jaw, a picture of the clean-bred, clean-living, out-door Englishman, athletic, healthy-minded, straight-dealing ; and a slender, beautiful girl, with a strong sweet face, hazel-eyed, brown-haired, up- right and active of carriage, redolent of sanity, directness, and all moral and physical health. ** A well-matched pair," he smiled to himself as they passed him with a cheery greeting. For a mile or two both thought much and spoke little, the man thinking of the brilliant, hated Un- known who would steal away his Lucille ; the 138 SNAKE AND SWORD woman thinking of the coming separation from the friend, without whom life was very empty, dull, and poor. Crossing a field, they reached a fence and a beautiful view of half the county. Stopping by mutual consent, they gazed at the peaceful, familiar scene, so ennobled and etherealized by the moon's soft radiance. *' I shall think of this walk, somehow, whenever I see the full moon," said Dam, breaking a long silence. *' And I," replied Lucille. " I hate going away this time, somehow, more than usual," he blurted out after another spell of silence. ** I can't help wondering whether you'll be — the same — when I come back at Christmas." "Why — how should I be different, Dammy.*^" asked the girl, turning her gaze upon his troubled face, which seemed to twitch and work as though in pain. ** How ? . , . Why, you might be " '* Might be what, dear ? " "You might be — engaged^ The girl saw that in the man's eyes to which his tongue could not, or would not, give utterance. As he spoke the word, with a catch in his breath, she suddenly flung her arms round his neck, pressed her lips to his white face, and, with a little sob, whispered : — " Not unless to you, Dam, darling — there is no other man in the world but you," and their lips met in their first lover's kiss. . . . LOVE—AND THE SNAKE 139 Oh, the wonderful, glorious world! . . . The grand, beautiful old world ! Place of delight, joy, wonder, beauty, gratitude. How the kind little stars sang to them and the benign old moon looked down and said : " Never despair, never despond, never fear, God has given you Love. What matters else?" How the man swore to himself that he would be worthy of her, strive for her, live for her ; if need be — die for her. How the woman vowed to herself that she would be worthy of her splendid, noble lover, help him, cheer him, watch over him. Oh, if he might only Tieed her some day and depend on her for something in spite of his strength and manhood. How she yearned to do something for him, to give, to give, to ^ve. Their hour lasted for coundess ages, and passed in a flash. The world intruded, spoiling itself as always. *' Home to dinner, darling," said the girl at last. " Hardly time to dress if we hurry. Grumper will simply rampage and roar. He gets worse every day." She disengaged herself from the boy's arms and her terribly beautiful, painfully exquisite, trance. ** Give me one more kiss, tell me once more that you love me and only me, for ever, and let us go, . . . God bless this place. I thank God. I love God — now ..." she said. Dam could not speak at all. They walked away, hand in hand, incredulous, tremulous, bewildered by the beauty and wonder and glory of Life. 140 SNAKE AND SWORD Alas! As they passed the Lodge and entered the dark avenue, Dam found his tongue. *' Must tell Grumper," he said. Nothing mattered since Lucille loved him like that. She'd be happier in the subaltern's hut in the plains of India than in a palace. If Grumper didn't like it, he must lump it. Her happiness was more important than Grumper 's pleasure. '*Yes," acquiesced Lucille, "but tell him on Monday morning when you go. Let's have this all to ourselves, darling, just for a few hours. I believe he'll be jolly glad. Dear old bear, isn't he — really." In the middle of the avenue Lucille stopped. *'Dammy, my son," quoth she, "tell me the absolute, bare, bald truth. Much depends upon it and it'll spoil everything if you aren't perfectly, painfully honest." " Right-O," responded Dam. '* Go it." ''Am I the very very loveliest woman that ever lived.?" " No," replied Dam, *'but I wouldn't have a line of your face changed." ** Am I the cleverest woman in the world ? " " No. But you're quite clever enough for me. I wouldn't have you any cleverer. God for- bid." " Am I absolutely perfect and without flaw — in character." '* No. But I love your faults." LOVE—AND THE SNAKE 141 ** Do you wish to enshrine me in a golden jewel-studded temple and worship me night and day ? " ** No. I want to put you in a house and live with you." " Hurrah," cried the surprising young woman. *' That's love. Dam. It's not rotten idealizing and sentimentalizing that dies away as soon as facts are seen as such. You're a man, Dam, and I'm going to be a woman. I loathe that bleating, glorified nonsense that the Reverend Bill and Captain Luniac and poor old Ormonde and people talk when they're *in love'. Love! It's just sentimental idealizing and the worship of what does not exist and therefore cannot last. You love me, don't you, Dammy, not an impossible figment of a heated imagination? This will last, dear. ... If you'd idealized me into something unearthly and impossible you'd have tired of me in six months or less. You'd have hated me when you saw the reality, and found yourself tied to it for life." ** Make a speech, Daughter," replied Damocles. ** Get on a stump and make a blooming speech." Both were a little unstrung. *' I must wire this news to Delorme," said he suddenly. '' He'll be delighted." Lucille made no . reply. As they neared the end of the drive and came within sight of the house, the girl whispered : — ** My own pal, Dammy, for always. And you thought I could be engaged to anyone but you. 142 SNAKE AND SWORD There is no one but you in the world, dear. It would be quite empty if you left it. Don't worry about ways and means and things, Dam, I shall enjoy waiting ior you — twenty years." He thought of that, later. On the morrow of that incredible day, Damocles de Warrenne sprang from his bed at sunrise and sought the dew-washed garden below the big south terrace. The world contained no happier man. Sunrise in a glorious English summer and a grand old English garden, on the day after the Day of Days. He trod on air as he lived over again every second of that wonderful over-night scene, and scarcely realized the impossible truth. Lucille loved him, as a lover ! Lucille the alter egOy the understanding, splendid friend ; companion in play and work, in idle gaiety and serious consideration ; the bon ca^narade, the real chum and pal. Life was a Song, the world a Paradise, the future a long-drawn Glory. He would like to go and hold the Sword in his hand for a minute, and — something seemed to stir beneath his foot, and a shudder ran through his powerful frame. The brightness of the morning was dimmed, and then Lucille came towards him blushing, radiant, changed, and all was well with the world, and God in high heaven. LOVE—AND THE SNAKE 143 After breakfast they again walked in the garden, the truly enchanted garden, and talked soberly with but few endearments though with over-full hearts, and with constant pauses to eye the face of the other with wondering rapture. They came of a class and a race not given to excessive demonstra- tiveness, but each knew that the other loved — for life. In the afternoon, guests began to arrive soon after lunch, duties usurped the place of pleasures, and the lovers met as mere friends in the crowd. There was meaning in the passing glances, however, and an occasional hand-touch in the giving of tennis- ball, or tea-cup. " Half the County " was present, and while the younger fry played tennis, croquet, clock-golf, and bowls, indulged in *' mixed cricket," or attempted victory at archery or miniature-rifle shooting, the sedate elders strolled o'er velvet lawns beneath immemorial elms, sat in groups, or took tea by carpet-spread marquees. Miss Amelia Harringport, seeing Dam with a croquet-mallet in his hand, observed that she adored croquet Dam stated in reply that Haddon Berners was a fearful dog at it, considered there should be a croquet Blue in fact, and would doubtless be charmed to make up a set with her and the curate, the Reverend William Williamson Williams (Holy Bill), and Another. Dam himself was cut off from the bliss of being the Other — did not know the game at all 144 SNAKE AND SWORD Miss Amelia quickly tired of her croquet with the Haddock, Holy Bill and the Vicar's Wife's Sister, who looked straitly after Holy Bill on this and all other occasions. Seeing Dam shepherding a flock of elders to the beautifully-mown putting- tracks radiating from the central circle of *' holes " for the putting competition, she informed him that she adored putting, so much so that she wanted lessons from him, the local amateur golf-champion. " I just want a little personal tuition from the Champion and I shall be quite a classy putter," she gurgled. " I will personally tuit," replied Dam, "and when you are tuited we will proceed to win the prize." Carefully posing the maiden aspirant for putting excellence at the end of the yard-wide velvety strip leading to the green and '' hole," Dam gave his best advice, bade her smite with restraint, and then proceeded to the ** hole " to retrieve the ball for his own turn. Other couples did " preliminary canters " somewhat similarly on the remaining spokes of the great wheel of the putting *' clock ". The canny and practised Amelia, who had de- signs upon the handsome silver prize as well as upon the handsome Damocles, smote straight and true with admirable judgment, and the ball sped steadily down the track direct for the '' hole," a somewhat large and deep one. '* By Jove ! Magnificent ! " cried Dam, with quick and generous appreciation of the really splendid putt. '' You'll hole out in one this time, anyhow." LOVE— AND THE SNAKE 145 As the slowing ball approached the ** hole " he inserted his hand therein, laughing gaily, to antici- pate the ball which with its last grain of momentum would surely reach it and topple in. Then the thing happened ! As he put his hand to the grass-encircled goal of the maiden's hopes and ball, its gloomy depths appeared to move, swirl round, rise up, as a small green snake uncoiled in haste and darted beneath Dam's approaching upturned hand, and swiftly undulated across the lawn. With a shriek that momentarily paralysed the gay throng, turned all eyes in his direction, and brought the more cool and helpful running to the spot. Dam fell writhing, struggling, and screaming to the ground. ** The Snake ! The Snake ! " he howled, while tears gushed from his eyes and he strove to dig his way into the ground for safety. '* There it goes ! " squealed the fair Amelia point- ing tragically. Ladies duly squeaked, bunched their skirts tightly, jumped on chairs or sought protection by the side of stalwart admirers. Men cried "Where?" and gathered for battle. One sporting character emitted an appalling ** View Halloo " and there were a few '* Yoicks " and '' Gone Aways" to support his little solecism. Lucille, rushing to Dam, encountered the fleeing reptile and with a neat stroke of her putter ended its career. *' It's all right, old chap," sneered Haddon Berners, 10 146 SNAKE AND SWORD as the mad, convulsed, and foaming Dam screamed : '' It's under my foot. It's moving, moving^ moving out,'' and doubled up into a knot. *' Oh no, it isn't," he continued *' Lucille has killed it. Nothing to be terrified about. . . . Oh, chuck it, man! Get up and blow your nose. . . ." He was sent sprawling on his back as Lucille dropped by Dam's side and strove to raise his face from the grass. "Come off it, Dam! You're very funny, we know," adjured the sporting character, rather ashamed and discomfortable at seeing a brother man behaving so. There are limits to acting the goat — especially with wimmin about. Why couldn't Dam drop it ? . . . Lucille was shocked and horrified to the inner- most fibres of her being. Her dignified, splendid Dam rolling on the ground, shrieking, sobbing, writhing. ... Ill or well, joke or seizure, it was horrible, unseemly. . . . Why couldn't the gaping fools be obliterated ? . . . '' Dam, dear," she whispered in his ear, as she knelt over the shuddering, gasping, sobbing man. **What is it, Dam.^ Are you ill? Dam, it's Lucille. . . . The snake is quite dead, dear. I killed it. Are you joking? Dam! Dam !'\ . . The stricken wretch screamed like a terrified child. '* Oh, won't somebody fetch Dr. Jones if he's not here yet," she wailed, turning to the mystified crowd of guests. * ' Get some water quickly, some- LOVE—AND THE SNAKE 147 body, salts, brandy, anything! Oh, do go away," and she deftly unfastened the collar of the spasm- wracked sufferer. " Haddon," she cried, looking up and seeing the grinning Haddock, " go straight for Dr. Jones. Cycle if you're afraid of spoiling your clothes by riding. Quick ! " *' Oh, he'll be all right in a minute," drawled the Haddock, who did not relish a stiff ride along dusty roads in his choicest confection. " He's playing the fool, I believe — or a bit scared at the ferocious serpent." Lucille gave the youth a look that he never forgot, and turned to the sporting person. ** You know the stables, Mr. Fellerton," she said, " Would you tell Pattern or somebody to send a man for Dr. Jones? Tell him to beat the record.*' The sporting one sprinted toward the shrubbery which lay between the grounds and the kitchen- gardens, beyond which were the stables. Most people, with the better sort of mind, with- drew and made efforts to recommence the inter- rupted games or to group themselves once more about the lawns and marquees. Others remained to make fatuous suggestions, to wonder, or merely to look on with feelings ap- proaching awe and fascination. There was some- thing uncanny here — a soldier and athlete weeping and screaming and going into fits at the sight of a harmless grass-snake, probably a mere blindworm ! Was he a hysterical, neurotic coward, after all — ^a wretched decadent? 10* 148 SNAKE AND SWORD Poor Lucille suffered doubly — every pang, spasm, and contortion that shook and wrung the body of her beloved, racked her own frame, and her mind was tortured by fear, doubts, and agony. " Oh, please go away, dear people," she moaned. " It is a touch of sun. He is a little subject to slight fits — very rarely and at long intervals, you know. He may never have another." A few of the re- maining onlookers backed away a little shame- facedly. Others offered condolences while inwardly scoffing at the " sun " explanation. Did not de Warrenne bowl, bat, or field, bare-headed, through- out the summer's day without thinking of the sun ? Who had heard of the "fits" before? Why had they not transpired during the last dozen years or so? ** Help me carry him indoors, somebody," said the miserable, horrified Lucille. That would get rid of the silly staring " helpers " anyhow — even if it brought matters to the notice of Grumper, who frankly despised and detested any kind of sick per- son or invalid. What would he say and do ? What had hap- pened to the glowing, glorious world that five minutes ago was fairy-land and paradise ? Was her Dam a wretched coward, afraid of things, screaming like a girl at the sight of a common snake, actually terrified into a fit? Better be a pick-pocket than a . . . Into the thinning, whisper- ing circle came General Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley, apoplectically angry. Some silly fool, he understood, had fainted or something — probably a LOVE—AND THE SNAKE 149 puling tight-laced fool of a woman who starved her- self to keep slim. People who wanted to faint should stay and do it at home — not come creating disturbances and interruptions at Monksmead gar- den-parties, . . . And then he saw a couple of young men and Lucille striving to raise the recumbent body of a man. The General snorted as snorts the wart-hog in love and war, or the graceful hippopotamus in the river. ** What the Devil's all this ? " he growled. " Some poor fella fainted with the exertions of putting ? " A most bitter old gentleman. Lucille turned to him and his fierce gaze fell upon the pale, contorted, and tear-stained face of Dam. The General flushed an even deeper purple, and the stick he held perpendicularly slowly rose to horizontal, though he did not raise his hand. He made a loud but wholly inarticulate sound. Haddon Berners, enjoying himself hugely, volun- teered the information. "He saw a little grass-snake and yelled out. Then he wept and fainted. Coming round now. Got the funks, poor chap." Lucille's hands closed (the thumbs correctly on the knuckles of the second fingers), and, for a mom- ent, it was in her heart to smite the Haddock on the lying mouth with the straight-from-the-shoulder drive learned in days of yore from Dam, and practised on the punching-ball with great assiduity. 150 SNAKE AND SWORD Apparently the Haddock realized the fact for he skipped backward with agility. " He is ill, Grumper dear," she said instead. ** He has had a kind of fit. Perhaps he had sun- stroke in India, and it has just affected him now in the sun. ..." Grumper achieved the snort of his life. It may have penetrated Dam's comatose brain, indeed, for at that moment, with a moan and a shudder, he struggled to a sitting posture. ** The Snake," he groaned, and collapsed again. '' What the Devil ! " roared the General. ** Get up, you miserable, whining cur ! Get indoors, you bottle-fed squalling workhouse brat ! Get out of it, you decayed gentlewoman ! " . . . The General bade fair to have a fit of his own. Lucille flung herself at him. **Cant you see he's very ill, Grumper? Have you no heart at all ? Don't be so cruel . . . and . . . stupid." The General gasped. . . . Insults ! . . . From a chit of a girl !...*' Ill ! " he roared. '' What the Devil does he want to be ill for now, here, to-day ? I never . . ." Dam struggled to his feet with heroic efforts at self-mastery, and stood swaying, twitching, tremb- ling in every limb, and obviously in an agony of terror. ** The Snake ! " he said again. " Ha ! " barked General Stukeley. ** Been fight- ing forty boa-constrictors, what ? Just had a fear- LOVE— AND THE SNAKE 151 ful struggle with five thousand fearful pythons, what ? There'll be another Victoria Cross in your family soon, if you're not careful." ** You are an unjust and cruel old man," stormed Lucille, stamping her foot at the hitherto dread Grumper. ** He is ill, I tell you ! You'll be ill yourself someday. He had a fit. He'll be all right in a minute. Let him go in and lie down. It wasn't the snake at all. There wasn't any snake — where he was. He is just ill. He has been working too hard. Let him go In and lie down." *' Let him go to the Devil," growled the infuriated General, and turned to such few of the guests as had not displayed sufficient good sense and good taste to go elsewhere and resume their interrupted games, tea, or scandal, to remark : — " I really apologize most sincerely and earnestly for this ridiculous scene. The boy should be in petticoats, apparently. I hope he won't encounter a mouse or a beetle to-night. Let's all — er — come and have a drink." Lucille led her shaking and incoherent lover in- doors and established him on a sofa, had a fire lit for him as he appeared to be deathly cold, and sat holding his clammy hand until the arrival of Dr. Jones. As well as his chattering teeth and white frozen lips would allow, he begged for forgiveness, for understanding. "He wasn't really wholly a coward in essentials." . . . The girl kissed the contorted face and white lips 152 SNAKE AND SWORD passionately. Dr. Jones prescribed bed and "com- plete mental and bodily rest". He said he would "send something," and in a cloud of wise words disguised the fact that he did not in the least know what to do. It was not in his experience that a healthy young Hercules, sound as a bell, without spot or blemish, should behave like an anaemic, neurotic girl. . . . Dam passed the night in the unnameable, ghastly hell of agony that he knew so well and that he wondered to survive. In the morning he received a note from Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley. It was brief and clear : — " Sandhurst is scarcely the place for a squealing coward, still less the Army. Nor is there room for one at Monksmead. I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you before you catch the 1 1 . 1 5 train ; I might say things better left unsaid. I thank God you do not bear our name though you have some of our blood. This will be the one grain of com- fort when I think that the whole County is gibing and jeering. No — your name is no more Seymour Stukeley than is your nature. If you will favour my Solicitors with your address, they will furnish you with an account of your patrimony and such balance thereof as may remain — if any. But I be- lieve you came to England worth about fifty pounds — which you have probably spent as pocket-money. I beg of you to communicate with me or my house- hold in no way whatsoever. "G. S. S," LOVE— AND THE SNAKE 153 Hastily dressing, Dam fled from the house on foot, empty handed and with no money but a five- pound note legitimately his own private property. On his dressing-table he left the cheque given to him by his " grandfather " for ensuing Sandhurst expenses. Hiding in the station waiting-room, he awaited the next train to London — with thoughts of recruiting-sergeants and the Guards. From force of habit he travelled first-class, materially lessening his five pounds. In the carriage, which he had to himself, he sat stunned. He was rather angry than dismayed and appalled. He was like the soldier, cut down by a sabre-slash or struck by a bullet, who, for a second, stares dully at the red gash or blue hole — waiting for the blood to flow and the pain to commence. He was numbed, emotionally dead, waiting the terrible awakening to the realization that he had lost Lucille. What mattered the loss of home, career, friends, honour — mere anti-climax to glance at it. Yesterday ! . . . To-day ! What was Lucille thinking } What would she do and say ? Would she grow to hate the coward who had dared to make love to her, dared to win her love ! Would she continue to love him in spite of all ? 1 shall enjoy waiting twenty years for you, she had said yesterday, and The world would be quite empty if you left it. What would it be while he remained in it a publicly disgraced coward ? A coward ridi- 154 SNAKE AND SWORD culed by the effeminate, degenerate Haddock, who had no soul above club-ribbons, and no body above a Piccadilly crawl ! Could she love him in spite of all ? She was great-hearted enough for anything. Perhaps for anything but that. To her, cowardice must be the last lowest depths of degradation. Anyhow he had done the straight thing by Grumper, in leaving the house without any attempt to let her know, to say farewell, to ask her to believe in him for a while. If there had been any question as to the propriety of his trying to become engaged to her when he was the penniless gentleman-cadet, was there any question about it when he was the disgraced out- cast, the publicly exposed coward ? Arrived at the London terminus he sought a recruiting-sergeant and, of course, could not find one. However, Canterbury and Cavalry were indis- solubly connected in his mind, and it had occurred to him that, in the Guards, he would run more risk of coming face to face with people whom he knew than in any other corps. He would go for the regiment he had known and loved in India (as he had been informed) and about which he had heard much all his life. It was due for foreign service in a year or two, and, so far as he knew, none of its officers had ever heard of him. Ormonde Delorme was mad about it, but could not afford its expensive mess. Dam had himself thought how jolly it would be if Grumper **came down" sufficiently hand- LOVE— AND THE SNAKE i55 somely for him to be able to join it on leaving Sandhurst. He'd join it now ! He hailed a hansom and proceeded to Charing Cross, whence he booked for the noble and ancient city of Canterbury. Realizing that only one or two sovereigns would remain to him otherwise, he travelled in a third- class carriage for the first time in his hitherto luxuri- ous life. Its bare discomfort and unpleasant occu- pants (one was a very malodorous person indeed, and one a smoker of what smelt like old hats and chair-stuffing in a rank clay pipe) brought home to him more clearly than anything had done, the fact that he was a homeless, destitute person about to sell his carcase for a shilling, and seek the last refuge of the out-of-work, the wanted-by-the-police, the dis- graced, and the runaway. That carriage and its occupants showed him, in a blinding flash, that his whole position, condition, outlook, future, and life were utterly and completely changed. He was Going Under. Had anybody else ever done it so quickly ? . . . He went Under, and his entrance to the Under- world was through the great main-gates of the depot of the Queen's Own (2nd) Regiment of Heavy Cavalry, familiarly known as the Queen's Greys. CHAPTER VIII. TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN. Glimpses of certain ** Poor Devils " and the Hell they Inhabited. The Queen's Own (2nd) Regiment of Heavy Cavalry (The Queen's Greys) were under orders for India and the influence of great joy. That some of its members were also under the influence of potent waters is perhaps a platitudinous corollary. . . . '* And phwat the Divvle's begone of me ould pal Patsy Flannigan, at all, at all ? " inquired Trooper Phelim O'Shaughnessy, entering the barrack-room of E Troop of the Queen's Greys, lying at Shorn- cliffe Camp. " Divvle a shmell of the baste can I see, and me back from furlough-leaf for minnuts. Has the schamer done the two-shtep widout anny flure, as Oi've always foretould ? Is ut atin' his vegetables by the roots he now is in the bone- orchard, and me owing the poor bhoy foive shillin' ? Where is he ? " "In 'orsepittle," laconically replied Trooper Henry Hawker, late of Whitechapel, without look- ing up from the jack-boot he was polishing. 156 TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 157 •' Phwat wid?" anxiously inquired the bereaved Phelim. "Wot wiv'? Wiv' callin' 'Threes abaht' after one o' the Young Jocks," ^ was the literal reply. ** Begob that same must be a good hand wid his fisties — or was it a shillaleigh ? " mused the Irish- man. " 'Eld the Helliot belt in Hinjer last year, they say," continued the Cockney. ''Good? Not'arf. I wouldn't go an' hinsult the bloke for the price of a pot. No. 'Erbert 'Awker would not. (Chuck us yore button-stick, young 'Enery Bone.) Good? 'E's a 'Oly Terror — and I don't know as there's a man in the Queen's Greys as could put 'im to sleep — not unless it's Matthewson," and here Trooper Herbert Hawker jerked his head in the direction of Trooper Damocles de Warrenne {alias D. Matthew- son) who, seated on his truckle-bed, was engaged in vr breathing hard, and rubbing harder, upon a brass Sp helmet from which he had unscrewed a black horse- hair plume. Dam, arrayed in hob-nailed boots, turned-up overalls ** authorized for grooming," and a ** grey- back " shirt, looked indefinably a gentleman. Trooper Herbert Hawker, in unlaced gymnasium shoes, ** leathers," and a brown sweater (warranted not to show the dirt), looked quite definably what he was, a Commercial Road ruffian ; and his fore- headless face, greasy cow-lick ''quiff " (or fringe), and ^ A famous Hussar regiment. 