§ 3. SERGEANT-MAJOR LAWRENCE-SMITH.
Mrs. Pat Dearman was sceptical.
"Do you mean to tell me that you, a man of science, an eminent medical man, and a soldier, believe in the supernatural?"
"Well, you see, I'm 'Oirish' and therefore unaccountable," replied Colonel Jackson (of the Royal Army Medical Corps), fine doctor, fine scholar, and fine gentleman.
"And you believe in haunted houses and ghosts and things, do you? Well!"
The salted-almond dish was empty, and Mrs. Dearman accused her other neighbour, Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison. Having already prepared to meet and rebut the charge of greediness he made passes over the vessel and it was replenished.
"Supernatural!" said she.
"Most," said he.
She prudently removed the dish to the far side of her plate—and
Colonel Jackson emptied it.
Not having prepared to meet the request to replenish the store a second time, it was useless for Mr. Ross-Ellison to make more passes when commanded so to do.
"The usual end of the 'supernatural,'" observed Mrs. Dearman with contempt.
"Most usual," said he.
"More than 'most,'" corrected Mrs. Dearman. "It is the invariable end of it, I believe. Just humbug and rubbish. It is either an invention, pure and simple, or else it is perfectly explicable. Don't you think so, Colonel Jackson?"
"Not always," said her partner. "Now, will you, first, believe my word, and, secondly, find the explanation—if I tell you a perfectly true 'supernatural' story?"
"I'll certainly believe your word, Colonel, if you're serious, and I'll try and suggest an explanation if you like," replied Mrs. Dearman.
"Same to me, Mrs. Dearman?" asked Mr. Ross-Ellison. "I've had 'experiences' too—and can tell you one of them."
"Same to you, Mr. Ross-Ellison," replied Mrs. Dearman, and added: "But why only one of them?"
Mr. Ross-Ellison smiled, glanced round the luxuriously appointed table and the company of fair women and brave men—and thought of a far-distant and little-known place called Mekran Kot and of a phantom cavalry corps that haunted a valley in its vicinity.
"Only one worth telling," said he.
"Well,—first case," began Colonel Jackson, "I was once driving past a cottage on my way home from College (in Ireland), and I saw the old lady who lived in that cottage come out of the door, cross her bit of garden, go through a gate, scuttle over the railway-line and enter a fenced field that had belonged to her husband, and which she (and a good many other people) believed rightly belonged to her.
"'There goes old Biddy Maloney pottering about in that plot of ground again,' thinks I. 'She's got it on the brain since her law-suit.' I knew it was Biddy, of course, not only because of her coming out of Biddy's house, but because it was Biddy's figure, walk, crutch-stick, and patched old cloak. When I got home I happened to say to Mother: 'I saw poor old Biddy Maloney doddering round that wretched field as I came along'.
"'What?' said my mother, 'why, your father was called to her, as she was dying, hours ago, and she's not been out of her bed for weeks.' When my father came in, I learned that Biddy was dead an hour before I saw her—before I left the railway station in fact! What do you make of that? Is there any 'explanation'?"
"Some other old lady," suggested Mrs. Dearman.
"No. There was nobody else in those parts mistakable for Biddy Maloney, and no other old woman was in or near the house while my father was there. We sifted the matter carefully. It was Biddy Maloney and no one else."
"Auto-suggestion. Visualization on the retina of an idea in the mind.
Optical illusion," hazarded Mrs. Dearman.
"No good. I hadn't realized I was approaching Biddy Maloney's cottage until I saw her coming out of it and I certainly hadn't thought of Biddy Maloney until my eye fell upon her. And it's a funny optical illusion that deceives one into seeing an old lady opening gates, crossing railways and limping away into fenced fields."
"H'm! What was the other case?" asked Mrs. Dearman, turning to Mr.
Ross-Ellison.
"That happened here in India at a station called Duri, away in the Northern Presidency, where I was then—er—living for a time. On the day after my arrival I went to call on Malet-Marsac to whom I had letters of introduction—political business—and, as he was out, but certain to return in a minute or two from Parade, I sat me down in a comfortable chair in the verandah——"
"And went to sleep?" interrupted Mrs. Dearman.
