Chapter III (3)

The next day Tom was in high fever--in real earnest. A touch of the sun on the ranges. His head was shaved, and an hospital nurse procured. Of course Miss Browne was tenderly anxious, and very much grieved and concerned, but she saw no reason to sit in sackcloth and ashes. She had seen other specimens of the officers of the Pioneers, and began to think she was rather throwing herself away upon Tom Galway! She had met Major Pratt at a dinner-party at the general’s--quite a little impromptu affair--and he had noted the new arrival with interest. Her income (trebled) had been casually imparted to him by Jack Murray as a profound secret. Three thousand a year! What luck for Tom Galway! If _he_ had only had such a chance--and the money was undoubtedly there, for she talked intelligently of funds, shares, and mortgages. Her diamonds were valuable, her dresses costly. She was not half bad-looking either. He affected deep sympathy for her and Tom. “Lucky Tom!” he exclaimed; “what envy, hatred, and malice he had stirred up in Blazapore!” He sat close to her, and administered neat little speeches and sugared compliments, and entreated her to look out for a wife for him, and when she went away he squeezed her hand. The next day he called, and the next day he called and brought a bouquet, and the next day he called and brought a book, and the following day a tiger-skin. He damned Tom Galway with the faintest praise. “He was good-looking. Yes! but--now she must not fly at him--heavy, good-natured, but densely stupid. Rather a butt, you know, and indeed only for him (Major Pratt) would have got into one or two very nasty scrapes.” The major had made up his mind to marry Miss Browne, and was calmly confident of his ultimate success. Tom Galway was _hors de combat_, and all is fair in love and war, and in the end it came to pass that Major Pratt prevailed and carried off the prize! The little Miss Browne had seen of Tom had not impressed her favourably; his shaven head, long bony hands, shabby clothes, and gaunt appearance afforded a painful contrast to the spruce, agreeable little major. Moreover, _he_ was a field officer and not a junior captain, and a far more suitable match in every respect. In an incredibly short time Jack Murray’s anticipations were realized. A few honeyed speeches, a few drives with the major in Jack’s dog-cart, a few bouquets and cheap but judicious presents, and Miss Browne had exercised her sex’s privilege and changed her mind! She wrote a long letter of apology to Tom, deploring her own cruelty and his broken heart, praying that _time_ would alleviate his misery, and pleading, as extenuating circumstances, Major Pratt’s irresistible fascinations and her woman’s weakness. That same evening she and the major ran away together. No one gave chase,--and they were ultimately married by special licence in Madras.

Jack lost no time in bearing the great news to his friend. All Blazapore was quivering with the shock. That mercenary little wretch the major had carried off Tom Galway’s heiress. Unlucky Tom!

“It’s all right, Tom; here’s your release,” holding up the letter that cried “Peccavi.” It had been consigned to Jack as a matter of course, he being the major’s chief adviser and confidant. “She’s in the regiment. I could not help that; we had to sacrifice _some one_, and the major deserved it.”

“Oh, Jack,” said his friend, wringing his hand till the tears stood in Jack’s eyes, “you have saved my reason, and my life.”

“Rubbish! If you had allowed _me_ to draft the first letter there would have been none of this bother. Served you jolly well right for addressing it to _Miss_ Browne.”

“She might have known,” stammered Tom. “She could not have thought that I meant _her_.”

“There’s no saying. No fool like an old one. You wrote again last mail, did you not? Wrote to the right one! I’ll take good care to see you turned off myself this time. In a couple of months your hair will have grown, and you’ll be fit to be seen, and then you can go down to Bombay and marry the other Miss Browne.”

And he did.

“_IF YOU SEE HER FACE._”

“I heard a voice across the press,
Of one who called in vain.”

Barrack Room Ballads.

Daniel Gregson, Esq., B.S.C., political agent to the Rajah of Oonomore (a child of seven years of age), and Percy Goring, his junior assistant, were travelling from their own state to attend the great Delhi durbar. Mr. Gregson was a civilian of twenty-five years’ standing, short of neck, short of stature, and short of temper. His red face, pale prominent eyes, and fierce bushy brows had gained for him the nickname of “The Prawn;” but he was also known as a marvellously clever financier, ambitious, shrewd, and prompt in action; and by those who were under him, he was less loved than feared. Young Goring was just twenty-six, and much more eager to discuss good shooting, or a good dance, than the assessment of land, the opium trade, or even acting allowances!

The pair journeyed with due ceremony on the native state line, and in the little Rajah’s own gilt and royal carriage. _He_ was laid up in the palace with chicken-pock, and had wept sorely because he had been unable to accompany his guide, philosopher, and friend to the grand “Tamasha,” to wear his new velvet coat, and all his jewels, and to hear the guns, that would thunder in his honour. Child as he was, he was already keenly sensitive respecting his salute!

Meanwhile the agent and his subordinate got on capitally without him, travelling at the leisurely rate of ten miles an hour, that fine November afternoon, surrounded with tiffin-baskets, cigarettes, ice-boxes, and other luxurious accompaniments. About four o’clock the train came to a sudden standstill--there was no station to account for this, merely a country road, a white gate, and a mud hut. The halt resolved itself into a full step; Mr. Gregson thrust his red face out of the window, and angrily inquired the reason of the delay.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” said the Eurasian guard, “there has been a break on the line--bridge gone--and we can’t get forward nohow.”

Mr. Gregson glanced out on the prospect--the dusty cactus hedge, the white telegraph posts, the expanse of brownish grass, black goats, and jungle.

“Any village, any dâk bungalow?” demanded the political agent, who might have known better than to ask.

