Chapter VI: Part 6

‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius on the blank end of the revise, ‘this fable teaches, that life is very much the same old dish over again: the solid beef or game of the dinner in the olden time re-cooked a little and laid lightly on toast for a more refined modern breakfast. And whether it was Thou and I indeed, or the Elements and Forces which make us, this much is certain, that _somehow_ and _somewhere_ we ever were, and as _something_ ever shall be still acting. This is as much of immortality as a wise man requires, and a deal more than most of us deserve. Let us pass on to another story.’

[6] Mr. A. Savage Landor, in his very interesting book of travels among the Ainus makes mention of the marvellous power of expressive winking with which these northern savages are gifted, and I have observed the same among Red Indians. They learn it from their pow-wows or shamans.

FLAXIUS AND BREITMANN

‘It is told in ancient story how to the Flemish court, There came a knightly minstrel who made them royal sport, That was as brave a Recké as ever yet was seen, At fighting or at singing he won the prize I ween! So stately in the festal hall, he caught each lady’s eye. And when it came to revelling he drank the cellar dry.’

WHILE swimming onwards down the stream of Time, it chanced all in the merry, golden hours of spring, when rivulets dance, and birds are on the wing:

‘And a starry silver glory
Is at daybreak over all,
When the dews, like gems in story
On the queen like blossoms fall,’

that Flaxius, when in Innspruck, sat one afternoon in a shady beer-garden by the rushing river, listening to two nightingales in a cage, which were singing duets or holding talk in nightingale tongue, with two wild ones outside. The latter were complaining bitterly of the hard time they had of it to pick up a living; while the imprisoned ones bewailed that their engagements to sing to select audiences did not allow them the least liberty, though they lived in luxury, being taken in whenever it rained and fed on ants’ eggs, _ad libitum_; which are the same to nightingales as Whitby oysters, caviare and _pâté aux truffes_ are to us.

Flaxius observed that a broad-shouldered, big-bearded, tall, and knightly man, who seemed to be half soldier and as much minstrel, sitting at the next table, also listened to the bird-songs with a smile, as if he partly understood them. On a closer examination, Flaxius recognised in him the Ritter Hans Breitmann, whom he had met in earlier times,--the same Breitmann, having in a small and very quiet way a humble little sixpenny immortality, just as the odd fish in nature have been preserved from the earliest types, while better kinds, which shone more brightly in their day, have vanished.

The sage bowed to the minstrel, the Breitmann waved his beer-mug to Flaxius, and the two drank politely, one to the other, and to old times.

‘You seem to understand bird-language,’ remarked the other.

‘_Nun_, yoost a liddle,’ replied the bard, who spoke all tongues in a curious patois. ‘Enough to get hints or dips for songs. All poets know someding of it, most of dem a crate deal petter as I. Yoost so de Gypsy Zigeuners play bird-songs--de whole orchestra--nefer twice alike, _ach ja! alles sehr schön_, peaudiful!’

‘Could you sing me a song learned from the nightingales?’ asked Flaxius.

‘Cerdainly,’ replied Breitmann, ‘mit bleasure,’ and, draining off his beer, he unslung the lute from his back, tuned two chords, hemmed, and then sang of--

LONG, LONG AGO

‘When de nightingale was singing,
All in de cool of eve,
To de pleasant breeze,
And de birds were flingin’
Perfume from de trees,
_Hei da, ri dé!
Hei da, ri do!_

I sat by my love so fair and gay,
As we had sat for many a day,
And _ach! wir warn so frô_,
Loving--as dere we lay!

Dame Nightingale, de wood bird small,
Sang to us a melody,
How love outliveth all
Whate’er on earth may pe;
_Hei da, ri dé!
Hei da, ri do!_
“Love passeth all both great and small,
So now sing afder me!”

We sang old songs togedder,
Songs of de merry time,
And light ash any fedder,
We maked full many a Rhyme,
_Hei da, ri dé!
Hei da, ri da
He da ri da Laun!_
Unto a lute we sang dis lay,
And so we passed de live-long day
Until de Sun went down.

We sang old songs togedder
Of loves long passed away,
All in de pleasant wedder
Ash in de grass we lay.
_Hei da, ri da
Hei da, ri dá!_
No more can I rememper, yet
What I recall I’ll ne’er forget
So long as life is gay!’

And as the Breitmann sang and tinkled his lute, the nightingales who were present joined in--’twas like Jenny Lind and Parepa Rosa in a duet. I mention this, because in a later age the souls of the two caged nightingales did actually reappear in human form as J. L. and P. R.; even as vultures whom I could mention have reappeared on the Stock Exchange; and black-beetles as clergymen about town; and butterflies as professional beauties; and divers ducks as doctors; and an old owl as Premier. But to return.

As they sat there at twilight tide, talking over old times when they had met at the court of brave King Roosevelt in Holland, there came the sound of a far-off bell ringing vespers, and Flaxius said:

‘Ever since the earliest times men have believed that there was a holy influence in the sound of a bell. The old Etruscans and their children, the Romans, made them of bronze, and sometimes of silver, all to keep away witches and evil spirits. In fact, from the immense number which are found, it would seem as if there had been, at least, one to every human being.

‘And dot was kept up py de Christians,’ added Breitmann, ‘who peliefed a great deal still more in dem, and to dis tay it is said dot witches are afraid of bells, witch is de reason de priests keep a ringing dem all the while. As you see py de woonderful story of der bell of Kaltern, here in Tyrol.’

‘Tell it,’ replied Flaxius.

‘I can sing it if you would care to hear it,’ answered Herr Breitmann. ‘Dot comes easier to me.’

‘All the better,’ quoth the sage.