'"I nevah sleep,'" quoted Mr. Ross-Ellison, "and I had no time, if any inclination. Scarcely indeed had I seated myself, and actually while I was placing my topi on an adjacent stool, a lady emerged from a distant door at the end of the verandah and walked towards me. I can tell you I was mighty surprised, for not only was Captain Malet-Marsac a lone bachelor and a misogynist of blameless life, but the lady looked as though she had stepped straight out of an Early Victorian phonograph-album. She had on a crinoline sort of dress, a deep lace collar, spring-sidey sort of boots, mittens, and a huge cameo brooch. Also she had long ringlets. Her face is stamped on my memory and I could pick her out from a hundred women similarly dressed, or her picture from a hundred others…."
"What did you do?" asked Mrs. Dearman, whose neglected ice-pudding was fast being submerged in a pink lake of its own creation.
"Do? Nothing. I grabbed my topi, stood up, bowed—and looked silly."
"And what did the lady do?"
"Came straight on, taking no notice whatsoever of me, until she reached the steps leading into the porch and garden…. She passed down these and out of my sight…. That is the plain statement of an actual fact. Have you any 'explanation' to offer?"
"Well—what about a lady staying there, unexpectedly and unbeknownst (to the station), trying on a get-up for a Fancy Dress Ball. Going as 'My ancestress' or something?" suggested Mrs. Dearman.
"Exactly what I told myself, though I knew it was nothing of the kind…. Well, five minutes later Malet-Marsac rode up the drive and we were soon fraternizing over cheroots and cold drinks…. As I was leaving, an idea struck me, and I saw a way to ask a question—which was burning my tongue,—without being too rudely inquisitive.
"'By the way,' said I, 'I fear I did not send in the right number of visiting cards, but they told me there was no lady here, so I only sent in one—for you.'
"'There is no lady here,' he replied, eyeing me queerly. 'What made you think you had been misinformed?'
"'Well,' said I bluntly, 'a lady came out of the end room just now, walked down the verandah, and went out into the garden. You'd better see if anything is missing as she's not an inhabitant!'
"'No—there won't be anything missing,' he replied. 'Did she wear a crinoline and a general air of last century?'
"'She did,' said I.
"'Our own private ghost,' was the answer—and it was the sort of statement I had anticipated. Now I solemnly assure you that at that time I had never heard, read, nor dreamed that there was a 'ghost' in this bungalow, nor in Duri—nor in the whole Northern Presidency for that matter….
"'What's the story?' I asked, of course.
"'Mutiny. 1857,' said Malet-Marsac. 'Husband shot on the parade-ground. She got the news and marched straight to the spot. They cut her in pieces as she held his body in her arms. Lots of people have seen her—anywhere between that room and the parade-ground.'
"'Then you have to believe in ghosts—in Duri, or how do you account for it?' I asked.
"'I don't bother my head,' he replied. 'But I have seen that poor lady a good many times. And no one told me a word about her until after I had seen her.'"
And then Mrs. Dearman suddenly rose, as her hostess "caught" the collective female eye of the table.
"Was all that about the 'ghosts' of the old Irishwoman and the Early
Victorian Lady true, you fellows?" asked John Bruce, the Professor of
Engineering, after coffee, cigars and the second glass of port had
reconciled the residue or sediment to the departure of the sterner sex.
"Didn't you hear me say my story was true?" replied Colonel Jackson brusquely. "It was absolutely and perfectly true."
"Same here," added Mr. Ross-Ellison.
"Then on two separate occasions you two have seen what you can only believe to be the ghosts of dead people?"
"On one occasion I have, without any possibility of error or doubt, seen the ghost of a dead person," said Colonel Jackson.
"Have you ever come across any other thoroughly substantiated cases of ghost-seeing—cases which have really convinced you, Colonel?" queried Mr. Ross-Ellison—being deeply interested in the subject by reason of queer powers and experiences of his own.
"Yes. Many in which I fully believe, and one about which I am certain.
A very interesting case—and a very cruel tragedy."