“I’m afraid not, your honour. If your honour will wait here, we will send a messenger to the next station on foot, and tell them to telegraph for another train from the junction. This will arrive at the other side of the break, and take you on about twelve o’clock to-morrow.”

“And meanwhile we are to sit here!” cried Mr. Gregson, indignantly. “A pretty state of affairs! I’ll send a memo to the railway engineer that will astonish him,” he said, turning to Goring. “It’s four now, and we shall be here till twelve o’clock to-morrow, if we don’t mind. We shall be late for the durbar, and I shall have to wire, ‘unavoidably absent.’”

“I wonder if there is any sport to be had?” said Goring, descending from the carriage, and stretching his long legs. “Any shooting, any black buck?” looking at the guard interrogatively.

“Ah, that reminds me!” exclaimed Mr. Gregson. “The Rajah has a hunting box somewhere in these parts--Kori; we can go there for the night.”

“Yes, your honour,” assented a listener, with profound respect; “but it is four koss from here--a ‘Kutcha’ road--and a very poor part of the state.”

“I vote we stop here,” said Goring. “We can shoot a bit, and come back and dine, and sleep in the train. We shall be all right and jolly; twice as comfortable as in some tumble-down old summer-house.”

“I shall go to Kori, at any rate,” rejoined his superior officer, who resented opposition. “The place is kept up, and I’ve never seen it. This will be a capital opportunity to inspect it.”

“But it’s four koss away; and how are we to get our baggage, and bedding, and grub over?”

“Coolies,” was the laconic rejoinder. “Get them ready to start at once”--to his head servant, with an imperious wave of his hand.

“There is no way of transport for your majesty,” said his obsequious bearer with a deep salaam. “No ponies, not even an ekka--unless the ‘Protector of the Poor’ would stoop to a country cart?” (Which same is a long rude open basket, between two round wooden wheels, and drawn by a pair of bullocks.)

“I really think it is hardly worth while to move,” urged Goring, as he cast a greedy eye in the direction of a promising snipe jheel. “It will be an awful fag, and you know you hate walking!”

“You can please yourself, and stay here,” said Mr. Gregson, with immense dignity, who, if he hated walking, liked his own way.

As the whole suite (not to mention the commissariat) were bound to accompany him, Goring was compelled to submit; he dared not run counter to his arbitrary companion, who, rejecting with scorn the lowly vehicle that had been suggested, set out for Kori on foot, whither a long string of coolies had already preceded him. The sandy country road wound over a barren, melancholy-looking tract, diversified with scanty pasture and marshy patches (or jheels), pools of water, tall reeds, and brown grasses. It was dotted with droves of lean cattle, paddy-birds, milk-white herons, and cranes--especially the tall sirius family, who danced to one another in a stately, not to say solemn, fashion.

Truly a bleak, desolate-looking region, and, save one or two miserable huts and some thorn bushes, there was no sign of tree or human habitation. At last they came in sight of a wretched village--the once prosperous hanger-on of the now deserted hunting palace--that showed its delicate stone pinnacles behind a high wall; apparently it stood in an enclosure of vast extent, an enclosure that must have cost lakhs of rupees. Two sahibs were naturally an extraordinary sight in this out-of-the-way district; the fame and name of Mr. Gregson, a Burra-Burra sahib, had been spread before him by the coolies, therefore beggars and petitioners swarmed eagerly round this great and all-powerful personage.

Mr. Gregson liked to feel his own importance at a durbar, or an official dinner, but it was quite another matter to have it thrust upon him by a gang of clamouring paupers--the maimed, the halt, the blind--crying out against taxation, imploring alms, and mercy. He was a hard man, with a quick, impatient temper. An aged blind beldame got in his way, and he struck her savagely with his stick. She shrank back with a sharp cry, and Goring, who was ever known as “a sahib with a soft heart,” spoke to her and gave her a rupee--a real rupee; it was years since she had felt one!

“Although she is blind, sahib, beware of her,” said an officious youth, with his hair in a top-not. “She has the evil eye!”

“Peace, dog!” she screamed; then to Goring, “I am a lone old woman; my kindred are dead--I have lived too long. I remember the former days--rich days; but bad days. Sahib, if you would be wise, go not to the palace Khana.”

Goring was moving on when the hag hastily clutched him by the sleeve, and added in a rasping whisper--

“_If you see her face--you die!_”

“She is mad,” he said to himself, as he hastened to join Mr. Gregson, who had arrived at the great iron-studded gates in a state of crimson fury.

“You say we have land--true!” shouted a haggard, wild-eyed ryot; “but what is land without crops? What is a remission of five per cent. to wretches like us? It is but as a carraway seed in a camel’s mouth! The wild beasts take our cattle and destroy our grain, and yet we must work and pay you, and starve! Would that the Rajah was a man grown! Would that _you_ were dead!”

Mr. Gregson hurried inside, and banged the great gate violently in the face of the importunate crowd.

“It is a very poor district, and much too heavily assessed,” said Goring to himself. “There is not even a pony in the place. The very Bunnia is in rags; the deer eat the crops, such as they are, since the deer are preserved, and there is no one now to shoot them. It is abominable!”

The palace was a pretty, light stone building, two stories in height, with a tower at either end, and a double verandah all the way round. In front of it a large space was paved with blocks of white marble, which ran the whole length of the building, and it was surrounded by the most exquisite gardens, kept up in perfect order--doubtless by the taxes wrung from the wretched creatures outside its gates--a garden that was never entered by its proprietor or enjoyed by any one from year’s end to year’s end, save the mallee’s children and the monkeys. The monkeys ate the fruit, the roses and lilies bloomed unseen, the fountains dripped unheeded; it was a paradise for the doves and squirrels, like a garden in a fairy tale.

