Herbert Strang

“ They were marching wearily. Since early morning, almost without stopping, they had been trudging their toilsome way over parched and barren land, only once discovering a water-hole at which they were able to slake their burning thirst.
For the greater part of the day the sun had beat upon them fiercely; but the sky was now overclouded, and a keen north-east wind had sprung up—the harmattan of the desert—blowing full in their faces, stinging their skins and filling mouths and ears and nostrils with the particles of fine grey dust which it swept along in its desolating course. ”

“ The idea that he was doomed to grow old upon this island, and linger out his years in endless solitude, struck his imagination with a chill, and set him climbing the cliff in a kind of frenzy, to scan once more the wide horizon for a sail. If at that moment a vessel had hove in sight, he would have flown a flag, fired a musket, to attract attention, reckless what crew it bore, so deep was his yearning to see a fellow man. ”

“ A hoax, or as our merry ancestors would have called it, a flam, is usually the most ephemeral and evanescent of human devices. Like a boy's soap bubble, it glitters for a brief moment in iridescent rotundity, then ceases to be even a film of air. It is unsubstantial as the tail of Halley's comet. On rare occasions, it is true, its existence is prolonged; many worthy people are beguiled; and some enthusiasts are so effectually hoodwinked as to persist in their delusion, and even to form societies for its propagation. ”

“ The horror of our situation smote upon my mind: here were we, little more than boys, left on a strange shore with no food but what we could pick up, no clothes but what we stood in—and they were but shirt and breeches, for the coats we had used as a sail had been washed from the raft when the great wave struck us—and no implements or tools of any kind, not so much as a jack-knife. As yet we knew nothing of the land whereupon we had been cast, though I guessed it must be an island, but whether large or small, peopled or desolate, fertile or barren, all remained to be discovered. ”

“ Minghal Khan was a younger, wealthier, and more powerful chief than Rahmut: what was the good of holding out against him? There had been for many years a feud between them; such an attack as was now imminent might long have been foreseen. The more powerful must win: it was Fate. Had they not known many such cases? Was it not better to yield to the enemy at once and make their peace with him? Ahmed and old Ahsan hotly protested, appealed to their loyalty, reminded them of what the chief's anger would be when he came back and found that they had betrayed him. ”

“ People were too much concerned with their own troubles to regard the vague demands of a lad.
And then suddenly he found himself on the edge of a little quay stretching into the river. There was a reddish glow reflected from the water, and by this light he recognised, at the farther end of the quay, the handcart he had lost sight of. It was standing deserted. A boat was putting off, piled with boxes. The glow of the fire glinted on their brass-bound corners and on the swarthy face of Blackbeard, who held the tiller strings while two other men rowed steadily down stream. ”

“ Then, to the customary cry of "Safari!" the porters lifted their loads, the utensils were quickly packed, and while the dawn was still grey the little party left the camp and began the descent of the ravine. Looking back as he came to the brink, John saw a hyena slink out of the undergrowth and steal past the smouldering embers of the fires, and birds like kites swoop down with rushing wings, soaring up again with some remnant of food in their talons. He felt now that his new strange life was beginning indeed. ”

“ One night, when his eight companions were all asleep, and nothing could be heard but the regular calls of the sentries, the beating of tom toms in the town, and the howls of jackals prowling in the outskirts, Desmond gently woke the Babu.
"My friend, listen," he whispered, "I have something to say to you."
Surendra Nath turned over in his charpoy.
"Speak soft, I pray," he said.
"My head is on fire," continued Desmond. "I cannot sleep. I have been thinking. What is life worth to us? Can anything be worse than our present lot? Do you ever think of escape?"
"What good, sir? ”

“ Shrewsbury was a sleepy old town, where life went on very placidly from day to day, and the sight of these busy, though narrow, streets with their many fine buildings and their swarms of people, the dogs drawing little carts of merchandise, the river with its bridges, the floating basin with many tall ships, the quays thronged with sailors and lightermen, filled me not only with wonder, but with a sense of loneliness and insignificance. ”

“ Settling into a steady pace, he tramped on and on, over sand and swamp, scarcely conscious of his movements, but feeling vaguely that he was racing against time. If he had paused to think, he might well have yielded to despair, for he had travelled the route but once, and the odds were all against his keeping a straight course in the starlight, and discovering the causeway by which alone he could reach Rejeb's stronghold. A cold wind swept over the plain, but he gave no thought to its possible effect, striking through his damp clothes. ”

“ Kenneth listened eagerly to the conversation between the two airmen. He learnt how the German infantry, covered by artillery, had advanced again and again in close formation, only to be hurled back by the fire from the forts and the trenches, followed up with the bayonet. The Belgians were amazed at the doggedness with which their enemy had pressed on, careless of cover, though great gaps were torn in their packed columns. Such a wastage of men pointed to a vast confidence in the ultimate superiority of numbers, the crushing of the defence by sheer weight rather than skill. ”