158 SNAKE AND SWORD truculent expression, inspired more disgust than confidence in the beholder. His reference to Dam as the only likely champion of the Heavy Cavalry against the Hussar was a tribute to the tremendous thrashing he had received from '* Trooper D. Matthewson " when the same had become necessary after a long course of unresented petty annoyance. Hawker was that very rare creature, a boaster, who made good, a bully of great courage and determination, and a loud talker, who was a very active doer ; and the battle had been a terrible one. The weary old joke of having a heavy valise pulled down on to one's upturned face from the shelf above, by means of a string, as one sleeps. Dam had taken in good part. Being sent to the Rough- Riding Sergeant-Major for the '' Key of the Half Passage " by this senior recruit, he did not mind in the least (though he could have kicked himself for his gullibility when he learned that the '' Half Passage" is not a place, but a Riding-School manoeuvre, and escaped from the bitter tongue of the incensed autocrat — called untimely from his tea ! How the man had bristled. Hair, eyebrows, moustache, buttons even — the Rough-Riding Ser- geant- Major had been rough indeed, and had done his riding rough-shod over the wretched lad). Being instructed to *'go and get measured for his hoof-picker " Dam had not resented, though he had considered it something of an insult to his in- telligence that Hawker should expect to '' have " him TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 159 so easily as that. He had taken in good part the arrangement of his bed in such a way that it col- lapsed and brought a pannikin of water down with it, and on to it, in the middle of a cold night. He had received with good humour, and then with silent contempt, the names of " Gussie the Bank Clurk," references to **broken-dahn torfs " and ** tailor's bleedn' dummies," queries as to the amount of *' time " he had got for the offence that made him a " Queen's Hard Bargain," and various the other pleasantries whereby Herbert showed his distaste for people whose accent differed from his own, and whose tastes were unaccountable. Dam had borne these things because he was certain he could thrash the silly animal when the time came, and because he had a wholesome dread of the all-too-inevitable military ** crimes" (one of which fighting is — as subversive of good order and military discipline). It had come, however, and for Dam this exotic of the Ratcliffe Highway had thereafter developed a vast admiration and an embarrassing affection. It was a most difficult matter to avoid his compan- ionship when '' walking-out " and also to avoid hurt- ing his feelings. It was a humiliating and chastening experience to the man, who had supported himself by boxing in booths at fairs and show-grounds, to find this ^'bloomin' dook of a 'Percy,'" this "lah-de-dar * Reggie ' " who looked askance at good bread-and- dripping, this finnicky "Clarence" without a i6o SNAKE AND SWORD "bloody " to his conversation, this *' blasted, up-the- pole ^ ' Cecil ' " — a man with a quicker guard, a harder punch, a smarter ring-craft, a better wind, and a tougher appetite for "gruel" than himself. The occasion was furnished by a sad little ex- perience. Poor drunken Trooper Bear (once the Honour- able MacMahon FitzUrse), kindliest, weakest, gentlest of gentlemen, had lurched one bitter soak- ing night (or early morning) into the barrack-room, singing in a beautiful tenor : — "Menez-moi" dit la belle, " A la rive fidele Ot Ton aime toujours." . . . — " Cette rive ma chere On ne la connait guere Au pays des amours.". . . Trooper Herbert Hawker had no appreciation for Theophile Gautier — or perhaps none for being awakened from his warm slumbers. " 'Ere ! stow that blarsted catawaulin', " he roared, with a choice selection from the Whitechapel tongue, in which he requested the adjectived noun to be adverbially "quick about it, too". With a beatific smile upon his weak handsome face. Trooper Bear staggered toward the speaker, blew him a kiss, and, in a vain endeavour to seat himself upon the cot, collapsed upon the ground. " You're a . . ." (adverbially adjectived noun) shouted Hawker. " You ain't a man, you're a . . ." ^ Teetotal. TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN i6i ** (TKLas ovap avOpcoTTos-'' ..." Man is the dream of a shadow," suggested Bear dreamily with a hiccup. . . . ''D'yer know where you are, you . . ." roared Hawker. ** Dear Heart, I am in hell," replied the recum- bent one, *'but by the Mercy of God I'm splendidly drunk. Yes, hell. ' Lasciate ogni speranza! sweet Amaryllis. I am Morag of the Misty Way. Mos misty. Milky Way. Yesh. Milk Punchy Way." . . . " I'll give you all th^ punch you'll want, in abaht two ticks if you don't chuck it — you blarsted edju- cated flea," warned Hawker, half rising. Dam got up and pulled on his cloak preparatory to helping the o'er-taken one to bed, as a well- aimed ammunition boot took the latter nearly on the ear. Struggling to his feet with the announcement that he was *' the King's fair daughter, weighed in the balance and found — devilish heavy and very drunk," the unhappy youth lurched and fell upon the outraged Hawker — who struck him a cruel blow in the face. At the sound of the blow and heavy fall, Dam turned, saw the blood — and went Stukeley-mad. Springing like a tiger upon Hawker he dragged him from his cot and knocked him across it. In less than a minute he had twice sent him to the boards, and it took half-a-dozen men on either side to separate the combatants and get them to post- II 1 62 SNAKE AND SWORD pone the finish till the morning. That night Dam dreamed his dream and, on the morrow, behind the Riding-School, and in fifteen rounds, became, by common consent, champion bruiser of the Queen's Greys — by no ambition of his own. And so — as has been said — Trooper Henry Hawker ungrudgingly referred Trooper Phelim O'Shaughnessy to him in the matter of reducing the pride of the Young Jock who had dared to " desthroy " a dragoon. Trooper Phelim O'Shaughnessy — in perfect- fitting glove-tight scarlet stable-jacket (that never went near a stable, being in fact the smart shell- jacket, shaped like an Eton coat, sacred to '* walking- out" purposes), dark blue overalls with broad white stripe, strapped over half-wellington boots adorned with glittering swan-neck spurs, a pill- box cap with white band and button, perched jauntily on three hairs — also looked what he was, the ideal heavy-cavalry man, the swaggering, swashbuckling trooper, beau sabreur, good all round and all through. . . . The room in which these worthies and various others (varying also in dress, from shirt and shorts to full review-order for Guard) had their being, ex- pressed the top note and last cry — or the lowest note and deepest groan — of bleak, stark utilitarian- ism. Nowhere was there hint or sign of grace and ornament. Bare deal-plank floor, bare white- washed walls, plank and iron truckle beds, rough plank and iron trestle tables, rough plank and iron TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 163 benches, rough plank and iron boxes clamped to bedsteads, all bore the same uniform impression of useful ugliness, ugly utility. The apologist in search of a solitary encomium might have called it clean — save around the hideous closed stove where muddy boots, coal-dust, pipe-dottels, and the bitter-end of five-a-penny " gaspers " ^ rebuked his rashness. A less inviting, less inspiring, less home-like room for human habitation could scarce be found outside a jail. Perhaps this was the less inappropriate in that a jail it was, to a small party of its occupants — born and bred to better things. The eye was grateful even for the note of cheer supplied by the red cylindrical valise on the shelf above each cot, and by the occasional scarlet tunic and stable-jacket. But for these it had been, to the educated eye, an even more grim, grey, depressing, beauty -and -joy-forsaken place than it was. . . . Dam (alias Trooper D. Matthewson) placed the gleaming helmet upon his callous straw-stuffed pillow, carefully rubbed the place where his hand had last touched it, and then took from a peg his scarlet tunic with its white collar, shoulder-straps and facings. Having satisfied himself that to burnish further its glittering buttons would be to gild refined gold, he commenced a vigorous brushing — for it was now his high ambition to *'get the stick " — in other words to be dismissed from guard- duty as reward for being the best-turned-out man on parade. ... As he reached up to his shelf for 1 Cigarettes. i64 SNAKE AND SWORD his gauntlets and pipe-clay box, Trooper Phelim O'Shaughnessy swaggered over with much jingle of spur and playfully smote him, netherly, with his cutting whip. "What-ho, me bhoy," he roared, *'and how's me natty Matty — the natest foightin' man in E Troop, which is say in' in all the Dhraghoons, which is say in' in all the Arrmy ! How's Matty ? " '* Extant," replied Dam. *' How's Shocky, the biggest liar in the same ? " As he extended his hand it was noticeable that it was much smaller than the hand of the smaller man to whom it was offered. ** Ye' 11 have to plug and desthroy the schamin' divvle that strook poor Patsy Flannigan, Matty," said the Irishman. ** Ye must bate the sowl out of the baste before we go to furrin' parts. Loife is uncertain an' ye moight never come back to do ut, which the Holy Saints forbid — an' the Hussars troiumphin' upon our prosprit coorpses. For the banner an' glory av all Dhraghoons, of the Ould Seconds, and of me pore bed-ridden frind, Patsy Flannigan, ye must go an' plug the wicked scutt, Matty darlint." *' It was Flannigan's fault," replied Dam, daubing pipe-clay on the huge cuff of a gauntlet which he had drawn on to a weird-looking wooden hand, sacred to the purposes of glove-drying. " He got beastly drunk and insulted a better man than himself by insulting his Corps — or trying to. He called a silly lie after a total stranger and got what he deserved. He shouldn't seek sorrow if he TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 165 doesn't want to find it, and he shouldn't drink liquor he can't carry." '' And the Young Jock beat Patsy when drunk, did he?" murmured O'Shaughnessy, in tones of awed wonder. " I riverince the man, for there's few can beat him sober. Knocked Patsy into hospital an' him foightin' dhrunk ! Faith, he must be another Oirish gintleman himself, indade." ** He's a Scotchman and was middle-weight champion of India last year," rejoined Dam, and moistened his block of pipe-clay again in the most obvious, if least genteel, way. ''Annyhow he's a mere Hussar and must be rimonsthrated wid for darin' to assault and batther a Dhraghoon — an' him dhrunk, poor bhoy. Say the wurrud, Matty. We'll lay for the spalpeen, the whole of E Troop, at the Ring Bells, an' whin he shwaggers in like he was a Dhraghoon an' a sodger, ye'll up an' say * Threes about ' an' act accordin' subsequint, an' learn the baste not to desthroy an' insult his betthers of the Ould Second. Thread on the tail of his coat, Matty. ..." " If I had anything to do with it at all I'd tread on Flannigan's coat, and you can tell him so, for disgracing the Corps. . . . Take off your jacket and help with my boots, Shocky. I'm for Guard." " Oi'd clane the boots of no man that ud demane himself to ax it," was the haughty reply of the dis- appointed warrior. ** Not for less than a quart at laste," he amended. 166 SNAKE AND SWORD " A quart it is," answered Dam, and O'Shaugh- nessy speedily divested himself of his stable-jacket, incidentally revealing the fact that he had pawned his shirt. " You have got your teeth ready, then ? " observed Dam, noting the underlying bareness — and thereby alluded to O'Shaughnessy's habit of pawning his false teeth after medical inspection and redeeming them in time for the next, at the cost of his underclothing — itself redeemed in turn by means of the teeth. Having been compelled to provide himself with a ** plate" he invariably re- moved the detested contrivance and placed it beside him when sitting down to meals (on those rare oc- casions when he and not his " uncle " was the arbiter of its destinies). . . . A young and important Lance-Corporal, a shock- ing tyrant and bully, strode into the room, his sword clanking. O'Shaughnessy arose and respect- fully drew him aside, offering him a " gasper ". They were joined by a lean hawk-faced individual answer- ing to the name of Fish, who said he had been in the American navy until buried alive at sea for smiling within sight of the quarter-deck. '* Yep," he was heard to say to some state- ment of O'Shaughnessy's. "We'll hatch a five- bunch frame-up to put the eternal kibosh on the tuberous spotty - souled skunklet. Some. We'll make him wise to whether a tippy, chew - the - mop, bandy - legged, moke - monkey can come square - pushing, and with his legs TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 167 out, down this side-walk, before we ante out. Some." "Ah, Yus," agreed the Lance-Corporal. ** Damned if I wouldn't chawnce me arm^ and go fer *im meself before we leave — on'y I'm ex- pectin' furver permotion afore long. But fer that I'd take it up meself" — and he glanced at Dam. " Ketch the little swine at it," remarked Trooper Herbert Hawker, as loudly as he dared, to his **towny," Trooper Henry Bone. '''Chawnst 'is arm ! ' It's 'is bloomin' life 'e'd chawnce if that Young Jock got settin' abaht 'im. Not 'arf!" and the exotic of the Ratcliffe Highway added most luridly expressed improprieties anent the origins of the Lance-Corporal, his erstwhile enemy and, now, superior officer, in addition. " That's enough," said Dam shortly. " Yep. Quit those low-browed sounds, gutter- mut, or I'll get mad all over," agreed Fish, whose marvellous vocabulary included no foul words. There was no need for them. '* Hi halso was abaht ter request you not to talk beastial, Mr. 'Erbert 'Awker," chimed in Trooper '* Henery " Bone, anxious to be on the side of the saints. ** Oo'd taike you to be the Missin' Hair of a noble 'ouse when you do such — * Missin' Hair! ' Missin Link more like," he added with spurious indignation. The allusion was to the oft-expressed belief of ^ When a non-commissioned officer does anything to risk losing his stripes he says he " chances his arm ". i68 SNAKE AND SWORD Trooper Herbert Hawker, a belief that became a certainty and subject for bloodshed and battle after the third quart or so, that there was a mystery about his birth. There was, according to his reputed papa. . . . The plotters plotted, and Dam completed the burnishing of his arms, spurs, buckles, and other glittering metal impedimenta (the quantity of which earned the Corps its barrack -room soubriquet of ''the Polish Its"), finished the flicking of spots of pipe-clay from his uniform, and dressed for Guard. Being ready some time before he had to parade, he sat musing on his truckle-bed. What a life! What associates (outside the tiny band of gentlemen-rankers). What cruel awful publicity of existence — that was the worst of all. Oh, for a private room and a private coat, and a meal in solitude ! Some place of one's own, where one could express one's own individuality in the choice and arrangement of property, and impress it upon one's environment. One could not even think in private here. And he was called a private soldier ! A grim joke indeed, when the crying need of one's soul was a little privacy. A private soldier ! Well — and what of the theory of Compensations, that all men get the same sum-total of good and bad, that position is really immaterial to happiness ? What of the theory that more honour means also more responsibility and worry, that more pay also TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 169 means more expenses and a more difficult position, that more seniority also means less youth and joy — that Fate only robs Peter to pay Paul, and, when bestowing a blessing with one hand, invari- ably bestows a curse with the other ? Too thin. Excellent philosophy for the butterfly upon the road, preaching contentment to the toad, who, beneath the harrow, knows exactly where each tooth-point goes. Let the butterfly come and try it. What a life ! Not so bad at first, perhaps, for a stout-hearted, hefty sportsman, during recruit days when every- thing is novel, there is something to learn, time is fully occupied, and one is too busy to think, too busy evading strange pit-falls, and the just or (more often) unjust wrath of the Room Corporal, the Squadron Orderly Sergeant, the Rough- Riding Corporal, the Squadron Sergeant-Major, the Rough- Riding Sergeant- Major, the Regimental Sergeant- Major, the Riding-Master. But when, to the passed "dismissed soldier," everything is familiar and easy, weary, flat, stale and unprofitable? The (to one gently nurtured) ghastly food, com- panions, environment, monotony — the ghastly ambitions ! Fancy an educated gentleman's ambitions and horizon narrowed to a good-conduct " ring," a stripe in the far future (and to be a Lance-Corporal 170 SNAKE AND SWORD with far more duty and no more pay, in the hope of becoming a Corporal — that comfortable rank with the same duty and much more pay, and little of the costly gold-lace to mount, and heavy ex- penses to assume that, while putting the gilt on, takes it off, the position of Sergeant) ; and, for the present, to '' keep off the peg," not to be " for it," to " get the stick," for smartest turn-out, to avoid the Red-Caps,^ to achieve an early place in the scrimmage at the corn-bin and to get the correct amount of two-hundred pounds in the corn-sack when drawing forage and corn ; to placate Troop Sergeants, the Troop Sergeant-Major and Squad- ron Sergeant- Major ; to have a suit of mufti at some safe place outside and to escape from the branding searing scarlet occasionally ; possibly even the terrible ambition to become an Officer's servant so as to have a suit of mufti as a right, and a chance of becoming Mess-Sergeant and then Quarter- Master, and perhaps of getting an Honor- ary Commission without doing a single parade cj* guard after leaving the troop ! . . . ^ - What a life for a man of breeding and refine- ment ! . . . Fancy having to remember the sacred and immeasurable superiority of a foul-mouthed Lance-Corporal who might well have been your own stable-boy, a being who can show you a deeper depth of hell in Hell, wreak his dislike of you in unfair ** fatigues," and keep you at the detested job of coal-drawing on Wednesdays ; who can achieve ^ Permanent Military Police. TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 171 a "canter past the beak " ^ for you on a trumped- up charge and land you in the " digger," ^ who can bring it home to you in a thousand ways that you are indeed the toad beneath the harrow. Fancy having to remember, night and day, that a Sergeant, who can perhaps just spell and cypher, is a monarch to be approached in respectful spirit ; that the Regimental Sergeant- Major, perhaps coarse, rough, and ignorant, is an emperor to be approached with fear and trembling ; that a Subaltern, perhaps at school with you, is a god not to be approached at all. Fancy looking forward to being *' branded with a blasted worsted spur," and, as a Rough- Riding Corporal, receiving a forfeit tip from each young officer who knocks off his cap with his lance in Riding-School. . . . Well ! One takes the rough with the smooth — but perceives with great clearness that the (very) rough predominates, and that one does not recom- mend a gentleman to enlist, save when a Distin- guished Relative with Influence has an early Commission ready in his pocket for him. Lacking the Relative, the gently-nurtured man, whether he win to a Commission eventually or not, can only do one thing more rash than enlist in the British Army, and that is enlist in the French Foreign Legion. Discipline for soul and body ? The finest thing ^ Summons before the Commanding Officer in Orderly Room. ^ Guard- room. 172 SNAKE AND SWORD in all the world — in reason. But the discipline of the tram-horse, of the blinded bullock at the wheel, of the well-camel, of the galley-slave — meticulous, puerile, unending, unchanging, impossible . . . ? Necessary perhaps, once upon a time — but hard on the man of brains, sensibility, heart, and individuality. Soul and body ? Deadly for the soul — and fairly dangerous for the body in the Cavalry Regiment whose riding-master prefers the abominable stripped- saddle training to the bare-backed. . . . Dam yawned and looked at the tin clock on the shelf above the cot of the Room Corporal. Half an hour yet. . . . Did time drag more heavily anywhere in the world ? . . . His mind roamed back over his brief, age-long life in the Queen's Greys and passed it in review. The interview with the Doctor, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, the Adjutant, the Colonel — the Oath on the Bible before that dread Superman. . . . How well he remembered his brief exordium — **Obey your Superiors blindly ; serve your Queen, Country, and Regiment to the best of your ability ; keep clean, don't drink, fear God, and — most im- portant of all — take care of your horse. Take care of your horse, d'ye hear?" Also the drawled remark of the Adjutant after- wards, **Ah — what — ah — University.?" — his own prompt reply of " Whitechapel, sir," and the Ad- jutant's approving "Exactly. . . . You'll get on here by good conduct, good riding, and good drill — not by — ah — good accent or anything else." TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 173 How well he remembered the strange depolarized feeling consequent upon realizing that his whole worldly possessions consisted in three *' grey-back" shirts, two pairs of cotton pants, two pairs of woollen socks, a towel ; a hold-all containing razor, ^ shaving-brush, spoon, knife and fork, and a button- stick ; a cylindrical valise with hair-brush, clothes- brush, brass-brush, and boot-brushes ; a whip, burnisher, and dandy-brush (all three, for some reason, to be paid for as part of a ** free " kit) ; jack- boots and jack-spurs, wellington-boots and swan- neck box-spurs, ammunition boots ; a tin of blacking and another of plate powder ; blue, white-striped riding-breeches, blue, white-striped overalls, drill- suit of blue serge, scarlet tunic, scarlet stable-jacket, scarlet drill *' frock," a pair of trousers of lamentable cut " authorized for grooming," brass helmet with black horse-hair plume, blue pill-box cap with white stripe and button, gauntlets and gloves, sword-belt and pouch-belt, a carbine and a sword. Also of a daily income of one loaf, butter, tea, and a pound of meat (often uneatable), and the sum of one shilling and twopence subject to a deduction of threepence a day ** mess-fund," fourpence a month for delft, and divers others for library, washing, hair-cutting, barrack-damages, etc. Yes, it had given one a strange feeling of naked- ness, and yet of a freedom from the tyranny of things, to find oneself so meagrely and yet so suffi- ciently endowed. Then, the strange, lost, homeless feeling that 174 SNAKE AND SWORD Home is nothing but a cot and a box in a big bare barrack-room, that the whole of God's wide Universe contains no private and enclosed spot that is one's own peculiar place wherein to be alone — at first a truly terrible feeling. How one envied the Rough-Riding Sergeant- Major his Staff Quarters — without going so far as to envy the great Riding-Master his real separate and detached house ! No privacy — and a scarlet coat that encarnadined the world and made its wearer feel, as he so often thought, like a live coal glowing bright in Hell. Surely the greatest of all an officer's privileges was his right of mufti, his daily escape from the burning cloth. "Why does not the British officer wear his uniform always ? " writes the perennial gratuitous ass to the Press, periodically in the Silly Season. . . . Dam could tell him. Memories . . . ! Being jerked violently from uneasy slumber and broken, vivid dreams at 5 a.m., by the thunderous banging of the Troop Sergeant's whip on the table, and his raucous roar of ** Tumble out, you lazy swine, before you get sunstroke ! Rise and shine ! Rise and shine, you tripe-hounds ! " . . . Broken dreams on a smelly, straw-stuffed pillow and lumpy straw-stuffed pallet, dreams of *' Circle and cha-a-a- a-a-a-a-nge^' " On the Fore-hand, Right About,'' *' Right Pass, Shoulder Out,'' " Serpentine," " Order Lance" '' Trail Lance" *' Right Front Thrust " TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 175 (for the front rank of the Queen's Greys carry lances) ; dreams of riding wild mad horses to un- fathomable precipices and at unsurmountable bar- riers. . . . Memories . . . ! His first experience of "mucking out" stables at five-thirty on a chilly morning — doing horrible work, horribly clad, feeling horribly sick. Wheeling away intentionally and maliciously over-piled barrows to the muck-pits, upsetting them, and being cursed. Being set to water a notoriously wild and vicious horse, and being pulled about like a little dog at the end of the chain, burning into frozen fingers. Not much of the glamour and glow and glory left! Better were the interesting and amusing experi- ences of the Riding-School where his trained and perfected hands and seat gave him a tremendous advantage, an early dismissal, and some ameliora- tion of the roughness of one of the very roughest experiences in a very rough life. Even he, though, knew what it was to have serge breeches sticking to abraided bleeding knees, to grip a stripped saddle with twin suppurating sores, and to burrow face-first in filthy tan via the back of a stripped-saddled buck-jumper. How he had pitied some of the other recruits, making their first acquaintance with the Trooper's ** long-faced chum " under the auspices of a pitiless, bitter-tongued Rough-Riding Sergeant- Major ! Rough/ What a character the fellow was ! Never an oath, never 176 SNAKE AND SWORD a foul word, but what a vocabulary and gift of in- vective, sarcasm and cruel stinging reproof! A well-educated man if not a gentleman. '' Don't dis- mount again. Muggins — or is it Juggins? — without permission" when some poor fellow comes on his head as his horse (bare of saddle and bridle) refuses at a jump. *' Get up (and sit back) you — you — hen, you pier rot, you Aard Vark, you after-thought, you refined entertainer, you pimple, you performing water-rat, you mistake, you byle, you drip, you worm-powder. . . . What ? You think your leg's broken ? Well — youve got another, haven't you ? Get up and break that. Keep your neck till you get a stripped saddle and no reins. . . . Don't embrace the horse like that, you pawn-shop, I can hear it blushing. . . . Send for the key and get inside it. . . . Keep those fine feet forward. Keep th^ra forward (and sit back). Juggins or Muggins, or else take them into the Infantry — what they were meant for by the look of them. Now then — over you go without falling if I have to keep you here all night. . . . Look at that'' (as the poor fellow is thrown across the jump by the cunning brute that knows its rider has neither whip, spurs, saddle nor reins). ''What? The horse refuse? One of my horses refuse ? If the man II jump, the horse II jump. (All of you repeat that after me and don't forget it.) No. It's the man refuses, not the poor horse. Don't you know the ancient proverb ' Faint heart ne'er took fair jump ' . . . ? What's the good of coming here if your heart's the size of TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 177 your eye-ball instead of being the size of your fist ? Refuse ? Put him over it, man. Put him over — SIT BACK and lift him, dSiAput him over. I'll give you a thousand pounds if he refuses me. ..." Then the day when poor bullied, baited, nervous Muggins had reached his limit and come to the end of his tether — or thought he had. Bumped, banged, bucketed, thrown, sore from head to foot, raw-kneed, laughed at, lashed by the Rough- Riding Sergeant- Major's cruel tongue, blind and sick with dust and pain and rage, he had at last turned his horse inward from his place in the ride to the centre of the School, and dismounted. How quaintly the tyrant's jaw had dropped in sheer astonishment, and how his face had purpled with rage when he realized that his eyes had not deceived him and that the worm had literally turned — without orders. Indian, African, and Egyptian service, disappoint- ment, and a bad wife had left Rough- Riding Ser- geant-Major Blount with a dangerous temper. Poor silly Muggins. He had been Juggins in- deed on that occasion, and, as the '* ride " halted of its own accord in awed amazement, Dam had longed to tell him so and beg him to return to his place ere worse befell. . . . '' I've 'ad enough, you bull-'eaded brute," shouted poor Muggins, leaving his horse and advancing menacingly upon his (incalculably) superior officer, "an fer two damns I'd break yer b jaw, I would. You ..." 