The chokedar and head mallee (_he_ was a rich man) received their great guest with every expression of humble delight. Dinner was prepared with much bustle in the hall of audience, whilst Mr. Gregson and his junior explored. There were long shady walks paved with white marble, immense bushes of heliotrope and myrtle, delicate palms, fine mango trees, peach trees, and orange trees. It was truly an oasis in the desert when one contrasted it with the bare, desolate, barren country that lay outside its walls.

“I shall bring the little chap here,” said Mr. Gregson, pompously. “We will have a camp here at Christmas.” And then he strolled back to the palace, and made an excellent dinner of roast turkey, and asparagus, and champagne.

After this repast he got out his despatch-box and his cigarette-case, and set about writing an official, whilst Goring took a chair, and adjourned to the marble pavement outside the palace.

It was an exquisite night; a low moon was peering over the wall--the air was heavy with the scent of syringa and orange blossoms; there was not a sound, not a voice to be heard, not a soul in sight, save Mr. Gregson, who, illuminated by two wax candles, bent eagerly over his pen, as he sat in the open hall of audience.

Goring, as he smoked, thought of many things; of the half-famished villagers; of the splendid shooting that was going to waste; of the grand bag he could make, and would make, at Christmas. Then he began sleepily to recall some stories--half-told stories--about this very place; tales of hideous atrocities, and crimes that had been done here, in the days of the Tiger Rajah, the present ruler’s grandfather. He was gradually dozing off, when he was aroused by the sounds of distant tom-toms, playing with extravagant spirit. The drumming came slowly nearer and nearer; it actually seemed to be in the garden--louder and louder--with a whispered murmuring and low applause, and as it were the footsteps of a great multitude. But there was nothing whatever to be seen, and it was as light as day. He moved uneasily in his chair, and gazed behind him; no! nothing to be seen but his senior steadily covering sheets of foolscap. He turned his head, and was aware of an unexpected sight--as startling as it was uncanny! Two twinkling little brown feet, dancing before him on the marble pavement! exquisite feet, that seemed scarcely to touch the ground, and that kept perfect time to the inspiriting sounds of the tom-toms; they were decked with massive golden anklets, which tinkled as they moved, and above them waved a few inches of the heavy yellow gold-embroidered skirt of the dancing-girl. No more was visible. Round and round the fairy feet flitted, in a very poetry of motion; faster and faster played the tom-toms. Such dancing, such nimble feet, it had never been young Goring’s lot to behold! Yes--but where was the rest of the body?

As he gazed in half-stupefied amazement, he suddenly recalled the old hag’s warning, with an unpleasant thrill--

“If you see her face--you _die_!”

At this instant there was a scraping sound, of the pushing back of a chair, of slow footsteps on the marble, of a loud cry, and a heavy fall.

Goring jumped up, and beheld Mr. Gregson lying prone on his face. He rushed to his assistance, and raised him with considerable difficulty. His eyes were fixed with an expression of unutterable horror. He gave one or two shuddering gasps, his head drooped forward on his breast, and he expired.

Goring looked round apprehensively. The feet had disappeared; the tom-toms had ceased.

He shouted for help, and immediately a vast crowd of dismayed retainers assembled around him, and Babel ensued.

“The Burra sahib dead! Well, well, it was ever an evil place. Ah, bah! Ah, bah! It was the nautch-girl, without doubt.”

They further informed Goring that the old Rajah had once tortured a dancing-girl on that very spot, and inhumanly disfigured her face. More than one had seen her since, and perished thus.

That morning, at sunrise, the dead body of Mr. Gregson was placed in a native cart, similar to the one he had so scornfully rejected, and taken by slow stages to the nearest station and back to the city, accompanied by Goring.

The doctors, European and native, declared with one consent that Mr. Gregson had died in a fit--an apoplectic seizure.

Goring--wise man--said nothing.

_THE FORMER PASSENGERS._

“Who is whispering and calling through the rain?
Far above the tempest crashing,
And the torrent’s ceaseless dashing,
I hear a weary calling, as of pain.”

“If any one can help you, it will be Captain Blane.”

This sentence was uttered by a smart young clerk, in a shipping office in Rangoon, who, clothed in cool white drill, leant his elbows confidentially on the desk, and concluded his speech with a reassuring nod.

I was _en route_ from Upper Burmah to Singapore, in order to attend my sister’s wedding. Our flat river-boat was late, and when I presented myself at the booking-office of the P. and O., I found to my dismay that the steamer for the Straits had sailed at dawn, and that there would not be another for a week! I was therefore bound to miss the wedding, and waste my precious leave in Rangoon, thanks to the leisurely old tub that had dawdled down from Mandalay.

I turned my eyes expectantly on Captain Blane, a short-necked, weather-beaten sailor, in a blue serge coat with gilt buttons, and a peaked cap. He surveyed me steadily, with a pair of small keen eyes, and evidently did not receive the suggestion with enthusiasm.

“We don’t carry passengers,” he announced in a gruff voice. “My ship is only a cargo-boat, a tramp; and we have no accommodation whatsoever.”

“No accommodation!” echoed the clerk, incredulously. “Oh, I say, come!”

“Why, you know very well that all the cabins are chock-full of cargo; and we have never carried a passenger since I took command.”

“If there was any hole or corner where you could stow me, I don’t mind how I rough it,” I urged; “and I’ll pay full first-class fare.”

