Book: The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition

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"But the beast's alive! He's never been shot at all!" shouted the
Colonel. "It's flat, flagrant disobedience! I've known a man broke
for less, d----d sight less. They're mocking me, I tell you, Mutman!
They're mocking me!"

Once more, the Second-in-Command set himself to sooth the
Colonel,
and wrestled with him for half-an-hour. At the end of that time,
the Regimental Sergeant-Major reported himself. The situation
was
rather novel tell to him; but he was not a man to be put out by
circumstances. He saluted and said: "Regiment all come back,
Sir."
Then, to propitiate the Colonel:--"An' none of the horses any the
worse, Sir."

The Colonel only snorted and answered:--"You'd better tuck the
men
into their cots, then, and see that they don't wake up and cry in
the night." The Sergeant withdrew.

His little stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, further, he
felt slightly ashamed of the language he had been using. The
Second-in-Command worried him again, and the two sat talking
far
into the night.

Next day but one, there was a Commanding Officer's parade, and
the
Colonel harangued the White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his
speech was that, since the Drum-Horse in his old age had proved
himself capable of cutting up the Whole Regiment, he should
return
to his post of pride at the head of the band, BUT the Regiment
were
a set of ruffians with bad consciences.

The White Hussars shouted, and threw everything movable about
them
into the air, and when the parade was over, they cheered the
Colonel
till they couldn't speak. No cheers were put up for Lieutenant
Hogan-Yale, who smiled very sweetly in the background.

Said the Second-in-Command to the Colonel, unofficially:--"These
little things ensure popularity, and do not the least affect
discipline."

"But I went back on my word," said the Colonel.

"Never mind," said the Second-in-Command. "The White Hussars
will
follow you anywhere from to-day. Regiment's are just like
women.

They will do anything for trinketry."

A week later, Hogan-Yale received an extraordinary letter from
some
one who signed himself "Secretary Charity and Zeal, 3709, E. C.,"
and asked for "the return of our skeleton which we have reason to
believe is in your possession."

"Who the deuce is this lunatic who trades in bones?" said Hogan-
Yale.

"Beg your pardon, Sir," said the Band-Sergeant, "but the skeleton
is
with me, an' I'll return it if you'll pay the carriage into the
Civil Lines. There's a coffin with it, Sir."

Hogan-Yale smiled and handed two rupees to the Band-Sergeant,
saying:--"Write the date on the skull, will you?"

If you doubt this story, and know where to go, you can see the date
on the skeleton. But don't mention the matter to the White
Hussars.

I happen to know something about it, because I prepared the
Drum-
Horse for his resurrection. He did not take kindly to the skeleton
at all.

THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE.

In the daytime, when she moved about me,
In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,--
I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence.

Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her--
Would to God that she or I had died!
Confessions.

There was a man called Bronckhorst--a three-cornered,
middle-aged
man in the Army--gray as a badger, and, some people said, with a
touch of country-blood in him. That, however, cannot be proved.

Mrs. Bronckhorst was not exactly young, though fifteen years
younger
than her husband. She was a large, pale, quiet woman, with heavy
eyelids, over weak eyes, and hair that turned red or yellow as the
lights fell on it.

Bronckhorst was not nice in any way. He had no respect for the
pretty public and private lies that make life a little less nasty
than it is. His manner towards his wife was coarse. There are
many
things--including actual assault with the clenched fist--that a wife
will endure; but seldom a wife can bear--as Mrs. Bronckhorst
bore--
with a long course of brutal, hard chaff, making light of her
weaknesses, her headaches, her small fits of gayety, her dresses,
her queer little attempts to make herself attractive to her husband
when she knows that she is not what she has been, and--worst of
all--
the love that she spends on her children. That particular sort of
heavy-handed jest was specially dear to Bronckhorst. I suppose
that
he had first slipped into it, meaning no harm, in the honeymoon,
when folk find their ordinary stock of endearments run short, and
so
go to the other extreme to express their feelings. A similar
impulse make's a man say:--"Hutt, you old beast!" when a favorite
horse nuzzles his coat-front. Unluckily, when the reaction of
marriage sets in, the form of speech remains, and, the tenderness
having died out, hurts the wife more than she cares to say. But
Mrs. Bronckhorst was devoted to her "teddy," as she called him.

Perhaps that was why he objected to her. Perhaps--this is only a
theory to account for his infamous behavior later on--he gave way
to
the queer savage feeling that sometimes takes by the throat a
husband twenty years' married, when he sees, across the table, the
same face of his wedded wife, and knows that, as he has sat facing
it, so must he continue to sit until day of its death or his own.