12 178 SNAKE AND SWORD Even as the Rough- Riding Corporal and two other men were dragging the struggling, raving recruit to the door, en route for the Guard-room, entered the great remote, dread Riding-M aster him- self. ** What's this?" inquired Hon. Captain Style, Riding-Master of the Queen's Greys, strict, kind- hearted martinet. Salute, and explanations from the Rough- Riding Sergeant-Major. Torrent of accusation and incoherent complaint and threat from the baited Muggins. ** Mount that horse," says the Riding-Master. ** I'll go to Clink first," gasps Muggins. " I'll go to 'Ell first." ** No. Afterwards^' replies the Riding-Master and sends the Rough- Riding Corporal for the back- board — dread instrument of equestrian persuasion. Muggins is forcibly mounted, put in the lunging ring and sent round and round till he throws himself off at full gallop and lies crying and sobbing like a child — utterly broken. Riding-Master smiles, allows Muggins to grow calmer, accepts his apologies and promises, shows him he has had his Hell after, as promised, and that it is a better punishment than one that leaves him with a serious ** crime " entry on his Defaulter's Sheet for life. . . . That vile and damning sheet that records the youthful peccadilloes and keeps it a life-long punishment after its own severe punish- ment. . . . TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 179 To the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major he quietly remarks : " No good non-com. makes crimes . . . and don't forget that the day of riding-school bru- tality is passing. You can carry a man further than you can kick him." And the interrupted lesson continues. ** Sit back and you can't come off. Nobody falls off backwards. " . . . Poor *' Old Sit- Back " ! (as he was called from his constant cry) — after giving that order and guarantee daily for countless days — was killed in the riding-school by coming off backwards from the stripped saddle of a rearing horse — (which promptly fell upon him and crushed his chest) — that had never reared before and would not have reared then, it was said, but for the mysterious introduction, under its saddle, of a remarkably '* foreign " body. Memories . . .! How certain old ** Sit-Back " had been that Dam was a worthless ** back-to-the-Army-again " when he found him a finished horseman, an extraordinarily expert swordsman, and a master of the lance. *' You aren't old enough for a * time-expired,' " he mused, ** nor for a cashiered officer. One of the professional * enlist-desert-and-sell-me-kit,' I sup- pose. Anyhow you'll do time for one of the three if / don't approve of ye . . . . You've been in the Cavalry before. Lancer regiment, too. Don't tell me lies . . . but see to it that I'm satisfied with your conduct. Gentlemen-rankers are better in their proper place — Jaill' ... i8o SNAKE AND SWORD None the less it had given Dam a thrill of pride when, on being dismissed recruit-drills and drafted from the reserve troop to a squadron, the Adjutant had posted him to E Troop, wherein were con- gregated the seven other undoubted gentlemen- rankers of the Queen's Greys (one of whom would one day become a peer of the realm and, meantime, followed what he called " the only profession in the world " in discomfort for a space, the while his Commission ripened). To this small band of ** rankers" the accession of the finest boxer, swordsman, and horseman in the corps, was invaluable, and helped them notably in their endeavour to show that there are excep- tions to all rules, and that a gentleman can make a first-class trooper. At least so ** Peerson " had said, and Dam had been made almost happy for a day. Memories . . . ! His first walk abroad from barracks, clad in the ** walking-out" finery of shell-jacket and overalls, with the jingle of spurs and effort at the true Cavalry swagger, or rather the first attempt at a walk abroad, for the expedition had ended disastrously ere well begun. Unable to shake off his admirer. Trooper Herbert Hawker, Dam had just passed the Main Guard and main gates in the company of Herbert, and the two recruits had encountered the Adjutant and saluted with the utmost smartness and respect. . . . *' What the Purple Hell's that thing ? " had drawled TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN i8i the Adjutant thereupon — pointing his whip at Trooper Henry Hawker, whose trap-like mouth incontinent fell open with astonishment. ** It's got up in an imitation of the uniform of the Queen's Greys, I do believe ! ... It's not a rag doll either. . . . It's a God-forsaken undertaker's mute in a red and black shroud with a cake-tin at the back of its turnip head and a pair of chemises on its ugly hands Sergeant of the Guard ! . . . Here!" ** Sir ? " and a salute of incredible precision from the Sergeant of the Guard. " What the name of the Devil's old Aunt is this thing ? What are you on Guard for ? To write hymns and scare crows — or to allow decayed char- women to stroll out of barracks in a dem parody of your uniform 1 Look at her ! Could turn round in the jacket without taking it off. Room for both legs in one of the overalls. Cap on his beastly neck. Gloves like a pair of . . . Get inside you ! . . . Take the thing in with a pair of tongs and bury it where it won't contaminate the dung-pits. Burn it ! Shoot it ! Drown it ! D'ye hear ? . . . And then I'll put you under arrest for letting it pass. ..." It had been a wondrously deflated and chap- fallen Herbert that had slunk back to the room of the reserve troop, and perhaps his reputation as a mighty bruiser had never stood him in so good stead as when it transpired that an Order had been promulgated that no recruit should leave barracks during the first three months of his service, and i82 SNAKE AND SWORD that the names of all such embryos should be posted in the Main Guard for the information of the Sergeant. . . . Memories . . . ! His first march behind the Band to Church. . . . The first Review and March Past. . . . His first introduction to bread-and-lard. . . . His wicked carelessness in forgetting — or attempt- ing to disregard — the law of the drinking-troughs. " So long as one horse has his head down no horse is to go." There had been over a score drinking and he had moved off while one dipsomaniac was having a last suck. His criminal carelessness in not removing his sword and leaving it in the Guard-room, when going on sentry after guard-mounting — ** getting the good Sergeant into trouble, too, and making it appear that he had been equally criminally careless ". The desperate quarrel between Hawker and Bone as to whether the loth Hussars were called the ** Shiny Tenth " because of their general material and spiritual brilliance, or the "Chainy Tenth" because their Officers wore pouch-belts of gold chain-mail. . . . The similar one between Buttle and Smith as to the reason of a brother regiment being known as "The Virgin Mary's Body- guard," and their reluctant acceptance of Dam's dictum that they were both wrong, it having been earned by them in the service of a certain Maria Theresa, a lady unknown to Messrs. Buttle and Smith. . . . Dam had found himself develop- TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 183 ing into a positive bully in his determination to prevent senseless quarrelling, senseless misconduct, senseless humourless foulness, senseless humourless blasphemy, and all that unnecessary, avoidable ugliness that so richly augmented the unavoid- able. . . . Memories . . . ! Sitting throughout compulsory church, cursing and mutinous of heart, because after spending several hours of the Day of Rest in burnishing and pipe-claying, blacking and shining (** Sunday spit an' polish "), he was under orders for sharp punish- ment — because at the last moment his tunic had been fouled by a passing pigeon ! When would the Authorities realize that soldiers are still men, still Englishmen (even if they have, by becoming soldiers, lost their birthright of appeal to the Law of the Land, though not their amenability to its authority), and cease to make the Blessed Sabbath a curse, the worst day of the week, and to herd angry, resentful soldiers into church to blaspheme with politely pious faces? Oh, British, British, Pharisees and Humbugs — make Sunday a curse, and drive the soldier into church to do his cursing — make it the chief day of dress "crimes" and punishments, as well as the busiest day, and force the soldier into church to Return Thanks. . . . The only man in the world flung into church as though into jail for punishment ! Shout it in the Soldier's ear, *' You are not a Man, you are a Slave'' on Sundays also, on Sundays louder than usual. . . . 1 84 SNAKE AND SWORD And when he has spent his Sunday morning in extra hard labour, in suffering the indignity of being compulsorily marched to church, and very frequently of having been punished because it is a good day on which a Sergeant may decide that he is not sufficiently cleanly shaved or his boots of minor effulgence — then let him sit and watch his hot Sunday dinner grow stone cold before the Colonel stalks through the room, asks a perfunctory question, and he is free to fall to. " O Day of Rest and Gladness, O Day of Joy most Bright. . . ." Yah! A pity some of the energy that went to making the annual 20,000 military *' criminals" out of honest, law-abiding, well-intending men could not go to harassing the Canteen instead of the soldier (whom the Canteen swindles right and left, and whence he gets salt- watery beer, and an ** ounce " of tobacco that will go straight into his pipe in one " fill" — no need to wrap it up, thank you) and discovering how handsome fortunes, as well as substantial ** illegal gratifications," are made out of his much-stoppaged one-and-tuppence-a-week. Did the Authorities really yearn to ^^z^courage enlistment and to ^^courage desertion and ** crime " ? When would they realize that making ** crimes," and manufacturing " criminals " from honest men, is not discipline, is not making soldiers, is not im- proving the Army — is not common ordinary sanity TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 185 and sense ? When would they break their dull, unimaginative, hide-bound — no, tape-bound — souls from the ideas that prevailed before (and murdered) the Crimean Army. . . . The Army is not now the sweepings of the jails, and more in need of the wild-beast tamer than of the kind firm teacher, as once it was. How long will they continue to sup- pose that you make a fine fighting-man, and a self- reliant, intelligent soldier, by treating him as a depraved child, as a rightless slave, as a mindless automaton, and by encouraging the public (whom he protects) to regard him as a low criminal ruffian to be classed with the broad-arrowed convict, and to be excluded from places where any loafing rotten lout may go. . . . When would a lawyer-ridden Army Council realize that there is a trifle of signi- ficance in the fact that there are four times as many soldier suicides as there are civilian, and that the finest advertisement for the dwindling Army is the soldier. To think that sober men should, with one hand spend vast sums in lying advertisements for the Army, and with the other maintain a system that makes the soldier on furlough reply to the question "Shall I enlist, mate?" with the words *' Not while you got a razor to cut yer throat ". . . . Ah, well, common sense would reach even the Army some day, and the soldier be treated and disciplined as a man and a citizen — and perhaps, when it did, and the soldier gave a better description of his life, the other citizen, the smug knave who despises him while he shelters behind him, will 1 86 SNAKE AND SWORD become less averse from having his own round shoulders straightened, his back flattened and his muscles developed as he takes his part in the first fundamental elementary duty of a citizen — prepara- tion for the defence of hearth and home. . . . Lucille ! Well . . . Thank God she could not see him and know his life. If she had any kindness left for him she would suffer to watch him eating well-nigh uneatable food, grooming a horse, sweep- ing a stable, polishing trestle-legs with blacklead, scrubbing floors, sleeping on damp straw, carrying coals, doing scullion- work for uneducated roughs, being brow-beaten, bullied, and cursed by them in tight-lipped silence — not that these things troubled him personally — the less idle leisure for thought the better, and no real man minds physical hard- ship — there is no indignity in labour per se any more than there is dignity. . . . "'Ere, Maffewson, you bone-idle, moonin' waster," bawled the raucous voice of Lance-Cor- poral Prag, and Dam's soaring spirit fell to earth. The first officer to whom Trooper Matthewson gave his smart respectful salute as he stood on sen try -duty was the Major, the Second-in-Command of the Queen's Greys, newly rejoined from furlough, — a belted Earl, famous for his sporting habit of riding always and everywhere without a saddle — who, as a merry subaltern, had been Lieutenant Lord Ochterlonie and Adjutant of the Queen's Greys at Bimariabad in India. There, he had. TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN 187 almost daily, taken upon his knee, shoulder, saddle, or dog-cart, the chubby son of his polo and pig- sticking exemplar. Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne. The sentry had a dim idea that he had seen the Major somewhere before. CHAPTER IX. A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK AND LUCILLE BEHAVES IN AN UN-SMELLIEAN MANNER. Finding himself free for the afternoon, and the proud possessor of several shillings, ''Trooper Matthewson" decided to walk to Folkestone, at- tend an attractively advertised concert on the pier, and then indulge in an absolutely private meal in some small tea-room or confectioner's shop. Arrayed in scarlet shell-jacket, white-striped over- alls, and pill-box cap, he started forth, carrying himself as though exceeding proud to be what he was, and wondering whether a swim in the sea, which should end somewhere between ShornclifFe and Dieppe (and end his troubles too), would not be a better pastime. Arrived at the Folkestone pier. Dam approached the ticket office at the entrance and tendered his shilling to the oily-curled, curly-nosed young Jew who sat at the receipt of custom. ** Clear out o' this," said Levi Solomonson. ** I want a ticket for the concert," said Dam, not understanding. *' Would you like a row o' stalls to sprawl your x88 A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 189 dirty carcase on ? . . . Outside, I tell yer, Tommy Atkins, this ain't a music-'all nor yet a pub. Soldiers not * alf-price to cheap seats ' nor yet full- price — nor yet for ten pound a time. Out yer go, lobster." The powerful hand of Damocles de Warrenne approached the window and, for a second, Mr. Levi Solomonson was in danger — but only for a second. Dam was being well-broken-in, and quickly realized that he was no longer a free British citizen entitled to the rights of such so long as he behaved as a citizen should, but a mere horrible defender of those of his countrymen, who were averse from the toils and possible dangers of self-defence. It was brought home to him, then and there, with some clearness, that the noble Britons who (perhaps) *' never never will be slaves," have a fine and high contempt for those whose life-work is to save them from that distressing position ; that the noble Briton, while stoutly (and truly Britishly) refusing to hear of universal service and the doing by each man of his first duty to the State, is informed with a bitter loathing of those who, for wretched hire and under wretched conditions, perform those duties for him. Dam did not mind, though he did not en- joy, doing housemaid's work in the barrack-room, scrubbing floors, blackleading iron table-legs and grates, sweeping, dusting, and certain other more unpleasant menial tasks ; he did not mind, though he did not like, **mucking-out " stables and sca- venging ; he could take at their proper value the I90 SNAKE AND SWORD insults of ignorant boors set in authority over him ; he could stand, if not enjoy, the hardships of the soldier's life — but he did not see why his doing his duty in that particular sphere — an arduous, difficult, and frequently dangerous sphere — should earn him the united insult of the united public ! Why should an educated and cultured man, a gentleman in point of fact, be absolutely prohibited from hearing a " classical " concert because he wore the Queen's uniform and did that most important and necessary work which the noble Briton is too slack-baked, too hypocritically genteel, too degenerate, to perform, each man for himself? In a somewhat bitter frame of mind the unfor- tunate young man strolled along the Leas and seated himself on a public bench, honestly wonder- ing as he did so, whether he were sufficiently a member of the great and glorious public to have a right to do it while wearing the disgraceful and disgracing garb of a Trooper of the Queen. . . . Members of that great and glorious public passed him by in rapid succession. Narrow-chested youths of all classes, and all crying aloud in slack-lipped silence for the drill-sergeant to teach them how to stand and walk ; for the gymnasium-instructor to make them, what they would never be, men ; for some one to give them an aim and an ideal beyond cigarettes, socks, and giggling **gels " or ** gals " or *'garls" or " gyurls " or *'gurrls" according to their social sphere. Vast-stomached middle-aged men of all classes, and all crying aloud in fat-lipped A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 191 silence of indulgence, physical sloth, physical decay before physical prime should have been reached, of mental, moral, and physical decadence from the great Past incredible, and who would one and all, if asked, congratulate themselves on living in these glorious modern times of 'igh civilization and not in the dark, ignorant days of old. (Decidedly a bitter young man, this.) Place Mister Albert Pringle, Insurance Agent ; Mister Peter Snagget, Grocer ; Mister Alphonso Pumper, Rate Collector ; Mister Bill 'Iggins, Publican ; Mister Walter Weed, Clerk ; Mister Jeremiah Ramsmouth, Local Preacher ; Mr. 'Ookey Snagg, Loafer ; Mister William Guppy, Potman — place them beside Hybrias, Goat-herd ; Damon, Shepherd ; Phydias, Writer ; Nicarchus, Plough- man ; Balbus, Bricklayer ; Glaucus, Potter ; Caius, Carter ; Marcus, Weaver ; ^Eneas, Bronze- worker ; Antonius, Corn-seller ; Canidius, Charioteer — and then talk of the glorious modern times of high civilization and the dark ignorant days of old ! . . . And as he sat musing thus foolishly and pessi- mistically, who should loom upon his horizon but — of all people in the world — the Haddock, the fishy, flabby, stale, unprofitable Haddock ! Most cer- tainly Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like this. A beautiful confection of pearly-grey, pearl-buttoned flannel draped his droopy form, a pearly -grey silk tie, pearl-pinned, encircled his lofty collar, pearly-grey silk socks spanned the divorcing gap 'twixt beautiful grey kid shoes and correctest 192 SNAKE AND SWORD trousers, a pearly-grey silk handkerchief peeped knowingly from the cuff of his pearly-grey silk shirt by his pearly -grey kid glove, and his little cane was of grey lacquer, and of pearl handle. One could almost have sworn that a pearl-grey smile adorned the scarce-shut mouth of the beautiful modern pro- duct of education and civilization, to carry on the so well-devised colour-scheme to the pearly-grey grey-ribboned soft hat. The Haddock's mind wandered not in empty places, but wrestled sternly with the problem — would it not have been better, after all, perhaps, to have worn the pearly-grey spats (with the pearl buttons) instead of relying on the pearly-grey socks alone? When one sat down and modestly pro- truded an elegant foot as one crossed one's legs and gently drew up one's trouser (lest a baggy knee bring black shame), one could display both — the spat itself, and, above it, the sock. Of course ! To the passer-by, awe-inspired, admiring, stimu- lated, would then have been administered the double shock and edification. While gratefully ob- serving the so-harmonizing grey spat and grey shoe he would have noted the Ossa of grey silk sock piled upon that Pelion of ultra -fashionable foot- joy ! Yes. He had acted hastily and had erred and strayed from the Perfect Way — and a cloud, at first no bigger than a continent or two, arose and darkened his mental sky. But what of the cloud that settled upon him, black as that of the night's Plutonian shore, a cloud A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 193 much bigger than the Universe, when a beastly, awful, ghastly, common private soldier arose from a seat — a common seat for which you do not pay a penny and show your selectitude — arose, I say, from a beastly common seat and seized him by the ARM and remarked in horrible, affected, mocking tones : — "And how's the charming little Haddock, the fourpenny, common breakfast Haddock ? " Yes, in full sight of the Leas of Folkestone, and the nobility, gentry, shopmen, nurse-girls, suburban yachtsmen, nuts, noisettes, bath-chairmen and all the world of rank and fashion, a common soldier took the pearly-grey arm of the Haddon Berners as he took the air and walked abroad to give the public a treat. And proved to be his shameful, shameless, disgraced, disgraceful, cowardly relative, Damocles de Warrenne ! The Haddock reeled, but did not fall. On catching sight of the beautiful young man. Dam's first impulse was to spring up and flee, his second to complete the work of Mr. Levi Solomon- son of the pier concert and see for himself, once again, how he was regarded by the eyes of all right- minded and respectable members of society, includ- ing those of a kinsman with whom he had grown "P- . . . Yes, in his bitterness of soul, and foolish youthful revolt against Fate, he was attracted by the idea of claiming acquaintance with the superb Haddock in his triumphant progress, take him by the arm, and 13 194 SNAKE AND SWORD solemnly march him the whole length of the Leas ! He would, by Jove ! He did. Confronting the resplendent languid loafer, he silkily observed, as he placed his cutting-whip beneath his left arm and extended his white cotton- gloved right hand : — " And how's the charming little Haddock, the fourpenny, common breakfast Haddock ? " Had it been Ormonde Delorme, any friend of Monksmead days, any school or Sandhurst ac- quaintance, had it been any other relative, had it been Lucille, he would have fled for his life, he would have seen his hand paralysed ere he would have extended it, he would have been struck dumb rather than speak, he would have died before he would have inflicted upon them the indignity of being seen in the company of a common soldier. But the Haddock ! 'twould do the Haddock a world of good ; the Haddock who had mocked him as he fought for sanity and life on the lawn at Monksmead — the Haddock who '* made love" to Lucille. The Haddock affected not to see the hand. *' I — er — don't — ah — know you, surely, do I ? " he managed to mumble as he backed away and turned to escape. " Probably not, dear Haddock," replied the em- bittered desperate Dam, *' but you're going to. We're going for a walk together." "Are you — ah — dwunk, fellow? Do you sup- pose I walk with — ah — soldiers ? " ** I don't, my Fish, but you're going to now — A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 195 if I have to carry you. And if I have to do that I'll slap you well, when I put you down ! " "I'll call a policeman and give you in charge if you dare molest me. What do you — ah — desire? Money ? ... If you come to my hotel this even- ing " and the hapless young man was swung round, his limp thin arm tucked beneath a powerful and mighty one, and he was whirled along at five miles an hour in the direction of the pier, gasping, feebly struggling, and a sight to move the High Gods to pity. ** To the pier, my Haddock, and then back to the turnpike gate, and if you let a yell, or signal a policeman, I'll twist your little neck. Fancy our Haddock in a vulgar street row with a common soldier and in the Police Court ! Step it out, you worm ! " Then the agonized Haddock dropped pretence. **Oh, Dam, I'm awf'ly sorry. I apologize, old chap. Let up — I say — this is awful, . . . Good God, here's Lady Plonk, the Mayor's wife ! " " You shall introduce me. Lovely One — but no, we mustn't annoy ladies. You must not go trying to introduce your low companions — nay, relations — to Lady Plonkses. Step out — and look happy." '' Dam — for God's sake, let me go ! I didn't know you, old chap. I swear I didn't. The dis- grace will kill me. I'll give you " " Look here, wee Fish, you offer me money again and I'll — I'll undress you and run away with your clothes. I will, upon my soul." 13* 196 SNAKE AND SWORD " I shall call to this policeman," gasped the Haddock. "And appear with your low-class relation in Court? Not you, Haddock. I'd swear you were my twin brother, and that you wouldn't pay me the fourpence you borrowed of me last week." And the cruel penance was inflicted to the last inch. Near the end the Haddock groaned : " Here's Amelia Harringport- — Oh ! my God," and Dam quickly turned his face unto the South and gazed at the fair land of France. He remembered that General Harringport dwelt in these parts. At the toll-gate Dam released the perspiration- soaked wretch, who had suffered the torments of the damned, and who seemed to have met every man and woman whom he knew in the world as he paraded the promenade hanging lovingly to the arm of a common soldier ! He thought of suicide and shuddered at the bare idea. ** Well, I'm awf'ly sorry to have to run away and leave you now, dear Haddock. I might have taken you to all the pubs in Folkestone if I'd had time. I might have come to your hotel and dined with you. You will excuse me, won't you ? I must go now. I've got to wash up the tea things and clean the Sergeant's boots," said Dam, cruelly wringing the Haddock's agonized soft hand, and, with a complete and disconcerting change, added, " And if you breathe a word about having seen me, at Monks- mead, or tell Lucille, /'// seek you out, my Haddock, and — we will hold converse with thee ". Then he A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 197 strode away, cursing himself for a fool, a cad, and a deteriorated, demoralized ruffian. Anyhow, the Haddock would not mention the appalling incident and give him away. Nemesis followed him. Seeking a quiet shop in a back street where he could have the long-desired meal in private, he came to a small taxidermist's, glanced in as he passed, and beheld the pride and joy of the taxider- mist's heart — a magnificent and really well-mounted boa-constrictor, and fell shrieking, struggling, and screaming in the gutter. That night Damocles de Warrenne, ill, incoherent, and delirious, passed in a cell, on a charge of drunk and disorderly and disgracing the Queen's uniform. Mr. Levi Solomonson had not disgraced it, of course. ** If we were not eating this excellent bread-and- dripping and drinking this vile tea, what would you like to be eating and drinking, Matthewson ? " asked Trooper Nemo (formerly Aubrey Roussac d'Aubigny of Harrow and Trinity). " Oh, ... a little real turtle," said Dam, "just a lamina of sole fritey a trifle of vol au vent a la financiere, a breast of partridge, a mite of paid de fois gras, a peach a la Melba, the roe of a bloater, and a few fat grapes " '' 'Twould do. 'T would pass," sighed Trooper Burke, and added, " I would suggest a certain Moselle I used to get at the Byculla Club in Bom- bay, and a wondrous fine claret that spread a ruby 198 SNAKE AND SWORD haze of charm o'er my lunch at the Yacht Club of the same fair city. A * Mouton Rothschild some- thing,' which was cheap at nine rupees a small bottle on the morrow of a good day on the Maha- luxmi Racecourse." (It was strongly suspected that Trooper Burke had worn a star on his shoulder- strap in those Indian days.) "It's an awful shame we can't all emerge from the depths and run up to Town to breathe the sweet original atmosphere for just one night before we leave old England," put in Trooper Punch Peerson (son of a noble lord) who would at that moment have been in the Officers' Mess but for a congenital weakness in spelling and a dislike of mathematics. ** Pity we can't get 'leaf,' and do ourselves glorious at the Carlton, and ' afterwards '. We could change at my Governor's place into borrowed, stolen, and hired evening-kit, paint the village as scarlet as Sin or a trooper's jacket, and then come home, like the Blackbird, to tea. I am going, and if I can't get 'leaf I shall return under the bread in the rations-cart. Money's the root of all (successful) evil." Trooper Punch Peerson was a born leader of men, a splendid horseman and soldier, and he had the Army in his ardent, gallant blood and bones ; but how shall a man head a cavalry charge or win the love and enthusiastic obedience of men and horses when he is weak in spelling and has a dis- like of mathematics ? However, he was determined to follow in the A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 199 footsteps of his ancestors, to serve his country in spite of her, and his Commission was certain and near. Meanwhile he endeavoured to be a first- class trooper, had his uniform made of officers' materials in Bond Street by his father's famous tailor, and "got the stick " with ease and frequency. " We're not all gilded popinjays (nor poppin' bottles)," observed a young giant who called him- self Adam Goate, and had certainly been one in the days when he was Eugene Featherstonthwaite. * ' All very well for you to come to the surface and breathe, seeing that you'll be out of it soon. You're having nothing but a valuable experience and a hardening. You're going through the mill . We've got to live in it. What's the good of our stirring everything up again } Dam-silly of a skinned eel to grow another skin, to be skinned again. . . . No, *my co-mates and brothers in exile,' what I say is — you can get just as drunk on * four-'arf ' as on champagne, and a lot cheaper. Ask my honour- able friend, Bear." (Trooper Bear gave a realistic, but musical hiccup. ) *' Also, to the Philosopher, bread-and-dripping is as interesting and desirable prog as the voluble- varied heterogeny of the menu at the Carlton or the Ritz — 'specially when you've no choice." ** Hear, hear," put in Dam. •' Goatey ol' Goate ! " said Trooper Bear with impressive solemnity. " Give me your hand, Philos- siler. I adore dripping. I'ss a (hie) mystery. 