“Oh, there’s lots of holes and corners,” admitted the captain. “And you’d just get the ship’s rations, same as the officers and myself; no soups and _entrées_--plain roast and boiled.”

“I’m not particular; I’m ready to eat salt junk and sea biscuit. I’ll do anything, short of swimming, to get to Singapore by next Wednesday.”

“Is it so _very_ important?” demanded Captain Blane.

“A wedding. No--no,” in answer to his commiserating stare, “not my own--but I’ve to give away the bride.”

“Well, well, I suppose I must try and stretch a point. Mind! I’ll take you at your word about the passage money. ‘Never refuse a good offer,’ is my motto; so, Mr. ----?” and he paused interrogatively.

“Lawrence is my name.”

“Mr. Lawrence, if you’ll be down at Godwin’s Wharf to-morrow, at nine o’clock, with your baggage and bedding and servant, we will lie off a bit, and any sampan will put you aboard in five minutes. Ask for the _Wandering Star_;” and with a nod between the clerk and myself, he turned his back and stumped out.

“He is not very keen about passengers, eh?” remarked the clerk with a laugh. “I wonder why?”

“I suppose because she is a dirty old cargo-boat. But any port in a storm, or rather, any ship, in this crisis, for me!”

“Ah,” said the clerk, rubbing his chin reflectively, “I’ve a sort of idea--though perhaps I dreamt it--that there is something rum, or out of the way, about this _Wandering Star_.”

“Well, whatever it is, I’ll risk it,” I answered with a laugh, as I followed the captain’s example, and took my departure.

Punctually at nine o’clock next morning I embarked in a sampan, and was rowed down the swift Irrawaddy.

“That cannot be my steamer,” I protested, as the boatman made for a long, low, raking craft, a craft of considerable pretensions! She looked like one of the smaller vessels of the P. and O. fleet.

But sure enough the boatman was right, for as we passed under her stern, I read in yellow letters the name--_Wandering Star_.

A closer inspection showed her to be simply what her commander had stated--a tramp; she was dirty, rusty, and travel-stained. When I clambered aboard, I found no snowy decks, or shining brasses, but piles of cargo, bustling coolies, and busy blue-clad lascars. I was immediately accosted by the captain, who presented me to the chief officer, and to a fellow-traveller, a sallow, lanky youth of nineteen, going to join his friends in the Straits.

“I thought he would be company for you,” explained the sailor. “We are off in half an hour,” pointing to the Blue Peter at the fore. “And we’re loaded to the hatches. Mr. Kelly here will show you your quarters.”

As I followed the chief officer, I was astonished at the dimensions of the _Star_; it was a considerable distance from the captain’s snug cabin, near the bridge, to the poop. We made our way below, into a long saloon with tables and seats intact, but the aft part piled high with bales. There was a strange, musty, mouldy smell; it felt damp and vault-like, and afforded a sharp contrast to the blazing sun and cobalt sky on deck.

As my eye became used to the gloom, I noticed the lavish carving, the handsome mahogany and brass fittings, the maple-wood doors and panels--the remains of better days!

My cabin contained two bunks, and in one of these my servant, a Madras butler, called “Sawmy,” had already arranged my bedding.

“I wonder you don’t carry passengers?” I remarked to Mr. Kelly. “What a fine saloon! I should have thought it would have paid well.”

“She carried hundreds in her day,” he said complacently. “You see there is where the piano was hitched, and there the swinging lamps, and bookcase; but, all the same, it would never pay _us_ to take passengers;” and he laughed--an odd sort of laugh. “We are not a regular liner, you know, trading between two ports. Regular liners look on us as dirt; but lots of ’em would give a good deal for our lines, and our engines. There’s some of them I would not send my old boots home in! We pick up cargo as we find it; one time we run to Zanzibar, another to Hong Kong, another to the Cape, or maybe Sydney. I’ve not been home this three years. I hope you’ll find your bunk comfortable; the youngster is opposite, just across the saloon--you know your way back!” and having done the honours, he left me.

Certainly, the _Star_ was much above her present business, and bore the remains of having seen better days. Even my marble washstand was not in keeping with a cargo-steamer. I opened the next cabin; it was crammed to the door with freight--bird-cages in this instance. Every cabin was no doubt similarly packed. I was not sorry to exchange the earthy, chill atmosphere below for the bright sunshine on deck. Soon we had weighed anchor, and were moving smoothly down the rapid Irrawaddy, between high banks of tawny grass, gradually losing sight of the shipping, then of the golden Pagoda, then of Elephant Point; finally the _Star_ put her nose straight out, to cross the Gulf of Martaban. The sea was calm, we were well fed and found, and made a pleasant party of six; the captain, first and second officers, the chief engineer, and two passengers. I slept like a top that night, and awoke next morning, and found we were anchored off Moulmein, with its hills covered with pagodas and palms. From Moulmein we put to sea, and still the weather once more favoured us. The captain was a capital companion, full of anecdotes and sea-stories; the chief engineer was a first-rate chess-player, and I began to think I had done rather a smart thing in securing a passage in this stray steamer. As the captain concluded a thrilling yarn apropos of a former ship, in which he had been third officer, I suddenly recalled the shipping clerk’s hint, and asked--

“Are there no stories about this one? has she no history?”

Captain Blane looked at the chief officer with a knowing grin, and then replied--

“History?--of course she has. What do you call the log-book? That’s her history. I suppose that chap at the office told you she was considered an unlucky ship? Eh? Come, now, own up!”

“No; but he said he had an idea that there was something queer about her--he could not remember what it was.”