Most men and all women know the spasm. It only lasts for three
breaths as a rule, must be a "throw-back" to times when men and
women were rather worse than they are now, and is too unpleasant
to
be discussed.

Dinner at the Bronckhorst's was an infliction few men cared to
undergo. Bronckhorst took a pleasure in saying things that made
his
wife wince. When their little boy came in at dessert, Bronckhorst
used to give him half a glass of wine, and naturally enough, the
poor little mite got first riotous, next miserable, and was removed
screaming. Bronckhorst asked if that was the way Teddy usually
behaved, and whether Mrs. Bronckhorst could not spare some of
her
time to teach the "little beggar decency." Mrs. Bronckhorst, who
loved the boy more than her own life, tried not to cry--her spirit
seemed to have been broken by her marriage. Lastly, Bronckhorst
used to say:--"There! That'll do, that'll do. For God's sake try
to behave like a rational woman. Go into the drawing-room."
Mrs.

Bronckhorst would go, trying to carry it all off with a smile; and
the guest of the evening would feel angry and uncomfortable.

After three years of this cheerful life--for Mrs. Bronckhorst had no
woman-friends to talk to--the Station was startled by the news that
Bronckhorst had instituted proceedings ON THE CRIMINAL
COUNT,
against a man called Biel, who certainly had been rather attentive
to Mrs. Bronckhorst whenever she had appeared in public. The
utter
want of reserve with which Bronckhorst treated his own dishonor
helped us to know that the evidence against Biel would be entirely
circumstantial and native. There were no letters; but Bronckhorst
said openly that he would rack Heaven and Earth until he saw Biel
superintending the manufacture of carpets in the Central Jail. Mrs.

Bronckhorst kept entirely to her house, and let charitable folks say
what they pleased. Opinions were divided. Some two-thirds of
the
Station jumped at once to the conclusion that Biel was guilty; but a
dozen men who knew and liked him held by him. Biel was furious
and
surprised. He denied the whole thing, and vowed that he would
thrash Bronckhorst within an inch of his life. No jury, we knew,
could convict a man on the criminal count on native evidence in a
land where you can buy a murder-charge, including the corpse, all
complete for fifty-four rupees; but Biel did not care to scrape
through by the benefit of a doubt. He wanted the whole thing
cleared: but as he said one night:--"He can prove anything with
servants' evidence, and I've only my bare word." This was about a
month before the case came on; and beyond agreeing with Biel, we
could do little. All that we could be sure of was that the native
evidence would be bad enough to blast Biel's character for the rest
of his service; for when a native begins perjury he perjures himself
thoroughly. He does not boggle over details.

Some genius at the end of the table whereat the affair was being
talked over, said:--"Look here! I don't believe lawyers are any
good. Get a man to wire to Strickland, and beg him to come down
and
pull us through."

Strickland was about a hundred and eighty miles up the line. He
had
not long been married to Miss Youghal, but he scented in the
telegram a chance of return to the old detective work that his soul
lusted after, and next night he came in and heard our story. He
finished his pipe and said oracularly:--we must get at the evidence.

Oorya bearer, Mussalman khit and methraniayah, I suppose, are
the
pillars of the charge. I am on in this piece; but I'm afraid I'm
getting rusty in my talk."

He rose and went into Biel's bedroom where his trunk had been
put,
and shut the door. An hour later, we heard him say:--"I hadn't the
heart to part with my old makeups when I married. Will this do?"
There was a lothely faquir salaaming in the doorway.

"Now lend me fifty rupees," said Strickland, "and give me your
Words
of Honor that you won't tell my Wife."

He got all that he asked for, and left the house while the table
drank his health. What he did only he himself knows. A faquir
hung
about Bronckhorst's compound for twelve days. Then a mehter
appeared, and when Biel heard of HIM, he said that Strickland was
an
angel full-fledged. Whether the mehter made love to Janki, Mrs.

Bronckhorst's ayah, is a question which concerns Strickland
exclusively.

He came back at the end of three weeks, and said quietly:--"You
spoke the truth, Biel. The whole business is put up from beginning
to end. Jove! It almost astonishes ME! That Bronckhorst-beast
isn't fit to live."

There was uproar and shouting, and Biel said:--"How are you
going to
prove it? You can't say that you've been trespassing on
Bronckhorst's compound in disguise!"

