Part 19

"Stop your silly jaw and find out what she is wanting," cried Alexander Blooker fiercely, "or help me to get her into the shanty before the traders come."

"_Mein bruderlein_," replied Franz Braun solemnly, "when you have so long as me been in savage places you will-not-to-redress-women's-wrongs-learn."

Alexander Blooker swelled visibly. "That sentiment is made in Germany, sir. She has appealed to that"--he pointed to the flag pocket--handkerchief on the telegraph post which was waving in the breeze of dawn--"and, by George! she shall have protection!"

There was nothing more to be said, not even when some of the traders, coming on the scene, recognised the girl as the daughter of a powerful chief in the northern land, who would be certain to give trouble were she harboured by the Distant Depot. It would be better to send her back in their charge. How she had found her way so far was a mystery; she must have followed the telegraph posts day by day, have slept in their shadow night by night.

Some vague confused sense of the poetry of this--night after night sleeping, all unconsciously as it were, under the flag of England--day after day following the course of light to freedom, rose in Alexander's throat, and half-choked him.

"She shall stay," he said. "Let her father come to fetch her; if he is in the right, he shall have her."

"My dear sir," quavered old Pastor Schmidt, "he will not time for explanation give. I was in a to-be-compared position once. I will not be so again. I will take my daughter-ling away. I will go. There is no good in staying to be massacred when pension has become due."

It was all to no purpose. Alexander Blooker stood firm. The utmost he would do was to write a conciliatory letter for the traders to give on their return to the girl's father, saying that his daughter had been handed over to the charge of a suitable matron, and that he might have her again if adequate explanations were tendered to Her Gracious Britannic Majesty's representative at the Distant Depot. And here the great temptation of his life came to Alexander Blooker. He would have loved to sign himself "Consul C.M.G." No one would be the wiser. But the sense of duty was strong within him, and he refrained.

This being so, Pastor Schmidt incontinently determined not to brave the certainty, as he deemed it, of coming trouble. His Society in the West was prepared for his possible return. The details of how the work could be carried on by a native deacon during the six months before a new pastor could arrive were all settled. Nothing but a half-conscious feeling that to retire would be to sign his warrant of dismissal from what had been to him his life, had kept him hitherto from decision. Now, the river was falling fast; they must take their chance of escape while they could get it.

And Franz Braun? After two days of moody helping to pack his "_verlobte's_" belongings, he came to say, not without a certain tremble in his voice:

"_Bruderlein_, I also go--so far anyhow--my firm said so much a month ago--to-night thou wilt be alone."

There was not much time for Alexander Blooker to realise his position until, as the cool of the night came on, he stood by the last little landing-stage on the river, watching the Noah's-ark-boat as it punted its way slowly through the network of sandbanks.

Behind him as he stood, flared the red glories of the setting sun; in front of him, the long stretches of sand, the winding gleams of the shrinking river were fast losing each other in the purple-blue shadows of coming night. From the lessening speck of the boat as it drifted downwards on the current came half-regretful, half-joyful farewells. The native congregation, assembled in full force, sent after it wailing outcries; but Alexander Blooker was silent, save for one brief "Good-bye, Fraulein Anna! Good-bye, Pastor Schmidt! Good-bye, Franz Braun!"

The sliding shadow of the boat had disappeared into the oncoming night for his short-sighted eyes, long before the still savage congregation lost it, but he stood staring on where it had been long after they had gone home contentedly. Then he turned suddenly. The red had almost faded from the sky. Only low down on the horizon lay a band of what Ruskin held to be the highest light--pure vermilion--and against it he could see the telegraph post, with a black speck that must be the pocket-handkerchief of England flying at its peak.

He drew a long breath. For the first time in his life Alexander Blooker felt that he was not a slave.

* * * * *

Six months after, the first _doongah_ of the season punted and sailed up the river again. The Distant Depot was deserted; but there was no sign of disorder in it. The English flag still flew from the telegraph post. The Pastor's house, which Alexander Blooker had been implored to occupy and keep in order, looked, save for the dust which always gathered from the desert, as if he must have been there but a few days before. The garden was ablaze with flowers. The clusters of native huts had disappeared, and in their place neat streets of low wattle and dab dwellings converged outwards from quite an imposing edifice with "Church Hall" marked on it conspicuously. The liquor shop had disappeared. Franz Braun's dry goods store was closed and the British one removed to a portion of the central building.