“Well, I’ve been in command of her now four years, and I’ve seen nothing to complain of. What do you say, Kelly?” appealing to the first officer.

“I say that I never wish to put foot on a better sea-boat, and there’s nothing wrong with her, as far as _I_ know.”

But Sawmy, my Madras boy, entertained a totally different opinion of the _Star_. When I asked him why he did not sleep outside my door in the saloon, he frankly replied--

“Because plenty devil in this ship; the chief Serang” (head of the Lascars) “telling me that saloon plenty bad place.”

* * * * *

We were now within forty-eight hours of Singapore, when the weather suddenly changed, as it frequently does in those treacherous seas. The awning was taken down--sure presage of a bad time coming. The ports were closed, and all was made ready for a blow; and we were not disappointed--it came. We had a rough night, but I was not in the least inconvenienced; I slept like a dormouse rocked in the cradle of the deep.

In the morning my fellow-passenger (whose name, by the way, was Mellish, and who had evidently “suffered,” to judge by his ghastly appearance) accosted me timidly and said--

“Did you get up and walk about last night?”

“No.”

“Do you ever walk in your sleep?” he continued.

“Not to my knowledge--why?”

“Because last night some one came and hammered on my cabin door, and shouted, ‘The ship’s aground.’ What do you think it can have been?” he asked with a frightful face.

“I think there is no doubt that it was the hot tinned lobster you had for supper,” I answered promptly.

“No, no, no, it was not a dream--it woke me,” he returned. “I thought it was _you_. Then I tried to think it was a nightmare, and had almost brought myself to believe it, and was dropping off to sleep, when a cold, cold wet hand was passed slowly across my face;” and he shuddered violently.

“Lobster!” I repeated emphatically.

“No, no. Oh, Mr. Lawrence, I heard moaning and whispering and praying. I’m afraid to sleep in that cabin alone; may I come and share yours?”

“There is no room,” I answered, rather shortly. “The top berth is crammed full of my things.”

At breakfast there was a good deal of movement, and now and then a loud splash upon the deck. The captain, who had been tapping the barometer, looked unusually solemn, and said--

“We are in for a bit of dirty weather; unless I’m mistaken, there’s a cyclone somewhere about. I don’t think we shall do more than touch the edge of it, and this is a stout craft, so you need not be uneasy.”

This was vastly reassuring, when the sky to the west changed from a lowering grey to an inky black. The wind rose with a whimper, that increased to a shriek; it lashed the sea with fury, lashed it into enormous waves, and, laden as we were, we began to roll, at first majestically, then heavily, then helplessly. We took in great green seas over the bows, tons of water discharged themselves amidships, and made us stagger and groan, but still through it all the engines thumped doggedly on.

We seized our dinner anyhow; sitting, standing, kneeling, adapting ourselves to the momentary angle of the vessel. It was a miserable evening, wet and cold, and Mellish and I went to bed early. The dead-lights were down, the hatchway closed behind us; we were entirely cut off from the rest of our shipmates for the night, and the saloon smelt more vault-like than ever. I turned away from Mellish’s grey frightened face, and stammering, piteous importunities, shut myself into my cabin, bolted the door, went to bed, and fell asleep. Meanwhile the storm increased to a hurricane, the motion was tremendous. I was flung violently out on the floor, as the _Star_ made one awful plunge, and then righted herself. I was, needless to state, now thoroughly awake, and scrambling back into my berth, and clinging to the woodwork with both hands, lay listening to the roaring of the tempest, which rose now and then to a shrill shriek, that had a terribly human sound; my heart beat fast, as my ears assured it that I was not merely listening to the raving of the gale, but actually to the piercing screams of women, and the hoarse shouts of men! Just as I had arrived at this amazing conclusion, the door of the cabin was burst open, and an elderly man, in his shirt-sleeves, was hurled in.

“She’s going down,” he bawled excitedly, “and the hatches are fast.”

I sprang up, and the next lurch shot us both out into the saloon. And what a scene did I behold by three lamps that swung violently to and fro! Their fitful light showed me a large number of half-dressed strangers, in the last extremity of mortal fear; there was the horrible, selfish pushing and struggling of a panic-stricken crowd, fighting their way towards the companion-ladder; the wild frenzied distraction people exhibit when striving to escape from some deadly peril; the tumult, the cries and shrieks of frightened women making frantic appeals for rescue--cries heart-rending to hear.

Besides the dense struggling block at one end of the cabin, battling fiercely for escape, there were various groups, apparently resigned to their impending fate. A family at prayer; two men drinking raw brandy out of tumblers; an ayah beating her head upon the floor, and calling on “Ramasawmy;” an old lady, with a shawl over her head, and a Bible on her knee; a young man and a girl, hand locked in hand, whispering last words; a pale woman, with a sleeping child in her arms. I saw them all. I saw Mellish clinging to the saloon hand-rail, his eyes glazed with horror, and gibbering like an idiot.

The crash of broken crockery, the shrieks of despair, the roaring of the wind, the sullen thundering of the seas overhead, combined to make up the most frightful scene that could possibly be imagined.

Then all at once, a beautiful girl, with long dark hair, streaming over a white gown, rushed out of a cabin, and threw herself upon me, flinging her arms round my neck; she sobbed--

“Oh, save me--save me! Don’t let me die--don’t let me die!”

Her wild agonized face was pressed closely to mine; her frantic clasp round my neck tightened like a band of steel--closer, closer, _closer_. I was choking. I could not move or breathe. She was strangling me, as she shrieked in my ear--

“It is coming now! _This is death!_”

There was one awful lurch, a grinding crash, a sinking sensation, a vice-like grip about my throat--and outer darkness.