"No," said Strickland. "Tell your lawyer-fool, whoever he is, to
get up something strong about 'inherent improbabilities' and
'discrepancies of evidence.' He won't have to speak, but it will
make him happy. I'M going to run this business."

Biel held his tongue, and the other men waited to see what would
happen. They trusted Strickland as men trust quiet men. When
the
case came off the Court was crowded. Strickland hung about in
the
verandah of the Court, till he met the Mohammedan khitmatgar.
Then
he murmured a faquir's blessing in his ear, and asked him how his
second wife did. The man spun round, and, as he looked into the
eyes of "Estreeken Sahib," his jaw dropped. You must remember
that
before Strickland was married, he was, as I have told you already,
a
power among natives. Strickland whispered a rather coarse
vernacular proverb to the effect that he was abreast of all that was
going on, and went into the Court armed with a gut trainer's-whip.

The Mohammedan was the first witness and Strickland beamed
upon him
from the back of the Court. The man moistened his lips with his
tongue and, in his abject fear of "Estreeken Sahib" the faquir, went
back on every detail of his evidence--said he was a poor man and
God
was his witness that he had forgotten every thing that Bronckhorst
Sahib had told him to say. Between his terror of Strickland, the
Judge, and Bronckhorst he collapsed, weeping.

Then began the panic among the witnesses. Janki, the ayah,
leering
chastely behind her veil, turned gray, and the bearer left the
Court. He said that his Mamma was dying and that it was not
wholesome for any man to lie unthriftily in the presence of
"Estreeken Sahib."

Biel said politely to Bronckhorst:--"Your witnesses don't seem to
work. Haven't you any forged letters to produce?" But
Bronckhorst
was swaying to and fro in his chair, and there was a dead pause
after Biel had been called to order.

Bronckhorst's Counsel saw the look on his client's face, and
without
more ado, pitched his papers on the little green baize table, and
mumbled something about having been misinformed. The whole
Court
applauded wildly, like soldiers at a theatre, and the Judge began to
say what he thought.

. . . . . . . . .

Biel came out of the place, and Strickland dropped a gut trainer's-
whip in the verandah. Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting
Bronckhorst into ribbons behind the old Court cells, quietly and
without scandal. What was left of Bronckhorst was sent home in a
carriage; and his wife wept over it and nursed it into a man again.

Later on, after Biel had managed to hush up the counter-charge
against Bronckhorst of fabricating false evidence, Mrs.
Bronckhorst,
with her faint watery smile, said that there had been a mistake, but
it wasn't her Teddy's fault altogether. She would wait till her
Teddy came back to her. Perhaps he had grown tired of her, or she
had tried his patience, and perhaps we wouldn't cut her any more,
and perhaps the mothers would let their children play with "little
Teddy" again. He was so lonely. Then the Station invited Mrs.

Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorst was fit to appear in
public, when he went Home and took his wife with him.
According to
the latest advices, her Teddy did "come back to her," and they are
moderately happy. Though, of course, he can never forgive her the
thrashing that she was the indirect means of getting for him.

. . . . . . . . .

What Biel wants to know is:--"Why didn't I press home the charge
against the Bronckhorst-brute, and have him run in?"

What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is:--"How DID my husband
bring
such a lovely, lovely Waler from your Station? I know ALL his
money-affairs; and I'm CERTAIN he didn't BUY it."

What I want to know is:--How do women like Mrs. Bronckhorst
come to
marry men like Bronckhorst?"

And my conundrum is the most unanswerable of the three.

VENUS ANNODOMINI.

And the years went on as the years must do;
But our great Diana was always new--
Fresh, and blooming, and blonde, and fair,
With azure eyes and with aureate hair;
And all the folk, as they came or went,
Offered her praise to her heart's content.

Diana of Ephesus.

She had nothing to do with Number Eighteen in the Braccio
Nuovo of
the Vatican, between Visconti's Ceres and the God of the Nile.
She
was purely an Indian deity--an Anglo-Indian deity, that is to say--
and we called her THE Venus Annodomini, to distinguish her
from
other Annodominis of the same everlasting order. There was a
legend
among the Hills that she had once been young; but no living man
was
prepared to come forward and say boldly that the legend was true.

