Book: The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition

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The children had discovered that their lives would be unendurable
without pistol-practice. After much forethought and self-denial,
Dick
had saved seven shillings and sixpence, the price of a badly
constructed
Belgian revolver. Maisie could only contribute half a crown to the
syndicate for the purchase of a hundred cartridges. 'You can save
better
than I can, Dick,' she explained; 'I like nice things to eat, and it
doesn't matter to you. Besides, boys ought to do these things.'

Dick grumbled a little at the arrangement, but went out and made
the
purchase, which the children were then on their way to test.
Revolvers
did not lie in the scheme of their daily life as decreed for them by
the
guardian who was incorrectly supposed to stand in the place of a
mother
to these two orphans. Dick had been under her care for six years,
during
which time she had made her profit of the allowances supposed to
be
expended on his clothes, and, partly through thoughtlessness,
partly
through a natural desire to pain,--she was a widow of some years
anxious
to marry again,--had made his days burdensome on his young
shoulders-

Where he had looked for love, she gave him first aversion and
then hate-

Where he growing older had sought a little sympathy, she gave
him
ridicule. The many hours that she could spare from the ordering of
her
small house she devoted to what she called the home-training of
Dick
Heldar. Her religion, manufactured in the main by her own
intelligence
and a keen study of the Scriptures, was an aid to her in this matter.
At
such times as she herself was not personally displeased with Dick,
she
left him to understand that he had a heavy account to settle with
his
Creator; wherefore Dick learned to loathe his God as intensely as
he
loathed Mrs. Jennett; and this is not a wholesome frame of mind
for the
young. Since she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, but an
economical and self-contained one, never throwing away the least
unnecessary fib, and never hesitating at the blackest, were it only
plausible, that might make his life a little easier. The treatment
taught him at least the power of living alone,--a power that was of
service to him when he went to a public school and the boys
laughed at
his clothes, which were poor in quality and much mended. In the
holidays
he returned to the teachings of Mrs. Jennett, and, that the chain of
discipline might not be weakened by association with the world,
was
generally beaten, on one account or another, before he had been
twelve
hours under her roof-

The autumn of one year brought him a companion in bondage, a
long-haired, gray-eyed little atom, as self-contained as himself,
who
moved about the house silently and for the first few weeks spoke
only to
the goat that was her chiefest friend on earth and lived in the
back-garden. Mrs. Jennett objected to the goat on the grounds that
he
was un-Christian,--which he certainly was. 'Then,' said the atom,
choosing her words very deliberately, 'I shall write to my
lawyer-peoples and tell them that you are a very bad woman.
Amomma is
mine, mine, mine!' Mrs. Jennett made a movement to the hall,
where
certain umbrellas and canes stood in a rack. The atom understood
as
clearly as Dick what this meant. 'I have been beaten before,' she
said,
still in the same passionless voice; 'I have been beaten worse than
you
can ever beat me. If you beat me I shall write to my
lawyer-peoples and
tell them that you do not give me enough to eat. I am not afraid of
you.' Mrs. Jennett did not go into the hall, and the atom, after a
pause
to assure herself that all danger of war was past, went out, to weep
bitterly on Amomma's neck-

Dick learned to know her as Maisie, and at first mistrusted her
profoundly, for he feared that she might interfere with the small
liberty of action left to him. She did not, however; and she
volunteered
no friendliness until Dick had taken the first steps. Long before
the
holidays were over, the stress of punishment shared in common
drove the
children together, if it were only to play into each other's hands as
they prepared lies for Mrs. Jennett's use. When Dick returned to
school,
Maisie whispered, 'Now I shall be all alone to take care of myself;
but,' and she nodded her head bravely, 'I can do it. You promised
to
send Amomma a grass collar. Send it soon.' A week later she
asked for
that collar by return of post, and wa not pleased when she learned
that
it took time to make. When at last Dick forwarded the gift, she
forgot
to thank him for it-

Many holidays had come and gone since that day, and Dick had
grown into
a lanky hobbledehoy more than ever conscious of his bad clothes.
Not for
a moment had Mrs. Jennett relaxed her tender care of him, but the
average canings of a public school--Dick fell under punishment
about
three times a month--filled him with contempt for her powers.
'She
doesn't hurt,' he explained to Maisie, who urged him to rebellion,
'and
she is kinder to you after she has whacked me.' Dick shambled
through
the days unkempt in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys
of the
school learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would
hit them,
cunningly and with science. The same spirit made him more than
once try
to tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy. 'We are
both
miserable as it is,' said she. 'What is the use of trying to make
things
worse? Let's find things to do, and forget things.'