The little Mission Chapel also was utterly changed. The seats removed to make room for clean matting on which the native congregation could squat. Everything western or of western symbolism swept away, and in their place, ingeniously adapted to their present purpose, were things held sacred by the natives. Here an English school had evidently had its quarters, for copybooks, headed in a neat hand "If you take an inch, you may as well take an ell," were found there. Also a few chapters of the New Testament written out in the same handwriting.

The tiny cemetery behind the chapel, surrounded on three sides by banana thickets, remained unaltered, save that, just under the east window, three of the heraldic pocket-handkerchiefs were pegged to the ground in an oblong.

What had happened?

The yearly market day brought vague, inconsistent rumours from the mouths of many merchants.

Nothing was known for certain. The "Lord-of-Handkerchiefs" had remained, of course. It was said that the chief had come for his daughter. Nothing had happened. Only the Handkerchief-Lord had, as they might see, built palaces.

He was a Great Chief. The people simply would not live without him when he died. So, at least, they had said as they came through the villages beyond the desert on their way north. How long ago? Ah! not long; they were afraid, see you, of the new gentlemen. They preferred to begin afresh elsewhere. That would doubtless be his grave at the back of the chapel. He was a great loss to the country. No one gave handkerchiefs away as he did.

So the Distant Depot had to go on its way without further details. Only the traces of Alexander Blooker's short rule remained, and the new inhabitants who soon gathered to fill the trim walls and dab houses benefited by them.

One day, however, when almost a year had gone by, the new pastor found that the oblong of handkerchiefs in the cemetery, instead of being worn and faded by sun and rain was, apparently, brand new.

Someone must have renewed it in the night. And on the top of it, written out in wobbly round hand, was the last copy Alexander Blooker had set:

"If you take an inch you may as well take an ell."

From which the Distant Depot inferred that it was his death-day.

THE REGENERATION OF DAISY BELL

"It is quite out of the question," said the Adjutant, severely. "Major Primmer has formerly complained, and the C.O. has desired me to--to--to see that the nuisance is abated----"

So far, regimental discipline kept the Adjutant's risible muscles under control; then he smiled, for he was more human than adjutants are wont to be in orderly room. "And, upon my soul, youngster," he went on, picking up a letter which lay beside him, "it is a bit hard on Primmer. I can imagine his disgust! H'm, h'm--'_have to report_'--Ah! here--'_As usual, I woke with the entry of my body-servant bringing my early tea. As usual, also, I lay for a few moments to collect my thoughts; but when I turned to pour out the beverage_'--good old Primmer--'_my disgust was great to find Lieutenant Graham's so-called tame monkey--I may interpolate that it is a specimen of the Presbytis schistaceus, a bold and predatory tribe, and not the Presbytis entellus, a much milder race_'--good old Primmer again; he's nothing if not exact--'_in full possession of my tea-table. The brute had consumed all the toast, save one crust, which I regret to say it threw at me when I attempted remonstrance_.'"

We both laughed.

"Can't you see Major Primmer, V.C., sitting up in bed with his eye-glasses on, in a mortal funk," I began, trying to brazen it out. But official decorum had resumed its sway over the Adjutant, and he read on:

"'_It then proceeded, with an accuracy which I cannot believe to be entirely self-taught_'--H'm, Graham, that is serious; remember he is your superior officer--'_to imitate closely my method of pouring out tea. This is peculiar, as I invariably put the milk in first. My efforts at checking the lawless brute were again quite unavailing; and resulted only in the deliberate emptying of the scalding hot tea over my nether garments_.'"

"Why couldn't he say his pyjamas," I groaned, captiously; for I recognised that things had gone a bit too far. I had had no idea Jennie had such a fund of humour.

But once more official decorum failed to respond.