“ At last, when the air quivers with heat, and all things lie under a shimmering haze, Dennis Hazelrig heaves a sigh, opens his eyes, and looks amazedly about him.
His eyes close; for some minutes he remains still; then he lifts himself slightly, falls back with a gasp, and lies again as one dead. But Nature is recovering under the beneficent rays. Pigeons are cooing in the branches above; parrots are screaming; insects drone their burden; and when a mosquito, adventuring forth, alights on a human cheek, and tastes, Dennis is stung once more into consciousness. ”

“ It is men like thee who are wanted to fight the Feringhis, not those miserable dogs who went out but lately, horse and foot and guns, and returned saying that they had not fought because the air did not agree with them. The king did right to drive them from the city. I will come again, good darwan, at night-time perhaps, when the work is done; far be it from me to interfere with thy important duties, and maybe if I bring some sweetmeats or preserves—delicate things for the palate—thou wilt deign to partake with me, while thou cheerest me with thy pleasant talk. ”

“ Watch him when, roused from his doze on a sandbank, by the sting of a rifle bullet on his armour, he vanishes with lightning rapidity beneath the water. At one moment to all seeming as lifeless as a log, the next he is a raging monster, ready to tear and rend any hapless creature which his inertness has beguiled. ”

“ We had now traversed the whole of our island except the north-east corner, and having seen no living things except birds and small animals, we began to be pretty sure that we were the only human beings upon it. This, while it put away from us the present fear of being slain by savages, or despitefully used, yet brought home to us the full meaning of our loneliness. We sat down on the cliff, and looking over the sea, which stretched away without any sign of land, nor even the sail of a ship, we gave ourselves up to gloomy meditation. ”

“ Have I not endured the tank? Is not freedom sweet to me as to another? The plan, sahib! I swear, I Fuzl Khan, to be true to you and all; only tell me the plan."
"You shall have the plan in good time. First I have a thing to say. When a battle is to be fought, no soldier fights only for himself, doing that which seems good to him alone. He looks to the captain for orders. Otherwise mistakes would be made, and all effort would be wasted. We must have a captain: who is he to be?"
"Yourself, sahib," said the Gujarati at once. "You have spoken; you have the plan; we take you as leader." ”

“ The Tubus yelled, John shouted, the people on shore shrieked. Challis felt that all was over. Against these reptiles in their own element he could do nothing. He could only swim for it.
"Splash with your legs!" he cried to John, who, like the Tubus, was already striking out vigorously for land, now only fifty yards away.
The spearmen, aghast at the plight of their white chief, forgot their fears and dashed into the shallower water to save him, the crowd behind them yelling frantically. The tremendous splash, the din and clamour scared even the monsters. ”

“ Smith ate two or three sticks of chocolate, took a good drink of water, and in five minutes was fast asleep. But his nap lasted no more than a couple of hours. It appeared to him that he never lost consciousness of his errand. When he opened his eyes the dawn was already stealing over the sky, and at the tremendous pace to which Rodier had put the engine the aeroplane seemed to rush into the sunlight. Far below, the earth was spread out like a patchwork, greens and whites and browns set in picturesque haphazard patterns; men moving like ants, and horses like locusts. ”

“ If it is not a barge-load of grain, it is a train-load of ammunition."
"And it falls upon you to count all these things? Surely it is like counting the ripples on a stream."
"A labour beyond any man. The ammunition comes in boxes—we number the boxes. I passed in 100,000 rounds yesterday, as many the day before; and to-day there are machine-guns."
"No wonder you come to be refreshed with a shampoo! You have charge of the guns too! A heavy charge—all those thousands."
"Ahi! I said not thousands—would there were! But in truth we have not so many machine-guns as could be wished. ”

“ The enemy fire once, then, though Van Vorst may rave and storm, they turn their backs and flee helter-skelter for the gate. "Lokobololo! Barnio!" The tempestuous war-cries pursue them. Struggling, yelling, they converge to the narrow gateway. It is jammed, wedged tight with human forms, squeezed by the presence of the frantic crowd behind into a solid mass of feebly struggling wretches lost to all consciousness but that of a great fear. The weaker men fall and are trampled to death; the stronger push and pull, and scramble over the fallen, mad with fright. ”

“ The wiser residents of Delhi were aghast: they knew the dreadful story of that other tragedy, at Calcutta, a century before, when a hundred of the sahibs perished in the Black Hole. They knew what retribution had fallen on Siraj-uddaula then; what would happen now, after this far more horrible butchery of women and children? But the fanatics rejoiced in the tale of blood. The greater the excesses, the more impossible to draw back. The greater the vengeance to be feared, the more imperative to strain every nerve to crush these obstinate Feringhis on the Ridge. ”