200 SNAKE AND SWORD (No, I don' want both hands," as Goate offered his right to Bear's warm embrace.) I'm a colliseur of Dripping. I understan' it. I write odes to it. Yesh. A basin of dripping is like a Woman., 'Strornarillily. You never know what's beneath, fair surface. . . . Below a placid, level, unrevealing surface there may be — nothing . . . and there may be a rich deposit of glorious, stimulating, piquant essence^ **Oh, shut up. Bear, and don't be an Ass," im- plored Trooper Burke (formerly Desmond Villiers FitzGerald) . . . ** but I admit, all the same, there's lots of worse prog in the Officers' Mess than a crisp crust generously bedaubed with the rich jellified gravy that (occasionally) lurks like rubies beneath the fatty soil of dripping." ' Sound plan to think so, anyway," agreed Trooper Little (ci devant Man About Town and the Honourable Bertie Le Grand). *' Reminds me of a proverb I used to hear in Alt Heidelberg, ' What I have in my hand is best'!' " Qui' sho," murmured Trooper Bear with a seraphic smile, *' an' wha' I have in my 'place of departed spirits,' my tummy, is better. Glor'us mixshure. Earned an honest penny sheven shepa- rate times cleaning the 'coutrements of better men . . . ' an look at me for shevenpence' . . ." and he slept happily on Dam's shoulder. In liquor. Trooper Bear was, if possible, gentler, kinder, and of sweeter disposition than when sober ; wittier, more hopelessly lovable and disarming. A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 201 These eight men — the '* gentlemen-rankers " of ^'the Queen's Greys, made it a point of honour to out-Tommy ** Tommy " as troopers, and, when in Ills company, to show a heavier cavalry -swagger, . k broader accent, a quiffier ** quiff," a cuttier cutty- pipe, a smarter smartness ; to groom a horse better, to muck out a stall better, to scrub a floor better, to spring more smartly to attention or to a disagree- able ** fatigue," and to set an example of Tommi- ness from turning out on an Inspection Parade to waxing a moustache. Trooper Bear professed to specialize as a model in the carrying of liquor '' like a man and a soldier ". When by themselves, they made it a point of honour to behave and speak as though in the clubs to which they once belonged, to eat with washen hands and ordered attire, to behave at table and elsewhere with that truest of consideration that offends no man willingly by mannerism, appear- ance, word or act, and which is the whole Art of Gentility. They carefully avoided any appearance of ex- clusiveness, but sought every legitimate opportunity of united companionship, and formed a '* mess " of eight at a table which just held that number, and on a couple of benches each of which exactly ful- filled the slang expression " room for four Dragoons on a form " . It was their great ambition to avoid the reproach of earning the soubriquet *' gentleman-ranker," a term that too often, and too justly, stinks ijti the 202 SNAKE AND SWORD nostrils of officer, non-commissioned officer, and man (for, as a rule, the ''gentleman-ranker" is a complete failure as a gentleman and a completer one as a ranker). To prove a rule by a remarkably fine exception, these eight were among the very smartest and best troopers of one of the smartest and best Corps in the world — and to Damocles de Warrenne, their ** Society of the Knights of the dirty Square Table " was a Rock and a Salvation in the^^midst of a howl- ing sea of misery — a cool pool in a searing brand- ing Hell. Trooper Bear's brief nap appeared to have revived him wonderfully. " Let us, like the Hosts of Midian, prowl around this happy Sabbeth eve, my dear," quoth he to Dam, "and, like wise virgins, up and smite them, when we meet the Red-Caps. . . . No, I'm getting con- fused. It's they up and smite us, when we've nothing to tip them. ... I feel I could be virtuous in your company — since you never offer beer to the (more or less) fatherless and widowed — and since I'm stony. How did you work that colossal drunk, Matty, when you came home on a stretcher and the Red-Caps said you * was the first-classest delirious- trimmings as ever was, aseein snakes somethink 'orrible! and in no wise to be persuaded 'as 'ow there wasnt one under yer bloomiti foot the 'ole tim^ \ Oh you teetotallers ! " Dam shuddered and paled. "Yes, let's go for as long a walk as we can manage, and get A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 203 as far from this cursed place as time allows," he replied. His hair was still short and horribly hacked from the prison-crop he had had as a preliminary to ** 168 hours cells," for ''drunk and disorderly". ** I'll come too," announced the Honourable Bertie. ** Yes," chimed in Trooper Adam Goate, " let's go and gladden the eyes, if not the hearts of the nurse-maids of Folkestone." " Bless their nurse-maidenly hearts," murmured Trooper Bear. '' One made honourable proposals of marriage to me, quite recently, in return for my catching the runaway hat of her young charge. . . . Come on." And in due course the four derelicts set forth with a uniformity of step and action that corresponded with their uniformity of dress. '* Let's take the Lower Road," said Dam, as they reached the western limit of the front at Folkestone. " I fear we rather contaminate the pure social air of the Upper Road and the fashionable promenade." *' Where every prospect pleases and only man, in the Queen's uniform, is vile," observed Trooper Bear. Dam remembered afterwards that it was he who sought the quiet Lower Road — and he had good reason to remember it. For suddenly, a fashion- ably dressed and beautiful young girl, sitting alone in a passing private victoria, stood up, called " Stop ! Stop ! " to the coachman, and ere the carriage well came to a standstill, sprang out, rushed up 204 SNAKE AND SWORD to the double file of soldiers, and flung her arms around the neck of the outside one of the front rank. With a cry of "Oh, Dam/ Oh, Dammy !'' — a cry that mightily scandalized a serious-minded policeman who stood monumentally at the corner — she kissed him again and again ! Troopers Bear, Goate, and Little, halting not in their stride, glancing not unto the right hand nor unto the left hand, speaking no word, and giving no sign of surprise, marched on in perfect silence, until Trooper Bear observed to the world in general " The lady was not swearing. His name must be Dam— short for Damon or Pythias or Iphigenia or something which we may proceed to forget. . . . Poor old chappie — no wonder he's taking to secret drinking. / should drink, myself. Poor chap ! " and Trooper Goate, heaving a sympathetic sigh, murmured also " Poor chap ! " But Trooper Little, once the Hon. Bertie Le Grand, thought " Poor lady I " The heart of Damocles de Warrenne bounded within him, stood still, and then seemed like to burst. *' Oh, Lucille I Oh, darling ! " he groaned, as he kissed her fiercely and then endeavoured to thrust her from him. " Jump into your carriage quickly. Lucille — Don't . . . Here . . . / Not here. . . . People are looking . . . Vou ... /A common A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 205 soldier. . . . Let me go. Quick. . . . Your car- riage. . . . Some one may " ** Let you go, darling . . . ! Now I have found you. . . . If you say another word I'll serve you as you served the Haddock. I'll hang on to your arm right along the Leas. I'll hang round your neck and scream if you try to run away. This is poetic justice, darling. Now you know how our Haddock felt. No — I «;(?«'^ leave go of your sleeve. Where shall we go, dearest darling Dammy. Dare you drive up and down the Front with me in Amelia Harringport's sister's young man's mother's victoria? oh, my darling Dam ..." and Lucille burst into happy tears. " Go up that winding path and I'll follow in a minute. There will be secluded seats." ** And you'll bolt directly I leave go of you ? . . . I " ** No, darling, God knows I should if I were a man, but I can't, / cant. Oh, Lucille ! " ** Stay here," cried the utterly fearless, unashamed girl to the unspeakably astounded coachman of the mother of the minor Canon who had the felicity of being Amelia Harringport's sister's young man, and she strode up the pathway that wound, tree- shaded, along the front of the gently sloping cliff. In the utter privacy of a small seat-enclosing, bush-hidden half-cave, Damocles de Warrenne crushed Lucille to his breast as she again flung her arms around his neck. 2o6 SNAKE AND SWORD *' Oh, Lucille, how could you expose yourself to scandal like that ; I ought to be hung for not taking to my heels as you came, but I could not believe my eyes, I thought I was going mad again," and he shivered. " What should I have cared if every soul in the world who knows me had arranged himself and herself in rows and ranks to get a good view ? I'd have done the same if Grumper had been beside me in the carriage. What is the rest of the World to me, beside youy darling? . . . Oh, your poor hair, and what is that horrid scar, my dearest? And you are a *2 Q.G.' are you, and how soon may you marry? I'm going to disappear from Monksmead, now, just like you did, darling, and I'm coming here and I'm going to be a soldier's wife. Can I live with you in your house in bar- racks, Dammy, or must I live outside, and you come home directly your drill and things are finished ? " Dam groaned aloud in hopeless bitterness of soul. ** Lucille — listen," said he. *' I earn one-and tuppence a day. I may not marry. If you were a factory -girl or a coster-woman I would not drag you down so. Apart from that, I am unfit to marry any decent woman. I am — what you know I am. ... I have — fits. I am not — sound — normal — I may go m . . ." " Don't be a pure priceless Ass, darling. You are my own splendid hero — and I am going to marry you, if I have to be a factory -girl or a coster- A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK 207 woman, and I am going to live either with you or near you. You want looking after, my own boy. I shall have some money, though, when I am of age. When may I run away from Monksmead, darling ? " *' Lucille," groaned the miserable man. ** Do you think that the sight of you in the mire in which I wallow would make me happier ? Can't you re- alize that I'm ruined and done — disgraced and smashed? Lucille, I am not sane at times. . . . The Snake . . . Do you love me, Lucille ? Then if so, I beg and implore you to forget me, to leave me alone, to wait awhile and then marry Delorme or some sane, wholesome man — who is neither a coward nor a lunatic nor an epileptic. Lucille, you double and treble my misery. I can I bear it if I see you. Oh, why didn't you forget me and do the right and proper thing ? I am unfit to touch you ! I am a damned scoundrel to be here now," and leaping up he fled like a mad- dened horse, bounded down the slope, sprang into the road, nor ceased to run till he fell exhausted, miles away from the spot whereon he had suffered as he believed few men had done before. 2o8 SNAKE AND SWORD And thus and thus we women live ! With none to question, none to give The Nay or Aye, the Aye or Nay That might smoothe half our cares away. O, strange indeed ! And sad to know We pitch too high and doing so. Intent and eager not to fall. We miss the low clear note of call. Why is it so? Are we indeed So like unto the shaken reed ? Of such poor clay ? Such puny strength ? That e'en throughout the breadth and length Of purer vision's stern domain We bend to serve and serve in vain ? To some, indeed, strange power is lent To stand content. Love, heaven-sent, (For things or high or pure or rare) Shows likest God, makes Life less bare. And, ever and anon there stray In faint far-reaching virelay The songs of angels, Heav'nward-found, Of little children, earth ward- bound. A. L. Wren. CHAPTER X. MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING— A TROOPER. Mr. Ormonde Delorme, Second Lieutenant of the 34th Lancers, sat in his quarters at Aldershot, reading and re-reading with mingled feelings a letter from the woman he loved. It is one thing to extract a promise from The Woman that she will turn to you for help if ever your help should be needed (knowing that there could be no greater joy than to serve her at any cost whatsoever, though it led to death or ruin), but it is quite another thing when that help is invited for the benefit of the successful rival ! To go to the world's end for Lucille were a very small matter to Ormonde Delorme — but to go across the road for the man who had won her away, was not. For Dam had won her away from him, Delorme considered, inasmuch as he had brought him to Monksmead, time after time, had seen him falling in love with Lucille, had received his confidences, and spoken no warning word. Had he said but "No poaching, Delorme," nothing more would have 209 14 210 SNAKE AND SWORD been necessary ; he would have kept away thence- forth, and smothered the flame ere it became a rag- ing and consuming fire. No, de Warrenne had served him badly in not telling him plainly that there was an understanding between him and his cousin, in letting him sink more and more deeply over head and ears in love, in letting him go on until he proposed to Lucille and learnt from her that while she liked him better than any man in the world but one — she did not love him, and that, frankly, yes, she did love somebody else, and it was hopeless for him to hope. . . . He read the letter again : — "My dear Ormonde, ** This is a begging letter, and I should loathe to write it, under the circumstances, to any man but such a one as you. For I am going to ask a great deal of you and to appeal to that noble- ness of character for which I have always admired you and which made you poor Dam's hero from Lower School days at Wellingborough until you left Sandhurst (and, alas ! quarrelled with him — or rather with his memory — about me). That was a sad blow to me, and I tell you again as I told you before, Dam had not the faintest notion that / cared for him and would not have told me that he cared for me had I not shown it. Your belief that he didn't trouble to warn you because he had me safe is utterly wrong, absurd, and unjust. " When you did me the great honour and paid MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 211 me the undeserved and tremendous compliment of asking- me to marry you, and I told you that I could not, and why I could not, I never dreamed that Dam could care for me in that way, and I knew that I should never marry any one at all unless he did. '' And on the same occasion, Ormonde, you begged me to promise that if ever you could serve me in any way, I would ask for your help. You were a dear romantic boy then, Ormonde, and I loved you in a different way, and cried all night that you and I could not be friends without thought of love, and I most solemnly promised that I would turn to you if I ever needed help that you could give. (Alas, I thought to myself then that nobody in the world could do anything for me that Dam could not do, and that I should never need help from others while he lived.) " I want your help, Ormonde, and I want it for Dam — and me. " You have, of course, heard some garbled scandal about his being driven away from home and cut off from Sandhurst by grandfather. I need not ask if you have believed ill of him and I need not say he is absolutely innocent of any wrong or failure what- ever. He is not an effeminate coward, he is as brave as a lion. He is a splendid hero, Ormonde, and I want you to simply strangle and kill any man who says a word to the contrary. *' When he left home, he enlisted, and Haddon Berners saw him in uniform at Folkestone where 14 * 212 SNAKE AND SWORD he had gone from Canterbury (cricket week) to see Amelia Harringport's gang. Amelia whose sister is to be the Reverend Mrs. Canon Mellifle at Folkestone, you know, met the wretched Haddon being rushed along the front by a soldier and nearly died at the sight — she declares he was weeping ! *' Directly she told me I guessed at once that he had met Dam and either insulted or cut him, and that poor Dam, in his bitter humour and self-loath- ing had used his own presence as a punishment and had made the Haddock walk with him! Imagine the company of Damocles de Warrenne being anything but an ennobling condescension ! Fancy Dam's society a horrible injury and disgrace ! To a thing like Haddon Berners ! " Well, I simply haunted Folkestone after that, and developed a love for Amelia Harringport and her brothers that surprised them — hypocrite that I am ! (but I was punished when they talked slight- ingly of Dam and she sneered at the man whom she had shamelessly pursued when all was well with him. She 'admires' Haddon now.) " At last I met him on one of my week-end visits — on a Sunday evening it was — and I simply flew at him in the sight of all respectable, prayer-book- displaying, before-Church-parading, well-behaved Folkestone, and kissed him nearly to death. . . . And can you believe a woman could be such difooly Ormonde — while carefully noting the '2 Q.G.' on his shoulder-straps, I never thought to find out MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 213 his alias — for of course he hides his identity, think- ing as he does, poor darling boy, that he has brought eternal disgrace on an honoured name — a name that appears twice on the rolls of the V.C. records. " Ormonde, were it not that it would increase his misery and agony of mind I would run away from Monksmead, take a room near the Queen's Greys barracks, and haunt the main gates until I saw him again. H e should then tell me how to communicate with him, or I would hang about there till he did. I'd marry him * off the strength ' and live (till I am * of age ') by needlework if he would have me. But, of course, he'd never understand that I'd be happier, and a better woman, in a Shorncliffe lodging, as a soldier's wife, than ever I shall be here in this dreary Monksmead — until he is restored and re-habilitated (is that the word? I mean — comes into his own as a brave and noble gentleman who never did a mean or cowardly action in his life). "And he is so thin and unhappy looking, Or- monde, and his poor hands are in such a state and his beautiful hair is all hacked about and done like a soldier's, all short except for a long piece brushed down his forehead and round to his cap — oh, dreadful . . . and he has a scar on his face ! No wonder Amelia never recognized him. Oh, do help me, Ormonde. I must find out how to address him. I dare not let them know there is a D. de Warrenne in the regiment — and he'd never get it either — he's probably Smith or Jones or Robinson now. If some horrid Sergeknt called out ' Trooper 214 SNAKE AND SWORD D. de Warrenne,* when distributing letters, Dam would never answer to the name he thinks he has eternally disgraced, and disgrace it further by drag- ging it in the mire of the ranks. How can people be such snobs ? Isn't a good private a better man than a bad officer ? Why should there be any * taint ' about serving your country in any capacity ? *' How can I find him, Ormonde, unless you help me ? I could pay a servant to hang about the barracks until he recognized Dam — but that would be horrible for the poor boy. He'd deny it and say the man was mad, I expect — and it would be most unpleasant and unfair to Dam to set some one to find out from his comrades what he calls himself. If he chooses to hide from what he thinks is the chance of further disgracing his people, and suffers what he does in order to remain hidden, shall / be the one to do anything to show him up and cause, him worse suffering — expose him to a servant? ** How can I get him a letter that shall not have his name on it ? If I wrote to his Colonel or the Adjutant and enclosed a letter with just ' Dam ' on it they'd not know for whom it was meant — and I dare not tell them his real name. *' Could you get a letter to him, Ormonde, without letting him know that you know he is a private soldier, and without letting a soul know his real name ? " I do apologize for the length of this interminable letter, but if you only knew the relief it is to me to be doing something that may help him, and to be MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 215 talking, or rather writing about him, you would forgive me. *' His name must not be mentioned here. Think of it ! " Oh, if it only would not make him mo7'e unhappy, I would go to him this minute, and refuse ever to leave him again. ** Does that sound unmaidenly, Ormonde ? I don*t care whether it does or not, nor whether it is or not. I love him, and he loves me. I am his friend. Could I stay here in luxury if it would make him happier to marry me ? Am I a terribly abandoned female ? I told Auntie Yvette just what I had done, and though it simply saved her life to know he had not committed suicide (I believe she worskippedhis father) — she seemed mortally shocked at me for behaving so. I am not a bit ashamed ^ though. Dam is more important than good form, and I had to show him in the strongest possible way that he was dearer to me than ever. If it was * behaving like a servant-girl ' — all honour to servant-girls, I think . . . considering the circum- stances. You should have seen his face before he caught sight of me. Yes — and after, too. Though really I think he suffered more from my kissing him — in uniform, in the street — than if I had cut him. It would be only for the minute though ... it musl comfort him now, and always, to think that I love him so (since he loves me — and always has done). But what I must know before I can sleep peacefully again is the name by which he goes in the 2i6 SNAKE AND SWORD * 2 Q.G's.,' so that I can write and comfort him regu- larly, send him things, and make him buy himself out when he sees he has been foolish and wicked in sup- posing that he has publicly disgraced himself and his name and us. And I 'm going to make Grandfather's life a misery, and go about skinny and ragged and weeping, and say : ' This is how you treat the daughter of your dead friend, you wicked, cruel, unjust old man,' until he relents and sends for Dam and gets him into the Army properly. . . . But I am afraid Dam will think it his silly duty to flee from me and all my works, and hide himself where the names of de Warrenne and Stukeley are un- known and cannot be disgraced. ** I rely on you, Ormonde, ** Your ashamed grateful friend, '' Lucille Gavestone." Second Lieutenant Delorme rang the bell. ** Bradshaw," he said, as his soldier-servant ap- peared. ''And get me a telegraph form." *' Yussir," said Private Billings, and marched to the Mess ante-room purposefully, with hope in his heart that Mr. Delorme 'ad nothink less than a 'alf dollar for the telegram and would forgit to arx for the chainge, as was his occasional praiseworthy procedure. Mr. Delorme, alas, proved to have a mean and vulgar shilling, the which he handed to Private Billings with a form containing the message : — " Can do. So cheer up. Writing his adjutant, pal of mine. Coming over Saturday if get leave, MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 217 Going Shorncliffe if necessary. Leave due. Dam all right. Will blow over. Thanks for letting me help." **'Fraid they don' give no tick at the Telegraft Orfis, Sir," observed Private Billings, who, as quon- dam '' trained observer " of his troop, had noted the length of the telegram and the shortness of the allowance therefor. ''What the deuce ....?" *' This is more like a alf-doUar job. Sir," he groaned, waving the paper, *' wot wiv' the haddress an all." '' Oh — er — yes, bit thick for a bob, perhaps ; here's half a so v. ..." " That's more like ' ' Ere s to yer; Mr. D " remarked the good man — outside the door. " And don't yer werry about trifles o' chainge. Be a gent!" Lucille read and re-read the telegram in many ways. " Can do so. Cheer up. Writing his adjutant. Pal of mine coming over Saturday. If get leave going Shorncliffe if necessary leave due Dam. All right will blow over thanks." No, that wouldn't do. (What a pity people would not remember when writing telegrams that the stops and capitals they put are ignored by the operators.) At last, the wish being father to the thought, she decided it to be *' Can do " (she knew that to be a navy expression). '* So cheer up. Writing. 2i8 SNAKE AND SWORD His adjutant a pal of mine. Coming over Saturday if I get leave. Going Shorncliffe if necessary. Leave due. Dam all right. Will blow over. Thanks for letting me help." Which was not far wrong. Dear old Ormonde ! She knew he would not fail her — although he had been terribly cut up by her rejection of his suit and by his belief that Dam had let him haunt her in the knowledge that she was his own private property, secured to him. Having dispatched his telegram and interviewed his Adjutant, Captain, and Colonel, Mr. Delorme sat him down and wrote to Lieutenant the Honour- able Reginald Montague Despencer, Adjutant of the Queen's Greys : — ** My dear Monty, *' At the Rag. the other day, respectfully dining with my respected parent, I encountered, respectfully dining with his respected parent, your embryo Straw- berry Leaf, old * Punch Peerson '. (Do you re- member his standing on his head on the engine at Black water Station when he was too * merry ' to be able to stand steady on his feet ?) I learnt that he is still with you and I want him to do something for me. He'll be serious about it \{ you speak to him about it — and I am writing to him direct. I'm going to send you a letter (under my cover), and on it will be one word * Dam ' (on the envelope, of course). I want you to give this to Punch and order him to show it privately to the gentlemen- MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 219 rankers of the corps till one says he recognizes the force of the word (pretty forceful, too, what !) and the writing. To this chap he is to give it. Be good to your poor * rankers,' Monty, I know one damned hard case among them. No fault of his, poor chap. I could say a lot — surprise you — but I mustn't. It's awfully good of you, old chap. I know you'll see it through. It concerns as fine a gentleman as ever stepped and the finest woman ! ** Ever thine, "O. Delorme." ** Look here, my lambs— or rather. Black Sheep," quoth Trooper Punch Peerson one tea-time to Troopers Bear, Little, Goate, Nemo, Burke, Jones, and Matthewson, " I suppose none of you answers to the name of * Dam ' ? " No man answered, and Trooper Peerson looked at the face of no man, nor any one at any other. " No. I thought not. Well, I have a letter addressed in that objurgatory term, and I am going to place it beneath my pillow before I go out to- night. If it is there when I come in I'll destroy it unopened. ' Nuff said,' as the lady remarked when she put the mop in her husband's mouth. Origin of the phrase * don't chew the mop,' I should think," and he babbled on, having let his unfortunate friends know that for one of them he had a letter which might be received by the addressed without the least loss of his anonymity. Dam's heart beat hard and seemed to swell to bursting. He felt suffocated. 