The pistol was the outcome of that search. It could only be used
on the
muddiest foreshore of the beach, far away from the
bathing-machines and
pierheads, below the grassy slopes of Fort Keeling. The tide ran
out
nearly two miles on that coast, and the many-coloured mud-banks,
touched
by the sun, sent up a lamentable smell of dead weed. It was late in
the
afternoon when Dick and Maisie arrived on their ground,
Amomma trotting
patiently behind them-

'Mf!' said Maisie, sniffing the air. 'I wonder what makes the sea so
smelly? I don't like it!'

'You never like anything that isn't made just for you,' said Dick
bluntly. 'Give me the cartridges, and I'll try first shot. How far
does
one of these little revolvers carry?'

'Oh, half a mile,' said Maisie, promptly. 'At least it makes an awful
noise. Be careful with the cartridges; I don't like those jagged
stick-up things on the rim. Dick, do be careful.'

'All right. I know how to load. I'll fire at the breakwater out there.'

He fired, and Amomma ran away bleating. The bullet threw up a
spurt of
mud to the right of the wood-wreathed piles-

'Throws high and to the right. You try, Maisie. Mind, it's loaded
all
round.'

Maisie took the pistol and stepped delicately to the verge of the
mud,
her hand firmly closed on the butt, her mouth and left eye screwed
up-

Dick sat down on a tuft of bank and laughed. Amomma returned
very
cautiously. He was accustomed to strange experiences in his
afternoon
walks, and, finding the cartridge-box unguarded, made
investigations
with his nose. Maisie fired, but could not see where the bullet
went-

'I think it hit the post,' she said, shading her eyes and looking out
across the sailless sea-

'I know it has gone out to the Marazion Bell-buoy,' said Dick, with
a
chuckle. 'Fire low and to the left; then perhaps you'll get it. Oh,
look
at Amomma!--he's eating the cartridges!'

Maisie turned, the revolver in her hand, just in time to see
Amomma
scampering away from the pebbles Dick threw after him. Nothing
is sacred
to a billy-goat. Being well fed and the adored of his mistress,
Amomma
had naturally swallowed two loaded pin-fire cartridges. Maisie
hurried
up to assure herself that Dick had not miscounted the tale-

'Yes, he's eaten two.'

'Horrid little beast! Then they'll joggle about inside him and blow
up,
and serve him right. . . . Oh, Dick! have I killed you?'

Revolvers are tricky things for young hands to deal with. Maisie
could
not explain how it had happened, but a veil of reeking smoke
separated
her from Dick, and she was quite certain that the pistol had gone
off in
his face. Then she heard him sputter, and dropped on her knees
beside
him, crying, 'Dick, you aren't hurt, are you? I didn't mean it.'

'Of course you didn't, said Dick, coming out of the smoke and
wiping his
cheek. 'But you nearly blinded me. That powder stuff stings
awfully.' A
neat little splash of gray led on a stone showed where the bullet
had
gone. Maisie began to whimper-

'Don't,' said Dick, jumping to his feet and shaking himself. 'I'm not
a
bit hurt.'

'No, but I might have killed you,' protested Maisie, the corners of
her
mouth drooping. 'What should I have done then?'

'Gone home and told Mrs. Jennett.' Dick grinned at the thought;
then,
softening, 'Please don't worry about it. Besides, we are wasting
time-

We've got to get back to tea. I'll take the revolver for a bit.'

Maisie would have wept on the least encouragement, but Dick's
indifference, albeit his hand was shaking as he picked up the
pistol,
restrained her. She lay panting on the beach while Dick
methodically
bombarded the breakwater. 'Got it at last!' he exclaimed, as a lock
of
weed flew from the wood-

'Let me try,' said Maisie, imperiously. 'I'm all right now.'

They fired in turns till the rickety little revolver nearly shook itself
to pieces, and Amomma the outcast--because he might blow up at
any
moment--browsed in the background and wondered why stones
were thrown at
him. Then they found a balk of timber floating in a pool which
was
commanded by the seaward slope of Fort Keeling, and they sat
down
together before this new target-

'Next holidays,' said Dick, as the now thoroughly fouled revolver
kicked
wildly in his hand, 'we'll get another pistol,--central fire,--that will
carry farther.'

'There won't b any next holidays for me,' said Maisie. 'I'm going
away.'


'Where to?'

'I don't know. My lawyers have written to Mrs. Jennett, and I've
got to
be educated somewhere,--in France, perhaps,--I don't know where;
but I
shall be glad to go away.'