And Breitmann chanted:

THE BELL OF KALTERN

‘Oh the church bells at even,
How sweetly they ring!
Like angels in heaven,
They murmur and sing!
Where music can travel
Their echoes are found:
And naught that is evil
Can list to the sound:
So softly, so quaintly they chime in their play,
So gently, so faintly, then dying away,
Fading out, with the day.

Now no witch can hold out where the church _Glocke_ hang,
For the bells being blest they’re afraid of the clang:
At the very first sound when ’tis heard _they_ are lost,
And shrivel like roses when touched by a frost;
And the devil himself would be off on the wing
When the great bell of Kaltern began with its ring,
Ha, that “busted up” as a terror to see
In grand scatteration the whole company:
And good Christians, like us, aren’t more frightened of hell
Than the witches were scared by the sound of that bell.
Until at the last, when their patience was past,
And the very end-thread of the skein being spun,
They swore there must certainly something be done.
And something they did too at once in the cause:
And you soon will surmise what the handiwork was.

There’s a widow in Eppan
With glance like a dart,
A terrible weapon,
Which strikes every heart,
With the softest of laughter,
The sweetest of smiles,
Lord knows what comes after,
When once she beguiles!
And this lady of Eppan
Is charmingly dressed.
She feeds upon capon,
With wine of the best.
Though whence she derived all her food and the clothes,
Or how she got these things, or came to have those,
Is what she did never to any disclose,
Which kept people talking as all may suppose
Either “over the pumpkin”[7] or “under the rose!”

Now when people before them have always a curtain,
There’s something behind it, not right, _that_ is certain.
And all were assured that this beautiful widow
Hung out what the French call a very large _rideau_;
[In German Gardine; a kind of a pun;
Since in dialect, girl and a curtain are one.]
But Hermann von Valk,
A chivalric young blade,
Who was not of talk
Or of scandal afraid,
Was all the more taken,
Enchanted and shaken,
Enraptured and mashed,
Bèglamoured and smashed,
By the beautiful eyes and the wonderful mystery
That seemed to envelop this Lamia’s history.
And one day when in sport the fair widow would task him
He swore he would do anything she might ask him,
He cared not a straw, if ’twere that or were this,
If she only would give him one rapturous kiss!

With the winsomest smile,
That would fetch you a mile,
And a soft in her voice
That would give you no choice,
But to do as she wanted. “My dearest,” said she,
“I can only ask something chivalric of thee,
Such as noble young gentlemen ever perform
When their hearts and their heads are courageous and warm.
And that which I want, you can easily grant--
It isn’t a matter of shall I? or shan’t--
In fact ’tis as easy as jumping a hurdle.
Just climb a church-steeple while bearing this girdle,
The steeple of Kaltern--you know it full well--
And binding--you _shall_ turn this belt round the bell:
Bind it and wind it, when you have twined it--
When this is done and my love is returnéd, he
May kiss, if he like, to the end of Eternity.”

Now as you may have guessed,
This young Hermann von Valk
Was not--truly confessed--
A man easy to balk;
So as soon as the widow her yarn had spun
He jumped to his feet and cried eagerly--_done_!
“For such a reward I here swear, by my soul!
I’d belt all the bells in the land of Tyrol!
Give me the girdle! I’ll tell you what,
I’ll return this evening”--and off he shot.

Now though this Hermann had no scrupulosity,
Yet, as a German, he’d great curiosity,
Which thing is the mother of all suspicion,
So he turned it all over with great precision,
And he said to himself, “I wish I could tell
What it is that she means by a-belting the bell?
It’s very mysterious--hem!--let me see!
Suppose I first try it a bit on a tree!
There is nothing at all in the way to prevent
Such a little and harmless experiment.”
So half-unthinking and half in joke
He bound the girdle about an oak.

It was a grand tremendous tree,
As vast as man did ever see,
Standing alone so grave and solemn,
With trunk as tall as the highest column;
But scarce that girdle was brought around,
And scarce the belt on the bark was bound,
When a crash like a thousand thunders came,
And before his eyes all swam in flame,
As if hell had broke loose in very fact,
And from top to bottom the oak-tree cracked,
And the fragments flew afar and wide:
While Hermann von Valk lay stunned aside.

The bells, in time, had rung several tenses,
Before the young gentleman came to his senses,
And, when he got there--“My life!” said he:
“I am glad that I tried that belt on a tree,
For if I had bound it round the bell,
Which the witches all fear, like poison and hell----”

When having said this, he suddenly stopped
As if an _idea_ on his senses had dropped,
And he roared “_Donnerwetter mit Hagel und pitch!_
Now may I be shot! but the widow’s a witch!
_Es leuchtet mir ein!_ I behold it clear
As I see yon moon in her silver sphere;
That was a nice little task the “widder”
Gave me to do, now I come to consider!
Suppose instead of a tree, I had placed
That elegant article round my waist!
_That_ were a beautiful change of scene?
The devil take her--where would _I_ have been?
So sure as Bohemians drink _slivovitz_,
Burst to pieces and blown to bits,
So now I will go to my home, alone,
Beautiful Madame--with you I’ve done
I can stand a great deal,” he said with a sigh
“But not the devil--and so good-bye.”

By this adventure you plainly see,
That two of a trade can never agree,
What one had tolled, the other can’t tell,
And a belle, if a witch, is afraid of a bell!’

‘Well sung, Herr Breitmann,’ exclaimed Flaxius. ‘And the tones were as sweet as the story is strange.’

‘Vot do you really dink of it?’ inquired the singer with some interest. ‘Can it pe true?’