"Would you mind telling me about it?" asked Mr. Ross-Ellison.
"Pleasure. More—I'll give you as interesting and convincing a 'human document' about it as ever you read, if you like."
"I shall be eternally grateful," replied the other.
"It was a sad and sordid business. The man, whose last written words I'll give you to read, was a Sergeant-Major in the Volunteer Rifles (also at Duri where I was stationed, as you know) and he was a gentleman born and bred, poor chap." ["Lawrence-Smith," murmured Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison with an involuntary movement of surprise. His eyebrows rose and his jaw fell.] "Yes, he was that rare bird a gentleman-ranker who remained a gentleman and a ranker—and became a fine soldier. He called himself Lawrence-Smith and owned a good old English name that you'd recognize if I mentioned it—and you'd be able to name some of his relatives too. He was kicked out of Sandhurst for striking one of the subordinate staff under extreme provocation. The army was in his blood and bones, and he enlisted."
"Excuse me," interrupted Mr. Ross-Ellison, "you speak of this
Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith in the past tense. Is he dead then?"
"He is dead," replied Colonel Jackson. "Did you know him?"
"I believe I saw him at Duri," answered Mr. Ross-Ellison with an excellent assumption of indifference. "What's the story?"
"I'll give you his own tale on paper—let me have it back—and, mind you, every single word of it is Gospel truth. The man was a gentleman, an educated, thoughtful, sober chap, and as sane as you or I. I got to know him well—he was in hospital, with blood-poisoning from panther-bite, for a time—and we became friends. Actual friends, I mean. Used to play golf with him. (You remember the Duri Links.) In mufti, you'd never have dreamed for a moment that he was not a Major or a Colonel. Army life had not coarsened him in the slightest, and he kept some lounge-suits and mess-kit by Poole. Many a good Snob of my acquaintance has left my house under the impression that the Lawrence-Smith he had met there, and with whom he had been hail-fellow-well-met, was his social equal or superior.
"He simply was a refined and educated gentleman and that's all there is about it. Well—you'll read his statement—and, as you read, you may tell yourself that I am as convinced of its truth as I am of anything in this world…. He was dead when I got to him.
"The stains, on the backs of some of the sheets and on the front of the last one, are—blood stains…."
And at this point their host suggested the propriety of joining the ladies….
Colonel Jackson gave Mr. Ross-Ellison a "lift" in his powerful motor as far as his bungalow, entered, and a few minutes later emerged with a long and fat envelope.
"Here you are," said he. "I took it upon myself to annex the papers as I was his friend. Let's have 'em back. No need for me to regard them as 'private and confidential' so far as I can see, poor chap. Good-night."
Having achieved the haven of loose Pathan trousers and a muslin shirt (worn over them) in the privacy of his bed-room, Mr. Ross-Ellison, looking rather un-English, sat on a camp-cot (he never really liked chairs) and read, as follows, from a sheaf of neatly-written (and bloodstained) sheets of foolscap.
* * * * *
I have come to the point at which I decide to stop. I have had enough.
But I should like to ask one or two questions.
1. Why has a man no right to quit a world in which he no longer desires to live? 2. Why should Evil be allowed to triumph? 3. Why should people who cannot see spirit forms be so certain that such do not exist, when none but an ignorant fool argues, "I believe in what I can see"?
With regard to the first question I maintain that a man has a perfect right to "take" the life that was "given" him (without his own consent or desire), provided it is not an act of cowardice nor an evasion of just punishment or responsibility. I would add—provided also that he does not, in so doing, basely desert his duty, those who are in any way dependent on him, or those who really love him.
I detest that idiotic phrase "while of unsound mind". I am as sound in mind as any man living, but because I end an unbearable state of affairs, and take the only step I can think of as likely to give me peace—I shall be written down mad. Moreover should I fail—in my attempt to kill myself (which I shall not) I should be prosecuted as a criminal!