220 SNAKE AND SWORD " Quaint superscription," he managed to observe. ** How did you come by it?" and then wished he had not spoken. . . . Who but the recipient could be interested in its method of delivery ? If anyone suspected him of being ** Dam " would they not at once connect him with the notorious Damocles de Warrenne, ex-Sandhurst cadet, proclaimed coward and wretched neurotic decadent before the pained, disgusted eyes of his county, kicked out by his guardian ... a disgrace to two honoured names. . . . ** The Adjer handed it over. Thought / was the biggest Damn here, I suppose," Trooper Peer- son replied without looking up from his plate. *' Practical silly joke I should think. No one here with such a loafAsome name as Dam, of course," but Trooper Punch Peerson had his philosophic ** doots ". He, like others of that set, had heard of a big chap who was a marvel at Sandhurst with the gloves, sword, horse, and other things, and who had suddenly and marvellously disappeared into thin air leaving no trace behind him, after some public scandal or other. . . . But that was no concern of Trooper Punch Peerson, gentle- man. . . . With a wary eye on Peerson, Dam lay on his bed, affecting to read a stale and dirty news-sheet. He saw him slip something beneath his pillow and swagger out of the barrack-room. Anon no mem- ber of the little band of gentleman-rankers was left. Later, the room was empty, save for a heavily snoring drunkard and a busy polisher who, at the shelf-table at the far end of the room, laboured on MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 221 his jack-boots, hissing the while, like a groom with a dandy-brush. Going to Peerson's bed, Dam snatched the letter, returned to his own, and flung himself down again — his heart pumping as though he had just finished a mile race. Lucille had got a letter to him somehow, Lucille was not going to drop him yet — in spite of having seen him a red-handed, crop - haired, *' quiff" - wearing, coarse - looking soldier. . . . Was there another woman in the world like Lucille ? Would any other girl have so risen superior to her breeding, and the teachings of Miss Smellie, as to do what she thought right, re- gardless of public scandal. . . . ? But he must not give her the opportunity of being seen talking to a soldier again — much less kissing one. Not that she would want to kiss him again like that. That was the kiss of welcome, of encouragement, of proof that she was unchanged to him — her first sight of him after the debacle. It was the unchecked impulse of a noble heart — and the action showed that Miss Smellie had been unable to do it much harm with her miserable artificialities and stiflings of all that is natural and human and right. . . . Should he read the letter at once or treasure it up and keep it as a treat in store ? He would hold it in his hand unopened and imagine its contents. He would spin out the glorious pleasure of posses- sion of an unopened letter from Lucille. He could, of course, read it hundreds of times — but he would then soon know it by heart, and although its charm and value would be no less, it would merge with his 222 SNAKE AND SWORD other memories and become a memory itself. He did not want it to become a memory too soon. The longer it remained an anticipation, the more distant the day when it became a memory. . . . With a groan of ** Oh, my brain's softening and I'm becoming a sentimentalist," he opened the letter and read Lucille's loving, cheering — yet agonizing, maddening — words : — *' My own darling Dam, ''If this letter reaches you safely you are to sit down at once and write to me to tell me how to address you by post in the ordinary way. If you don't I shall come and haunt the entrance to the Lines and waylay you. People will think I am a poor soul whom you have married and deserted, or whom you won't marry. /'// show up your wicked cruelty to a poor girl ! How would you like your comrades to say ' Look out. Bill, your pore wife's 'anging about the gates ' and to have to lie low — and send out scouts to see if the coast was clear later on ? Don't you go playing fast and loose with me, master Dam, winning my young affections, making love to me, kissing me — and then refusing to marry me after it all ! I don't want to be too hard on you (and I am reasonable enough to admit that one-and-two a day puts things on a smaller scale than I have been accustomed to in the home of my fathers — or rather uncles, or perhaps uncles- in-Iaw), and like the kind Tailor whom the Haddock advertises (and like the unkind Judge before whom he'll some day come for something) I will ' give you MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 223 time '. But it's only a respite, Mr. de Warrenne. You are not going to trifle with my young feelings and escape altogether. I have my eye on you — and if I respect your one-and-twopence a day noWy it is on the clear understanding that you share my Little All on the day I come of age. I will trust you once more, although you have treated me so — bolting and hiding from your confiding fiancee. *' So write and tell me what you call yourself, so that I can write to you regularly and satisfy myself that you are not escaping me again. How could you treat a poor trusting female so — and then when she had found you again, and was showing her de- light and begging to be married and settled in life — to rush away from her, leaving her and her modest matrimonial proposals scorned and rejected ! For shame, Sir ! I've a good mind to come and com- plain to your Colonel and ask him to make you keep your solemn promises and marry me. . . . "Now look here, darling, nonsense aside — I solemnly swear that if you don't buy yourself out of the army on the day I come of age (or before, if you will, and can) I will really come and make you marry me and I will live with you as a soldier's wife. If you persist in your wrong-headed notion of being a * disgrace ' (you /) then we'll just adopt the army as a career, and we'll go through all the phases till you get a Commission. I hope you won't take this course — but if you do, you'll be a second Hector Macdonald and retire as Lieutenant-General Sir Damocles de Warrenne (K.C.B., K.C.M.G., K.C.S.I., D.S.O., and, of course, V.C), having 224 SNAKE AND SWORD confessed to an alias. It will be a long time before we should be in really congenial society, that way, darling, but I'm sure I should enjoy every hour of it with you, so long as I felt I was a comfort and happiness to you. And when you got your Com- mission I should not be a social drag upon you as sometimes happens. Nor before it should I be a nuisance and hindrance to you and make you wish you were ' shut of the curse of a soldier '. I could * rough it ' as well as you and, besides, there would ^^ no ' roughing it ' where you were, for me. It is here that I am * roughing it,' sitting impotent and wondering what is happening to you, and whether that terrible illness ever seizes you, and whether you are properly looked after when it does. " Now, just realize, dearest Dam — I said I would wait twenty years for you, if necessary. I would and I will, but don't make me do it, darling. Realize how happy I should be if I could only come and sew and cook and scrub and work for you. Can you understand that life is only measurable in terms of happiness and that my happiness can only be where you are ? If you weren't liable to these seizures I could bear to wait, but as it is, I can't. I beg and beseech you not to make me wait till I am of age, Dam. There's no telling what may happen to you and I just can't bear it. Fm coming, if I don't hear from you, and I can easily do some- thing to compel you to marry me, if I come. You are not going to bear this alone, darling, so don't imagine it. We're not going to keep separate shops after all these years, just because you're ill MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 225 with a trouble of some kind that fools can't under- stand. ** Now write to me at once and put me in a posi- tion to write to you in the ordinary way — or look out for me! I'm all ready to run away, all sorts of useful things packed — ready to come and be a soldier's girl. ** You know that I do what I think I'll do — you spoke of my 'steel-straight directness and sweet brave will ' in the poem you were making about me, you poor funny old boy, when you vanished, and which I found in your room when I went there to cry. (Oh, how I cried when I found your odds and ends of verse about me there — I really did think my heart was 'broken' in actual fact.) Don't make me suffer any more, darling. I'm sure your Colonel will be sweet about it and give us a nice little house all to ourselves, now he has seen what a splendid soldier you are. If you stick to your folly about * disgrace ' I need not tell him our names and Grumper couldn't take me away from you, even if he ever found out where we were. ** I could go on writing all night, darling, but I'll only just say again / am going to marry you and take care of you, Dam, in the army or out of it, " Your fiancde and friend, ** Lucille Gavestone." Dam groaned aloud. " Four o' rum 'ot, is wot you want, mate, for that," said the industrious self-improver at the shelf-table. " Got a chill on yer stummick on 15 226 SNAKE AND SWORD sentry-go in the fog an' rine las' night. ... I'd give a 'ogs'ead to see the bloke who wrote in the bloomin' Reggilashuns ' nor must bloomin sentries stand in their blasted sentry-boxes in good or even in moderate weather' a doin' of it 'isself in 'is bloomin' * moderate weather ' with water a runnin' down 'is back, an' 'is feet froze into a puddle, an' the fog a chokin' of 'im, an' 'is blighted carbine feelin' like a yard o' bad ice — an' then find the bloomin' winder above 'is bed been opened by some kind bloke an' 'is bed a blasted swamp. . . . Yus — you 'ave four o' rum 'ot and you'll feel like the bloomin' 'Ouse o' Lords. Then 'ave a Livin'stone Rouser." *'Oh, shut up," said Dam, cursing the Bathos of Things and returning to the beginning of Lucille's letter. In his somewhat incoherent reply, Dam assured Lucille that he was in the rudest health and spirits, and the particular pet of his Colonel who inquired after his health almost daily with tender solicitude ; that he had exaggerated his feeling on That Even- ing when he had kissed Lucille as a lover, and begged forgiveness ; that marriage would seriously hamper a most promising military career ; that he had had no recurrence of the '* fit " (a mere touch of sun) ; that it would be unkind and unfair of Lucille to bring scandal and disgrace upon a rising young soldier by hanging about the Lines and making inquiries about him with a view to forcing him into marriage, making him keep to a bargain made in a rash, unguarded moment of senti- MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING 227 mentality ; that, in any case, soldiers could not marry until they had a certain income and status, and, if they did so, it was no marriage and they were sent to jail ; that his worst enemy would not do anything to drag him out once again into the light of publicity, and disgrace his family further, now that he had effectually disappeared and was being forgotten ; and that he announced that he was known as Trooper Matthewson (E Troop, The Queen's Greys, Cavalry Lines, Shorncliffe) to prevent Lucille from keeping her most unlady- like promise of persecuting him. Lucille's next letter was shorter than the first. ** My darling Dam, " Don't be such a priceless Ass. Come off it. " Your own ** Lucille. " P.S. — Write to me properly at once — or expect me on Monday." He obeyed, poured out his whole heart in love and thanks and blessings, and persuaded her that the one thing that could increase his misery would be her presence, and swore that he would strain every nerve to appear before her at the earliest possible moment a free man with redeemed name — provided he could persuade himself he was not a congenital lunatic, an epileptic, a decadent — could cwre himself of his oriental disease. . . . 15* CHAPTER XL MORE MYRMIDONS. The truly busy man cannot be actively and con- sciously unhappy. The truly miserable and de- spondent person is never continuously and actively employed. Fits of deep depression there may be for the worker when work is impossible, but, unless there be mental and physical illness, sleep is the other anaesthetic, refuge — and reward. The Wise thank God for Work and for Sleep — and pay large premia of the former as Insurance in the latter. To Damocles de Warrenne — to whom the name *' Trooper Matthewson " now seemed the only one he had ever had — the craved necessity of life and sanity was work, occupation, mental and physical labour. He would have blessed the man who sentenced him to commence the digging of a trench ten miles long and a yard deep for morning and evening labour, and to take over all the accounts of each squadron, for employment in the heat of the day. There was no man in the regiment so indefatigable, so energetic, so persevering, so insati- able of ''fatigues," so willing and anxious to do 228 MORE MYRMIDONS 229 other people's duty as well as his own, so restless, so untiring as Trooper Matthewson of E Troop. For Damocles de Warrenne was in the Land of the Serpent and lived in fear. He lived in fear and feared to live ; he thought of Fear and feared to think. He turned to work as, but for the memory of Lucille, he would have turned to drink : he laboured to earn deep dreamless sleep and he dreaded sleep. Awake, he could drug himself with work ; asleep, he was the prey — the bound, gagged helpless, abject prey — of the Snake. The greediest glutton for work in the best working regiment in the world was Trooper Matthewson — but for him was no promotion. He was, alas, "unreliable" — apt to be *' drunk and disorderly," drunk to the point of '* seeing snakes " and becoming a weeping, screaming lunatic — a disgusting spectacle. And, when brought up for sentence, would solemnly assure the Colonel that he was a total abstainer^ and stick to it when "told-off" for adding im- pudent lying to shameful indulgence and sickening behaviour. No promotion for that type of waster while Colonel the Earl of A commanded the Queen's Greys, nor while Captain Daunt com- manded the squadron the trooper occasionally disgraced. But he had his points, mark you, and it was a thousand pities that so fine a soldier was undeniably subject to attacks of delirium tremens and unmis- takeably a secret drinker who might at any time have a violent outburst, finishing in screams, sobs, 230 SNAKE AND SWORD and tears. A most remarkable case ! Who ever heard of a magnificent athlete — regimental champion boxer and swordsman, admittedly as fine and bold a horseman and horse-master as the Rough- Riding Sergeant-Major or the Riding-Master himself — being a sufficiently industrious secret-drinker to get "goes" of "d.t.," to drink till he behaved like some God-and-man -forsaken wretch that lives on cheap gin in a chronic state of alcoholism. He had his points, and if the Brigadier had ever happened to say to the Colonel : '' Send me your smartest, most intelligent, and keenest man to gallop for me at the manoeuvres," or the Inspector of Army Gymnasia had asked for the regiment's finest specimen, or if one representative private soldier had to be sent somewhere to uphold the credit and honour of the Queen's Greys, undoubtedly Trooper Matthewson would have been chosen. What a splendid squadron-sergeant major, regi- mental sergeant-major, yea, what a fine officer he would have made, had he been reliable. But there, you can't have an officer, nor a non-com., either, who lies shrieking and blubbering on the floor coram publico, and screams to God and man to save him from the snakes that exist only in his own drink-deranged mind. For of course it can only be Drink that produces ** Snakes " ! Yes, it is only through the ghastly alcohol-tinted glasses that you can *'see snakes" — any fool knows that. And the fools of the Queen's Greys knew it, and hoped to God that Matthewson would '' keep off it " MORE MYRMIDONS 231 till after the Divisional Boxing Tournament and Assault-at-Arms, for, if he did, the Queen's Greys would certainly have the Best Man-at-Arms in the Division and have a mighty good shot at having the Heavy- Weight All- India Champion, since Matthewson had challenged the Holder and held an absolutely unbroken record of victories in the various regimental and inter-regimental boxing tournaments in which he had taken part since joining the regiment. And he had been '*up against some useful lads " as Captain Chevalier, the president and Maecenas of the Queen's Greys' boxing-club, expressed it. Yes, Matthewson had his points and the man who brought the Regiment the kudos of having best Man-at-Arms and Heavy-Weight Champion of India would be forgiven a lot. And Damocles de Warrenne blessed the Divi- sional Boxing Tournament, Assault-at-Arms, and, particularly, the All-India Heavy-Weight Cham- pionship. Occupation, labour, anodyne. . . . Work and deep Sleep. Fighting to keep the Snake at bay. No, fighting to get away from it — there was no keeping it at bay — nothing but shrieking collapse when It came. . . . From parade ground to gymnasium, from gym- nasium to swimming-bath, from swimming-bath to running-track, from running-track to boxing-ring, from boxing-ring to gymnasium again. Work, oc- cupation, forgetfulness. Forget the Snake for a 232 SNAKE AND SWORD little while — even though it is surely lurking near — waiting, waiting, waiting ; nay, even beneath his very foot and moving. . . . Well, a man can struggle with himself until the Thing actually appears in the concrete, and he goes mad — but Night! Oh, God grant deep sleep at night — or wide wakefulness and a light. Neither Nightmare nor wakefulness in the dai^k, oh. Merci- ful God. Yes, things were getting worse. He was going mad. Mad. Desert — and get out of India somehow ? Never! No gentleman "deserts" anything or anybody. Suicide — and face God unafraid and unashamed ? Never ! The worst and meanest form of ** deserting ". No. Stick it. And live to work — work to live. And strive and strive and strive to obliterate the image of Lucille — that sorrow's crown of sorrow. And so Trooper Matthewson's course of training was a severe one and he appeared to fear rest and relaxation as some people fear work and employ- ment. His favourite occupation was to get the ten best boxers of the regiment to jointly engage in a ten- round contest with him, one round each. He would frequently finish fresher than the tenth man. Coming of notedly powerful stock on both sides, and having been physically educated from baby- hood, Dam, with clean living and constant training, MORE MYRMIDONS 233 was a very uncommon specimen. There may have been one or two other men in the regiment as well developed, or nearly so ; but when poise, rapidity, and skill were taken into account there was no one near him. Captain Chevalier said he was infinitely the quickest heavy-weight boxer he had ever seen — and Captain Chevalier was a pillar of the National Sporting Club and always knew the cur- rent professionals personally when he was in Eng- land. In fact, with the enormous strength of the best heavy-weight, Dam combined the lightning rapidity and mobility of the best feather-weight. His own doubt as to the result of his contest with the heavy-weight Champion of India arose from the fact that the latter was a person of much lower nervous development, a creature far less sensitive to shock, a denser and more elementary organism altogether, and possessed of a far thicker skull, shorter jaw, and thicker neck. Dam summed him up thus with no sense of contemptuous superiority, but with a plain recognition of the facts that the Champion was a fighting machine, a dull, forehead- less, brutal gladiator who owed his championship very largely to the fact that he was barely sensible to pain, and impervious to padded blows. It was said that he had never been knocked out in all his boxing-career, that the kick of a horse on his chin would not knock him out, that his head was solid bone, and that the shortness of his jaw and thick- ness of his neck absolutely prevented sufficient leverage between the point of the jaw and the 234 SNAKE AND SWORD spinal cord for the administration of the shock to the medulla oblongata that causes the necessary ten-seconds' unconsciousness of the " knock-out". He was known as the Gorilla by reason of his long arms, incredible strength, beauty, and pleasing habits, and he bore the reputation of a merciless and unchivalrous opponent and one who needed the strictest and most experienced refereeing. It would be a real terrific fight, and that was the main thing to Dam, though he would do his very utmost to win, for the credit of the Queen's Greys, and would leave no stone unturned to that end. He regretted that he could not get leave and go to Pultanpur to see the Champion box, and learn something of his style and methods when easily defending his title in the Pultanpur tournament. And when the Tournament and Assault-at-Arms were over he must find something else to occupy him by day and tire him before night. Meanwhile life was bearable, with the fight to come — except for sentry-go work. That was awful, unspeakable, and each time was worse than the last. Sitting up all night in the guard-room under the big lamp, and perhaps with some other wakeful wretch to talk to, was nothing. That was well enough — but to be on a lonely post on a dark night . . . well — he couldn't do it much longer. Darkness and the Snake that was always coming and never came ! To prowl round and round some magazine, store, or boundary-stone with his carbine at the •* support," or to tramp up and down by the MORE MYRMIDONS 235 horse-lines, armed only with his cutting-whip ; to stand in a sentry-box while the rain fell in sheets and there was no telling what the next flash of lightning might reveal — that was what would send him to a lunatic's padded cell. To see the Snake by day would give him a cruel, terrible fit — but to be aware of it in the dark would be final — and fatal to his reason (which was none too firmly enthroned). No, he had the dreadful feeling that his reason was none too solidly based and fixed. He had horrible experiences, apart from the snake-nightmares, nowadays. One night when he awoke and lay staring up at his mosquito-curtain in the blessed light of the big room-lamp (always provided in India on account of rifle thieves) he had suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of fear. He sat up. God ! — he was in a marble box ! These white walls and roof were not mosquito- netting, they were solid marble ! He was in a tomb. He was buried alive. The air was growing foul. His screams would be absolutely inaudible. He screamed, and struck wildly at the cold cruel marble, and found it was soft, yielding netting after all. But it was a worse horror to find that he had thought it marble than if he had found it to be marble. He sprang from his cot. ** I am going mad," he cried. '* Goin ? . . . Gorn, more like," observed the disrobing room-corporal. **Why donchew keep orf the booze, Maffewson ? You silly gapin' goat. Git inter bed and shut yer 'ead — or I'll get yew 236 SNAKE AND SWORD a night in clink, me lad — and wiv'out a light, see?" Corporal Prag knew his victim's little weakness and grinned maliciously as Dam sprang into bed without a word. The Stone Jug without a gleam of light ! Could a man choke himself with his own fingers if the worst came to the worst ? The Digger and Stygian darkness — now — when he was going mad ! Men could not be so cruel. . . . But they'd say he was drunk. He would lie still and cling with all his strength and heart and soul to sanity. He would think of That Evening with Lucille — and of her kisses. He would recite the Odes of Horace, the ^neid, the Odyssey as far as he could remember them, and then fall back on Shakespeare and other English poets. Probably he knew a lot more Greek and Latin poetry (little as it was) than he did of English. . . . Corporal Prag improved the occasion as he un- laced his boots. ** Bloomin' biby ! Afraid o' the dark ! See wot boozin' brings yer to. Look at yer ! An' look at me. Non-c'misshn'd orficer in free an' a 'arf years from j'inin'. Never tasted alc'ol in me life, an' if any man offud me a glarse, d'ye know what I'd dew ? " *' No, Corporal, I'd like to hear," replied Dam. (Must keep the animal talking as long as possible for the sake of human company. He'd go mad at once, perhaps, when the Corporal went to bed.) "I'd frow it strite in 'is faice, I would," announced MORE MYRMIDONS 237 the virtuous youth. A big boot flopped heavily on the floor. ** I daresay you come of good old teetotal stock," observed Dam, to make conversation. Perhaps the fellow would pause in his assault upon the other boot and reply — so lengthening out the precious minutes of diversion. Every minute was a minute nearer dawn. . . . ** jDo yer? Well, you're bloomin' well wrong, Maffewson, me lad. My farver 'ad a bout every Saturday arternoon and kep' it up all day a Sund'y, 'e did — an' in the werry las' bout 'e ever 'ad 'e bashed 'is ole woman's 'ead in wiv' a bottle." ** And was hanged } " inquired Dam politely and innocently, but most tactlessly. " Mind yer own b business," roared Corporal Prag. " Other people's farvers wasn't gallows-birds if yourn was. 'Ow'd you look if I come and punched you on the nose, eh ? Wot 'ud you do if I come an' set abaht yer, eh ? " ** Break your neck," replied Dam tersely. ** Ho, yus. And wot 'ud yew say when I calls the guard and they frows you into clink ? Without no light, Trooper Maffewson!" Dam shuddered. Corporal Prag yet further improved the occasion, earning Dam's heartfelt blessing. " Don't you fergit it. Trooper Maffewson. I'm yore sooperier orficer. You maj^ be better' n me in the Ring, praps, or with the sword (Dam could have killed him in five minutes, with or without 238 SNAKE AND SWORD weapons), but if I 'olds up my little finger jj/^^ comes to eel — or other'ow you goes ter clink. 'Ung in- deed ! You look after yer own farver an' don' pass remarks on yer betters. Why ! You boozin' waster, I shall be Regimental Sargen' Majer when you're a bloomin' discharged private wiv an 'undred 'drunks' in red on yer Defaulter's Sheet. Regi- mental Sarjen' Majer ! I shall be an Orficer more like, and walk acrost the crossin' wot youre as- weepin', to me Club in bloomin' well Pickerdilly ! Yus. This is the days o' Demockerycy, me lad. * Good Lloyd George's golden days ' as they sing — and steady fellers like me is goin' to ave C'missh'ns — an' don' you fergit it ! Farver 'ung indeed ! " *' I'm awf ly sorry. Corporal, really," apologized Dam. '* I didn't think . . ." ** No, me lad," returned the unmollified superior, as he stooped to the other boot, ** if you was to think more an' booze less you'd do better. . . . 'Ow an' where you gets 'old of it, beats me. I've seed you in delirium trimmings but I ain't never seed you drinkin' nor yet smelt it on yer. You're a cunnin' 'ound in yer way. One o' them beastly secret-drinkin' swine wots never suspected till they falls down 'owlin' blue 'orrors an' seein' pink toadses. Leastways it's snakes you sees. See 'em oncte too orfen, you will. . . . See 'em on p'rade one day in front o' the Colonel. Fall orf yer long-face an get trampled — an' serve yer glad. . . . An' now shut yer silly 'ed an' don't chew the mop so much. MORE MYRMIDONS 239 Let me get some sleep. / as respontsibillaties / do. . . ." A crossing outside a Club ! More likely a padded cell in a troopship and hospital until an asylum claimed him. In the finals, '' Sword versus Sword Dis- mounted," Dam had a foeman worthy of his steel. A glorious chilly morning, sunrise on a wide high open maidan, rows of tents for the spectators at the great evening final, and crowds of officers and men in uniform or gymnasium kit. On a group of chairs sat the Divisional General, his Colonel on the Staff, and Aide-de-Camp ; the Brigadier- General, his Brigade- Major, and a few ladies, wives of regimental colonels, officers, and leading Civilians. Semi-finals of Tent-pegging, Sword v. Sword Mounted, Bayonet-fighting, Tug-of-War, Fencing, and other officers' and men's events had been, or were being, contested. The finals of the British Troops' Sword v. Sword Dismounted, was being reserved for the last, as of supreme interest to the experts present, but not sufficiently spectacular to be kept for the evening final '* show," when the whole of Society would as- semble to be thrilled by the final Jumping, Driving, Tent-pegging, Sword v. Sword Mounted, Bayonet- fighting, Sword V. Lance, Tug-of-War, and other events for British and Indian officers and men of all arms. 240 SNAKE AND SWORD It was rumoured that there was a Sergeant of Hussars who would give Trooper Matthewson a warm time with the sabre. As the crowd of com- petitors and spectators gathered round the sabres- ring, and chairs were carried up for the Generals, ladies, and staff, to witness the last and most excit- ing contest of the morning's meeting, a Corporal- official of the Assault-at-Arms Executive Committee called aloud, ''Sergeant O'Malley, 14th Hussars, get ready," and another fastened a red band to the Sergeant's arm as he stepped forward, clad in leather jacket and leg-guards and carrying the heavy iron- and-leather head-guard necessary in sabre combats, and the blunt-edged, blunt-pointed sabre. Dam approached him. " Don't let my point rest on your hilt. Sergeant," he said. ''What's the game? " inquired the surprised and suspicious Sergeant. " My litde trick. I thrust rather than cut, you know," said Dam. "I'll watch it, me lad," returned Sergeant O'Malley, wondering whether Dam were fool or knave. " Trooper Matthewson, get ready," called the Corporal, and Dam stepped into the ring, saluted, and faced the Sergeant. A brief direction and caution, the usual pre- liminary, and the word — " On guard — Play^' and Dam was parrying a series of the quickest cuts he had ever met. The MORE MYRMIDONS 241 Sergeant's sword flickered like the tongue of a — Snake. Yes — of a Snake I and even as Dam's hand dropped h'mp and nerveless, the Sergeant's sword fell with a dull heavy thud on his head-guard. The stroke would have split Dam's head right neatly, in actual fighting. " Stop," shouted the referee. " Point to Red." ** On guard — PlayT But if the Sergeant's sword flickered like the tongue of a snake — why then Dam must be fighting the Snake. Fighting the Snake and in another second the referee again cried ** Stop ! " And added, ** Don't fight savage. White, or I'll disqualify you". "I'm awf ly sorry," said Dam, " I thought I was fighting the Sn " "Hold your tongue, and don't argue," replied the referee sternly. "On Guard— 7^%." Ere the Sergeant could move his sword from its upward-inclined position Dam's blade dropped to its hilt, shot in over it, and as the Sergeant raised his forearm in guard, flashed beneath it and bent on his breast. "Stop," cried the referee. "Point to White. Double " — two marks being then awarded for the thrust hit, and one for the cut. " On guard— P%." Absolutely the same thing happened again within the next half-second, and Dam had won the British Troops' Sword v. Sword Dismounted, in 16 242 SNAKE AND SWORD addition to being in for the finals in Tent-pegging, Sword V. Sword Mounted, Jumping (Individual and By Sections), Sword v. Lance, and Tug-of-War. *' Now jest keep orf it, Matthewson, and sweep the bloomin' board," urged Troop-Sergeant-Major Scoles as Dam removed his fencing-jacket, prepara- tory to returning to barracks. ** You be Best Man- at-arms in the Division and win everythink that's open to British Troops Mounted, and git the 'Eavy- Weight Championship from the Gorilla — an' there'll be some talk about promotion for yer, me lad." *' Thank you. Sergeant," replied Dam. '' I am a total abstainer." " Yah ! Chuck it," observed the Sergeant-Major. Of no interest to Women nor modem civilized Men. The long-anticipated hour had struck, the great moment had arrived, and (literally) thousands of British soldiers sat in a state of expectant thrill and excited interest, awaiting the appearance of the Gorilla (Corporal Dowdall of the iiith Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery — fourteen stone twelve) and Trooper Matthewson (Queen's Greys — four- teen stone) who were to fight for the Elliott Belt, the Motipur Cup, and the Heavy-Weight Champion- ship of India. The Boxing Tournament had lasted for a week and had been a huge success. Now came \ki^ piece de resistance, the fight of the Meeting, the event for which special trains had brought hundreds of civilians and soldiers from neighbouring and distant MORE MYRMIDONS 243 cantonments. Bombay herself sent a crowded train- load, and it was said that a, by no means small, contingent had come from Madras. Certainly more than one sporting patron of the Great Sport, the Noble Art, the Manly Game, had travelled from far Calcutta. So well-established was the fame of the great Gorilla, and so widely published the rumour that the Queen's Greys had a prodigy who'd lower his flag in ten rounds — or less. A great square of the grassy plain above Motipur had been enclosed by a high canvas wall, and around a twenty-four foot raised " ring " (which was square) seating accommodation for four thousand spectators had been provided. The front rows consisted of arm-chairs, sofas, and drawing-room settees (from the wonderful stock of Mr. Dadabhoy Pochajee Furniturewallah of the Sudder Bazaar) for the officers and leading civilians of Motipur, and such other visitors as chose to purchase the highly priced reserved-seat tickets. Not only was every seat in the vast enclosure occupied, but every square inch of standing-room, by the time the combatants entered the arena. A few dark faces were to be seen (Native Officers oixki^pultans ^ and rissala ^ of the Motipur Brigade), and the idea occurred to not a few that it was a pity the proceedings could not be witnessed by every Indian in India. It would do them good in more ways than one. Although a large number of the enormously pre- ^ Infantry Regiments. ^ Cavalry Regiment. 