'I shan't like it a bit. I suppose I shall be left. Look here, Maisie,
is it really true you're going? Then these holidays will be the last I
shall see anything of you; and I go back to school next week. I
wish----'

The young blood turned his cheeks scarlet. Maisie was picking
grass-tufts and throwing them down the slope at a yellow
sea-poppy
nodding all by itself to the illimitable levels of the mud-flats and
the
milk-white sea beyond-

'I wish,' she said, after a pause, 'that I could see you again
sometime-

You wish that, too?'

'Yes, but it would have been better if--if--you had--shot straight
over
there--down by the breakwater.'

Maisie looked with large eyes for a moment. And this was the boy
who
only ten days before had decorated Amomma's horns with
cut-paper
ham-frills and turned him out, a bearded derision, among the
public
ways! Then she dropped her eyes: this was not the boy-

'Don't be stupid,' she said reprovingly, and with swift instinct
attacked the side-issue. 'How selfish you are! Just think what I
should
have felt if that horrid thing had killed you! I'm quite miserable
enough already.'

'Why? Because you're going away from Mrs. Jennett?'

'No.'

'From me, then?'

No answer for a long time. Dick dared not look at her. He felt,
though
he did not know, all that the past four years had been to him, and
this
the more acutely since he had no knowledge to put his feelings in
words-


'I don't know,' she said. 'I suppose it is.'

'Maisie, you must know. I'm not supposing.'

'Let's go home,' said Maisie, weakly-

But Dick was not minded to retreat-

'I can't say things,' he pleaded, 'and I'm awfully sorry for teasing
you
about Amomma the other day. It's all different now, Maisie, can't
you
see? And you might have told me that you were going, instead of
leaving
me to find out.'

'You didn't. I did tell. Oh, Dick, what's the use of worrying?'

'There isn't any; but we've been together years and years, and I
didn't
know how much I cared.'

'I don't believe you ever did care.'

'No, I didn't; but I do,--I care awfully now, Maisie,' he
gulped,--'Maisie, darling, say you care too, please.'

'I do, indeed I do; but it won't be any use.'

'Why?'

'Because I am going away.'

'Yes, but if you promise before you go. Only say--will you?' A
second
'darling' came to his lips more easily than the first. There were few
endearments in Dick's home or school life; he had to find them by
instinct. Dick caught the little hand blackened with the escaped
gas of
the revolver-

'I promise,' she said solemnly; 'but if I care there is no need for
promising.'

'And do you care?' For the first time in the past few minutes their
eyes
met and spoke for them who had no skill in speech. . . -

'Oh, Dick, don't! Please don't! It was all right when we said
good-morning; but now it's all different!' Amomma looked on
from afar-

He had seen his property quarrel frequently, but he had never seen
kisses exchanged before. The yellow sea-poppy was wiser, and
nodded its
head approvingly. Considered as a kiss, that was a failure, but
since it
was the first, other than those demanded by duty, in all the world
that
either had ever given or taken, it opened to them new worlds, and
every
one of them glorious, so that they were lifted above the
consideration
of any worlds at all, especially those in which tea is necessary,
and
sat still, holding each other's hands and saying not a word-

'You can't forget now,' said Dick, at last. There was that on his
cheek
that stung more than gunpowder-

'I shouldn't have forgotten anyhow,' said Maisie, and they looked
at
each other and saw that each was changed from the companion of
an hour
ago to a wonder and a mystery they could not understand. The sun
began
to set, and a night-wind thrashed along the bents of the foreshore-

'We shall be awfully late for tea,' said Maisie. 'Let's go home.'

'Let's use the rest of the cartridges first,' said Dick; and he helped
Maisie down the slope of the fort to the sea,--a descent that she
was
quite capable of covering at full speed. Equally gravely Maisie
took the
grimy hand. Dick bent forward clumsily; Maisie drew the hand
away, and
Dick blushed-

'It's very pretty,' he said-

'Pooh!' said Maisie, with a little laugh of gratified vanity. She
stood
close to Dick as he loaded the revolver for the last time and fired
over
the sea with a vague notion at the back of his head that he was
protecting Maisie from all the evils in the world. A puddle far
across
the mud caught the last rays of the sun and turned into a wrathful
red
disc. The light held Dick's attention for a moment, and as he
raised his
revolver there fell upon him a renewed sense of the miraculous, in
that
he was standing by Maisie who had promised to care for him for
an
indefinite length of time till such date as---- A gust of the growing
wind drove the girl's long black hair across his face as she stood
with
her hand on his shoulder calling Amomma 'a little beast,' and for a
moment he was in the dark,--a darkness that stung. The bullet
went
singing out to the empty sea-

'Spoilt my aim,' said he, shaking his head. 'There aren't any more
cartridges; we shall have to run home.' But they did not run. They
walked very slowly, arm in arm. And it was a matter of
indifference to
them whether the neglected Amomma with two pin-fire cartridges
in his
inside blew up or trotted beside them; for they had come into a
golden
heritage and were disposing of it with all the wisdom of all their
years-

'And I shall be----' quoth Dick, valiantly. Then he checked himself:
'I
don't know what I shall be. I don't seem to be able to pass any
exams,
but I can make awful caricatures of the masters. Ho! Ho!'