To me, albeit I have lived long under strict discipline and regard true discipline as the first essential of moral, physical, mental, and social training, to me it seems a gross and unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the individual—to deny him sufficient captaincy of his soul for him to be free to control it at the dictates of his conscience, and to keep it Here or to send it There as may seem best. Surely the implanted love of life and fear of death are sufficient safeguards without any legislation or insolent arrogant interference between a man and his own ego? Anyhow, such are my views, and in perfect soundness of mind and body, after mature reflection and with full confidence in my right so to do, I am about to end my life here.
As to the second question, "Why should Evil be allowed to triumph?" I confess that my mind cannot argue in a circle and say, "You are born full of Original Sin, and if you sin you are Damned"—a vicious circle drawn for me by the gloomy, haughty, insincere and rather unintelligent young gentleman whom I respectfully salute as Chaplain, and who regards me and every other non-commissioned soldier as a Common, if not Low, person.
He would not even answer my queries by means of the good old loop-hole, "It is useless to appeal to Reason if you cannot to Faith" and so beg the question. He said that things were because the Lord said they were, and that it was impious to doubt it. More impious was it, I gathered, to doubt him, and to allude to Criticisms he had never read.
His infallible "proof" was "It is in the Bible".
Possibly I shall shortly know why an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Impeccable Deity allows this world to be the Hell it is, even if there be no actual Hell for the souls of his errant Creatures (in spite of the statements of the Chaplain who appears to have exclusive information on the subject, inaccessible to laymen, and to rest peacefully assured of a Real Hell for the wicked,—nonconforming, and vulgar).
At present I cannot understand and I do not know—though I am informed and infused with a burning and reverent desire to understand and to know—why Evil should be allowed to triumph, as in my own case, as well as in those of millions of others, it does. And thirdly, why does the man who would never deny beauty in a poem or picture because he failed to see it while others did, deny that immaterial forms of the dead exist, because he has never seen one, though others have?
I know of so many many men who would blush to be called "I-believe-what-I-see men," who yet laugh to scorn the bare idea of the materialization and visualization of visitants from the spirit world, because they have never seen one. I have so often met the argument, "The ghost of a man I might conceive—but I can not conceive the appearance of the ghost of a pair of trousers or of a top-hat," offered as though it were unanswerable. Surely the spirit, aura, shade, ghost, soul, ego—what you will—can permeate and penetrate and pervade clothing and other matter as well as flesh?
Well, once again, I do not know,—and yet I have seen, not once but repeatedly, not by moonlight in a churchyard, but under the Indian sun on a parade-ground, the ghost of a man and of all his accoutrements,—of a rifle, of a horse and all a horse's trappings.
I have been a teetotaller for years, I have never had sunstroke and I am as absolutely sane as ever a man was.
And further I am in no sense remorseful, repentant, or "dogged by the spectre of an evil deed".
I killed Burker intentionally. Were he alive again I would kill him again. I punished him myself because the law could not punish him as he deserved, and I in no way regret or deplore my just and judicial action. There are deeds a gentleman must resent and punish—with the extreme penalty. No, it is in no sense a case of the self-tormented wretch driven mad by the awful hallucinations of his guilty, unhinged mind. I am no haunted murderer pursued by phantoms and illusions, believing himself always in the presence of his victim's ghost.
All people who have read anything, have read of the irresistible fascination that the scene of the murder has for the murderer, of the way in which the victim "haunts" the slayer, and of how the truth that "murder will out" is really based on the fact that the murderer is his own most dangerous accuser by reason of his life of terror, remorse, and terrible hallucination.
My case is in no wise parallel.
I am absolutely without fear, regret, remorse, repentance, dread or terror in the matter of my killing Sergeant Burker. Exactly how and why I killed him, and how and why I am about to kill myself, I will now set forth, without the slightest exaggeration, special pleading or any other deviation from the truth….
I am to my certain knowledge the eighth consecutive member of my family, in the direct line, to follow the profession of arms, but am the first to do so without bearing a commission. My father died young in the rank of Captain, my grandfather led his own regiment in the Crimea, my great-grandfather was a Lieutenant-General, and, if I told you my real name, you could probably state something that he did at Waterloo.
