Charlie spoke on and on, and on; while I, separated
from him by thousands of years, was considering the
beginnings of things. Now I understood why the
Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully
behind us. It is that we may not remember our
first wooings. Were it not so, our world would
be without inhabitants in a hundred years.
“Now, about that galley-story,” I said,
still more cheerfully, in a pause in the rush of the
speech.
Charlie looked up as though he had been hit.
“The galley—what galley? Good
heavens, don’t joke, man! This is serious!
You don’t know how serious it is!”
Grish Chunder was right, Charlie had tasted the love
of woman that kills remembrance, and the finest story
in the world would never be written.
Der jungere Uhlanen
Sit round mit open mouth
While Breitmann tell dem stories
Of fightin’ in the South;
Und gif dem moral lessons,
How before der battle pops,
Take a little prayer to Himmel
Und a goot long drink of Schnapps.
Hans Breitmann’s
Ballads.
“Mary, Mother av Mercy, fwhat the divil possist
us to take an’ kepe this melancolius counthry?
Answer me that, sorr.”
It was Mulvaney who was speaking. The time was
one o’clock of a stifling June night, and the
place was the main gate of Fort Amara, most desolate
and least desirable of all fortresses in India.
What I was doing there at that hour is a question
which only concerns M’Grath the Sergeant of the
Guard, and the men on the gate.
“Slape,” said Mulvaney, “is a shuparfluous
necessity. This gyard’ll shtay lively till
relieved.” He himself was stripped to the
waist; Learoyd on the next bedstead was dripping from
the skinful of water which Ortheris, clad only in
white trousers, had just sluiced over his shoulders;
and a fourth private was muttering uneasily as he
dozed open-mouthed in the glare of the great guard-lantern.
The heat under the bricked archway was terrifying.
“The worrst night that iver I remimber.
Eyah! Is all Hell loose this tide?” said
Mulvaney. A puff of burning wind lashed through
the wicket-gate like a wave of the sea, and Ortheris
swore.
“Are ye more heasy, Jock?” he said to
Learoyd. “Put yer ’ead between your
legs. It’ll go orf in a minute.”
“Ah don’t care. Ah would not care,
but ma heart is plaayin’ tivvy-tivvy on ma ribs.
Let me die! Oh, leave me die!” groaned the
huge Yorkshireman, who was feeling the heat acutely,
being of fleshly build.
The sleeper under the lantern roused for a moment
and raised himself on his elbow,—“Die
and be damned then!” he said. “I’m
damned and I can’t die!”
“Who’s that?” I whispered, for the
voice was new to me.
“Gentleman born,” said Mulvaney; “Corp’ril
wan year, Sargint nex’. Red-hot on his
C’mission, but dhrinks like a fish. He’ll
be gone before the cowld weather’s here.
So!”