"'_This, I may add, it did again and again, until the teapot was exhausted. It then pouched the whole contents of the sugar-basin, drank the milk, and smeared its head with the butter. The latter action appeared to arouse reminiscence. It repaired to my dressing-table, brushed its hair with my brushes, used my pommade hongroise, and then proceeding to the wash-hand-stand, nefariously laid hold of my tooth-brush. This, however, was too much. I rose. At the same moment my body-servant providently appeared with my hot water, and the brute, jabbering at me in unseemly fashion, made for the window, which I always keep open winter and summer. I have already requested Lieutenant Graham to remove this savage animal; and now have no option_ ...'"

The Adjutant laid down the letter. "It's hard on Primmer," he said, with almost superhuman solemnity; "the tooth-brush incident was----" he resumed speech after a brief pause, "and he is a good sort is old Primmer."

I was perfectly aware of the fact. Only the week before, when we were out in the jungle, he had dosed me with quinine and taken my temperature every two hours during an attack of fever and ague.

So Jennie the monkey must give way; but what the deuce was I to do with her? I did not want to have to shoot her.

"Give her to Tootsie," suggested the Adjutant, sympathetically; "I heard her say not long ago she would give anything for a monkey."

It was a brilliant idea. Miss d'Aguilar, familiarly known as Tootsie, performed the arduous duties of spinster to our little frontier station; so that afternoon, before going on duty, I rode round by "The Forest," so called, I presume, because there was not a bit of vegetation larger than a caper bush between it and the Beluchistan Hills.

I found the young lady and her mother--a frankly black-and-tan lady who looked as if she would have been more comfortable with a veil to roll round her fat person--engaged, after their wont, in entertaining some of the junior subalterns at tea. As I entered, Tootsie--a sparkling brunette with gloriously startling Titian brown hair, due to cunning applications of henna dye (there were traces of it on Mamma's hands)--was, in a high-pitched staccato voice, recounting with arch gaiety, her impressions of Calcutta, whence she had but lately returned. "Yes! I do declare the men are just sillies. Why! do not believe me, but I asked a young fellow in a Europe shop to bring me flesh-coloured stockings, and he brought me tan! Was he not a silly boy?"

The pause which inevitably followed this anecdote seemed a fitting opportunity for somewhat sentimentally offering Jennie. Had I offered a bomb the effect could not have been more disastrous. Miss grew crimson; Mamma, purple and plethoric, wondered how any gentleman could keep such a nasty brute, still less offer it as a fit companion to an innocent young girl.

Evidently Jennie had again got herself disliked; how, the junior sub. told me succinctly as we rode home.

"You see, Tootsie dyes her hair--and henna's a bit of a lengthy business. They don't mind me, I'm only a boy; but she has to have it plastered over her head for hours. So she has a big hat with a false bun and fringe for these occasions. And Jennie got hold of it somehow last week. I happened to be there; and, by George, I chevied the beast half over cantonments before she would give it up--she's a regular devil."

I sighed. Evidently the culprit must be shot. She had no friends.

As I came up to the guardroom, however, I heard a song being lilted out by a tenor voice into the hot dusty air. The refrain of London sounded odd here in the desert on the confines of civilisation:

"Dy'sy, Dy'sy, give me yer answer dew, I'm half cry'sy, all for the love o' yew."

"Yes, sir," reported the sergeant. "It's Dy'sy, sure enough. He's in agin; more often in nor out."

"What for?" I asked, a trifle regretfully, for the man, nicknamed by his comrades Dy'sy from his habit of perpetually warbling that aggravating ditty, was rather a favourite of mine. He was a perfectly reckless rolling stone, a bad shilling of about five-and-thirty, who from the way he had, when not on his guard, of assimilating drill, must have been through it several times. But over his past he drew a veil; and, indeed, his present was sufficient for character. He had come out with a draft in the cold weather, and already his evil influence with the recruits was notorious. Yet I liked the fellow; he was a first-class light-weight bruiser, out and away the best in the regiment. I had taken lessons of his, and his devil-may-care defiance had been attractive.

"Same as before, sir," replied the sergeant. "Shindy in Number Three. 'Tain't no manner o' use shiftin' 'is room. He'd purwurt a Sunday School."

Solid truth in every word! Yet the light blue eyes which met mine had a twinkle in them that softened my heart.