I went to Sandhurst and I was expelled from Sandhurst—very rightly and justly—for an offence, or rather the culminating offence of a series of offences, that were everything but mean, dishonest or underhand. I was wild, hasty, undisciplined and I was lost for want of a father to thrash me as a boy, and by possession of a most loving and devoted mother who worshipped, spoiled—and ruined me.
I enlisted under an assumed name in my late father's (and grandfather's) old Regiment of Foot and quickly rose to the rank of Sergeant-Major.
I might have had a commission in South Africa but I decided that I preferred ruling in hell to serving in heaven, and declined to be a grey-haired Lieutenant and a nuisance to the Officers' Mess of the Corps I would not leave until compelled.
In time I was compelled and I became Sergeant-Major of the Volunteer
Rifle Corps here and husband of a—well—de mortuis nil nisi bonum.
Why I married I don't know.
The English girl of the class from which soldiers are drawn never attracted me in the very least, and I simply could not have married one, though a paragon of virtue and compendium of housewifely qualities.
Admirable and pretty as Miss Higgs, Miss Bloggs, or Miss Muggins might be, my youthful training prevented my seeing beyond her fringe, finger-nails, figure, and aspirates, to her solid excellences;—and from sergeants'-dances I returned quite heart-whole and still unplighted to the Colonel's cook. But Dolores De Souza was different.
There was absolutely nothing to offend the most fastidious taste in her speech, appearance, or manners. She was convent-bred, accomplished, refined, gentle, worthless and wicked. The good Sisters of the Society of the Broken Heart had polished the exterior of the Eurasian orphan very highly—but the polish was a thin veneer on very cheap and unseasoned wood.
It is a strange fact that, while I could respect the solid virtues of the aspirateless Misses Higgs, Bloggs or Muggins, I could never have married one of them; yet, while I knew Dolores to be a heartless flirt, and more than suspected her to be of most unrigid principle, I was infatuated with her dark beauty, her grace, her wiles and witchery—and asked her to become my wife.
The good Sisters of the Society of the Broken Heart had taught Dolores to sing beautifully, to play upon the piano and the guitar, to embroider, to paint mauve roses on pink tambourines and many other useful arts, graces and accomplishments—but they had not taught her practical morality nor anything of cooking, marketing, plain sewing, house-cleaning or anything else of house-keeping. However, having been bred as I had been bred, I could take the form and let the substance go, accept the shapely husks and shout not for the grain, and prefer a pretty song, and a rose in black hair over a shell-like ear, to a square meal. I fear the average Sergeant-Major would have beaten Dolores within a week of matrimony, but I strove to make loss, discomfort, and disappointment a discipline,—and music, silk dresses and daintiness an aesthetic re-training to a barrack-blunted mind.
In justice to Dolores I should make it clear that she was not of the slatternly, dirty, lazy, half-breed type that pigs in a peignoir from twelve to twelve and snores again from midnight to midday. She was trim and dainty, used good perfume or none, rose early and went in the garden, loathed cheap and showy trash whether in dress, jewellery, or furniture; and was incapable of wearing fine shoes over holey stockings or a silk gown over dirty linen. No—there was nothing to offend the fastidious about Dolores, but there was everything to offend the good house-keeper and the moralist.
Frequently she would provide no dinner in order that we might be compelled to dine in public at a restaurant or a hotel, a thing she loved to do, and she would often send out for costly sweets and pastry, drink champagne (very moderately, I admit), and generally behave as though she were the wife of a man of means.
And she was an arrant, incorrigible, shameless flirt.
Well—I do not know that a virtuous vulgar dowd is preferable to a wicked winsome witch of refined habits and person, and I should probably have gone quietly on to bankruptcy without any row or rupture, but for Burker. Having been bred in a "gentle" home I naturally took the attitude of "as you please, my dear Dolores" and refrained from bullying when quiet indication of the inevitable end completely failed. Whether she intended to act in a reasonable manner and show some wifely traits when my £250 of legacy and savings was quite dissipated I do not know. Burker came before that consummation.
A number of gentlemen joined the Duri Volunteer Corps and formed a Mounted Infantry troop, and, though I am a good horseman, I was not competent to train the troop, as I had never enjoyed any experience of mounted military work of any kind. So Sergeant Burker, late of the 54th Lancers, was transferred to Duri as Instructor of the Mounted Infantry Troop. Naturally I did what I could to make him comfortable and, till his bungalow was furnished after a fashion, gave him our spare room.