* * * * *

I was aroused in broad daylight by Sawmy, who had brought my tea and shaving-water. I was lying on the floor of the saloon, and he was stooping over me, with a frightened expression on his broad, brown countenance.

“At first I thinking master dead!” was his candid announcement. “Me plenty fraiding. Why master lying here and no in bed?” Why indeed!

A plunge of my head into cool water, and a cup of tea, brought me to myself, and then I flung on my dressing-gown, and hurried across the saloon to see what had become of the miserable Mellish.

He was stretched in his berth, with a life-belt beside him, rigid and cold, and in a sort of fit.

With brandy, burnt brown paper, and great difficulty, Sawmy and I brought him round. As soon as he had come to his senses, and realized that he was still in the land of the living, he sat up and turned on me quite ferociously, and said--

“And that’s what you call _lobster_!”

* * * * *

The weather had moderated considerably, and though I had no great appetite, I was able to appear at breakfast. Mellish was too shattered to join us, and lay in a long chair in the deck-house, sipping beef-tea, and hysterically assuring all inquirers that “he would never again set foot in the saloon--no, he would _much_ rather die!”

“I suppose you got knocked about a bit last night?” inquired the captain, with a searching glance.

“Not exactly knocked about; I did not mind _that_ so much, but----” and I hesitated.

“But you were disturbed?” he added significantly.

“Yes, very much so; I hope I shall never be disturbed in such a way again.”

“Then I take it you’ve seen them--the former passengers? They are generally aboard, they say, in dirty weather.”

“Whatever they were, I trust in God I may never witness such another scene.”

“You don’t wonder now that we are not free of offering cabin accommodation, eh? Not that I ever saw anything myself.”

“But you admit that there _is_ something.”

“So they say”--nodding his head with a jaunty air.

“And what is the explanation? _What_ do they say?” I asked impatiently.

“Just this. The _Wandering Star_ was once the _Atalanta_, a fine passenger steamer, and, coming out her last trip, she fell in for the tail of a cyclone, and came to grief off the Laccadives; blown out of her course, engine-fires put out, went on a rock, and sank in ten fathoms; every soul on board went down, except a steward and a fireman, who got off on a hen-coop. It was an awful business--sixty-nine passengers, besides officers and crew. She sank like a stone, no time to get battered to pieces, and so she was right well worth her salvage. A company bought her cheap; she was but little damaged--they raised and sold her. She was intended for the pilgrim traffic, from Bombay to Mecca, and in fact she did make a couple of trips; but somehow she got a bad name; the pilgrims said she was possessed of devils--ha! ha!--and so the owners put her into the wheat and rice and general cargo trade, and we have no complaints. She has been at it these five years, and is, as I take you to witness, a grand sea-boat, and has fine accommodation betweendecks as well as aft; it’s only in real dirty weather that there is anything amiss, and that in the saloon. They say,” lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper, “they kept the passengers below, battened down; they got no chance for their lives. It was a mistake; they were all drowned like rats in their holes. Mind you, _I_’ve seen nothing, and I’m not a superstitious man.”

“Would you sleep in the saloon?” I sternly demanded.

“No; for in a blow _my_ place is on the bridge. But I’ll not deny that a second officer, who has left us, tried a bunk down there once, out of curiosity, and did not repeat the experiment; he was properly scared;” and the captain chuckled at the recollection.

“I suppose we shall get in to-night?” I remarked, as we paced the deck together.

“Yes, about eleven o’clock. We are doing our twelve knots, dirty-looking old hooker as we are!”

“So much the better,” I answered, “for you will not be surprised to hear that I’m not anxious to occupy my berth again.”

I am thankful to relate that I slept on land that same night, and was not “disturbed.”

* * * * *

I often glance at the shipping lists, to see if there is any news of the _Wandering Star_. I note that she is still tramping the ocean from China to Peru, and I have not the smallest doubt but that, on stormy nights, the saloon is still crowded with the distracted spectres of her former passengers.

_THE SECRET OF THE AMULET._

“Frailty, thy name is woman!”--HAMLET.

People said they were from the north--even from beyond Peshawar--the two tall men, with fair skins and long brown hair, but no one had time to ascertain their name or business, for between the sunset and dawn both had fallen a prey to that horrible throat disease that seizes its victims by the gullet, and strangles them almost on the spot. Thus they died in the great serai at Hassanpur--leaving behind them three stout Cabuli ponies, two rolls of bedding, and one little boy; also, it was whispered in the bazaar, a considerable sum of money in excellent Government notes; but this, the policeman in charge of the serai swore by the soul of his father, was a black lie, and, with the sanction of the authorities, he made over the child and three ponies to the keeping of his maternal uncle, Ibrahim Khan (the same who lives at the corner of the road as you go to the sugar-works). Ibrahim sold the ponies to his satisfaction to officers in the cantonments, and suffered the child to share his roof, and also his extremely frugal fare. An Indian community is never slow to talk, and it was breathed from ear to ear, that the traders had been wealthy, and that Nubbi Bux, the policeman, and Ibrahim, his kinsman, had divided the spoil between them. One thing was manifest: nought had descended to Kareem, the rightful heir!

