Tragacanth

“ When Anukul saw how eagerly his wife was clinging to the boy, he realised the futility of asking for proofs. It would be wiser to believe. And then,—where could an old man like Raicharan get such a boy from? And why should his faithful servant deceive him for nothing?
"But," he added severely, "Raicharan, you must not stay here."
"Where shall I go, Master?" said Raicharan, in a choking voice, folding his hands. "I am old. Who will take in an old man as a servant?"
The mistress said: "Let him stay. My child will be pleased. I forgive him." ”

“ I’m sorry.”
“Thus it is,” said Tregarthen. “Of my own innocence I have of course been sure; it has been at once my comfort and my trial. Of Clissold I have always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty; but they have never been confirmed until now. For my daughter’s sake and for my own I have carried this subject in my own heart, as the only secret of my life, and have long believed that it would die with me.”
“Wa’al, my good sir,” said the captain cordially, “the present question is, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not dying. ”

“ If you were not my superior I might be tempted—"
"Do not allow yourself to be tempted, Sull," Tragor heard himself saying, his bitterness and frustration giving way to rage. "I warn you. I am in no mood to countenance insubordination. I would be quite capable of silencing you, in a way that would cause you exquisite torment."
"I am not afraid of you, Tragor. My lineage is almost as high as your own. I have a right to speak my mind."
"Speak it then, and let us be done with it. I know where my duty lies. I have not neglected it in any way."
"You are trembling so I am concerned for your sanity. ”

“ What is that answer to be? Your day has come at last, Bara Rani, you whom I have so long despised. You, in the shape of the public, the world, will have your revenge. O God, save me this time, and I will cast all my pride at my sister-in-law's feet.
I could bear it no longer. I went straight to the Bara Rani. She was in the verandah, spicing her betel leaves, Thako at her side. The sight of Thako made me shrink back for a moment, but I overcame all hesitation, and making a low obeisance I took the dust of my elder sister-in-law's feet. ”

“ If only you knew how loathsome you are—what a beast thing you are! I would rather be embraced by a toad! I do not know where you came from or what you are. But you are inhuman beasts, cruel and cold and merciless. We will fight you until every man and woman on Earth is dead. If necessary, we will all die. But we will fight you. You can be sure of that. Oh, you can be very sure! You killed my husband! He had every right to defend himself. He saw what you did to the man who fled."
Tragor heard himself speaking in reply. ”

“ The moment Raicharan had gone, his little Master's thoughts went off at racing speed to the forbidden water. The baby saw the river rushing by, splashing and gurgling as it went. It seemed as though the disobedient wavelets themselves were running away from some greater Raicharan with the laughter of a thousand children. At the sight of their mischief, the heart of the human child grew excited and restless. He got down stealthily from the go-cart and toddled off towards the river. ”

“ Just as Jack Garth and I were having a farewell cheroot and drain of brandy-pawnee, Drake, of the Bengal Infantry, who had been detailed to lead the assault, came into our tent looking pale as a sheeted ghost.
'Now Drake was no coward, he had been under fire many times in open ground; but somehow he felt that to lead a forlorn hope was a very different thing; in short, almost certain death; and having led a wild, terrible, irregular, and most irreligious life, his whole soul had suddenly become filled with an uncontrollable dread and dismay of the impending future. ”

“ I had said with pride that I would save Amulya,—as if she who was drowning could save others. But instead of saving him, I have sent him to his doom. My little brother, such a sister have I been to you that Death must have smiled on that Brothers' Day when I gave you my blessing,—I, who wander distracted with the burden of my own evil-doing.
I feel to-day that man is at times attacked with evil as with the plague. Some germ finds its way in from somewhere, and then in the space of one night Death stalks in. Why cannot the stricken one be kept far away from the rest of the world? ”

“ Some demon has gained possession of me, and what I am doing to-day is the play of his activity—it has nothing to do with me.
This demon, in the guise of a god, had come with his ruddy torch to call me that day, saying: 'I am your Country. I am your Sandip. I am more to you than anything else of yours. Bande Mataram!' And with folded hands I had responded: 'You are my religion. You are my heaven. Whatever else is mine shall be swept away before my love for you. ”