‘H’m! very likely. You must know, friend Breitmann, that from much strange but little thought of proof, I believe that from the Etruscan and Roman priesthood, the witches and wizards of a later time inherited much knowledge, and many strange secrets regarding electricity; and this granted, we can explain many of the most remarkable miracles attributed to them. Now, admitting that they were up to producing a spark by a small charge and making an explosive, the widow’s belt becomes intelligible. In fact, a few ounces of dynamite----’

‘Vould pe a mighty crate power, when a woman wanted to plow a man oop,’ laughed the minstrel. ‘And denn dere was poison, vitch dey understanded petter still. As is set fort in a pallad of de town of Munich.’

‘I would like to hear it,’ replied Flaxius.

‘_We_ would like to hear it,’ sopranoed the nightingales.

‘_I_ would like to hear it,’ chirped a sparrow on the wall in _contralto_.

‘And we also,’ cooed the baritone spirits of the evening breeze, as they stole through the dense foliage, rustling overhead.

The Breitmann tuned his lute, and sang the ballad of

NARR HANS’L[8]

‘Oh! Munich is a merry town, ’tis writ by many a pen,
And all its city counsellors are wondrous merry men,
And when they meet for banqueting, to revel or to sing,
From the Rathshaus to the Frauenkirch you hear the music ring.

And every master hath a squire that on his lord must wait,
To fill his goblet up with wine or change or fill his plate,
And it always was expected, like the chorus to a song,
He must laugh at all his master’s jokes and help the fun along.

Now one of these attendants was an odd fantastic wight--
You could see it in his features that something wasn’t right--
An anxious, solemn countenance with sorrow interwrought,
Like one who knows that he is mad, and trembles at the thought!

And if cruel people vexed him when his heart was stirred with drink,
He would rave and cry the maddest things that any one could think,
And scream and weep and beg them all for mercy in his pain,
Which made them roar with laughter and begin to tease again.

They called him the Narr Hans’l, that is Jack Lunatic.
And all the lords resolved one day to play this man a trick.
So they made him eat a herring till he almost died with thirst;
And then gave him wine to quench it, but that was not the worst.

For the wine had all been mingled with pepper for a trick,
And a subtle drug or medicine, which made him sadly sick,
So that he ran about in pain, with many a mad grimace:
It made the noble gentlemen all roar to see his face.

Well, well! the fun was over and the jest was half forgot:
When again there was a banquet in that ever merry spot,
And since Narr Hans’l made such sport for every guest--to dine,
They chose him for the Kellner, or Master of the Wine.

The music pealed so merrily, there all was _Saus und Braus_,
Till the chairman gave the word “Schenk’ein!” and then the sign “Trink aus!”
And this was at the Ending, when every gentleman
Must drink the _Supernaculum_--drain to the last his can.

To a drop upon the thumb-nail, nor leave behind a “rest.”
And the wine for this last drinking was of the very best;
Every cupful cost a florin--of that there was no doubt,
It glowed like golden sunlight when Hans’l poured it out.

Ha! What can be the matter with the noble President,
That he looks as pale as ashes and extremely discontent?
And now he’s falling backwards in deadly agony:
And now--O Lord! the others are all as ill as he!

Ha! What can be the matter with Narr Hans’l through it all?
He is laughing, he is screaming, he is dancing in the hall.
He is changed into a devil--he gave a comic sigh,
And played upon his _Cithern_ as he saw the _Herren_ die!

There are four-and-twenty dead men a-lying in the room,
The tapers burning lowly, all fading into gloom;
The waiters with the music have all in terror fled:
There sits alone Narr Hans’l, a-singing to the Dead!

A-singing wailing ditties, all in the saddest strain:
How they poisoned him with pepper, and he poisoned them again.
Till he screams: “It all is over--and the wine is of the best!”
He drank a flowing goblet, and is lying with the rest.’

‘It is a sad song!’ murmured Breitmann, as he struck the last chorus.

‘Very sad,’ replied the nightingales.

‘It makes me cry,’ chirped the sparrow.

‘Mournful, indeed,’ sang the evening breeze.

‘Well, away! There’s a lesson in it for all,’ concluded Flaxius.

* * * * *

_Comment by the Editor._--If there are any readers who would prefer these ballads of Hans Breitmann in the original German English, he or she may find them, and many more quite as good or better--or even worse--in a little book entitled _Hans Breitmann in Germany_, published by T. Fisher Unwin. Of which book, several critics remarked that there was so much German in it as to render it unintelligible, which, as elsewhere remarked, was much like declaring that there is too much Latin in the poems of Virgil or Horace, or, in truth, of Merlinus Coccaius, or the bard who sang the Polemo-Middiana. So reflecting on him who proposed to make a translation of Carlyle’s _Sartor Resartus_ into English, the editor has ventured to clothe these two Breitmann ballads in so much of our current tongue as his humble means permitted.

Which reminds him of a little story.

There was once a French artist who found a picturesque old beggar on the Pont Neuf.

The beggar was striking.

_Il sautait aux yeux_, he leapt to your eyes.

He was seventy years of age.

He had a long white beard.

He was clad in a long, picturesque, ragged gabardine.

A gabardine is a dressing-gown.

For ladies it is a _peignoir_.

Short sentences make long copy.

Copy is paid for by the page.

To return to our sheep.

The beggar held a long, rude staff.

Like Esculapius.

Or a Chinese barber.

The artist was charmed with his appearance.

He asked the beggar to come next day to his studio.

The beggar assented.

Now as he had never had his portrait taken before,

The beggar supposed that he must come in his best.

That is to say _endimanché_, that is to say in Sunday togs.

So he removed his beard,

And appeared in a shabby steel-pen or tail-coat.