'Be an artist, then,' said Maisie. 'You're always laughing at my
trying
to draw; and it will do you good.'

'I'll never laugh at anything you do,' he answered. 'I'll be an artist,
and I'll do things.'

'Artists always want money, don't they?'

'I've got a hundred and twenty pounds a year of my own. My
guardians
tell me I'm to have it when I come of age. That will be enough to
begin
with.'

'Ah, I'm rich,' said Maisie. 'I've got three hundred a year all my
own
when I'm twenty-one. That's why Mrs. Jennett is kinder to me than
she is
to you. I wish, though, that I had somebody that belonged to
me,--just a
father or a mother.'

'You belong to me,' said Dick, 'for ever and ever.'

'Yes, we belong--for ever. It's very nice.' She squeezed his arm.
The
kindly darkness hid them both, and, emboldened because he could
only
just see the profile of Maisie's cheek with the long lashes veiling
the
gray eyes, Dick at the front door delivered himself of the words he
had
been boggling over for the last two hours-

'And I--love you, Maisie,' he said, in a whisper that seemed to him
to
ring across the world,--the world that he would to-morrow or the
next
day set out to conquer-

There was a scene, not, for the sake of discipline, to be reported,
when
Mrs. Jennett would have fallen upon him, first for disgraceful
unpunctuality, and secondly for nearly killing himself with a
forbidden
weapon-

'I was playing with it, and it went off by itself,' said Dick, when
the
powder-pocked cheek could no longer be hidden, 'but if you think
you're
going to lick me you're wrong. You are never going to touch me
again-

Sit down and give me my tea. You can't cheat us out of that,
anyhow.'

Mrs. Jennett gasped and became livid. Maisie said nothing, but
encouraged Dick with her eyes, and he behaved abominably all
that
evening. Mrs. Jennett prophesied an immediate judgment of
Providence and
a descent into Tophet later, but Dick walked in Paradise and
would not
hear. Only when he was going to bed Mrs. Jennett recovered and
asserted
herself. He had bidden Maisie good-night with down-dropped
eyes and from
a distance-

'If you aren't a gentleman you might try to behave like one,' said
Mrs-

Jennett, spitefully. 'You've been quarrelling with Maisie again.'

This meant that the usual good-night kiss had been omitted.
Maisie,
white to the lips, thrust her cheek forward with a fine air of
indifference, and was duly pecked by Dick, who tramped out of
the room
red as fire. That night he dreamed a wild dream. He had won all
the
world and brought it to Maisie in a cartridge-box, but she turned it
over with her foot, and, instead of saying 'Thank you,' cried--

'Where is the grass collar you promised for Amomma? Oh, how
selfish you
are!'

CHAPTER II

Then we brought the lances down, then the bugles blew,
When we went to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two,
Ridin', ridin', ridin', two an' two,
Ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra,
All the way to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two.
--Barrack-Room Ballad.

'I'M NOT angry with the British public, but I wish we had a few
thousand of them scattered among these rooks. They wouldn't be
in such
a hurry to get at their morning papers then. Can't you imagine the
regulation householder--Lover of Justice, Constant Reader,
Paterfamilias, and all that lot--frizzling on hot gravel?'

'With a blue veil over his head, and his clothes in strips. Has any
man
here a needle? I've got a piece of sugar-sack.'

'I'll lend you a packing-needle for six square inches of it then. Both
my
knees are worn through.'

'Why not six square acres, while you're about it? But lend me the
needle,
and I'll see what I can do with the selvage. I don't think there's
enough to
protect my royal body from the cold blast as it is. What are you
doing
with that everlasting sketch-book of yours, Dick?'

'Study of our Special Correspondent repairing his wardrobe,' said
Dick,
gravely, as the other man kicked off a pair of sorely worn
riding-breeches and began to fit a square of coarse canvas over the
most
obvious open space. He grunted disconsolately as the vastness of
the void
developed itself.