“ I seemed to see the sin of the parents visited on the innocent child.
The sight of his great big eyes shining with faith and enthusiasm touched me to the quick. He was going, in his fascination, straight to the jaws of the python, from which, once in, there was no return. How was he to be saved? Why does not my country become, for once, a real Mother,—clasp him to her bosom and cry out: 'Oh, my child, my child, what profits it that you should save me, if so it be that I should fail to save you?'
I know, I know, that all Power on earth waxes great under compact with Satan. ”

“ All the more loathsome seemed the softness of it,—of this terrible, unknown mass of hunger.
What between dread and disgust, I could not even utter a cry. I tried to push it away with ineffectual thrusts with my legs. Its face seemed to be touching my feet, on which its panting breath fell thickly. What kind of a face had it, I wondered. I launched a more vigorous kick as the stupor left me. I had at first supposed there was no fur, but what felt like a mane now brushed across my legs. I struggled up into a sitting posture.
Something stole away in the darkness. ”

“ TRYGAEUS 'Tis lost labour, good fellow; you will never smooth the rough spikes of the hedgehog.... Come, spectators, join us in our feast.
HIEROCLES And what am I to do?
TRYGAEUS You? go and eat the Sibyl.
HIEROCLES No, by the Earth! no, you shall not eat without me; if you do not give, I take; 'tis common property.
TRYGAEUS (TO THE SERVANT) Strike, strike this Bacis, this humbugging soothsayer.
HIEROCLES I take to witness...
TRYGAEUS And I also, that you are a glutton and an impostor. Hold him tight and beat the impostor with a stick. ”

“ Scarcely had he curled himself up before the tread of human steps made him cock his ears, and when the Earthstopper bent over his clean-cut footprints the ominous silence had brought him to his feet. But as the footsteps died away he had settled himself down again, and it was out of a deep sleep that the warning voice of Troubadour had roused him. Once more, like an outlaw, he was driven forth under the eye of the wintry sun with hue and cry behind him, conscious that his safety lay in his own cunning and endurance and the stout heart that had carried him through before. ”

“ I am so glad you can. It is so nice to have someone to talk to. Nobody hardly ever speaks to me here, and I have felt so lonely.’
‘Poor boy!’ said the little White Hare; ‘I can sympathize with you, for I know what it is to be lonely and have nobody to speak to. You are the first human being who has spoken to me since a wicked Witch turned me into the shape of a hare.’
‘What! Are you not really a hare?’ asked little William John, more and more amazed.
‘The small White Hare suffered him to stroke its fur.’
‘No,’ answered the little creature sadly ”

“ Short as the day was, he thought that it would never end; and the moment the sun dipped below the plain he stole away noiselessly as a ghost, ascended the opposite hill, made along the high ridge, passed the earthworks, crossed the old camp on Bartinney and came to the chantry, where he stood awhile with his face towards the sunset. He seemed to be watching the expiring effort of day, but he was really considering where he should forage, above all where he should sit, on the morrow. He had no wish to sit on the hill; he wanted to get farther away from the wood than that ”

“ Hopeful for the poor world! I should fancy, if I believed that, that the devil in the old history—which you believe—had had the best of it with a vengeance, when he brought sin into the world, and ruined it. I dare not believe that. How dare you, who say that God sent His Son into the world to defeat the devil?’
Tregarva was silent a while.
‘Learning and the Gospel together ought to do something, sir, towards mending it. One would think so. But the prophecies are against that.’
‘As folks happen to read them just now. A hundred years hence they may be finding the very opposite meaning in them. ”

“ But the voice of his conscience kept repeating, through the stillness of the night, "Her murderer! if your weakness is not overcome."
Could he give her up? It seemed impossible; more impossible than ever, now when every nerve of his body tingled with feverish, almost painful desire. Could he make her his wife? "Rather die!" he said to himself; and, as he sat there brooding over it, there seemed but one thing equal to the disgrace of placing Judith Trachtenberg's name in the line of his pedigree, and that was the committing a base action. ”