“ Desmond had a heavy score to pay off. From the time when he had met Diggle in the street at Market Drayton to his last encounter with him at the Battle of the Carts, he had been the mark of his enmity, malice, spite, trickery. But Desmond thought less of his own wrongs than of the sorrow of his friend, Mr. Merriman, and the harrowing wretchedness which must have been the lot of the ladies while they were in Diggle's power. The man had brought misery into so many lives that it would be a good deed if, in the fortune of war, Desmond's sword could rid the world of him. ”

“ I was not near so contented as Billy, for my life had been very easy and comfortable at Stafford, and I remembered my kind friends there, and sometimes felt in the lowest deeps of misery when I thought I might never see them again. But when I reflected I saw that I ought to be thankful that I was not cast on a barren island, or among savages, and there was always a hope that some navigator might sail towards our island and spy our flagstaff, though we often vexed ourselves with the thought that a vessel might pass us in the night and we know nothing about it. ”

“ Assailed in front, flank, and rear, the Tubus lost heart, pulled their horses round, and galloped away in the only open direction, towards the stream.
Crowding one upon another in their haste, many of them urged their horses on to the swamp, unaware of its treacherous surface until the animals began to sink. Then the men sprang from the saddles in fright, abandoned horses, arms, food, and rushed headlong away, to escape the spears of their pursuers. ”

“ He doted on his son, who certainly did not take after his father so far as looks went, for he was a tall, lanky fellow with a sallow face, the alderman's countenance being as red as raw beef.
Hating Cyrus as I did, and not without cause, as will be seen hereafter, I may be a trifle unjust in my recollection of him; but I seem to see again a weasel face, with a pair of little restless cunning eyes, and lips that were shaped to a perpetual sneer. As to the sharpness of his tongue I know my memory does not play me false: Dick Cludde's taunts bruised, but Cyrus Vetch's stung. ”

“ And indeed there was little time for Jack to consider the matter, for even as he made a mental note of the enemy's bravado, he heard a word of command given in a loud voice, and saw Elbel emerge from a small clump of bushes at the edge of the gully. The whole force, except ten men carrying barrels, flung themselves flat on their faces; and Jack had only time to give a rapid warning to his men when a scattered volley flashed from the line of prone figures, the bullets pattering on the stone wall like hail on a greenhouse. ”

“ Once or twice he descried a sail on the horizon; once, indeed, he felt some excitement and anxiety as he saw a bark under full sail bearing straight, as he thought, for the shore. But in this he was mistaken; the vessel altered her course, and Dennis, watching her diminishing form, hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. He was in truth too busy for self-commiseration: work filled his days, unbroken sleep his nights. His feeling of loneliness had almost entirely passed away, for Mirandola was his inseparable companion, and it pleased his fancy to talk to the monkey as to a human being. ”

“ The hours are long to one who waits. At last he heard faint sounds from beyond him. Men were approaching him again. He stood, grasping his weapons. The sounds grew louder. The marching men were now abreast of him. If they had been his comrades of the Guides they would find the tracks of his camel even in the dark. But they passed; the sound of their marching grew fainter; and at last Ahmed's uneasiness left him, and, wrapping himself in his cloak, he lay down to sleep. ”

“ We held our torches above our heads, searching the cave for signs of them, expecting every moment to see the hideous tentacles emerge from the black water at our feet, and fancying we saw these dreadful enemies on all the rocks that strewed the floor of the cave. "What are we waiting for?" says Billy in an awful whisper, and seeing that certainly nothing was to be gained by delay, we stuck our torches into crevices in the wall, and then with two great heaves cast the pieces of rock into the water, and retreated instantly into the tunnel to escape the choking fumes that arose. ”

“ One day you disappear; the ladies wail and tear their hair; a tiger has eaten you; in a week you will be forgotten. But you are back in Angria's fortress, no longer a slave, downtrodden and despised; but a free man, a rich man, a potentate to be. Is it not worth thinking of, my young friend, especially when you remember the other side of the picture? It is a dark side; an unpleasant side; even, let me confess, horrible: I prefer to keep it to the wall."
He waved his gloved hand, deprecatingly, watching Desmond with the same intentness. ”

“ Peering out, he saw nothing but the darkened cliffs and the sea, heard nothing but the wash of the surf, the rustle of the breeze, and the soft tones of wood-pigeons. He returned to the rear of the cabin, where he had strewed leaves for his couch. As he lay back upon it and looked up to the roof he started, and instinctively seized a branch for protection: above him shone two greenish eyes peeping through one of the many gaps. His hasty movement disturbed the watcher, and Dennis heaved a sigh of relief as he heard a shrill chattering above, and knew it for the gibber of a monkey. ”