With a cane with a glass head,

And his shoes blacked,

And a red waistcoat.

When the artist beheld him,

He exclaimed with horror,

‘_Oh, mon Dieu!_

You are spoiled, you are spoiled!’

Now if this artist had been a Leonardo da Vinci, who could make a beautiful Madonna out of an old man as a model, he would have copied the beggar all the same, seeing the Reality which was in him.

But he did not see it.

[7] ‘Over the pumpkin’ (also the sun-flower) _i.e._ openly, these being very visible objects.

[8] Jack-fool.

FLAXIUS IN INDIA

THE STORY OF SAKHARA AND ARJUN, WITH THE WONDERFUL TRANSMIGRATIONS OF DSCHIM CROW.

‘Gli Indiani e i Persiani e in generale tutti gli Orientali ammettevano la Metempsicosi come un dogma particolare al quale erano molto affezionati.’

_Gran Dizionario Infernale da Francesco Pique._

NOW it befel once in the golden time, meaning the good-olden or aureate age, which Hesiod and other poets write of, that Flaxius having seen the dragon world, with all its thousand brazen eyes of glittering cities, and looked bravely at them, and read their meaning, found himself in north-western India, in a then famous city called Chotahazripoora. As for the date, it was somewhere the other side of the year One, which is tolerably accurate chronology for Indian records, which were not very well kept by the Sanskrit Civil Service about that time, or any other, with all their wisdom.

And in this particular _poora_, which is in Greek and Gypsy _foros_, whence _forum_, so called from its great wealth, Flaxius became a great man at court, because he despised riches and was a sage, being, of course, greatly honoured and admired and coloured up as an incongruity, and inexpensive at that. And at last the king consulted with him on all matters, social, familiar, or financial, from taxing a province down to buying a new bayadere. In all of which the Immortal displayed singular sagacity and exquisite good taste.

This monarch had, of course, three sons, by which ye may know that I have started on a fairy tale, the head of which is, as usual, the part which comes last, or the youngest. This third became very dear to Flaxius, because he was a brave, frank, innocent, clever youth, worth looking after and loving. And his name was Arjūn.

Now in the gust and whirlwind, and flit and flow of hailstones and rain-drops which make the pelting incidents of court-life, there being little rest or peace in it, Flaxius began to note that a cloud was coming over the soul of Arjūn, and from this ante-chamber of the dream, he soon passed to the bright hall of perception, that his pupil or friend was in love. And ere long the expected confidence came in these words:

‘Thou knowest, O wise among men, that I have never set my heart on love of woman. For the article in its best quality has ever been so exceeding cheap and abundant about our court, and I have had so freely my pick and choice of _primeurs_, that it was unto me only as my meals. Moreover, all the books which I have studied have taught me that the preferring one girl to another is mere idle fancy, even as tastes in food are simply the result of caprice and custom, and that female nature is all, in fact, folly. This I did steadfastly believe, till it chanced that one day in the woods far beyond the city I met with a maid of exceeding beauty, who, as I found by conversation, was so witty and wise, original and good, that it soon appeared to me that I had all along been in ignorance and error as to what Woman might be. And, in short, all my philosophy went to the Seven Hells, where it may remain for ever for all I care, being in love through and through--dyed in the grain.

‘And this girl, Sakhára, is the daughter of a Brahmin of kingly race, but exceeding poor. So when I told my father of my love----’

‘Why then,’ interposed Flaxius,

‘“Fire flashed from the monarch’s eyes,
And high his wrath began to rise.”’

‘Yea,’ replied Arjūn, ‘and, in short, he swore by the Cow that I should never marry her unless it were shown to be the special will of the gods.’

‘H’m!’ observed Flaxius, ‘I have noticed that the special will of the gods is generally manifest in anything to which we agree, and could the king be brought to assent to this, in any way, the divine sanction would soon be perceptible. Therefore, my son, fret not thy soul, but go and amuse thyself, for in love-troubles, as in all others, he who is least uneasy comes the soonest to ease. I will see what can be done.’

It came to pass that the next day, Flaxius, while walking in the forest and listening to the chattering of the holy monkeys in the trees o’erhead--whose conversation was, however, of a most frivolous and unholy character--met with a man who was evidently a poor devil on general principles, but who appeared to be a decidedly superior person, when one investigated the particulars, for he had a very intelligent face of dark hue, a keen, shrewd eye, and a goodly mien. He was clad in black.

‘I beg you, great sir,’ he said to Flaxius, ‘to take heed how you speak to me or even look at me or let my shadow fall on you, else you will find yourself in for hell or a long penance, for I am a pariah, and my name is Dschim Crow.’

‘And I,’ replied Flaxius, ‘not being a fool, and having travelled in many lands, and seen the vanity of all things human, would probably be ranked with you, could the Brahmins read my soul.’

‘Ay,’ answered the outcast, ‘’tis one of the precepts of our philosophy, that mankind are all divisible into the found-out and the not-found-out.’

‘A good saying,’ replied Flaxius. ‘Have ye then a philosophy?’

‘We are the only true philosophers,’ answered the Pariah, ‘for ours is the sole system that teaches the error of excess of wisdom, law, and goodness. As is shown by our literature, which comprises every work of true humour ever written in India.’

‘Better and better,’ said Flaxius; ‘and I believe you the more, because such a literature is the natural result of such a principle. And what are some of the works to which you refer?’

‘There is, firstly,’ answered the outlaw, ‘the story of “Vikram and the Vampire,” in which the _Baital_ teaches the sage in a series of twenty-five lessons how to show himself a fool just two dozen times, by being over wise.

‘Secondly, the “Life of the Gūrū Simple,” by which we may learn that a good man may be a great goose.