"If you are such a cursed fool," I said, as sternly as I could, "you'll come to grief."

His face took on sublime innocence. "Beg pardin, sir; but it ralely ain't fair w'en a party is trying to do 'is dooty to 'is parsters an' marsters. Them young chaps was makin' fun hover your monkey usin' the major's py-jammas has a slopper; an' I only tole 'm it was kind o' disrespekful like, as she meant it hall in k'yindness, an' bid 'm hold their jaw. That's how the tin dishes got hinjured, for," he added, with great dignity, "I won't 'ave no slanderin' o' dumb animals as can't speak up for thesselves."

A gleam of hope shot through me. "You're fond of animals, are you?" I asked.

For once candid confidence came to him. "Well! I don' know, sir," he replied, "but 'twas the loss o' a dorg as fust set me wrong." He gave a glance towards the sergeant, who was discreetly retiring, and then went on. "I was but a young chap, just gone twenty, and the dorg was a bull tarrier, sir, as good as they make 'm. S'yme n'yme as your monkey, sir--Jennie. We was chums. Then I got a gel, one o' the yaller-haired kind, sir, an' I was a fool about her, as young chaps is apt ter be. Well, sir, I 'adn't bin just steddy--no real 'arm, you know, but sort o' light like. But I settles down an' begins ter screw against gettin' married. The yaller-haired gel was livin' with me, sir, so as to save time like, but we was sure to get married in church an' go hoff emigrating so soon as I'd got the 'oof. An' Jennie was to go, too, for she an' me was chums. Well, sir, there was a big, black chap, coster he was, I licked him more nor once for 'angin' round; but there! females are built that way. So it 'appened when I come 'ome one hevening that I found 'er gone, an' the 'oof too. An' Jennie----" he drew his hand slowly over his mouth--"Jennie had died game, sir. She 'ad a bit of the big black brute's corduroys betwixt 'er teeth, but 'e'd bashed 'er 'ead open with 'is boot."

There was silence. Then he went on with a reckless laugh, "'Tweren't the gel, sir; there's plenty o' them ter be got, yaller hair an' all. But Jennie an' me had been chums."

Five minutes later the monkey had changed masters. To oblige me and save Jennie from being shot Dy'sy Bell had promised to take care of her.

"I'u'd rather 'ave no money, sir," he said, when he appeared to fetch her away and I offered him something towards her keep, "'twould only go to the canteen, and if I get into trouble, oo'd look after 'er?"

'"Er," I may mention, had just bitten his finger through to the bone, an action which he dismissed with the remark that "females was built that way."

Three days later, as I rode past Number Three barrack, I saw Jennie cracking nuts on a brand-new perch. Dy'sy, it now appeared, was quite a smart carpenter, and had made it himself in the workshop. Three days after that again, the perch was embellished by a brass chain, and Dy'sy admitted shamefacedly that he had once been in a foundry. So time passed on, until it occurred to me that Dy'sy had ceased to come into prominence before me as company officer, and I questioned the sergeant concerning him.

The official did not move a muscle. "Number Three's has quiet has a orphin asylum now, sir. As I lies in my bunk I don't 'ear no whisper. But it was Bedlam broke loose the fust night after Jennie come, sir. I lay low, seeing as there never was no use in tryin' to get at the bottom o' that sort o' row in the dark, sir. An' next morning 'arf the room complained of 'avin' a hunbaptised brute put to bed with 'em. The monkey slep' with Dy'sy, sir, so I spoke to 'im, an' told 'im I c'u'dn't 'ave no more complaints, an' he replied, quite civil-like, as there sh'u'dn't be none. An' there wasn't; but 'arf the men 'ad black eyes that week, sir, though 'ow they came by 'm they didn't say."

I did not enquire. It was sufficient for me that Number Three barrack was rapidly becoming regenerate. As I passed one day I heard a voice say, "Now, boys! I won't 'ave no cuss words; they ain't fit for a lydy to hear."

"You don't go so often to the canteen as you used to, Bell," I said to him one day when I found him sitting alone in the verandah nursing Jennie, who jibbered at me.