Sergeant Barker was the ideal Cavalryman and the ideal breaker of hearts,—hearts of the Mary-Ann and Eliza-Jane order.
He was a black-haired, blue-eyed Irishman with a heart as black as his hair, and language as blue as his eye—a handsome, plausible, selfish, wicked devil with scarcely a virtue but pride and high courage. I disliked him at first sight, and Dolores fell in love with him equally quickly, I am sure.
I don't think he had a solitary gentlemanly instinct.
Being desirous of learning Mounted Infantry work, I attended all his drills, riding as troop-leader, and, between close attention to him and close study of the drill-book, did not let the gentlemen in the ranks know that, in the beginning, I knew as little about it as they did.
And an uncommonly good troop he soon made of it, too.
Of course it was excellent material, all good riders and good shots, and well horsed.
Burker and I were mounted by the R.H.A. Battery here, and the three drills we held, weekly, were seasons of delight to a horse-lover like myself.
Now the horse I had was a high-spirited, powerful animal, and he possessed the trait, very common among horses, of hating to be pressed behind the saddle. Turning to look behind while "sitting-easy" one day I rested my right hand on his back behind the saddle and he immediately lashed out furiously with both hind legs. I did not realize for the moment what was upsetting him—but quickly discovered that I had only to press his back to send his hoofs out like stones from a sling. I then remembered other similar cases and that I had also read of this curious fact about horses—something to do with pressure on the kidneys I believe.
One day Burker was unexpectedly absent and I took the drill, finding myself quite competent and au fait.
The same evening I went to my wife's wardrobe, she being out, to try and find the keys of the sideboard. I knew they frequently reposed in the pocket of her dressing-gown.
In the said pocket they were—and so was a letter in the crude large handwriting of Sergeant Burker.
I did not read it, but I did not see the necessity of a correspondence between my wife and such a man as I knew Sergeant Burker to be. They met often enough, in all conscience, to say what they might have to say to each other.
At dinner I remarked casually: "I shouldn't enter into a correspondence with Burker if I were you, Dolly. His reputation isn't over savoury and—" but, before I could say more, my wife was literally screaming with rage, calling me "Spy," "Liar," "Coward," and demanding to know what I insinuated and of what I accused her. I replied that I had accused her of nothing at all, and merely offered advice in the matter of correspondence with Burker. I explained how I had come to find the letter and stated that I had not read it.
"Then how do you know that we—" she began, and suddenly stopped.
"That you—what?" I inquired.
"Nothing," she said.
At the next Sergeants' Dance at the Institute I did not like Burker's manner to my wife at all. It was—well, amorous, and tinged with a shade of proprietorship. I distinctly heard him call her "Dolly," and equally distinctly saw an expressively affectionate look in her eyes as he hugged her in the waltzes—whereof they indulged in no less than five.
My position was awkward and unpleasant. I loathe a row or a scene unspeakably—though I delight in fighting when that pastime is legitimate—and I was brought into daily contact with the ruffian and I disliked him intensely.
I was very averse from the course of forbidding him the house and thus insulting my wife by implication—since she obviously enjoyed his society—and descending to pit myself against the greasy cad in a struggle for a woman's favour, and that woman my own wife. Nor could I conscientiously take the line of, "If she desires to go to the Devil let her," for a man has as much responsibility for his wife as for his children, and it is equally his duty to guide and control her and them. Women may vote and may legislate for men—but on men they will ever depend and rely.
No, the position of carping, jealous husband was one that I could not fill, and I determined to say nothing, do nothing and be watchful—watchful, that is, to avoid exposing her to temptation. I did my best, but I was away from home a good deal, visiting the out-station detachments of the Corps.
Then, one day, the wretched creature I called "butler" came to me with an air of great mystery and said: "Sahib, Sergeant Burker Sahib sending Mem Sahib bundle of flowers and chitti[53] inside and diamond ring yesterday. His boy telling me and I seeing. He often coming here too when Sahib out. Both wicked peoples."