‘Thirdly, the “Marvellous Tale,” showing how Boorum-bunder Pop, the Buddhist, broke open a poultry-house and stole all the fowls, by virtue of the holy fourteen formulas of Sakhya Mūni.

‘Fourthly, how Ah-Sin the Chinese sage, who had been converted to the true religion, and came to the Gate of Nirvana, descended to earth, and meeting Brahma on a pilgrimage in human form, cheated him out of all his money at cards.

‘Fifthly, how the holy Brahmin, Baro Chor, pilfered from the divine cow of Waschischta a pint of the milk of experience, from which he churned the butter of wisdom, which is in twenty thousand _slokas_ or verses.

‘_Parraco tute_,’ replied Flaxius in Prakrit, ‘I had rather thou wouldst read it than I. Any more?’

‘There is the divine legend how Krishna, the chastest of the gods, made love, in extreme, to twenty thousand milk-maids all at once, with the moral of “Be virtuous and you will be happy.” After which he was always blue in the face.’

‘Truly, I do not wonder at it,’ remarked Flaxius. ‘I have seen a man look blue for less than that. Any more?’

‘Well there is the Thieves’ Bible teaching the divine worship of Kàli, which they study devoutly in spirit and in truth, all the more because it teaches them how to commit burglary, personal theft, and murder.

‘And with this the _Bāro Lil_, or Scripture of the Trablūs Dom, who call themselves the Rom or Romany, teaching the sanctity of stealing shirts from clothes-lines, the piety of pilfering hens, the holy art of passing off bad horses for good, and the divineness of telling fortunes.’

‘A goodly library!’ remarked Flaxius. ‘Dost thou know aught of magic?’

‘I have picked up a few tricks,’ replied the Pariah, ‘which I learned from a Mahatma, such as the three card game, thimble-rig, floating in the air, putting cigarettes under cushions, and sending letters from a distance. My one great game is, however, to turn a girl into a tree, or the reverse. But with all my fine accomplishments I could never conjure up my wife or a dinner, and I need a meal now, most deucedly.’

‘Friend,’ said Flaxius, ‘I will conjure thee up a good dinner and teach thee the art of doing it, if thou wilt impart to me those tricks of thine.’

‘By Yamen!’ cried the jovial Bohemian, ‘thou art generous, for I deem thy secret worth forty of mine any day. He who hath a woman may have nothing to eat, but devil the place was I ever in where, if I had a bountiful dinner, I could not get a girl to share it with me. By the way,’ he inquired, ‘does this dinner of yours embrace drink--not water, you know, but _tátto pani_ or spirits?’

‘Also that,’ said Flaxius with a smile. ‘Behold!’

There was not far from them a large earthenware pot, left by some traveller. Flaxius bade the Outcast dig a hole in the ground. In this the pot, upside down, was half-buried. Then he chanted in a mystic ancient Indian tongue:

‘Baro duvel dikkamì,
Kūshto hāben, well avri!
O choro Rom se bokalo,
Kekno māss, kek kokalo;
Kekno kil, ne kel pā mui:
Bitcha leste sari dui,
Te tatto pani kater Rom,
Om mani padmi hom!’[9]
‘Mighty spirit, look on me!
Let a dinner come from thee!
Outcast hungers here alone,
Hath no meat and ne’er a bone.
Cheese nor butter for his mouth,
Send to him, I pray thee, both!
Also spirits in this hour,
O Jewel in the lotus flower!’

And this done, the feast began, for on removing the pot there appeared beneath it a rice curry, surmounted with a fine piece of roast beef, garnished with chillies, two chupattis or wheat-cakes, jaggree sugar and a great flask.

‘Now by the thousand years in hell, which I am to catch for eating that beef,’ exclaimed the Outcast, ‘I call that a good meal. Thank the devil and your lordship--if ye be not one and the same--and for what I am about to devour, make us truly thankful,’ as the tiger said when he ate up the Buddha. _Yeck lav se tacho sā desh_:

‘One word’s as good as ten,
Leather away--Amen!’

‘And _toddy_--by all the goblins!’ he exclaimed as he sampled the bottle, ‘strong and abundant enough to demoralise an elephant. Verily I can now be clear through to the further end of my ideal of bliss, for, as your lordship knows, _that_ man is a _bachtalo beng_ or lucky devil who knows when he is well off, or as the great Sanskrit poet, Jan Kitz, sings:

‘“It is a flaw,
In happiness to see beyond our bourne,
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
And spoils the singing of the nightingale.”

‘Therefore let us _not_ see beyond our bourne--at least not till we get there; which, as our great ancestor Cain says in his precepts, is more than most men manage to do.’

‘Was Cain thy ancestor?’ inquired Flaxius. ‘I would fain hear the legend if one there be?’

‘Thou shalt hear it in spirit and in truth,’ replied the Outcast. ‘In the spirit of toddy, and on the truth of a gypsy, know then, what is known to everybody of every language, and in every land, that in the beginning were Cainos and Abelos. And unto them was a sister. And Cainos slew his brother and took his sister to wife. But she, being told that it was wrong, fled from him, and took refuge in the sun, where she dwells to this day. Then Cainos for all his sins was sent to live in the moon, and because it is cold, there he is always bearing thorns to feed the fire. And longing for his sister, he, in the moon, ever pursues her. But others say that when the sun has set and ere the moon has risen, then they meet, which accounts for their love lasting so long, since they do not see too much of one another. But however it be, they are gods of all us wanderers, because they are always wandering over the heavens. And we are their descendants, and therefore under a curse, for which indeed we do not care a curse--when we can get toddy!