16* 244 SNAKE AND SWORD ponderating military spectators were in the khaki kit so admirable for work (and so depressing, un- swanksome and anti-enlistment for play, or rather for walking-out and leisure), the experienced eye could see that almost every corps in India furnished contingents to the gathering. Lancers, dragoons, hussars, artillery, riflemen, Highlanders, supply and transport, infantry of a score of regiments, and, rare sight away from the Ports, a small party of Man-o'- War's-men in white duck, blue collars, and straw hats (huge, solemn-faced men who jested with grimmest seriousness of mien and insulted each other outrageously). Officers in scarlet, in dark blue, in black and cherry colour, in fawn and cherry colour, in pale blue and silver, in almost every com- bination of colours, showed that the commissioned ranks of the British and Indian Services were well represented, horse, foot, guns, engineers, doctors, and veterinary surgeons — every rank and every branch. On two sides of the roped ring, with its padded posts, sat the judges, boxing Captains both, who had won distinction at Aldershot and in many a local tournament. On another side sat the referee, ^;i;-Public-Schools Champion, Aldershot Light- Weight Champion, and, admittedly, the best boxer of his weight among the officers of the British Army. Beside him sat the time-keeper. Overhead a cir- cle of large incandescent lamps made the scene as bright as day. ** Well, d'you take it ? " asked Seaman Jones of Seaman Smith. " Better strike while the grog s 'ot. MORE MYRMIDONS 245 A double-prick o' baccy and a gallon o* four-'arf, evens, on the Griller. I ain't never 'eard o' the Griller till we come 'ere, and I never 'eard o' t'other bloke neether — but I 'olds by the Griller, cos of 'is name and I backs me fancy afore I sees 'em. — Loser to 'elp the winner with the gallon." ** Done, Bill," replied the challenged promptly, on hearing the last condition. (He could drink as fast as Bill if he lost, and he could borrer on the baccy till it was wore out.) "Got that bloomin' 'igh- falutin' lar-de-dar giddy baccy-pouch and yaller baccy you inwested in at Bombay ? " he asked. ** Yus, 'Enery," replied William, diving deeply for it. " Then push it 'ere, an' likewise them bloomin' 'igh-falutin' lar-de-dar giddy fag-papers you fumble wiv'. Blimey ! ain't a honest clay good enough for yer now ? I knows wots the matter wiv you, Billy Jones ! You've got a weather-heye on the Quarter Deck you 'ave. You fink you're agoin' to be a blighted perish in' orficer you do ! Yus, you flat-footed matlot — not even a blasted tiffy you ain't, and you buys a blighted baccy-pouch and yaller baccy and fag-pipers, like a Snottie, an' reckons you's on the 'igh road to be a bloomin' Winnie Lloyd Gorgeous Orficer. 'And 'em 'ere — fore I'm sick. Lootenant, — Gunnery Jack, — Number One, — Commerdore ! " *' Parding me, 'Enery Smiff," returned William Jones with quiet dignity. ** In consequents o' wot you said, an' more in consequents o' yore clumsy 246 SNAKE AND SWORD fat fingers not been used to 'andlin' dellikit objex, and most in consequents o' yore been a most ontrustable thief, I will perceed to roll you a fag meself, me been 'ighly competent so fer to do. Not but wot a fag'll look most outer place in your silly great ugly faice." The other sailor watched the speaker in cold contempt as he prepared a distinctly exiguous, ill- fed cigarette. " Harthur Handrews," he said, turning to his other neighbour, "'Ave yew 'appened to see the Master Sail-maker or any of 'is mermydiuns 'ere- abahts, by any chawnst ? " ** Nope. 'An don' want. Don' wan' see nothink to remind me o' Ther blue, ther fresh, ther hever free, Ther blarsted, beastly, boundin' sea. Not even your distressin' face and dirty norticle apparile. Why do you arksk sich silly questch- -> >> mgsr ** Willyerm Jones is amakin' a needle for 'im." "As'ow?" ** Wiv a fag-paper an' a thread o' yaller baccy. *E's makin' a bloomin' needle," and with a sudden grab he possessed himself of the pouch, papers, and finished product of Seaman Jones's labours and generosity. Having pricked himself severely and painfully with the alleged cigarette, he howled with pain, cast it from him, proceeded to stick two papers to- MORE MYRMIDONS 247 gether and to make an uncommonly stout, well- nourished, and bounteous cigarette. " I 'fought I offered you to make yourself a cigarette, 'Enery," observed the astounded owner of the materia nicotina. ** I grabbed for to make myself a cigarette, Willyerm," was the pedantically correct restatement of Henry. "Then why go for to try an' mannyfacter a bloomin' banana ? " asked the indignant victim, whose further remarks were drowned in the roars of applause which greeted the appearance from the dressing-tents of the Champion and the Challenger. Dam and Corporal Dowdall entered the ring from opposite corners, seated themselves in the chairs provided for them, and submitted themselves to the ministrations of their respective seconds. Trooper Herbert Hawker violently chafed Dam's legs. Trooper Bear his arms and chest, while Trooper Goate struggled to force a pair of new boxing- gloves upon his hands, which were scientifically bandaged around knuckles, back, and wrist, against untimely dislocations and sprains. Clean water was poured into the bowls which stood behind each chair, and fresh resin was sprinkled over the canvas-covered boards of the Ring. Men whose favourite '* carried their money " (and each carried a good deal) anxiously studied that favourite's opponent. The Queen's Greys beheld a gorilla indeed, a 248 SNAKE AND SWORD vast, square, long-armed hairy monster, with the true pugilist face and head. "Wot a werry ugly bloke," observed Seaman Arthur Andrews to Seaman Henry Smith. **'E reminds me o' Hadmiral Sir Percy 'Opkinton, so 'e do. P'raps e's a pore relation." "Yus," agreed Seaman Smith. "A crost be- tween our beloved 'Oppy an' ole Bill Jones ere. Bill was reported to 'ave ad a twin brother — but it was alius serposed Bill ate 'im when e wasn' lookin'." The backers of Corporal Dowdall were en- couraged at seeing a man who looked like a gentle- man and bore none of the traditional marks of the prize-fighter. His head was not cropped to the point of bristly baldness, his nose was unbroken, his eyes well opened and unblackened, his ears unthickened, his body untattooed. He had the white skin, small trim moustache, high-bred features, small extremities, and general appearance and bearing of an officer. Ho, G'rilla Dowdall would make short work of that tippy young toff. Why, look at him ! And indeed it made you shudder to think of that enormous ferocity, that dynamic truculence, doing its best to destroy you in a space twenty -four feet square. Let the challenger wait till G'rilla put his fighting face on — fair terrifyin'. Not an Artilleryman but felt sure that the garrison-gunner would successfully defend the I MORE MYRMIDONS 249 title and ** give the swankin' Queen's Greys some- thing to keep them choop ^ for a bit. Gettin' above 'emselves they was, becos' this bloke of theirs had won Best Man-at-Arms and had the nerve to challenge G'rilla Dowdall, R.G.A." Even the R.H.A. admitted the R.G.A. to terms of perfect equality on that great occasion. But a few observant and experienced officers, gymnasium instructors, and ancient followers of the Noble Art were not so sure. '* Put steel-and-whalebone against granite and I back the former," said Major Decoulis to Colonel Hanking ; *' other things being equal of course — skill and ring-craft. And I hear that No. 2 — the Queen's Greys' man — is unusually fast for a heavy- weight." ** I'd like to see him win," admitted the Colonel. " The man looks a gentleman. Doesnt the other look a Bill Sykes, by Jove ! " The Staff Sergeant Instructor of the Motipur Gymnasium stepped into the ring. ** Silence, please," he bawled. "Fifteen-round contest between Corporal Dowdall, iiith Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, Heavy- Weight Champion of Hindia, fourteen twelve (Number i — on my right 'and) and Trooper Matthewson, Queen's Greys, fourteen stun (Number 2 — on my left 'and). Please keep silence durin' the rounds. The winner is Heavy- Weight Champion of Hindia, winner of 1 Silent. 2SO SNAKE AND SWORD the Motipur Cup and older of the Elliott Belt. All ready there ? " Both combatants were ready. "Come here, both of you," said the referee. As he arose to obey. Dam was irresistibly re- minded of his fight with Bully Harberth and smiled. " Nervous sort o' grin on the figger- ead o' the smaller wessel, don't it," observed Seaman Smith. *• There wouldn't be no grin on your fat face at all," returned Seaman Jones. *' It wouldn't be there. You'd be full-steam-ahead, bearings 'eated, and showin' no lights, for them tents — when you see wot you was up against." The referee felt Dam's gloves to see that they contained no foreign bodies in the shape of plum- mets of lead or other illegal gratifications. (He had known a man fill the stufifing-compartments of his gloves with plaster of Paris, that by the third or fourth round he might be striking with a kind of stone cestus as the plaster moulded with sweat and water, and hardened to the shape of the fist.) As he stepped back. Dam looked for the first time at his opponent, conned his bruiser face and Herculean body, and, with a gasp and shudder, was aware that a huge tattooed serpent reared its head in the centre of his vast chest while smaller ones encircled the mighty biceps of his arms. He clutched the rope and leant trembling against the post as the referee satisfied himself (with very great care in this case) of the innocence of the Gorilla's gloves. MORE MYRMIDONS 251 " I know you of old, Dowdall," he said, " and I shall only caution you once mind. Second offence — and out you go." Corporal Dowdall grinned sheepishly. He ap- peared to think that a delicate and gentlemanly compliment had been paid to his general downi- ness, flyness, and ring-craft, — the last of which, for Corporal Dowdall, included every form of foul that a weak referee would pass, an inexperienced one misunderstand, or a lazy one miss. Major O'Hal- loran, first-class bruiser himself, was in the habit of doing his refereeing inside the ring and within a foot or two of the principals, where he expected foul play. As the Major cautioned the Gorilla, Dam passed his hand wearily across his face, swallowed once or twice and groaned aloud. It was not fair. Why should the Snake be allowed to humiliate him before thousands of spectators ? Why should It be brought here to shame him in the utmost publicity, to make him fail his comrades, disgrace his regiment, make the Queen's Greys a laughing-stock ? But — he had fought an emissary of the Snake before — and he had won. This villainous-looking pugilist was perhaps the Snake Itself in human form — and, see, he was free, he was in God's open air, no chains bound him, he was not gagged, this place was not a pit dug beneath the Pit itself! This was all tangible and real. He would have fair play and be able to defend himself. This was not a blue 252 SNAKE AND SWORD room with a mud floor. Nay, he would be able to attack — to fight, fight like a wounded pantheress for her cubs. This accursed Snake in Human Form would only be able to use puny fists. Mere trivial human fists and human strength. Everything would be on the human plane. It would be unable to wrap him in its awful coils and crush and crush the soul and life and manhood out of him, as it did at night before burrowing its way ten million miles below the floor of Hell with him, and immuring him in a molten incandescent tomb where he could not even scream or writhe. " Get to your corners," said the referee, and Dam returned to his place with a cruel smile upon his compressed lips. By the Merciful Living God he had the Snake Itself delivered unto him in human form — to do with as he could. Oh, that It might last out the fifteen times of facing him in his wrath, his pent-up vengeful wrath at a ruined life, a dis- honoured name and a lost Lucille I When would they give the word for him to spring upon it and batter it lifeless to the ground ? " Don't grind yer silly teeth like that," whispered Hawker, his grim ugly face white with anxiety and suspense (for he loved Damocles de Warrenne as the faithfullest of hounds loves the best of masters). " You're awastin' henergy all the time." ** God ! \i they don't give the word in a minute I shall be unable to hold off It," replied Dam wildly. "That's the sperrit. Cocky," approved Hawker, " but donchew fergit you gotter larst fifteen bloomin' MORE MYRMIDONS 253 rahnds. 'Taint no kindergarters. '^'11 stick it orlrite, an' you'll avter win on points " " Seconds out of the Ring," cried the time-keeper, staring at his watch. ** Don't get knocked out, dear boy," implored Trooper Bear. " Fight to win on points. You cant knock him out. I'm going to pray like hell through the rounds " " Time!' barked the time-keeper, and, catching up the chair as Dam rose. Trooper Bear dropped down from the boards of the ring to the turf, where already crouched Hawker and Goate, looking like men about to be hanged. The large assembly drew a deep breath as the combatants approached each other with extended right hands — Dam clad in a pair of blue silk shorts, silk socks and high, thin, rubber-soled boots, the Gorilla in an exiguous bathing-garment and a pair of gymnasium shoes. Dam a picture of the Perfect Man, was the taller, and the Gorilla, a perfect Caliban, was the broader and had the longer reach. Their right hands touched in perfunctory shake. Dam drew back to allow the Snake to assume sparring attitude, and, as he saw the huge shoulders hunch, the great biceps rise, and the clenched gloves come to position, he assumed the American *' crouch " attitude and sprang like a tiger upon the incarnation of the utter Dam- nation and Ruin that had cursed his life to living death. The Gorilla was shocked and pained ! The 254 SNAKE AND SWORD tippy pink-and-white blasted rookie was " all over him " and he was sent staggering with such a rain of smashing blows as he had never, never felt, nor seen others receive. The whole assembly of soldiers, saving the Garrison Artillerymen, raised a wild yell, regardless of the referee's ferocious expostulations (in dumb-show) and even the ranks of the Horse- Gunners could scarce forbear to cheer. The Queen's Greys howled like fiends and Hawker, unknown to himself, punched the boards before him with terrific violence. Never had anything like it been seen. Matthewson was a human whirlwind, and Dowdall had not had a chance to return a blow. More than half the tremendous punches, hooks and in-fighting jabs delivered by his opponent had got home, and he was '* rattled ". A fair hook to the chin might send him down and out at any moment. Surely never had human being aimed such an unceasing, unending, rain of blows in the space of two minutes as had Trooper Matthewson. His arms had worked like the piston rods of an express engine — as fast and as untiringly. He had taken the Gorilla by surprise, had rushed him, and had never given him a fraction of time in which to attack. Beneath the rain of sledge-hammer blows the Gorilla had shrunk, guarding for dear life. Driven into a corner, he cowered down, crouched beneath his raised arms, and allowed his face to sink forward. Like a whirling piece of machinery Dam's arm flew round to administer the coup-de-grace, the MORE MYRMIDONS 255 upper cut, that would lay the Snake twitching and unconscious on the boards. The Gorilla was expecting it. As it came, his bullet head was jerked aside, and as the first swung harmlessly up, he arose like a flash, and, as he did so, his mighty right shot up, took Dam on the chin and laid him flat and sense- less in the middle of the ring. The Gorilla breathed heavily and made the most of the respite. He knew it must be about " Time," and that he had not won. If it wasn't "Time," and the cub arose he'd knock him to glory as he did so. Yes, the moment the most liberal-minded critic could say he was just about on his feet, he'd give him a finisher that he'd bear the mark of. The bloomin' young swine had nearly '' had " him — kzm, the great G'rilla Dowdall, about to buy him- self out with his prize-money, and take to pugilism as a profession. ** One — ^wo — three-— four ^' counted the time- keeper amid the most deathly silence, and, as he added, ''five — six — Time,'' a shout arose that was heard for miles. Trooper Matthewson was saved — if his seconds could pull him round in time. At sound of the word '* Time," the seconds leapt into the ring. Hawker and Bear rushed to the pro- strate Dam, hauled him to his feet, and dragged him to the chair which Goate had placed ready. As he was dropped into it, a spongeful of icy water from Goate's big sponge brought Dam to consciousness. 256 SNAKE AND SWORD ** Breave for all y'r worf," grunted Hawker, as he mightily swung a big bath-towel in swift eddies, to drive refreshing air upon the heaving, panting body of his principal. Bear and Goate applied massaging hands with skilled violence. "By Jove, I thought you had him," panted Goate as he kneaded triceps and biceps. "And then I thought he had you. It's anybody's fight, Matty — but dont try and knock him out. You couldn't do it with an axe." " No," agreed Bear. " You've got to keep on your feet and win on points." "I've got to kill the Snake,'' hissed Dam, and his seconds glanced at each other anxiously. He felt that nothing could keep him from victory. He was regaining his faith in a just Heaven, now that the Snake had been compelled to face him in the puny form of a wretched pugilist. Some one had said something about an axe. It would be but fair if he had an axe, seeing that hitherto the Snake had had him utterly defenceless while exer- cising its own immeasurable and supernatural powers, when torturing him to its heart's content for endless aeons. But — no — since it was here in human form and without weapons, he would use none, and would observe the strictest fairness in fight, just as he would to a real human enemy. "Abaht that there little bet, 'Enery," observed Seaman Jones, " I fink we'll alter of it. I don't wish to give no moral support to this 'ere Griller. MORE MYRMIDONS 257 T'other bloke's only jus' fresh from the Novice Class, I reckon, jedgin' by 'is innercent young faice, an' e's aputtin' up the werry best fight as ever I see. We'll chainge it like this 'ere. We backs the 'orse-soldier to win, and, if he do, we drinks a gallon between us. If 'e don't, we drinks two fer to console 'im, an' drahn sorrer, wot.?" " So it are, Will'm," agreed Henery. ** Then we wins either way ! You got a 'ead fer logger- rhythms. Oughter been a bloomin' bookie. They 'as to be big an' ugly " *' Seconds out of the Ring," called the referee, and a hush fell upon the excited throng. Bear and Goate dropped to the ground, Hawker splashed water all over Dam's body and, as he rose on the word " Time,'' snatched away the chair and joined his colleagues, who crouched with faces on a level with the boards. " Oh, buck him up, good Lord, and put ginger in his short-arm work, and O Lord, take care of his chin and mark," prayed Trooper Bear, with deep and serious devoutness. No need to shake hands this bout — not again till the fifteenth, noted Dam, as he arose and liter- ally leapt at his opponent with a smashing drive of his right and a feint of his left which drew the Gorilla's guard and left his face exposed. The Gorilla received Dam's full weight and full strength, and, but for the ropes, would have been knocked among the spectators. 17 258 SNAKE AND SWORD A tremendous yell went up, led by the Queen's Greys. As the tautening of the ropes swayed the Gorilla inward again, Dam delivered a brace of lightning strokes that, though they did not find the chin, staggered and partly stunned him, and, ere he could pull himself together. Dam was inside his guard, almost breast to breast with him, and raining terrific blows, just above the belt. Left, right, left, right, and no chance for the Gorilla to get his own hands up for a couple of seconds, and, when he could, and drove an appalling blow at Dam's chin, it was dodged and he received a cross-counter that shook him. He must sham weariness and de- moralization, lead the tippy rookie on to over-con- fidence and then land him clean over the ropes. A sullen rage grew in the Gorilla's heart. He wasn't doing himself justice. He wasn't having a fair show. This blasted half-set pink and white recruit hadn't given him time to settle down. A fifteen- round contest shouldn't be bustled like this ! The bloke was more like a wild-cat than a sober heavy- weight boxer. He received a heavy blow in the face and, as he shook his head with an evil grin, according to his custom when well struck, he found it followed practically instantaneously by another. The swab was about the quickest thing that ever got into a ring. He was like one of these bloomin', tricky, jack-in-the-box featherweights, instead of a steady lumbering "heavy". And the Gorilla allowed MORE MYRMIDONS 259 himself to be driven to a corner again, and let his head sink forward, that the incautious youth might again put all his strength into an upper-cut, miss as the other dodged, and be at the mercy of the Gorilla as the errant fist completed its over-driven swing. But Damocles de Warrenne fought with his brain as well as his strength and skill. He had learnt a lesson, and no dull-witted oaf of a Gorilla was going to have him like that twice. As the Gorilla cowered and crouched in simulated defeat and placed his face to tempt the coup de grace which he would see swinging up, and easily dodge, Dam swiftly side-stepped and summoning every ounce of strength, rage, and mad protesting frenzy against the life-long torturing tyrant, he delivered a Homeric blow at the champion's head, beside and behind the ear. (Since he was indestructible by the ordinary point-of-the-chin knock-out, let him make the best of that fearful blow upon the base of the brain and spinal cord, direct.) Experienced men said it was the heaviest blow they had ever seen struck with the human fist. It was delivered slightly downward, coolly, at measured distance, with change from, left foot to right in the act of delivery, and with the uttermost strength of a most powerful athlete in perfect training — and Hate Incarnate lent the strength of madness to the strength of training and skill. Thud ! — and the Gorilla dropped like a log. ** One — two — three— four — five — six — seven — " 17* 26o SNAKE AND SWORD counted the time- keeper, as men scarcely breathed in the dead silence into which the voice cut sharply — ''eight — " and, in perfect silence, every man of those thousands slowly rose to his feet — ''nine — OUT!'' and such a roar arose as bade fair to rend the skies. " Outed'' in two rounds! Men howled like lunatics, and the Queen's Greys behaved like very dangerous lunatics. Hawker flung his arms' round Dam and endeavoured to raise him on his shoulders and chair him unaided. Bear and Goate got each a hand and proceeded to do their best to crush it. Seamen Jones and Smith exchanged a chaste kiss. Damocles de Warrenne was the hero of the Queen's Greys. Best Man-at-Arms in the Divi- sion, winner in Sword v. Sword Mounted and Dis- mounted, Tent-pegging, Sword v. Lance, and In- dividual Jumping, and in the winning teams for Tug-of-War, Section Jumping, and Section Tent- pegging ! " Give him a trial as Corporal then, from the first of next month, sir, if there's no sign of any- thing wrong during the week," agreed Captain Daunt, talking him over with the Colonel, after re- ceiving through Troop-Sergeant- Major Scoles a petition to promote the man. Within twenty-four hours of his fight with the Gorilla, Dam found himself on sentry-go over what was known in the Regiment as " the Dead 'Ole " — MORE MYRMIDONS 261 which was the mortuary, situated in a lonely, isolated spot beyond a nullah some half-furlong from the Hospital, and cut off from view of human habita- tion by a belt of trees. On mounting guard that evening, the Sergeant of the Guard had been informed that a corpse lay in the mortuary, a young soldier having been taken ill and having died within a few hours, of some disease of a distinctly choleraic nature. ** I'll t^W you orf for that post, Matthewson," said the Sergeant. ** P'raps you'll see ghosties there, for a change," for it was customary to mount a sentry over ** the Dead 'Ole " when it contained an occu- pant, and one of the sentry's pleasing duties was to rap loudly and frequently upon the door throughout the night to scare away those vermin which are no respecters of persons when the persons happen to be dead and the vermin ravenous. '* I'm not afraid of ghosts, Sergeant," replied Dam — though his heart sank within him at the thought of the long lonely vigil in the dark, w^hen he would be so utterly at the mercy of the Snake — the Snake over whom he had just won a signal victory, and who would be all the more vindictive and terrible in consequence. Could he keep sane through the lonely darkness of those dreadful hours ? Perhaps — if he kept himself in some severe physical agony. He would put a spur beneath his tight-drawn belt and next to his skin, he would strike his knee fre- quently with the '* toe of the butt " of his carbine, he would put pebbles in his boots, and he would 262 ' SNAKE AND SWORD cause cramp in his limbs, one after the other. Any kind of pain would help. It must be quarter of an hour since he had rapped on the mortuary door and sent his messages of prohibition to mouse, rat, bandicoot, civet-cat, wild- cat or other vermin intruder through the roof-ven- tilation holes. He would knock again. A strange thing this — knocking at a dead man's door in the middle of the night. Suppose the dead man called " Come in ! " It would be intensely interesting, but in no wise terrifying or horrible. Presumably poor young Trooper Priddell was no more dangerous or dreadful in the spirit than he had been in the flesh. . . . Fortunate young man ! Were he only on sentry-go outside the peaceful mortuary and Dam- ocles de Warrenne stretched on the bier within, to await the morrow and its pomp and ceremony, when the carcass of the dead soldier would receive honours never paid to the living, sentient man, be he never so worthy, heroic, virtuous and deserving. Oh, to be lying in there at rest, to be on the other side of that closed door at peace ! . . . To-morrow that poor dead yokel's body would receive a ** Present Arms" (as though he were an armed party commanded by an Officer) from the Guard, which the sentry would turn out as the coffin passed the Guard-room. For the first and last time in his life, he would get a " Present Arms ". It wouldn't be in his life