He was a fair-skinned little fellow, with dancing dark eyes, who ran about the roads almost naked, with an old flat copper amulet tied round his neck by a piece of string; he was about four years of age, as pretty as a bronze Cupid; the women petted him for his good looks, and he found many congenial playfellows among the narrow alleys and courtyards of the swarming _burra bazar_. Ibrahim, Kareem’s adopted grandfather, was an avaricious old person, with a hooked nose, pendulous underlip, and frowsy turban, who sat all day long in a shop like a niche--it looked no bigger than a wardrobe--lined with empty jars, bottles, broken lamps, cracked cups and saucers, and battered odd volumes of worthless books. He did not sell much, but he served market people with pulls at a huka, at a fixed price; and he was reputed to lend money at enormous interest.

If you know the city of Hassanpur, where it lies between two capricious rivers, and surrounded by a vast grain country, you must be familiar with the long red bridge over the Kanat, on the parapet of which a mendicant sits, who rests not from dawn till dusk calling, “Blind man--blind man.” Just at the foot of the bridge is the great serai, or wayside house, for travellers, with its lofty walls, spacious inclosure, and entrance gate worthy of a mosque--both it and the bridge were built by a rich native, who wished his name to go down to posterity; but to thousands who cross the one, and hundreds who halt at the other, it is unknown--no doubt they imagine both to be the work of the all-powerful and ever-active Sircar (Government).

Kareem’s tastes did not lean to trade; far from it! he had no aptitude in bargaining for kid skins, empty bottles, and kerosine oil tins. On the other hand, he had an uncontrollable passion for horses, and when he grew too old to build houses in the dust, and play baby games, he used to hang about the serai and haunt the society of camel-drivers and horse-dealers. He soon became acquainted with the manners and customs of the divers kinds of beasts that crowded the inclosure; camels, ekka ponies, buffaloes, mules, elephants, and squealing country-breds. He knew all their peculiarities, and was not afraid of one of them. Many and many a time, he played truant from the munshi and his lessons, and many a time his angry grandfather sought him with a stick, and drove him forth with blows and curses; but now--Kareem was a smart lad of eighteen, and useful to traders and travellers. Moreover he earned money, and Ibrahim viewed his visits to the serai with extreme complacency. Within the last ten years he had become a well-known and popular character. New arrivals and regular _habitués_ immediately shouted for “Kareem, Kareem.” He was a person of far more importance than the sleepy policeman in charge--not his original patron, who had picked him up from between two dead men, and placed him out in the world!

One hot April evening, as Kareem squatted idly at the serai entrance, enjoying a huka and a “bukk” with a lad of his own age, he noticed a cloud of white dust whirling down the bridge. No--it was not driven by the wind, but caused by a wild runaway. In a second he had recognized the collector’s little boy, on his chestnut pony, racing towards him at break-neck pace--a huge lumbering camel carriage had frightened the overfed, pampered Tattoo, and he was making for home at a mad gallop. Kareem stood up, and dashed into the road; he was lithe and active as a hunting leopard. As the pony passed, he sprang at it, like a starving beast of prey, clung to its neck, and ran alongside until he had effectually checked its career, but only just in time--only just before it turned the sharp corner into the bazaar. The collector now rode up; his face grey with fear. He knew too well what would have been the child’s fate, had the fiery little animal bolted through those narrow streets, impassable with ekkas and bullock carts, and he shuddered as he wiped the perspiration from his face, and tendered Kareem his tremulous thanks. But empty thanks were not to be his sole portion. As he attached a leading rein from the pony’s bridle to the collector’s shaking hand, that gentleman said, “Let me see you to-morrow morning at nine o’clock,” and then the pair trotted soberly away.

Mr. Colebrook, the collector, lived in a fine square flat-roofed bungalow, about two miles from the city, in the civil lines. It stood in a spacious compound studded with fine trees, and was approached by a winding gravelled avenue. Kareem went up this avenue, slowly and doubtfully; he was not in the habit of frequenting such grand dwellings, and presently he came to a dead halt, and sat down at a respectful distance, under a cork tree; and here the collector saw him, and beckoned him from his office verandah.

“Yes,” said Mr. Colebrook to himself, “a fine frank face, and surely not a native of these parts.”

In answer to a question, Kareem replied--

“No, your worship, I am from the north--so they say.”

“They say?” echoed the gentleman. “What do you mean?”

“My father died in the serai fifteen years ago, your honour; no one knew his name or country; and old Ibrahim took me; he says I am a Cabuli or a Cashmeri. God knows.”

“And what is your occupation?”

“By your honour’s favour, I work in the serai, and earn from one rupee to four rupees a month, according to the season.”

“Then you understand horses.”

“Oh!”--his face lighting up--“by your favour, yes; and I can ride.”

“Then, I will take you on as syce for my son’s pony--the one you caught yesterday.”

Kareem salaamed to the very matting.

“Your pay will be seven rupees a month and clothes.”

Now, six rupees is a man’s pay, and Kareem was but eighteen. Kareem’s heart was too full for words; he was almost overcome, and on the very verge of tears. All his comrades knew that he was an odd, excitable boy, and laughed and cried like a woman! His feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground; he sped along as if they had wings, and he was a second Mercury carrying home the great news--first over the wide white roads, then across the railway, and finally he plunged into the bazaar.