"Ain't got the money, sir," he replied cheerfully. "_Neringis_ and sich--like is a horful price in this Gordforsaken spot, an' Jennie's been a bit ailin'; won't eat nothing else."

"Well, you'll be getting your stripes soon, I expect, if you go on as you are doing," I remarked.

He flushed up. "I 'opes so, sir," he said modestly. "Jennie 'u'd set store by a striped sleeve, females being built that way."

My prophecy proved correct. Dy'sy was made a corporal, and before long, in the Border campaign which the cold weather brought us, found himself a sergeant, and so eventually in charge of a telegraph station on the top of one of the passes to our rear.

It was an important post to keep open, since on the integrity of the wire through a mile or so of singularly difficult country hung the certainty of speedy relief, should any kind of disaster overtake our little force, which was intimidating the tribes in the valleys beyond.

And disaster did overtake it, chiefly by reason of a terrific snowstorm which swept over it early in February--a snowstorm which paralysed progress, and made all thoughts turn to the probability of that mile of telegraph wire remaining intact.

No supplies could, of course, be sent up, so the men in the station must either starve or return, if, indeed, they had not been overwhelmed already. The latter seemed the most likely, since, though the through wire remained open, not a signal came from the station.

"An avalanche most likely," said the Adjutant. "The station was built, I always said, in the wrong place. What luck the wire isn't damaged as yet. It won't be long before it is, I'm afraid."

It was, however, still going strong when four men, one badly frost-bitten, made their way into camp. They had started five, they said, by Sergeant Bell's orders, after they had with difficulty extricated themselves from the ruins of the house, which had been completely smashed up by a tremendous avalanche. It was impossible, Dy'sy had said, to keep the post and six men also, so he had given them what supplies he could spare--the store was luckily uninjured--and bidden them take their best chance of safety at once.

As for his, it seemed but slender, as I felt when, a fortnight later, we managed to cut our way through the drifts that lay round the hollow where the station had stood. Across this hollow the through wire still stretched, and quite recently someone had evidently been at work upon it, for tools lay on fresh frosted snow. But all was still as the dead, quiet as the grave. We found Dy'sy lying on his face in the store many feet below the snow surface. The steps cut down to it were worn with the passing of his feet, but he did not move when we bent over him; something, however, cuddled close in his arms, woke and jibbered at us angrily. It was Jennie, dressed for warmth in every rag of blanketing available. She was as fat as a pig, and the charcoal embers in the tin can hung round her neck were not yet quite cold. But Dy'sy was skin and bone; yet the Irish doctor, as he bent hastily to examine him, said, cheerfully: "Annyhow, his love for the baste may have saved his life; she's kept his heart warm whatever."

And she had.

Six weeks afterwards I sat beside him in hospital. He showed thin and gaunt still in his grey flannel dressing-gown, and two fingers were missing on his left hand.

"Well!" I said, "so they've given you the D.S.M., and a special pension if you want to go."

He smiled brilliantly.

"Don't want to, sir. Jennie she likes the H'army; females is built that way. And as for t'other, 'twas really Jennie done it. I couldn't take her through the snow--she'd 'a' died for sure. An' I couldn't leave her, so there wasn't no choice."

A SONG WITHOUT WORDS

It was in the club that the telegram came, and as I sat watching my partner make pie of one of the best bridge hands ever ruined, I read it over once or twice, and, finally, when our adversaries had run out, handed it over to the culprit as a means of turning my wrath to another subject.

"Transferred!" he commented, calmly. "H'm! We shall have to get Beveridge to join our game instead!" (My self-pity flew for a moment to poor Beveridge, and I wondered what sort of a temper he had.) "Still, it isn't a bad place, though rather out of the way. Splendid buck-shooting--only, of course, this isn't the time. And a very decent house." Here he giggled. "Well, decent isn't, perhaps, the word to use, is it? And, by Jove, I'm sorry for you. There will be a devil of a mess to set right, I expect; and, anyhow, it isn't pleasant to step into another fellow's shoes after that sort of thing."

I acquiesced. "That sort of thing" was, briefly, the suicide of a fellow civil servant, whom I had known vaguely as the most brilliant man in my year.