though. For the first and last time in his death ? That didn't sound right MORE MYRMIDONS 263 either. Anyhow he would get it, and lots of strange, inexplicable, origin-forgotten rites would be ob- served over this piece of clay — hitherto so cheaply held and roughly treated. Queer ! As ** Trooper Priddell " he was of no account. As a piece of fast-decaying carrion he would be the centre of a piece of elaborate cere- monial ! His troop would parade in full dress and (save for a firing-party of twelve who would carry carbines) without arms. A special black horse would be decked out with a pall of black velvet and black plumes. Across this horse the spurred jack- boots of the dead man would be slung with toes pointing to the rear. Two men, wearing black cloaks, would lead the horse by means of new handkerchiefs passed through the bridoon rings of its bridle, handkerchiefs which would become their perquisites and memento mori. With crape-draped drums, the band, in silence, would lead the troop to the mortuary where would await it a gun-carriage with its six horses and coffin- supporting attachment. Here the troop would break ranks, file into the mortuary and bare-headed take, each man, his last look at the face of the dead as he lay in his coffin. The lid would then be screwed on, the troop would form a double line, facing inward, the firing-party would "present arms," and six of the dead man's more particular pals, or of his " townies," would bear the coffin out and place it upon the gun-carriage. It would then be covered with a Union Jack and on it would be 264 SNAKE AND SWORD placed the helmet, sword, and carbine of the de- ceased trooper, the firing-party standing meanwhile, leaning on their reversed carbines, with bowed heads. As the melancholy procession formed up for its march to the graveyard, the smallest and junior men would take front place, the bigger and senior men behind them, non-commissioned officers would follow, and subalterns and captain last of all. In stepping off from the halt, all would step off with the right foot instead of with the left. Apparently the object was to reverse ordinary procedure to the uttermost — which would but be in keeping with the great reversal of showing honour to such an unhonoured thing as a private soldier — one of the despised and rejected band that enable the respect- able, wealthy, and smug to remain so ; one of the ** licentious soldiery" that have made, and that keep, the Empire of which the respectable wealthy and smug are so proud. At the " slow march," and in perfect silence until beyond hearing by the inmates of the Hospital, the cortege would proceed. Anon the band would call heaven and earth to mourn with the sonorous dreadful strains of the Dead March; whereafter the ordinary "quick march" would bring the funeral party to the cemetery, in sight of which the "slow march" would be resumed, and the Chaplain, surpliced, book-bearing, come forth to put himself at its head, leading the way to the grave-side where, with uncovered heads, the MORE MYRMIDONS 265 mourners would listen to the impressive words with feelings varying as their education, religion, tem- perament, and — digestion — impelled. At the close of the service, the firing-party in their places, six on either side of the grave, would fire three volleys into the air, while the band breathed a solemn dirge. And — perhaps most impressively tragic touch of all — the party would march briskly off to the strains of the liveliest air in the whole repertoire of the band. Why should John Humphreyville Priddell — doubtless scion of the great Norman houses of Humphreyville and Paradelle, who shared much of Dorsetshire between them from Domesday Book to Stuart downfall — have been born in a tiny village of the Vale of Froom in " Dorset Dear," to die of cholera in vile Motipur ? Was some maid, in barton, byre, or dairy, thinking of him but now — with an ill-writ letter in her bosom, a letter begin- ning with "/ now take up my pen to right you these few lines hopping they find you the same which they now leave me at present " according to right tradition and proper custom, and continuing to speak of homesick longings, dreams of furlough, promotion, marrying "on the strength," and retirement to green fair Dorset Dear on a Sergeant- Major's pension ? What was the meaning of it all ? Was it pure chance and accident — or had a Living, Scheming, Purposeful Deity a great wise object in this that John Humphreyville Priddell should have been 2(i6 SNAKE AND SWORD born and bred and nurtured in the Vale of Froom to be struck from lusty life to a death of agony in a few hours at Motipur in the cruel accursed blighted land of Ind ? Well, well ! — high time to rap again upon the door, the last door, of John Humphrey ville Priddell, Trooper, ex-dairyhand, decaying carrion, — and scare from his carcass such over-early visitants as anticipated ... How hollowly the blows re-echoed. Did they strike muffled but murderous upon the heart of the thousand-league distant dairymaid, or of the old cottage-mother whose evenings were spent in spelling out her boy's loving letters — that so oft covered a portion of his exiguous pay ? . . . Was that a scuttling within ? Quite probably. It might be — rats, it might be a bandicoot ; it could hardly be a jackal ; it might be a SNAKE, — ^and Trooper Matthewson s carbine clattered to the ground and his knees smote together as he thought the word. Pulling himself together he hastily snatched up his carbine with a flush of shame at the slovenly unsoldierly ** crime " of dropping it. He'd be dropping his arms on parade next ! But it might be a snake — for he had certainly heard the sound of a movement of some sort. The strong man felt faint and leant against the mortuary wall for a moment. Oh, that the wretched carbine were a sword ! A man could feel a man with a sword in his hand. He could almost face the Snake, even in Snake MORE MYRMIDONS 267 form, if he had a sword . . . but what is a car- bine, even a loaded Martini- Henry carbine with its good soft man-stopping slug? There are no tra- ditions to a carbine — nothing of the Spirit of one's Ancestors in one — a vile mechanic thing of villain- ous saltpetre. How should the Snake fear that ? Now a sword was different. It stood for human war and human courage and human deeds from the mistiest past, and behind it must be a weight of human wrath, feats, and tradition that must make even the Snake pause. Oh, for his sword — if the Snake came upon him when he had but this wretched carbine he would probably desert his post, fling the useless toy from him, and flee till he fell blind and fainting on the ground. . . . And what would the Trooper of the Queen get who deserted his sentry -post, threw away his arms and fled — and explained in defence that he had seen a snake? Probably a court-martial would give him a spell of Military Prison. Yes — Jail. . . . What propor- tion of truth could there be in the firmly-held belief of the men that *' crimes " are made so numerous and so inevitable, to the best-meaning and most careful, because there exist a great Military Prison System and a great Military Prison personnel — and that " criminals " are essential to the respective proper inhabitation and raison d'etre thereof — that unless a good supply of military "criminals" were forthcoming there might have to be reduc- tions and curtailments — loss of snug billets. . . . Certainly soldiers got years of imprisonment for 268 SNAKE AND SWORD ** crimes " for which civilians would get reprimands or nominal fines, and, moreover, when a man be- came a soldier he certainly lost the elementary fundamental rights guaranteed to Englishmen by Magna Charta — among them the right of trial by his peers. . . . Would poor Priddell mind if he did not knock again ? If it were the Snake it could do Priddell no harm now — he being happily dead — whereas, if disturbed, it might emerge to the utter undoing — mind, body, and soul — of Trooper Matthewson. It would certainly send him to Jail or Lunatic Asylum — probably to both in due succession, for he was daily getting worse in the matter of the Snake. No — it was part of his orders, on this sentry -post, to knock at the door, and he would do his duty. Snake or not. He had always tried to do his duty faithfully and he would continue. . . . Once more to knock at a dead man's door. . . . Bump, Bump: Bump, Bump: Bump, Bump. '* You'll soon be at rest, Priddell, old chap — and I wish I could join you," called Dam, and it seemed to his excited brain that a deep hollow groan re- plied, " By Jove ! He's not dead," coolly remarked the man who would have fled shrieking from a harm- less blind-worm, and, going round to the back of the building, he placed his carbine against the wall and sprang up at a kind of window-ledge that formed the base of a grated aperture made for MORE MYRMIDONS 269 purposes of ventilation. Slowly raising his body- till his face was above the ledge, he peered into the dimly moonlit cell and then dropped to the ground and, catching up his carbine, sprinted in the direction of the Hospital Guard-room. There arrived, he shouted for the Corporal of the Guard and was quickly confronted by Corporal Prag. " Wot the devil you deserted yore "... he began. "Get the key of the mortuary, send for the Surgeon, and come at once," gasped Dam as soon as he could speak. ''PriddeUs not dead. Must be some kind of catalepsy. Quick, man." . . . "Catterwot? You drunken 'og," drawled the Corporal. ** CdXt^vwaulin more like it. Under arrest you goes, my lad. Now you 'ave done it. 'Ere, 'Awker, run down an' call up the Sergeant o' the Guard an* tell 'im Maffewson's left 'is post. 'E'll 'ave to plant annuvver sentry. Maffewson goes ter clink." ** Yes — but send for the Surgeon and the key of the mortuary too," begged Dam. ** I give you fair warning that Priddell is alive and groaning and off the bier " **Pity you ain't *off the beer' too," said the Corporal with a yawn. *' Well — there are witnesses that I brought the report to you. If Priddell is found dead on the ground to-morrow you'll have to answer for man- slaughter." '*'Ere, chuck it you snaike-seeing delirying 270 SNAKE AND SWORD trimmer, will yer! Give anyone the 'orrers to listen to yer! When Priddell is wrote off as * Dead ' e is dead, whether 'e likes it or no," and he turned to give orders to the listening guard to arrest Trooper Matthewson. The Sergeant of the Guard arrived at the "double," followed by Trooper Bear carrying a hurricane-lamp. "What's the row?" panted the Sergeant. " Matthewson on the booze agin ? " " I report that there is a living man in the mortuary, Sergeant," replied Dam. " Priddell is not dead. I heard him groan, and I scramblecf up to the grating and saw him lying on the ground by the door." ** Well, you'll see yerself groanin' an' lyin' on the ground in the Digger, now," replied the Sergeant, and, as much in sorrow as in anger, he added, ** An' youx^ the bloke I signed a petition for his permotion are yer ? At it agin a'ready ! " ''But, good Heavens, man, can't you see I'm as sober as you are, and much less excited? Can't you send for the key of the mortuary and call the doctor ? The poor chap may die for your stupidity." ''You call me a 'man' again, my lad, an' I'll show you what a Sergeant can do fer them as 'e don't like! As fer 'sober' — I've 'ad enough o' you ' sober '. W'y, in two ticks you may be on the ground 'owlin' and bellerin' and squealin' like a Berkshire pig over the blood-tub. Sober! Yus — I seen you at it." MORE MYRMIDONS 271 " Why on earth can't you come and prove I'm drunk or mad," besought Dam. "Open the mortuary and prove I'm wrong — and then put me under arrest. Call the Surgeon and say the sentry over the mortuary reports the inmate to be alive — he has heard of catalepsy and comatose collapse simulating death \{ you haven't." " Don' use sech 'orrible languidge," besought the respectable Corporal Prag. "Ho, yus ! Fvci agoin' to see meself whipt on the peg fer turnin' out the Surgin from 'is little bed in the middle o' the night — to come an' 'ave a look at the dead corpse 'e put in orders fer the Dead 'Ole, ain't I ? Jest becos the champion snaike- seer o' E Troop's got 'em agin, wot ? " Corporal Prag laughed merrily at the wit of his superior. Turning to Bear, whom he knew to be as well educated as himself, Dam remarked : — " Poor chap has rallied from the cholera collapse and could probably be saved by stimulants and warmth. This suspended animation is common enough in cholera. Why, the Brahmins have a regular ritual for dealing with cases of recovery on the funeral pyre — purification after defilement by the corpse- washers or something of the sort. These stupid oafs are letting poor Priddell die >> "What! you drunken talkin' parrot," roared the incensed Sergeant. " 'Ere, sling 'is drunken rotten carkis " 272 SNAKE AND SWORD " What's the row here ? " cut in a quiet curt voice. ** Noise enough for a gang of crows " Surgeon-Captain Blake of the Royal Army- Medical Corps had just left the Hospital, having been sent for by the night Nursing Sister. The men sprang to attention and the Sergeant saluted. "Drunk sentry left 'is post, Sir," he gabbled. " 'Spose the Dead 'Ole — er — Morshuerry, that is, Sir, got on 'is nerves. *E's given to secret boozin', Sir " ** Excuse me. Sir," broke in Dam, daring to address an Officer unbidden, since a life was at stake, " I am a total abstainer and Trooper Prid- dell is not dead. It must have been cataleptic trance. I heard him groan and I climbed up and saw him lying on the ground." '*This man's not drunk," said Captain Blake, and added to himself, **and he's an educated man, and a cultured, poor devil." " Oh, that's how 'e goes on. Sir, sober as a judge you'd say, an' then nex' minnit 'e's on the floor aseein' blue devils an' pink serpients " **The man's dying while we talk. Sir," put in Dam, whose wrath was rising. (If these dull- witted ignorant louts could not tell a drunken man from a sober, nor realize that a certified dead man may not be dead, surely the doctor could.) The Sergeant and the Corporal ventured on a respectful snigger. ** Bring me that lamp," said Captain Blake, and Trooper Bear raised it to his extended hand. Lift- MORE MYRMIDONS 273 ing it so that its light shone straight in Dam's face the doctor scanned the latter and examined his eyes. This was not the face of a drunkard nor was the man in any way under the influence of liquor now. Absurd! Had he fever? Was he of deranged intellect? But, alas, the light that shone upon Dam's face also shone upon Captain Blake's collar and upon the badge of his Corps which adorned it — and that badge is a serpent entwining a rod. It was the last straw ! Dam had passed through a most disturbing night ; he had kept guard in the lonely Snake-haunted darkness, guard over a mortu- ary in which lay a corpse ; he had had to keep knocking at the corpse's door, his mind had run on funerals, he had thought he heard the dead man groan, he believed he had seen the dead man moving, he had wrestled with thick intelligences who held him drunk or mad while precious moments passed, and he had had the Snake before his mental vision throughout this terrible time — and here was another of its emissaries wearing its badge, an emissary of high rank, an Officer- Emissary ! . . . Well, he was in the open air, thank God, and could put up a fight as before. Like a panther he sprang upon the unfortunate officer and bore him to the ground, with his power- ful hands enclosing the astounded gentleman's neck, and upon the couple sprang the Sergeant, the Corporal, and the Hospital Guard, all save the sentry, who (disciplined, well-drilled man 1) brought his carbine to the ** order" and stood stiffly at 18 274 SNAKE AND SWORD "attention" in a position favourable for a good view of the proceedings though strictly on his beat. Trooper Bear, ejaculating " Why do the heathen rage furiously together," took a running jump and landed in sitting posture on the heap, rolled off, and proceeded to seize every opportunity of violently smiting his superior officers, in his apparent zeal to help to secure the dangerous criminal-lunatic. Thoughts of having just one punch at a real Officer (if only a non-combatant still a genuine Commis- sioned Officer) flashed across his depraved mind. It was a Homeric struggle. Captain Blake was himself an old Guy's Rugger three-quarter and no mean boxer, and the Sergeant, Corporal, and Guard, were all powerful men, while Dam was a Samson further endowed with the strength of un- deniable madness. When at length he was dragged from Captain Blake's recumbent form, his hands torn from that officer's throat, and the group stood for a second panting. Dam suddenly felled Cor- poral Prag with such a blow as had been the un- doing of the Gorilla, sent Sergeant Wotting head over heels and, ere the Guard could again close with him, drove his fist into the face of the supposed myrmidon of the Snake and sprang upon his body once more. . . . It was some time before seven strong men could pinion him and carry him on a stretcher to the Guard-room, and, of those seven strong men, only Trooper Bear bore no mark of serious damage. MORE MYRMIDONS 275 (Trooper Bear had struck two non-commissioned officers with great violence, in his misdirected zeal, and one Commissioned Officer — though only play- fully and for the satisfaction of being able to say that he had done so.) That night, half dead, wholly mad, bruised and bleeding, Damocles de Warrenne lay in the dark cell awaiting trial on a charge of assaulting an Officer, striking his superior officers, resisting the Guard, deserting his sentry- post, and being drunk and disorderly. ** What'll he get, d'you think ? " sadly asked Trooper Goate of Trooper Hawker. " Two stretch ard laiber and discharged from the Army wiv' iggernerminny," groaned Trooper Hawker. " Lucky fer 'im floggin's erbolished in the British Army." When the mortuary door was unlocked next morning a little force was required to open it, some obstacle apparently retarding its inward movement. The obstacle proved to be the body, now certainly the dead body, of Trooper Priddell who had died with his fingers thrust under the said door.^ 1 This actually happened some years ago at Bangalore. — Author. 18 PART III. THE SAVING OF A SOUL. ^^#- CHAPTER XII. VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD. To the strongest and sanest mind there is something a small trifle disturbing, perhaps, in riding silently hour after hour on a soft-footed camel over soft sand in a silent empty land through the moonlit silent night, beside an overland-telegraph wire on every in- dividual post of which sits a huge vulture ! . . . Just as the sun set, a fiery red ball, behind the distant mountains, Damocles de Warrenne, gentleman-at- large, had caught sight of what he had sought in the desert for some days, the said overland telegraph, and thereby saved himself from the highly unpleasant death that follows prolonged deprivation of water. He had also saved his camel from a little earlier death, inasmuch as he had decided to probe for the faithful creature's jugular vein and carotid artery during the torturing heats of the morrow and prolong his life at its expense. (Had he not promised Lucille to do his best for himself?) The overland telegraph pointed absolutely straight to the border city of Kot Ghazi and, better still, to a river-bed which would contain pools of water, thirty miles this side of it, at a spot a few miles from 279 28o SNAKE AND SWORD which stood a lost lone dak-bungalow on Indian soil — a dak-bungalow whereat would be waiting a shikar7'i retainer, and such things as tea, fuel, potted foods, possibly fresh meat, and luxury of luxuries, a hot bath. . . . And, with a sigh of relief, he had wheeled his camel under the telegraph wires after a glance at the stars and brief calculation as to whether he should turn to left or right. (He did not want to proceed until he collapsed under the realization that he was making for the troubled land of Persia.) Anyhow, without knowing where he was, he knew he was on the road to water, food, human companionship (imagine Abdul Ghani a human companion ! — but he had not seen a human face for three weeks, nor heard nor uttered a word), and safety, after suffering the unpleasant experience of wandering in circles, lost in the most inhospitable desert on the earth. Vultures ! He had not realized there were so many in the world. Hour after hour, a post at every few yards, and on every post a vul- ture — a vulture that opened its eyes as he approached, regarded him from its own point of view — that of the Eater whose life is an unending search for Meat — calculatingly, and closed them again with a sigh at his remaining vigorousness. He must have passed hundreds, thousands, — had he died of thirst in actual fact and was he doomed to follow this line through this desert for evermore as a punishment for his sins } No — much too mild a punishment for the God of Love to inflict, accord- VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 281 ing to the Chaplain. This would be Eternal Bliss compared with the Eternal Fire. He must be still alive. . . . Was he mad, then, and imagining these unending bird-capped posts ? If not mad, he soon would be. Why couldn't they say something — mannerless brutes ! Should he swerve off and leave the telegraph line ? No, he had starved and suffered the agonies of thirst for nearly a week — and, if he could hang on all night, he might reach water to- morrow and be saved. Food was a minor con- sideration and if he could drink a few gallons of water, soak his clothes in it, lie in it, — he could carry on for another day or two. Nearly as easy to sprawl face-downward on a camel-saddle as on the ground — and he had tied himself on. The camel would rub along all right for days with camel-thorn and similar dainties. . . . No, better not leave the line. Halt and camp within sight of it till the morning, when the brutes would fly away in search of food ? No . . . might find it impossible to get going again, if once man and beast lay down now. . . . Ride as far as possible from the line, keeping it in sight? No . . . if he fell asleep the camel would go round in a circle again, and he'd wake up a dozen miles from the line, with no idea of direction and position. Best to carry straight on. The camel would stick to the line so long as he was left exactly on it. . . . think it a road. ... He could sleep without danger thus. He would shut his eyes and not see the vultures, for if he saw a dozen more he knew that he would go raving mad, halt the camel and 282 SNAKE AND SWORD address an impassioned appeal to them to say some- thing — for God's sake to say something. Didn't they know that he had been in solitary confinement in a desert for three weeks or three centuries (what is time ?) without hearing a sound or seeing a living thing — expecting the Snake night and day, and, moreover, that he was starving, dying of thirst, and light-headed, and that he was in the awful position of choosing between murdering the camel that had stood by him — no, under him — all that fearful time, and breaking his word to Lucille — cheating and deceiving Lucille. Then why couldn't they say something instead of sitting there in their endless millions, mile after billions of miles, post after billions of trillions of posts — menacing, watchful, silent, silent as the awful desert, silent as the Snake. . . . This would not do ... he must think hard of Lucille, of the Sword, of his Dream, his Dream that came so seldom now. He would repeat Lucille's last letter, word for word : — " My Darling, "It is over, thank God — Oh, thank God — and you can leave the army at once and become a * gentleman ' in position as well as in fact. Poor old Grumper died on Saturday (as I cabled) and before he died he became quite another man — weak, gentle and anxious to make any amends he could to anybody. For nearly a week he was like this, and it was a most wonderful and pathetic thing. He spent most of the time in telling me. General Harringport, Auntie Yvette or the Vicar, about VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 283 wicked things he had done, cruelties, meannesses, follies — it was most distressing, for really he has been simply a strong character with all the faults of one^ncluding, as we know too well, lack of sympathy, hardness, and sometimes savage cruelty, which, after all, was only the natural result of the lack of sympathy and understanding. "As he grew weaker he grew more sympathetic with illness and suffering, I suppose, for he sent for me in the middle of the night to say that he had suddenly remembered Major Decies' story about your probably being subject to fits and seizures in certain circumstances, and that he was coming to the conclusion that he had been hasty and unjust and had unmercifully punished you for no fault whatever. He said * I have punished him for being punished. I have added my injustice to that of Fate. Write to him that I ask his pardon and confess my fault. Tell him I'll make such repara- tion as I can,' and oh. Dam — he \ea.ves you Monks- mead, and me his money, on the understanding that we marry as soon as any physician, now living in Harley Street, says that you are fit to marry (I must write it I suppose) without fear of our children being epileptic, insane, or in any way tainted. If none of them will do this, I am to inherit Monksmead and part of the money and you are to have a part of the money. If we marry ^Aen^ we lose every- thing and it goes to Haddon Berners. Mr. Wyllis, who has been his lawyer and agent for thirty years, is to take you to Harley Street (presumably to 284 SNAKE AND SWORD prevent your bribing and corrupting the whole of the profession there residing). *' Come at once, Darling. If the silly old physicians won't certify, why — what does it matter ? I am going to let lodgings at Monksmead to a Respectable Single Man (with board) and Auntie Yvette will see that he behaves himself. ** Cable what boat you start by and I'll meet you at Port Said. I don't know how I keep myself sitting in this chair. I could turn head over heels for joy ! (And poor Grumper only just buried and his Will read !) He didn't lose quite all his grim humour in that wonderful week of softening, relenting and humanizing. What do you think he solemnly gave and bequeathed to the poor Haddock ? His wardrobe ! ! I And nothing else, but if the Haddock wears only Grumper 's clothes, including his boots, shirts, ties, collars and everything else, for one full and complete year, and wears absolutely nothing else, he is to have five thousand pounds at the end of it — and he is to begin on the day after the funeral ! And even at the last poor Grumper was a foot taller and a foot broader (not to mention thicker^ than the Haddock ! It appears that he systematically tried to poison Grumper's mind against you — presumably with an eye on this same last Will and Testament. He hasn't been seen since the funeral. I wonder if he is going to try to win the money by remaining in bed for a year in Grumper's pyjamas ! ** Am I not developing ' self-control and balance ' "^ VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 285 Here I sit writing news to you while my heart is screaming aloud with joy, crying * Dam is coming home. Dam's troubles are over. Dam is saved ! ' Because if you are ever so ' ill,' Darling, there is nothing on earth to prevent your coming to your old home at once — and if we can't marry we can be pals for evermore in the dear old place of our child- hood. But of course we can marry. Hurry home, and if any Harley Street doctor gives you even a doubtful look, throw him up his own stairs to show how feeble you are, or tie his poker round his neck in a neat bow, and refuse to undo it until he apologizes. I'm sure you could! '///' indeed! If you can't have a little fit, on the rare occasions when you see a snake, without fools saying you are ill or dotty or something, it is a pity ! Anyhow there is one small woman who understands, and if she can't marry you she can at any rate be your inseparable pal — and if the Piffling Little World likes to talk scandal, in spite of Auntie Yvette's presence — why it will be amusing. ** Cable, Darling ! I am just bursting with excite- ment and joy — and fear (that something may go wrong at the last moment). If it saved a single day I should start for Motipur myself at once. If we passed in mid-ocean I should jump overboard and swim to your ship. Then you'd do the same, and we should 'get left,' and look silly. . . . Oh, what nonsense I am talking — but I don't think I shall talk anything else again — for sheer joy ! ** You can't write me a lot of bosh now about 286 SNAKE AND SWORD * spoiling- my life ' and how you'd be ten times more miserable if I were your wife. Fancy — a soldier to-day and a * landed proprietor ' to-morrow ! How I wish you were a landed traveller, and were in the train from Plymouth — no, from Dover and London, because of course you'd come the quickest way. Did my cable surprise you very much ? ** I enclose fifty ten-pound notes, as I suppose they will be quicker and easier for you to cash than those * draft ' things, and they'll be quite safe