‘“When the evening fire is burning,
And the women return from town;
And the crows to their nests returning,
We will drink till the moon goes down:

And merrily sing and prattle,
While music rings over the plain;
And if there’s enough in the bottle,
We’ll drink till she rises again.”

‘Now the sun is called in our tongue Kam or Kàn, and the moon Tchen or Zen, even as tongues turn it, hence we their children are the Zen-kan or Zingan. And this is the true story of our race, whence ye may see what a fine lot we are.

‘And now, your Illustriousness, since it takes two to make a bargain, or as a bargain requires a pair, which must consist of a couple, and as duality demands separate units, or a double of singles, and a duplicate repeated units, and twins bi-fold births, and as according to the Vedas there are needed twice-five fingers to make a hand-shake, and the Shastras assert that if one parent be wanting there can be no child born--

‘Heaven-a-mercy, man!’ cried Flaxius, ‘what the devil art thou driving at?’

‘Only this, O heaven born! that as thou hast kept thy word and given me the dinner without an end, and the flask inexhaustible, I will forthwith repay, reciprocate, discharge, settle, acquit bequests with, strike a balance, clear off old scores, liquidate, poney up my dues to the tune of “On the nail,” and show myself a man of honour and a gentleman by telling thee how to turn a tree into a girl or a girl into a tree, albeit I do not guarantee the quality of the timber. But by their fruit shall ye know them.’

‘’Tis well,’ answered Flaxius. ‘Proceed with thy process.’

And the Outcast proceeded. But here I must draw the veil of secrecy over the mirror of curiosity. I did not mind, O reader, letting thee know how to raise a dinner by means of sorcery, but I draw the line at girls. For there are, as it is, rather too many girls in the world if we may believe the Census, and too few trees, if we are to put faith in agricultural newspapers, and therefore I think it just as well that this metamorphosis be not added to those of Daphne and the Dryads.

* * * * *

When Flaxius returned to the _Ruppeny-gav_ or Silver City of Chotahazripoora, he went straight to the golden palace or _Sonafilisin_ and entered the _Tatcho-bar Kamora_ or Diamond Chamber, where he found the king shadowing the day time of his lordly soul in the dark void of night with sleepless woe, which is to say that he was in a gloomy fit of the blues and bored to death.

‘_Sarshān_, your majesty. How art thou?’ inquired Flaxius in the court tongue.

‘_Sarshān yer kokero, puro!_ How are you yourself, O ancient?’ replied the mighty monarch. ‘As for me, I am in trouble. I have, as thou knowest, more than a thousand mothers-in-law in my family?’

‘Yea,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and I have known a man ere now to be always in hot water with only one.’

‘And they are all nagging me to get first of all my three sons married, and then the daughters. Canst thou see a way out of it?’ he added anxiously.

Flaxius reflected a long time, in order not to make his wisdom too cheap, nor yet ‘to set himself by flippancy too light, too high above the level of his king,’ and then replied:

‘Thou knowest, O sublime Superiority, that I have deeply studied the science of dreams, and can command them. Therefore will I somnambulate in sleep, and draw conclusion from its imagery.

‘“The figments and conceits, the myths and fads,
The grey chimeras and the visions blue;
The phantasms and shadows of the soul,
The whims and vagaries and rhapsodies,
Extravaganzas of the booming soul,
The hum-bugs which go sailing in the dark,
The air-drawn dodgers and the bug-bears wild,
The Flying Dutchmen in the sea of sleep,
The castles in the air and homes i’ the moon,
Utopias and fair Atlantises,
The happy valleys of the bards of yore,
The fairy lands and the Millenia
Of Prester John and of Micomicon,
Wherein Alnaschar found _le pot au lait_,
And where the fay Morgana rules supreme,
Shall be explored down to their deepest dream,
And the last shadow of their last ideal,
And the last fairy coin struck in their mint
Be studied deeply in the minutest case,
To answer well thy question, O my King!”’

‘_S’e pmi duvel!_ As my Spirit may help me!’ cried the monarch in admiration. ‘I will say this for thee, Flaxius, that beside thee as a bard Kalidasa is nowhere, and that what thou canst not do in poetry is not worth a-doing. Therefore, let us drink!’

And they drank.

When Flaxius appeared the next morning before his majesty, it was with the grand and important air of a man who has been dreaming on a royal order, and filled up every detail in first class style. The courtiers looked at him with awe, and even his Highness regarded him with a kind of fearful respect, as if apprehending that he might go off, or explode, or burst in some mysterious way. He was manifestly relieved when an attendant maiden brought to the sage a golden goblet of Soma, or India pale ale; and when the wise man had drained off about a pint thereof, he sighed as if all danger of a conflagration was for the time extinguished. So great a thing is it to be known to be possessed of a secret.

‘By your majesty’s royal command!’ said Flaxius--and all around became as still as the mice-stars in heaven before the cat-moon--‘By your majesty’s royal command I dreamed and I found myself in a far isle of light holding a trumpet shell of pearly hue, which Glendoveers do blow whene’er they meet. Then from a bowery strand just opposite--an island of the sea--there came enchantment with the shifting wind that did both drown and keep alive my ears. And as I listened all my sense was filled with that new blissful golden melody; a living death was in each gust of sounds; each family of rapturous, hurried notes, aunts, cousins, nieces, daughters, all most beautiful, fell one after one, yet all at once, like pearl beads dropping sudden from their strings.’

‘Ahem!’ muttered the Outcast, who had in the daring disguise of a respectable person found his way into the assembly. ‘It seems to me that I have heard something like that before!’