“ Even Samba, forest-bred, had barely survived the perils of a solitary journey: how could a white man expect to fare so well?
Yet, so strong was Jack's longing, he resolved that, be the difficulties and dangers what they might, he would seize the barest chance of escape that offered itself. Anything would be better than to be carried on to Boma, with the terrible uncertainty, not merely regarding his own ultimate fate at the hands of an unscrupulous officialdom and a tainted judicature, but still more as to the fate of his friends at Ilombekabasi. ”

“ Who benefits by your scruples? A set of hard-living money grubbers in Bombay who fatten on the oppression of the ryot, who tithe mint and anise and cumin, who hoard up treasure which they will take back with their jaundiced livers to England, there to become pests to society with their splenetic and domineering tempers. What's the Company to you, or you to the Company? Why, Governor Pitt was an interloper; and your own father: yes, he was an interloper, and an interloper of the best."
"But not a pirate," said Desmond hotly, his scornful silence yielding at last. ”

“ Ahmed looked into the gate-keeper's face. He read there neither fear nor despair, nothing but a calm resolution. Then he uttered a scornful laugh.
"No one can strive against Fate, truly," he said; "but who knows that Fate has given us into Minghal's hand? By the beard of the Prophet, Ahsan——"
But the old man put his hand on the boy's mouth.
"Hush, Ahmed-ji," he said, with a sort of stern tenderness; "'tis not meet, little one, that oath in your mouth. You have well-nigh forgotten, but I do not forget. We are as we were born, and you were born a Feringhi." ”

“ We may not hope to go by land, for that the journey is too long and the ways too foul. But we may surely go by water. Look at the trees here rolling down upon the flood, thrown down by the storms that beset us so sorely. May we not build ourselves a raft, and put ourselves to sea? I will be one; who will be the others?"
"That will I," said Dennis, stepping forward.
"And I too, good-now," cried Turnpenny.
"Nay, Master Hazelrig, you I will leave to command these timid rascals if ill befall me; but Amos I will take, and go fetch those laggard pinnaces." ”

“ The forest became ever thicker, and as evening drew on it grew dark and chill. The ground was soft with layers of rotted foliage, the air heavy with the musty smell of vegetation in decay. Samba's teeth chattered with the cold, and he could not help longing for Barney's cosy hut and the warm companionship of the terrier. It was time to sleep. Could he venture to build a fire? The smoke might attract men, but he had seen no signs of human habitation. It would at any rate repel insects and beasts. ”

“ Tramping across two miles of fields newly sown with maize and sorghum, he at length descried the trail of his convoy and soon came up with it. If pursuers were indeed upon his track, only by the greatest good fortune could he escape them. The carts creaked along with painful slowness; the wheels halfway to the axles in dust; now stopping altogether, now rocking like ships in a stormy sea.
With his arrival and the promise of liberal bakshish the hackeriwallahs urged the laboring oxen with their cruel goads till Desmond, always tender with animals, could hardly endure the sight. ”

“ Now Ahsan made a proposal.
"'Tis time for you to leave us, Ahmed-ji," he said. "Minghal, that son of a dog, is bent on seizing you. It matters little about the rest of us, but you are the apple of the master's eye, and if you are safe, 'tis of little moment what happens to us. We shall become Minghal's men; we shall at least be saved alive. Do you, then, escape by the rope when darkness falls, and run to the hills, where you may hide until the master returns; and when you are gone, after a time we will deliver ourselves up to Minghal." ”

“ The men were helpless with terror. And while the Spaniards were storming and gesticulating, Turnpenny, exerting his immense strength, hauled round the eight-foot minion which had been removed from the embrasure by which the intruders had entered the fort, and next moment a carcass crammed with case-shot plumped amidships of the hapless bark, and the Spaniards, cowering from the flying splinters, scuttled down the companion-way—all but one fellow, bolder than the rest. The vessel had swung round a little, so that her stern-chaser, a culverin twelve feet long, pointed full at the fort. ”

“ At dusk, when again he sought a hollow tree and dropped a heap of smouldering herbage into the hole, he started back with a low cry, for he heard an ominous hiss in the depths, and was only just in time to avoid a python which had been roused from sleep by the burning mass. In a twinkling the huge coils spread themselves like a released watch-spring beyond the mouth of the hole and along the lowermost branch of the tree. With all his forest lore, Samba was surprised to find that a python could move so quickly. ”

“ As yet he can see nothing, but his comrades hear the sound; their hearts leap at it; they can scarcely check a shout of joy. On comes the boat; they hear the splash of oars, and voices, and by and by the grating of a keel. They wait in panting silence. Men are wading through the water; arms clash; a loud voice gives an order; and now a score of dark forms can be seen running up the beach, making for the very path lately traversed by the nineteen. The men, lurking beneath the bank, hold their breath; Dennis feels as though his very heart-beats must be heard ”