“ Why do you fear such disaster, Your Highness?
KING OF KANYA KUBJA.
When woman swerves from the right path, then she appears fraught with the direst calamity. You do not know with what deadly fear this daughter of mine has inspired me—she is coming to my home laden with peril and danger.
X
[Inner Apartments of the Palace. SUDARSHANA and SURANGAMA]
SUDARSHANA.
Go away from me, Surangama! A deadly anger rages within me-I cannot bear anybody—it makes me wild to see you so patient and submissive. ”

“ Nathaniel Trachtenberg would have died sooner if he had not felt compelled to fulfil this last mandate of conscience. That is also the conviction of my colleague, the town doctor. We watched with surprise and emotion the power of mind over matter; the feeble body sustained by the iron will. I was the first physician with him the morning of his daughter's flight, as my colleague was absent. He got up, it seemed, after the old servant told him her knocking at Judith's door had been useless, and, going to her room, he broke the oaken planks with the weight of his body as if they had been straw. ”

“ He knew that a few men would fight to the death, counting their own lives of no importance, if a monster threatened a woman dear to them. Tragor recoiled a little at the thought, cursing himself for allowing such an image to torment him at a moment when his triumph seemed assured. He was not a monster, and he intended to make sure that the woman by the brook did not think of him as one for long. She would very soon find out he was the most perfect lover she had ever known. ”

“ What power have they to belittle me, to put me to shame? The primal fire of creation burns in me.
I felt a strong desire to snatch down the orchid and fling it out of the window, to denude the niche of its picture, to lay bare and naked the unashamed spirit of destruction that raged within me. My arm was raised to do it, but a sudden pang passed through my breast, tears started to my eyes. ”

“ No! As he stood there, facing that assemblage, there crept through his nerves a sense of being on trial, of being a satisfaction to its lust and fear. The poor fellow looked from one to the other of those fervid, luscious faces, great-eyed and full-mouthed, smiling a little, festivally decked, oiled and curled; he was groping for some unguessed doom in their amusement, as if he were thrown into an arena which they watched, pleasantly; surrounding him not with harsh horrors but with that horror of softness which hardness can never equal. A nausea, a blind faintness, crept in upon him ”

“ Answer to the point, villain."
"Afore God, sir, I know nought of him. With me came but four men, and two of those lie dead in the forest, of a strange sickness that got hold of them after that they had drunken of the water of a certain river. Of Billy Hawk I saw nor heard nought."
"My poor comrade!" said Turnpenny. "I fear me he be gone or alost."
"These are your men," said Drake, turning to Dennis. "The punishment of mutiny is death. Do with them as you list."
"I would fain leave them in your hands, sir," replied Dennis. "For me, I would not that any man should die." ”

“ Raicharan's little despot did not want to stay in on such a fine afternoon. His lordship climbed into the go-cart. Raicharan, between the shafts, dragged him slowly along till he reached the rice-fields on the banks of the river. There was no one in the fields, and no boat on the stream. Across the water, on the farther side, the clouds were rifted in the west. The silent ceremonial of the setting sun was revealed in all its glowing splendour. In the midst of that stillness the child, all of a sudden, pointed with his finger in front of him and cried: "Chan-na! ”

“ Now and again a spark was blown in the direction of the stoats, but they took no more notice of that than of the cry uttered by one of the sleeping smugglers. Nothing would drive the bold, ravenous pack away, at least nothing but dawn ”

“ God had avenged the sin against his holy name, and hurled the sinner in the dust.
Judith Trachtenberg had come home a beggar, and sick unto death; and if she died, as those who had seen her thought she must, the account would be squared. There was no further occasion for pity or persecution. And because God himself had judged her, they praised Raphael for not having stayed his avenging arm, and blamed Miriam for showing compassion. "She will spoil her chance of future salvation." ”