'Sugar-bags, indeed! Hi! you pilot man there! lend me all the sails
for
that whale-boat.'

A fez-crowned head bobbed up in the stern-sheets, divided itself
into
exact halves with one flashing grin, and bobbed down again. The
man of
the tattered breeches, clad only in a Norfolk jacket and a gray
flannel
shirt, went on with his clumsy sewing, while Dick chuckled over
the
sketch.

Some twenty whale-boats were nuzzling a sand-bank which was
dotted
with English soldiery of half a dozen corps, bathing or washing
their
clothes. A heap of boat-rollers, commissariat-boxes, sugar-bags,
and
flour- and small-arm-ammunition-cases showed where one of the
whale-boats had been compelled to unload hastily; and a
regimental
carpenter was swearing aloud as he tried, on a wholly insufficient
allowance of white lead, to plaster up the sun-parched gaping
seams of
the boat herself.

'First the bloomin' rudder snaps,' said he to the world in general;
'then
the mast goes; an' then, s' 'help me, when she can't do nothin' else,
she
opens 'erself out like a cock-eyes Chinese lotus.'

'Exactly the case with my breeches, whoever you are,' said the
tailor,
without looking up. 'Dick, I wonder when I shall see a decent shop
again.'

There was no answer, save the incessant angry murmur of the Nile
as it
raced round a basalt-walled bend and foamed across a rock-ridge
half a
mile upstream. It was as though the brown weight of the river
would
drive the white men back to their own country. The indescribable
scent
of Nile mud in the air told that the stream was falling and the next
few
miles would be no light thing for the whale-boats to overpass. The
desert
ran down almost to the banks, where, among gray, red, and black
hillocks, a camel-corps was encamped. No man dared even for a
day lose
touch of the slow-moving boats; there had been no fighting for
weeks
past, and throughout all that time the Nile had never spared them.
Rapid
had followed rapid, rock rock, and island-group island-group, till
the
rank and file had long since lost all count of direction and very
nearly of
time. They were moving somewhere, they did not know why, to do
something, they did not know what. Before them lay the Nile, and
at the
other end of it was one Gordon, fighting for the dear life, in a town
called
Khartoum. There were columns of British troops in the desert, or
in one
of the many deserts; there were yet more columns waiting to
embark on
the river; there were fresh drafts waiting at Assioot and Assuan;
there
were lies and rumours running over the face of the hopeless land
from
Suakin to the Sixth Cataract, and men supposed generally that
there
must be some one in authority to direct the general scheme of the
many
movements. The duty of that particular river-column was to keep
the
whale-boats afloat in the water, to avoid trampling on the villagers'
crops
when the gangs 'tracked' the boats with lines thrown from
midstream, to
get as much sleep and food as was possible, and, above all, to
press on
without delay in the teeth of the churning Nile.

With the soldiers sweated and toiled the correspondents of the
newspapers, and they were almost as ignorant as their companions.
But
it was above all things necessary that England at breakfast should
be
amused and thrilled and interested, whether Gordon lived or died,
or
half the British army went to pieces in the sands. The Soudan
campaign
was a picturesque one, and lent itself to vivid word-painting. Now
and
again a 'Special' managed to get slain,--which was not altogether a
disadvantage to the paper that employed him,--and more often the
hand-to-hand nature of the fighting allowed of miraculous escapes
which
were worth telegraphing home at eighteenpence the word. There
were
many correspondents with many corps and columns,--from the
veterans
who had followed on the heels of the cavalry that occupied Cairo
in '82,
what time Arabi Pasha called himself king, who had seen the first
miserable work round Suakin when the sentries were cut up
nightly and
the scrub swarmed with spears, to youngsters jerked into the
business at
the end of a telegraph-wire to take the places of their betters killed
or
invalided.

Among the seniors--those who knew every shift and change in the
perplexing postal arrangements, the value of the seediest, weediest
Egyptian garron offered for sale in Cairo or Alexandria, who could
talk a
telegraph-clerk into amiability and soothe the ruffled vanity of a
newly
appointed staff-officer when press regulations became
burdensome--was
the man in the flannel shirt, the black-browed Torpenhow. He
represented the Central Southern Syndicate in the campaign, as he
had
represented it in the Egyptian war, and elsewhere. The syndicate
did not
concern itself greatly with criticisms of attack and the like. It
supplied
the masses, and all it demanded was picturesqueness and
abundance of
detail; for there is more joy in England over a soldier who
insubordinately steps out of square to rescue a comrade than over
twenty
generals slaving even to baldness at the gross details of transport
and
commissariat.

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