in the insured packet. Send a cable at once. Darling. If you don't I shall imagine awful things and perhaps die of a broken heart or some other silly trifle. " Mind then : — Cable to-day ; Start to-morrow ; Get here in a fortnight — and keep a beady eye open at Port Said and Brindisi and places — in case there has been time for me to get there. *' Au revoir. Darling Dam, *' Your " Lucille. " Three cheers ! And a million more ! " Yes, a long letter, but he could almost say it backwards. He couldn't be anything like mad while he could do that? . . . How had she re- ceived his answer — in which he tried to show her the impossibility of any decent man compromising a girl in the way she proposed in her sweet inno- cence and ignorance. Of course he, a half-mad, epileptic, fiend-ridden monomaniac — nay, dangerous lunatic, — could not marry. Why, he might murder VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 287 I his own wife under some such circumstances as those under which he attacked Captain Blake. (Splendid fellow Blake ! Not every man after such a handling as that would make it his business to prove that his assailant was neither drunk, mad, nor criminal — merely under a hallucination. But for Blake he would now be in jail, or lunatic asylum, to a certainty. The Colonel would have had him court-mar tialled as a criminal, or else have had him out of the regiment as a lunatic. Nor, as a dangerous lunatic, would he have been allowed to buy himself out when Lucille's letter and his money arrived. Blake had got him into the posi- tion of a perfectly sober and sane person whose mind had been temporarily upset by a night of horror — in which a coffin-quitting corpse had figured, and so he had been able to steer between the cruel rocks of Jail and Asylum to the blessed harbour of Freedom.) Yes — in spite of Blake's noble goodness and help. Dam knew that he was not normal, that he was dangerous, that he spent long periods on the very border-line of insanity, that he stood fascinated on that border-line and gazed far into the awful country beyond — the Realms of the Mad. . . . Marry! Not Lucille, while he had the sanity left to say *' No " ! As for going to live at Monksmead with her and Auntie Yvette — it would be an even bigger crime. Was it for him to make Lucille a ** problem " girl, a girl who was ** talked about," a by- word for those 288 SNAKE AND SWORD vile old women of both sexes whose favourite pas- time is the invention and dissemination of lies where they dare, and of even more damaging head-shakes, lip-pursings, gasps and innuendoes where they do not ? Was it for him to get Lucille called " The Woman Who Did," by those scum of the leisured classes, and "That peculiar young woman," by the better sort of matron, dowager and chaperone, — make her the kind of person from whose company careful mothers keep their innocent daughters (that their market price may never be in danger of the faintest depreciation when they are for sale in the matri- monial market), the kind of woman for whom men have a slightly and subtly different manner at meet, hunt-ball, dinner or theatre-box ? Get Lucille "talked about"? No — setting aside the question of the possibility of living under the same roof with her and con- quering the longing to marry. No — he had some decency left, tainted as he doubtless was by his barrack-room life. Tainted of course. . . . What was it he had heard the senior soldierly-looking man, whom the other addressed as " General," say concerning some mutual acquaintance, at breakfast in the dining-car going up to Kot Ghazi ? ** Yes, poor chap, was in the ranks — and no man can escape the barrack-room taint when he has once lived in it. Take me into any Officers' Mess you like — say ' There is a promoted gentleman- VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 289 ranker here,' and I'll lay a thousand to one I spot him. Don't care if he's the son of a Dook — nor yet if he's Royal, you can spot him alright. ..." Pleasant hearing for the ** landed proprietor," whom a beautiful, wealthy and high-bred girl pro- posed to marry ! Tainted or not, in that way — he was mentally tainted, a fact beside which the other, if as true as Truth, paled into utterest insignificance. No — he had taken the right line in replying to Lucille that he was getting worse mentally, that no doctor would dream of "vetting" him ** sound," that he was not scoundrel enough to come and cause scandal and '* talk " at Monksmead, and that he was going to disappear completely from the ken of man, wrestle with himself, and come to her and beg her to marry him directly he was better — sufficiently better to ** pass the doctor," that is. If, meanwhile, she met and loved a man worthy of her, such a man as Ormonde Delorme, he implored her to marry him and to forget the wholly unworthy and undesirable person who had merely loomed large upon her horizon through the accident of propinquity. . . . (He could always disappear again and blow out such brains as he possessed, if that came to pass, he told himself) Meanwhile letters to the Bank of Bombay would be sent for, at least once a year — but she was not to write — she was to forget him. As to searching for him — he had not quite decided whether he 19 290 SNAKE AND SWORD would walk from Rangoon to Pekin or from Quetta to Constantinople — perhaps neither, but from Pes- hawur to Irkutsk. Anyhow, he was going to hide himself pretty effectually, and put himself beyond the temptation of coming and spoiling her life. Sooner or later he would be mad, dead, or cured. If the last — why he would make for the nearest place where he could get news of her — and if she were then happily married to somebody else — why — why — she would be happy, and that would make him quite happy. . . . Had the letter been quite sane and coherent — or had he been in a queer mental state when he wrote it ? . . . He opened his eyes, saw a vulture within a few yards of him, closed them again, and, soon after, fell into an uneasy slumber as the camel padded on at a steady seven miles an hour unurged — save by the smell of pure clear water which was still a score of miles distant. ... i When Damocles de Warrenne awoke, he was within a few hundred yards of the nearly dry River Helnuddi, where, failing occasional pools, the traveller can always procure water by digging and patiently awaiting the slow formation of a little puddle at the bottom of the hole. For a minute he halted. Should he dig while he had strength, or should he turn to the left and follow the river-bed until he came to a pool — or could go no farther ? Perhaps he would be too weak to dig. VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 291 though, by that time. . . . Remarkable how eager to turn to the left and get on, the camel was — con- sidering how tired he must be — perhaps he could smell distant water or knew of a permanent pool hereabouts. Well, let that decide it. . . . An hour later, as the camel topped a rise in the river-bank, a considerable pool came into view, tree-shaded, heron-haunted, too incredibly beautiful and alluring for belief. Was it a mirage ? . . . A few minutes later, Damocles de Warrenne and his camel were drinking, and a few hours later entered the dreary featureless compound of a wretched hovel, which, to the man at least, was a palatial and magnificent asylum (no, not asylum — of all words) — refuge and home — the more so that a camel knelt chewing in the shade of the building, and a man, Abdul Ghani himself, lay slumbering in the verandah. . . . " You understand, then," said Dam in the verna- cular, to the malodorous, hideous, avaricious Abdul who reappeared from Kot Ghazi a few days later, ''you return here again, one week from to-day, bringing the things written down on this paper, from the shop of Rustomji at Kot Ghazi. Here you wait until I come. If I find there is truth in your khubbar^ of ibex you will be rewarded. • . . Why don't I take you? Because I want to be alone. Set out now for Kot Ghazi. I may return ^ News, information. 19* 292 SNAKE AND SWORD here to-night, and I may not return for days. Do not come until one whole week has passed. . . . You are certain they were ibex you saw, and within four koss ^ of here — only yesterday ? " Abdul swore by the hilt of his knife and the beard of the Prophet. If the Sahib doubted him and found them not, Abdul the honest, truthful, innocent, and impeccable, could take the Sahib to the very spot where they had passed the night, leaving the usual signs of their presence- Strange, for ibex to come within fifty miles of civilization ? Perhaps, but who knoweth the mind of the ibex or the Will of Allah, and moreover Abdul was a poor man, the Sahib being his Father and Mother. Con- clusively, why should Abdul lie, in this particular, since the Sahib was already paying him by the day? Had his luck turned at last ? It almost looked like it — for surely that was a record head — any- thing from fifty to sixty inches ! The head was still the property of the ibex who carried it, of course, but still, is was something even to be in sight of a magnificent pair of horns like that — after a fortnight of toil and hardship that would make a coal-miner strike for ever. The beast, seen through field-glasses, looked a mere appanage of his great curving, tapering horns. He seemed to stand under them as a train under a railway-arch. And he was absolutely unsuspicious, 1 A koss is about; Xytq miks. VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 293 quite accessible, up wind, and within a hundred yards of good cover. Damocles de Warrenne heaved a sigh of pure contentment as he returned his field- glasses to their case ere he unstrapped it and laid it on the ground with his water-bottle, haversack, and coat — preparatory to the long and painful crawl and wriggle which should bring him within shot of his quarry. First he must creep on hands and knees down a watercourse away from the ibex. Then he must go on his stomach for half a mile, behind a low ridge, to where he could turn to the right and climb above the beast, going with infinite care from rock to rock and cactus to cactus. Arrived on the plateau, he would have to steal on tip-toe to the bushes, crawl through them, and then do a last stomach-wriggle to the rock from behind which he could get a shot. He took from his haversack, and slipped on, a pair of loose gloves with leather palms, and started. It was not so bad in the watercourse, in spite of sore knees and roasted neck. The rifle was the trouble. He must either go **on three legs" or put the rifle on the ground, beneath the hand that held it, every time he moved forward. He determined to have a sling attached to it, next time, and carry it on his back. Yes, and then it would bump against rocks, or slip round with a crash, and give him away. Better carry it in the hand — but it was cruel on the wrist. 294 SNAKE AND SWORD A stone fell and clattered- Dam shrank, cringed, and shut his eyes — as one expecting a heavy blow. Ah-h-h-k-h — had the beast bolted ? With the slowness of an hour-hand he raised his head above the bank of the watercourse until his eye cleared the edge. No — still there. After a painful crawl that seemed to last for hours, he reached the point where the low ridge ran off at right-angles, crept behind it, and lay flat on his face, to rest and recover breath. He was soaked in perspiration from head to foot, giddy with sun and unnatural posture, very sore as to elbows and knees, out of breath, trembling — and entirely happy. The half-mile crawl, with the greater part of his body on the burning ground, and the rifle to shuffle steadily along without noise or damage, was the equivalent of a hard day's work to a strong man. At the end of it he lay gasping and sick, aching in every limb, almost blind with glare and over-exertion, weary to death — and en- tirely happy. Thank God he would be able to stand up in a moment and rest behind a big cactus. Then he would have a spell of foot-work for a change, and, though crouching double, would not be doing any crawling until he had crossed the plateau and reached the bushes. The upward climb was successfully accomplished with frequent halts for breath, behind boulders. On the plateau all that was required was silence. The ibex could not see him up there- In his rubber- soled khaki-coloured shoes he could almost run, but it was a question whether a drink of cold water VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 295 would not be worth more than all the ibexes in the world. He tip-toed rapidly across the level hill-top, reached the belt of low bushes, dropped, and lay to recover breath before resuming the painful and laborious crawling part of his journey. Was it possible to tap one's tongue against one's teeth and hear the noise of it as though it were made of wood ? It seemed so. Was this giddiness and dimness of vision sunstroke ? What would he give to have that fly (that had followed him for hundreds of thousands of miles that morning) between his fingers ? Last lap ! There was the rock, and below it must be the quarry — if it had not fled. He must keep that rock between himself and his prey and he must get to it without a sound. It would be easy enough without the rifle. Could he stick it through his belt and along his back, or trail it behind him ? What nonsense ! He must be getting a touch of sun. Would these stones leave marks of burns on his clothes ? Surely he could smell himself singeing. Enough to explode the rifle. ... The big rock at last! A rest and then a peep, with infinite precau- tion. Dam held his breath and edged his face to the corner of the great boulder. Moving imper- ceptibly, he peeped. . . . No ibex ! . . . He was about to spring up with a hearty malediction on his luck when he perceived a peculiar projection on a large stone some distance down the hill. It moved — and Dam dropped back. It must be the top of 296 SNAKE AND SWORD the curve of one of the horns of the ibex and the animal must be lying down. . . . What to do ? It might lie for hours and he himself might go to sleep. It might get up and depart at any moment without coming into the line of fire — without being seen indeed. Better continue the stalk and hope to get a standing shot, or, failing that, a running one. It looked a nasty descent, since silence was essential — steep, slippery, and strewn with round stones. Anyhow, he could go down on his feet, which was something to be thankful for, as it was agony to put a knee or elbow to the ground. He crept on. Surely his luck was changing, for here he was, within fifty yards of a stone behind which lay an unsuspecting ibex with a world s - record head. Hullo ! a nasty little precipice ! With a nastily sloping shelf at the bottom too, eight feet away — and then another little precipice and another sloping shelf at its base. Better lay the rifle on the edge, slip over, hang by the hands, grab it with one, and then drop the intervening few inches. Rubber soles would play their part here! Damn this giddiness — touch of sun, no doubt. Damocles de Warrenne knelt on the edge of the eight-foot drop, turned round, swayed, fell, struck the sloping ledge, rolled off it, fell, struck the next sloping ledge, fell thirty feet — arousing an astounded ibex en route — and landed in a queer heap on a third shelf, with a few broken VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 297 ribs, a dislocated shoulder, broken ankles, and a fractured thigh. A vulture, who had been interested in his pro- ceedings for some time, dropped a few thousand feet and had a look. What he saw decided him to come to earth. He perched on a rock and waited patiently. He knew the symptoms and he knew the folly of taking risks. A friend or two joined him — each, as he left his place in the sky, being observed and followed by a brother who was himself in turn observed and followed by another who brought others. . . . One of the hideous band had drawn quite near and was meditating rewarding his own boldness with a succulent eye, when Dam groaned and moved. The pretty birds also moved and probably groaned in spirit — but they didn't move far. What was that Miss Smellie had been so fond of saying.^ "There is no such thing as Muck,' Damocles. All is ordered for the best by an all- seeing and merciful Providence." Yes. No doubt. What was that remark of his old friend, ** Holy Bill"? " What do you mean by * luck,' Damocles ? All that happens is ordained by God in His infinite mercy." Yes. Holy Bill had never done a day's work in his life nor missed a meal — save when bilious from over- eating. . . . A pity the infinite mercy didn't run to a little water ! It would have been easy for the all-seeing 298 SNAKE AND SWORD and merciful Providence to move him to retain his water-bottle when starting the stalk — if it were necessary to the schemes of the Deity to have him smashed like a dropped egg. . . . What agony a human being could endure ! . . . Not even his rifle at hand with its means of speedy death. He might live for days and then be torn alive by those accursed vultures. One mighty effort to turn on his back and he would breathe easier — but that would bring his eyes to the sun — and the vultures. . . . Had he slept or fainted ? How long had he lain there ? . . . Chance of being found ? Absolutely none. Shikarri would have visited the dak-bungalow a week ago. Camel left below on the plain — and it would wander miles from where he left it when it grew hungry. Even if Abdul and an organized search-party were after him now they might as well be searching for a needle in a hay-stack. No one knew which of the thousand gullies he had ascended and no one could track camel-pads or flat rubber soles over bare solid rock, even if given the starting-point. No — he had got to die of thirst, starvation, and vultures, barring miracles of luck — and he had never had any good luck — for luck existed, undoubtedly, in spite of mealy-mouthed platitude-makers and twaddle about everything being pre-arranged and ordained with care and deliberation by a kind paternal Providence. And what luck he had had — all his life ! Born fated ! Had he fainted again or slept ? And could he VULTURES AND LUCK—GOOD AND BAD 299 hear the tinkle of ice against the sides of a tall thin tumbler of lemonade, or was it the sound of a water- fall of clear, cold water close by ? Were the ser- vants asleep, or was the drink he had ordered being prepared ? . . . No — he was dying in agony on a red-hot rock, surrounded by vultures and probably watched by foxes, jackals and hyenas. And a few yards away were the rifle that would have put him out of his misery, and the water-bottle that would have alleviated his pain — to the extent, at any rate, of enabling him to think clearly and per- haps scribble a few words in blood or something, somehow, for Lucille . . . Lucille ! Would the All- Merciful let him see her once again for a moment in return for an extra thousand years of Hell or whatever it was that unhappy mortals got as a con- tinuation of the joys of this gay world ? Could he possibly induce the vultures to carry him home — if he pledged himself to feed them and support their progeny ? They could each have a house in the compound. It would pay them far better than eating him now. Did they understand Pushtoo or was it Persian? Certainly not Hindustani and Urdu. People who came shooting alone in the desert and mountains, where vultures abounded, should learn to talk Vulture and pass the Higher Standard in that tongue. But even if they under- stood him they might be unwilling to serve a coward. Was he a coward ? Anyhow he lay glued with his own blood to the spot he would never leave — unless the vultures could be bribed. 300 SNAKE AND SWORD Useless to hope anything of the jackals. He had hunted too many foxes to begin now to ask favours. Besides they could only drag, and he had been dragged once by a horse. Quite enough for one lifetime. But he had never injured a vulture. Pity he had no copy of Grimm or Anderson with him — they contained much useful information about talk- ing foxes, obliging birds, and other matters ger- mane to the occasion. If he could only get them to apply it, a working-party of vultures and jack- als certainly had the strength to transport him a considerable distance — alternately carrying and dragging him. The big bird, stalking nearer, was probably the macuddam or foreman. Would it be at all possible for vultures to bring water ? He would be very willing to offer his right hand in return for a little water. The bird would be welcome to eat it off his body if it would give him a drink first. Did not ravens bring meat to the prophet Elijah? Intelligent and obliging birds. Probably cooked it, too. But water was more difficult to carry, if easier to procure. How close they were coming and how they watched with their horrible eyes — and pretended not to watch ! . . . Oh, the awful, unspeakable agony ! Why was he alive again .^ Was his chest full of terribly rusty machinery that would go on when it ought to stop for want of oil ? ... If pain is punishment for sin, as placid stall-fed Holy Bill held (never having suffered any), then Damocles de Warrenne must VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 301 have been the prince of sinners. Oh God ! a little drop of water ! Rivers of it flowing not many miles away ! Monsoons of it falling recently I A water-bottle full a few yards distant — and he must die for want of a drop. . . . What a complete circle the vultures made on the rocks and stunted trees of the sloping hill-side. Oh, for a revolver! A man ought to carry one on shikar expeditions. One would give him a chance of life when under a tiger or panther — and a chance of decent death in a position such as this. Where had he read that vultures begin on the eyes of their prey ? Without awaiting its death either, so long as it could not defend itself There were other depraved gustatory preferences, too, if he remembered rightly. He would have an oppor- tunity of testing the accuracy of the statement — though not of assuring its author as to its correct- ness. Water. . . . Water. . . . Water. ... Had he fainted again, that the vultures were so much nearer ? . • . Why should he be a second Prometheus ? Had he not had suffering enough in his life, without having more in his death ? . . . If the sending of a little water were too obvious a miracle, was it too much to ask that his next faint- ing and collapse might last long enough for the vultures to get to work, make a beginning, and an end? Surely that would not be too great a miracle, since he had lain for years on a red-hot rock with 302 SNAKE AND SWORD blood in his mouth and his body wrecked like a smashed egg. He must be practically dead. Perhaps if he held his laboured breath and closed his eyes they would begin, and he would have the strength to keep still when they did so. That would be the quickest way. Once they started, it would not be long before his bones were cleaned. No possible ghost of a chance of being saved. Probably no human foot had been on these particular rocks since human feet ex- isted. Nor would he ever again have the strength to drag his shattered body to where the rifle lay. Only a few yards away lay speedy happy release. " No such thing as luck, Damocles." Perhaps the vultures thought otherwise. Colonel John Decies, still of Bimariabad, but long retired on pension from the Indian Medical Service, was showing his mental and physical un- fitness for tbe service of the Government that had ordered his retirement, by devoting himself at the age of fifty-nine to aviation — aviation in the inter- ests of the wounded on the battlefield. What he wanted to live to see was a flying stretcher-service of the Royal Army Medical Corps that should flash to and fro at the rate of a hundred miles an hour between the rear of the firing-line and the field hospital and base hospital in aeroplanes built especially for the accommodation of wounded men — an officer of the Corps accompanying each in the dual capacity of surgeon and potential pilot. VULTURES AND LUCK— GOOD AND BAD 303 When he allowed his practical mind to wander among the vast possibilities of the distant future, he dreamed of bigger and bigger aeroplanes until they became fully equipped flying hospitals them- selves, and removed the wounded from the danger zone to the nearest salubrious spot for their con- valescence. Meanwhile, he saw no reason why the more powerful biplanes should not carry an operat- ing-table and all surgical accessories, a surgeon, and two or three wounded men who could not be made sitting-up cases. To Colonel John Decies it seemed that if soldiers schemed to adapt the flying-machine to purposes of death and destruction, doctors might do the same to purposes of life and salvation. Think of the differ- ence between being jolted for hours in a bullock-cart in the dust and heat and being borne through the air without jerk or jar. Think of the hundreds of men who, in the course of one campaign, would be saved from the ghastly fate of lying unfound, unseen by the stretcher-bearers, to starve to death, to lie weltering in their blood, to live through days of agony. . . . He was making quite a name for himself by his experiments at the Kot Ghazi flying-school and by his articles and speeches on the formation and training of a R.A.M.C. flying branch. Small beginnings would content him (provided they were intended to lead to great developments) — an aeroplane at first., that could carry one or two special cases to which the ordinary means of trans- 304 SNAKE AND SWORD port would be fatal, and that could scour the ground, especially in the case of very broken terrain and hill-country, for overlooked cases, wounded men unable to move or call, and undiscovered by the searchers. He was hard at work on the invention of a strong collapsible operating-table (that could readily be brought into use in the field and also be used in aerial transport) and a case for the concentration of equipment — operation instruments, rubber gloves, surgical gauntlets, saline infusion apparatus, steri- lizer, aseptic towels, chloroform, bandages, gauze, wool, sponges, drainage-tubing, inhaler, silk skeins, syringes, field tourniquets, waterproof cloth, stetho- scope — everything, and the whole outfit, table and all, weighing forty pounds. This would be an im- provement on the system of having to open half a dozen medical and surgical cases when operating on the line of march, cases requiring the most ex- pert repacking after use. . . . Perhaps it was a sign of advancing years and weakening mind that this fine specimen of a fine service felt that, when flying some thousands of feet above the earth, he was nearer to Lenore in Heaven. All his science and sad experience had failed to deprive him of a sub-conscious belief in an actual place "above," a material Hereafter beyond the sky, and, when clouds cut him ofif from sight of the earth, he had a quaint, half-realized feeling of VULTURES AND LUCK-^-GOOD AND BAD 305 being in the ante-room of the Great House of many mansions, wherein dwelt Lenore. Yes, when flying, Colonel John Decies felt that he was nearer to the woman he had lost nearly a quarter of a century before. In one sense he may have been so, for he was a very reckless air- man, and never in greater danger than when en- gaged in what he called "ground-scouring" among the air-current haunted, mist-haunted mountains of the Border. He anticipated an early Border- war and realized that here would be a great opportunity for a keen-sighted and iron-nerved medical airman to locate, if not to pick up, overlooked wounded. Here, too, would be a double need of such service in a country where ** the women come out to cut up what remains"! Imagine, too, cavalry recon- naissances and bad casualties a score of miles from medical help. . . . Whether it brought him nearer in any sense to Lenore de Warrenne, it brought him nearer to her son, on one of those hundred-mile circular '* scours " which he practised when opportunity offered, generally accompanied by a like-minded officer of the R.A.M.C., to which Corps he had become a kind of unofficial and honorary instructor in ** First- Aid Flying" at the Kot Ghazi flying-school, situate in the plains at the foot of the *' Roof of the World ". " Hullo! " said Colonel John Decies to himself — " vultures ! I suppose they might be referred to in my manual as a likely guide to the wounded. 20 3o6 SNAKE AND SWORD Good idea. 'The flying casualty -scout should always take note of the conduct of vultures, noting the direction of flight if any are seen dropping to earth. These birds may prove invaluable guides. A collection of them on the ground may indicate a wounded man who may be alive.' ..." The Colonel was thinking of his magnum opus, •* The Aeroplane and the Surgeon, in War," where- with he lived laborious days at Bimariabad in the intervals of testing, developing, and demonstrating his theories at Kot Ghazi. Turning his head, he shouted to Surgeon-Cap- tain Digby-Soames, R.A.M.C., his passenger and pupil : — " Vultures on the left-front or starboard bow. * Invariable battle-field sign of wounded man. Note spot if unable to land and rescue. Call up stretcher-party by signal — F/'^