Kareem ran along at a sling trot, hustling and thrusting his slim body through the densely-packed thoroughfares; at last he arrived at home and panted out his marvellous tidings to old Ibrahim. That patriarch received the intelligence with so many exclamations of “Oh, ye fathers!” and so much clawing of his beard, that Kareem felt assured that he had been handsomely launched in life, and was indeed a man of considerable importance; he lost no time, that same evening, in hurrying to the bridge (a kind of local Rialto) and there expounding his success to a curious and envious crowd of listening friends. Among the crowd was Pera, Ibrahim’s grand-niece, Kareem’s former playmate--and present idol. She was four years younger than him by months and days, but thirty years his senior in experience, in worldly wisdom, and in wickedness. Undoubtedly she was extremely pretty, with wondrously-traced arched brows, red lips, and eloquent black eyes. Nevertheless her grand-uncle detested her, and most of her own sex bore her unconcealed animosity; they declared, “She was as false as the devil, deep as the pit, and as dangerous as a snake with a head at both ends.” People hinted that Abdool, her father, was in debt to his uncle Ibrahim; and also that Pera was promised in marriage to Mindoo, her cousin, a handsome hawk-eyed man, with a scar on his cheek and minus one finger. There was some mystery about Mindoo. Once, he had been absent for three whole years, and it was an unexplained absence; for it was mere foolishness for his brothers to say that he had joined a horse-dealer and had gone down to Allahabad. Does it take three years to sell a dozen ponies?

Mindoo was a stalwart, taciturn man, and somewhat feared; therefore no one called him a budmash to his face, or even in the ears of his kindred. He worked with a carpenter who mended ekkas and gharries, and was clever with the chisel and the saw. Nevertheless, people whispered that he had never learnt this trade at Hassanpur in his youth--but in Allahabad jail khana.

Pera was among Kareem’s audience, and listened, with unaffected interest, to the particulars of his rise in life. He had been her slave ever since she could speak, and now most of his scanty earnings went to gratify her taste for cocoanut-sweets and coloured glass bangles. “You will not scorn me now, Pera,” he pleaded, as they loitered together near the tamarind tree. “Behold, I am in the collector sahib’s service. I am to have seven rupees and clothes. I have as much wages as Mindoo!” But Pera only peeped coquettishly round the corner of her orange saree, laughed saucily, and ran away.

Kareem was soon installed in his new post, and wearing a smart blue suit and gorgeous red turban, felt the sense of personal importance accruing from new garments, when he encountered his old friends. His duties proved to be trifling in comparison to his drudgery in the serai, though, now and then, he had enjoyed the fierce, mad delight of mounting some unbroken colt, and galloping it bare-backed over the bridge, away along the Lucknow road, between the waving elephant grass, past little brown houses with pumpkins on the roof, past pools half filled with hideous blue buffaloes, scattering children, pariah dogs, and goats, as if he was mounted on a whirlwind, and riding on the storm.

Here, he had merely to groom and feed an irritable little chestnut pony, no bigger than a calf; to lead out the “lal Tattoo,” as Harry Sahib called it, with its master on its back, of a morning over the dewy maidans and along the shady roads. He ran with it as it cantered, and even galloped, though once or twice he was suddenly obliged to stop, and lean against a tree, his face grey and drawn, and groan aloud with agony (he had, though he knew it not, advanced disease of the heart); he would earnestly beseech Harry Sahib not to tell the collector, and, as a bribe, would hold Harry Sahib in the saddle, whilst he piloted him over tiny nullahs, to that young gentleman’s huge delight. The little boy spoke Hindustani as his native tongue, and soon he and his syce became sworn and intimate friends. Harry Sahib had no mother, only a lazy, elderly European nurse, who liked her beer, her slumbers, and her ease, and was secretly thankful to Kareem for taking the brat off her hands. Otherwise, Harry Sahib might not have spent so many happy hours about the stables, whilst his unsuspecting papa was absent at Cutcherry. One day, whilst he was romping with his playmate, and rolling over and over with him in piles of “bedding straw,” he suddenly snatched at a cord round his neck, and a copper amulet came off in his hand. They fought for it for fully five minutes. Harry held it tight in his little fist, and screamed and kicked and even _bit_, but refused to release it; in the struggle the amulet was broken, and a small piece of parchment fell out, which Kareem instantly pounced on. It was about two inches long by one wide, and was covered on both sides with closely-written quaint characters. Kareem, with much abuse and slippering, had learned to read the Koran and part of the Gulistan of Sadi, but never such letters as these!

“What is it?” inquired Harry Sahib, impatiently.

“I cannot say, Hazoor. I never knew it opened.”

“Oh, I’ll get it mended, the brass thing; but can you read the chit inside?”

“No, not this writing.”

“Let me show it to father; he can read anything!”

“Yes, his honour is a learned pundit, but I will not trouble him,” said Kareem, independently.

He thought he would rather take it, and have it explained by a Moulvi in a bazaar, nearer home. But in all the city quarter, was not found one man who could translate it, though passed from hand to hand, and learned patriarchs in horn spectacles pored over it, peered into it, turned it backwards and forwards, and upside down, and decided that it was in some dead tongue, and doubtless was a charm against Jadoo (Magic) or the Evil Eye! Finally, Kareem fell back on his young master’s advice, and, with much salaaming and many apologies, submitted the little scrap to the collector. Mr. Colebrook examined it carefully through his glasses, and then by means of a microscope, and asked Kareem “how he came by it?”

“Protector of the Poor, it is all I possess, and was round my throat as an infant.”

The collector was very busy just at this time and said, “As soon as I have any leisure, Kareem, I will see what I can make of this,” and Kareem withdrew with profuse thanks. For so long did his master ponder over the parchment, that Kareem’s hopes faded away, and he had almost forgotten the amulet, and believed its contents to be a myth. But one day, at the end of the rains, he was summoned into the collector’s office. That gentleman was alone, and, rising, closed the door, and beckoning to Kareem to come near, said rather mysteriously, “I have had great difficulty in making it out”--showing the writing. “Indeed I had nearly given it up; but at last I got a clue, and I have read it!”

“Yes, your highness.”