Men rode up to Simla, and stayed, and went away and made their
name
and did their life's work, and returned again to find the Venus
Annodomini exactly as they had left her. She was as immutable as
the Hills. But not quite so green. All that a girl of eighteen
could do in the way of riding, walking, dancing, picnicking and
over-exertion generally, the Venus Annodomini did, and showed
no
sign of fatigue or trace of weariness. Besides perpetual youth, she
had discovered, men said, the secret of perpetual health; and her
fame spread about the land. From a mere woman, she grew to be
an
Institution, insomuch that no young man could be said to be
properly
formed, who had not, at some time or another, worshipped at the
shrine of the Venus Annodomini. There was no one like her,
though
there were many imitations. Six years in her eyes were no more
than
six months to ordinary women; and ten made less visible
impression
on her than does a week's fever on an ordinary woman. Every one
adored her, and in return she was pleasant and courteous to nearly
every one. Youth had been a habit of hers for so long, that she
could not part with it--never realized, in fact, the necessity of
parting with it--and took for her more chosen associates young
people.

Among the worshippers of the Venus Annodomini was young
Gayerson.

"Very Young" Gayerson, he was called to distinguish him from his
father "Young" Gayerson, a Bengal Civilian, who affected the
customs--as he had the heart--of youth. "Very Young" Gayerson
was
not content to worship placidly and for form's sake, as the other
young men did, or to accept a ride or a dance, or a talk from the
Venus Annodomini in a properly humble and thankful spirit. He
was
exacting, and, therefore, the Venus Annodomini repressed him.
He
worried himself nearly sick in a futile sort of way over her; and
his devotion and earnestness made him appear either shy or
boisterous or rude, as his mood might vary, by the side of the older
men who, with him, bowed before the Venus Annodomini. She
was sorry
for him. He reminded her of a lad who, three-and-twenty years
ago,
had professed a boundless devotion for her, and for whom in
return
she had felt something more than a week's weakness. But that lad
had fallen away and married another woman less than a year after
he
had worshipped her; and the Venus Annodomini had almost--not
quite--
forgotten his name. "Very Young" Gayerson had the same big
blue
eyes and the same way of pouting his underlip when he was
excited or
troubled. But the Venus Annodomini checked him sternly none
the
less. Too much zeal was a thing that she did not approve of;
preferring instead, a tempered and sober tenderness.

"Very Young" Gayerson was miserable, and took no trouble to
conceal
his wretchedness. He was in the Army--a Line regiment I think,
but
am not certain--and, since his face was a looking-glass and his
forehead an open book, by reason of his innocence, his brothers in
arms made his life a burden to him and embittered his naturally
sweet disposition. No one except "Very Young" Gayerson, and he
never told his views, knew how old "Very Young" Gayerson
believed
the Venus Annodomini to be. Perhaps he thought her five and
twenty,
or perhaps she told him that she was this age. "Very Young"
Gayerson would have forded the Gugger in flood to carry her
lightest
word, and had implicit faith in her. Every one liked him, and
every
one was sorry when they saw him so bound a slave of the Venus
Annodomini. Every one, too, admitted that it was not her fault; for
the Venus Annodomini differed from Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs.
Reiver in
this particular--she never moved a finger to attract any one; but,
like Ninon de l'Enclos, all men were attracted to her. One could
admire and respect Mrs. Hauksbee, despise and avoid Mrs. Reiver,
but
one was forced to adore the Venus Annodomini.

"Very Young" Gayerson's papa held a Division or a Collectorate or
something administrative in a particularly unpleasant part of
Bengal--full of Babus who edited newspapers proving that
"Young"
Gayerson was a "Nero" and a "Scylla" and a "Charybdis"; and, in
addition to the Babus, there was a good deal of dysentery and
cholera abroad for nine months of the year. "Young" Gayerson--he
was about five and forty--rather liked Babus, they amused him, but
he objects to dysentery, and when he could get away, went to
Darjilling for the most part. This particular season he fancied
that he would come up to Simla, and see his boy. The boy was not
altogether pleased. He told the Venus Annodomini that his father
was coming up, and she flushed a little and said that she should be
delighted to make his acquaintance. Then she looked long and
thoughtfully at "Very Young" Gayerson; because she was very,
very
sorry for him, and he was a very, very big idiot.

"My daughter is coming out in a fortnight, Mr. Gayerson," she
said.

"Your WHAT?" said he.

"Daughter," said the Venus Annodomini. "She's been out for a
year
at Home already, and I want her to see a little of India. She is
nineteen and a very sensible, nice girl I believe."

"Very Young" Gayerson, who was a short twenty-two years old,
nearly
fell out of his chair with astonishment; for he had persisted in
believing, against all belief, in the youth of the Venus
Annodomini.

She, with her back to the curtained window, watched the effect of
her sentences and smiled.