‘Then,’ continued Flaxius, ‘there rose amid wild clouds incarnadine, the form of Siva with his glory on. He bore in one hand the _Triçula_ or trident; and without speaking, he pointed impressively at its three points.’

All present were in breathless awe.

‘Then he disappeared, and I beheld the terrible Vishnu. He held up his three fingers and vanished in turn.

‘And anon from the cloud there came an awful Rakhshi or demon. And he held up three arrows--winked at me and nodded, and disappeared in a clap of thunder!

‘From which I learned, O king, that thou must gather together all the most beautiful princesses who are eligible. Then turn all the people in the town out of their houses for one day, and put a princess into every house.’

The excitement was at its height.

‘Then, O king, let thy three sons, armed with bows and arrows, send each a shaft at random into the city. And where it hits, there will each bride be found.’

‘What thou hast said, O Flaxius, shall be done,’ replied the king.

And it was done, _secundum artem_, in the proper way. Each prince took his place at the great window, and let fly an arrow. The eldest and the second-best son, one after the other, hit a house. It was considered a great miracle that both of them were perfectly delighted with the success which attended their aim, but Flaxius, observing a wink in the eye of the Outcast, elicited from him the fact that both of the princes, who were excellent archers, had been previously and respectively in love with these very girls, and that there had been, in fact, a little arrangement made by the help of the gypsy. For as Rum Kove, the poet, sang in Zend:

Full many a shaft at random sent
Hits mark the archer surely meant.

Now it happened that Arjūn, the youngest, could pull the long bow better than any of them; in fact, he had been heard to say that he could split a hair at a hundred yards, or hit a thunderbolt with a bolt head as it passed whizzing by. And there was in the armoury of the palace a mighty bow which no one else on earth could bend, which he chose for this occasion, but by the secret suggestion of Flaxius he aimed over the town. And when he discharged the arrow, he gave the bow and it, at the instant, a peculiar impulse, which skilled archers understand, so that the shaft flew miles away far into the forest.

Then messengers were sent to trace its course, which they did; and on returning repeated that they had found it sticking in the top of a tamarind-tree, in the foliage, like a hairpin passed through the chignon or gathered hair of a maiden.

So the king summoned Flaxius and all the learned men to know what should be done. And it was unanimously agreed that Arjūn must marry the tree; there being many precedents to prove that trees were a kind of human beings, only that they grew with their heads in the ground, their forked branches being legs. Also, that according to legends of many lands, men have descended from them.

[On which subject the Outcast expressed his assent, _sotto voce_, to Flaxius, but added that he believed the said men had first ascended them to steal fruit.]

So there was a procession formed; and going to the tamarind-tree, the king and prince and all concerned bowed before it, expressing hopes that it was in good health; and finally proposed the marriage. When at that instant came a charming breeze, before which the tree bowed its head as if in assent, and the match was concluded. Then rich gifts were laid before the bride and left there with a guard, and the king and his cortège returned home.

When lo! the next day there were found spread on a table in the grand hall of the palace, other gifts, exceeding rich, with a purple scroll, on which was inscribed in letters of silver:

‘The Tamarind herself commends,
And to the prince these presents sends,
And humbly begs of him that he
Will seek the forest speedily;
Unto the spot where she doth bide,
And bear away his loving bride.’

So they all went once more. And when they were before the tree, they saw it slowly shrink to smaller space, its foliage turning into curling hair, till in its place there stood a maiden fair.

And this was, of course, the fair Sakhara, who being found to be of royal blood, was duly wedded to Arjūn--the king sagely observing that ‘it was manifestly the will of the gods.’ And here endeth the story of her and of Arjūn.

Now by the powerful influence of Flaxius there was a special investigation of the case of the Outcast, by the entire College of Brahmins, with a view to his rehabilitation, since there were precedents for it. And it was found that in a previous existence, a million of years before, he had been a Crow. And of him the most learned of the Brahmins discovered the following history of his Jatakas in an ancient Sanscrit scroll:

THE HISTORY OF BHUSANDA

Contemplate steadfastly the divine glory, cast thy soul into the sparkling depths of the infinite sea, whose fishes are gods, whose waves are the ages!

It is written in the Ramayana, it was told of yore by the Rishis. Once there was a man named Bhusanda, who was the Crow that related to the eagle Garuda, the bird of Vishnu, the deeds of Rama to convince him that the latter was greater than Shiva and Vishnu.

Nor was Bhusanda utterly evil, neither was he bad, but the spirit of mockery was in him, for, ever doing good deeds, he wanted reverence; he was as a silver bell with a flaw.

And when a youth, Bhusanda was worshipping Shiva in the temple, there entered the holy Gūrū, his teacher. And Bhusanda, seeing him enter, for a jest, being also mightily exalted with ideas of his own wisdom, did not greet or notice his Gūrū. Which thing the teacher, in his extreme humility and mildness, would have passed unnoted. But the God above, in his rage at this insolence, thundered from heaven at Bhusanda the awful doom of eternal damnation.

Then the Gūrū who knew not revenge or anger, flung himself on his face before the God and prayed for a remission of the sentence. And the God, relenting, said:

‘He shall pass through one thousand transformations, in all of them shall he be poor, but crafty and wise. He shall adore Vishnu, yet ever call aloud my name!’

Then after his death, he became a serpent, and so passed through a thousand forms, and at last became a Brahmin again. Yet was he still, as erst, incorrigible; and the devilry of quizzing and satire would not leave his heart, despite his goodness. Among men, gods, and devils, no one dared so much as he for a joke.

Now there are ten sons of Brahma, even the ten Rishis, and these are: Daksha, Pulastya, Agni, Washishta, Brigu, Atri, Maritshi, Narada, Pulagen, Kratū. Each of them--all of them--truly an awful _gooroo_! And one day when one of these was lecturing on the attributes of God, his own father, Bhusanda, ventured to differ with him in opinion, yea even to contradict him. Whereupon the Rishi, in a rage at such stupendous impudence, condemned him in his next life to become a crow; which he did, but took it all so cheerfully, and continued to say so many good things, that the Rishi, to soften the sentence, taught him to call the name of _Rama_. [Whom the Romi or Gypsies worship, and from whom they take their name, the crow being among the Brahmins the symbol of the sun, who is the mother of the Romany.]

Now when Rama was born, the Crow flew unto him, and accompanied him in all his childhood; and as the god performed his great deeds, Bhusanda, every morning, on the top of the Blue Mountain, narrated them to all the birds assembled, who spread them over all the world. And so in due time it was written that he should become a man again, named Dschim Crow, and turn up some day or other at the court of the city of Chotahazripoora in company with a great and marvellous sage named F----.

* * * * *

Here the manuscript ended abruptly, and it seemed to one or two experts present that these last lines were in a somewhat different ink from the rest, and looked like a later addition. But these profitably held their peace. And as it was a tremendous feather in the caps of the assembled Brahmins to have discovered the long lost Crow, they made the most of him.

Whereupon the Crow fell into a trance, which lasted many hours. And when he recovered, he narrated how Rama had appeared unto him in a vision, and assured him that every one of the Brahmins there present was destined to become a number-one god in the next generation, and to keep on rising for nine hundred and ninety-four million _Kalpacs_, and then attain Nirvana; also that the whole party, including himself, while here on earth, would be deemed incapable of committing any sin or crime. He had indeed received, as a first instalment of plenary indulgence, a special dispensation and injunction to drink _aràk_ toddy in honour of Rama, to be supplied to him by the Sacred College. Whereupon he was invested with the yellow thread, and declared to be a saint.

* * * * *

It was midnight, and Flaxius and Dschim Crow sat on either side of a pearl-inlaid table, on seats set with gems, and between them was the Holy Bottle with gold cups.

‘_Well!_’ observed Flaxius, ‘of all the in-fer-nal, lying, cold-frozen, brazen, impudent, cheeky humbugs whom I ever encountered on earth, thou, my son, dost take the cake! But yesterday a Pariah, and to-day directing all the Brahmins as their chief!’

‘_Que veux-tu, mon vieux?_’ replied the Holy Crow, who in his new capacity of divine of course divined all the languages of the future:

‘Surely ’tis not by modesty
That gods attain to what they be:
For face, and cheek, since time began,
Were aye the noblest part of man,
And he who hath but impudence
To all things hath sublime pretence.

For the very essence of the most orthodox religion is that man is to be saved by faith alone, good works being only manifestations of faith; and of all faith ever roasted or toasted, stewed or brewed in the kitchen of theology, there is none like a holy faith in one’s own self, pious auto-reliance, devout assurance, divine audacity, and sanctified looking-down on everybody, which latter is the true secret of all ecclesiastical supremacy and influence, as we saints well know.

‘And note you, that this full faith and belief in oneself is neither egoism nor egotism, but only religion _directed inward_, devotion which has gone to the heart instead of striking outward into Pharisaical displays of modesty, wherewith the world is more deluded and gulled than by all the good honest boldness ever obtruded on it. For he who believes in his lucky star brings to the battle of life nine-tenths of victory. Therefore, O illustrious patron, I pray you believe that this which you call Cheek in me is indeed no vanity or idle desire to be admired by the world, for which I verily do not care three straws, esteeming its praise or blame as all stuff and taradiddle:

‘Trumpery, trash, rubbish and hum,
_Fatras_, frippery, bubble and scum,
Leather-prunella, drugs and chaff,
Refuse, sweepings, sediment, raff,
Trifling, paltry, petty or small;
Frivolous stuff worth nothing at all,
Hardly anything, no great shakes;
_Peu de chose_ and as farthing stakes,
Gimcracks, whim-whams, gammon and sells,
Fiddlestick, fudge and bagatelles,
Paltry, pitiful two-penny flams,
Fribbling, beggarly, pitiful crams;
Not worth mentioning, nor a rush,
Stuff and nonsense, humbug and tush!

‘For verily at _that_, and nothing more, do I esteem vanity and the notice of the world or personal notoriety, or puffs, while, to my taste, all applause, homage, hero-worship, clapping, hosannahs, glorification and acclamation, raw or cooked, save so far that there is _Fun_ in it all, may go to the devil and shake itself! But he who is what you may call self-superstitious, or guided in all things, as he thinks, by a _dæmon_ or star, or fairy, or fate, or strange omens, by occult desires, and coincidences, always becomes strangely self-confident, and yet not _vain_ or egoistic, because he feels as if he were a wheelbarrow trundled by his god--

‘Or a top spun by a boy,
Or clay in the potter’s hands,
Or dough being kneaded,
Or a horse in harness,
Or paper under the pen,
Or a maid taken by force,
Or potatoes being mashed,
Or type being set,
Or a garment being shaped,
Or a rocket set fire to,
Or a fiddle being played,
Or an arrow shot from a bow,
Or a cake being mixed,
Or a twine in cat’s-cradle,
Or a sermon being preached,
Or a puppet being played,
Or a pig driven to market,
Or a football in a game,
Or a top being spun,
Or a boat being steered,

or anything or anybody under external direction. Now the egoist believes himself to be, and the vain man is sure that he is, the actor and the thing acted on, all in one, but the blind believer in self is only confident that he is well-directed. _Eccomi!_’

‘A subtle distinction,’ said Flaxius, ‘and not without truth.’