"Very Young" Gayerson's papa came up twelve days later, and had
not
been in Simla four and twenty hours, before two men, old
acquaintances of his, had told him how "Very Young" Gayerson
had
been conducting himself.

"Young" Gayerson laughed a good deal, and inquired who the
Venus
Annodomini might be. Which proves that he had been living in
Bengal
where nobody knows anything except the rate of Exchange. Then
he
said "boys will be boys," and spoke to his son about the matter.

"Very Young" Gayerson said that he felt wretched and unhappy;
and
"Young" Gayerson said that he repented of having helped to bring
a
fool into the world. He suggested that his son had better cut his
leave short and go down to his duties. This led to an unfilial
answer, and relations were strained, until "Young" Gayerson
denmanded that they should call on the Venus Annodomini. "Very
Young" Gayerson went with his papa, feeling, somehow,
uncomfortable
and small.

The Venus Annodomini received them graciously and "Young"
Gayerson
said:--"By Jove! It's Kitty!" "Very Young" Gayerson would have
listened for an explanation, if his time had not been taken up with
trying to talk to a large, handsome, quiet, well-dressed girl--
introduced to him by the Venus Annodomini as her daughter. She
was
far older in manners, style and repose than "Very Young"
Gayerson;
and, as he realized this thing, he felt sick.

Presently, he heard the Venus Annodomini saying:--"Do you know
that
your son is one of my most devoted admirers?"

"I don't wonder," said "Young" Gayerson. Here he raised his
voice:--
"He follows his father's footsteps. Didn't I worship the ground
you trod on, ever so long ago, Kitty--and you haven't changed since
then. How strange it all seems!"

"Very Young" Gayerson said nothing. His conversation with the
daughter of the Venus Annodomini was, through the rest of the
call,
fragmentary and disjointed.

. . . . . . . . .

"At five, to-morrow then," said the Venus Annodomini. "And
mind you
are punctual."

"At five punctual," said "Young" Gayerson. "You can lend your
old
father a horse I dare say, youngster, can't you? I'm going for a
ride tomorrow afternoon."

"Certainly," said "Very Young" Gayerson. "I am going down
to-morrow
morning. My ponies are at your service, Sir."

The Venus Annodomini looked at him across the half-light of the
room, and her big gray eyes filled with moisture. She rose and
shook hands with him.

"Good-bye, Tom," whispered the Venus Annodomini.

THE BISARA OF POOREE.

Little Blind Fish, thou art marvellous wise,
Little Blind Fish, who put out thy eyes?
Open thine ears while I whisper my wish--
Bring me a lover, thou little Blind Fish.

The Charm of the Bisara.

Some natives say that it came from the other side of Kulu, where
the
eleven-inch Temple Sapphire is. Others that it was made at the
Devil-Shrine of Ao-Chung in Thibet, was stolen by a Kafir, from
him
by a Gurkha, from him again by a Lahouli, from him by a
khitmatgar,
and by this latter sold to an Englishman, so all its virtue was
lost: because, to work properly, the Bisara of Pooree must be
stolen--with bloodshed if possible, but, at any rate, stolen.

These stories of the coming into India are all false. It was made
at Pooree ages since--the manner of its making would fill a small
book--was stolen by one of the Temple dancing-girls there, for her
own purposes, and then passed on from hand to hand, steadily
northward, till it reached Hanla: always bearing the same
name--the
Bisara of Pooree. In shape it is a tiny, square box of silver,
studded outside with eight small balas-rubies. Inside the box,
which opens with a spring, is a little eyeless fish, carved from
some sort of dark, shiny nut and wrapped in a shred of faded gold-
cloth. That is the Bisara of Pooree, and it were better for a man
to take a king cobra in his hand than to touch the Bisara of Pooree.

All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with except in
India where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, toy-scum stuff
that people call "civilization." Any man who knows about the
Bisara
of Pooree will tell you what its powers are--always supposing that
it has been honestly stolen. It is the only regularly working,
trustworthy love-charm in the country, with one exception.

[The other charm is in the hands of a trooper of the Nizam's Horse,
at a place called Tuprani, due north of Hyderabad.] This can be
depended upon for a fact. Some one else may explain it.

If the Bisara be not stolen, but given or bought or found, it turns
against its owner in three years, and leads to ruin or death. This
is another fact which you may explain when you have time.

Meanwhile, you can laugh at it. At present, the Bisara is safe on
an ekka-pony's neck, inside the blue bead-necklace that keeps off
the Evil-eye. If the ekka-driver ever finds it, and wears it, or
gives it to his wife, I am sorry for him.

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