[53] Note.
I raised my hand to knock his lies down his throat—and dropped it. They were not lies, I knew, and the fellow had been faithful to me for many years and—the folly of childish human vanity—I felt he knew I was a "gentleman," and I liked him for it.
I paid him his wages then and there, gave him a present and a good testimonial and discharged him. He wept real tears and shook with sobs of grief—easy grief, but very genuine.
When Dolores came home from the Bandstand I said quietly: "Show me the jewellery Burker sent you, Dolly. I am very much in earnest, so don't bluster."
She seemed about to faint and looked very frightened—perhaps my face was more expressive than a gentleman's should be.
"It was only a little thing for my birthday," she whined. "Can't I keep it? Don't be a tyrant or a fool."
"Your next birthday or your last?" I asked. "Please get it at once.
We'll settle matters quietly and finally."
I fear the poor girl had visions of the doorstep and a closed door. Two, perhaps, for I am sure Burker would not have taken her in if I had turned her out, and she may have thought the same.
It was a diamond ring, and the scoundrel must have given a couple of months' pay for it—if he had paid for it at all. I thrust aside the sudden conviction that Burker's own taste could not have been responsible for its choice and that it was selected by my wife.
"Why should he give you this, Dolores?" I asked. "Will you tell me or must I go to him?" And then she burst into tears and flung herself at my feet, begging for mercy.
Mercy!
Qui s'excuse s'accuse.
What should I do?
To cast her out was to murder her soul quickly and her body slowly, and
I could foresee her career with prophetic eye and painful clearness.
And what could the Law do for me?
Publish our shame and perhaps brand me that wretched thing—the willingly deceived and complaisant husband.
What could I do by challenging Burker?
He was a champion man-at-arms, a fine boxer, and a younger, stronger man, I should merely experience humiliation and defeat. What could I do?
If I said, "Go and live with your Burker," I should be committing a bigger crime than hers, for if he did take her in, it would not be for long.
I sat the night through, pondered the question carefully, looked at it from all points of view and—decided that Burker must die. Also that he must not drag me to jail or the scaffold as he went to his doom. If I shot him and was punished, Dolores would become a—well, as I have said, her soul would die quickly and her body slowly. I had married Dolores and I must do what lay in my power to protect Dolores. But I simply could not kill the hound in some stealthy secret manner and wait for the footsteps of warrant-armed police for the rest of my life.
What could I do? Or rather—for the question had narrowed to that—how could I kill him?
And as the sun struck upon my eyes at dawn, an idea struck upon my mind.
I would leave it to Fate and if Fate willed it so, Burker should die.
If Burker stood behind my charger, Fate sat with down-turned thumb.
I would not seek the opportunity—but, by God, I would take it if it offered.
If it did not, I would go to Burker and say to him quietly: "Burker, you must leave this station at once and never see or communicate with my wife in any way. Otherwise I have to kill you, Burker—to execute you, you understand." …
A native syce from the Artillery lines led my charger into the little compound of my tiny bungalow.
Having buckled on my belt I went out, patted him, and gave him a lump of sugar. He nuzzled me for more, and, as he did so, I placed my hand on his back, behind the saddle, and pressed. He lashed out wildly.
I then trotted across the maidan[54] to the Volunteer Headquarters and parade-ground.
[54] Plain; level tract of ground.
Several gentlemen of the Mounted Infantry were waiting about, some standing by their horses, some getting bandoliers, belts, and rifles, some cantering their horses round the ground.
Sergeant Burker strode out of the Orderly Boom.
"Morning, Smith," said he. "How's the Missus?"
I looked him in the eye and made no reply.
He laughed, as jeering, evil, and caddish a laugh as I have ever heard. I almost forgot my purpose and had actually turned toward the armoury for a rifle and cartridge when I remembered and controlled my rage.
If I shot him, then and there, I must go to the scaffold or to jail forthwith, and Dolores must inevitably go to a worse fate. Had I been sure that she could have kept straight, Burker would have been shot, then and there.
"Fall in," he shouted, but did not mount his horse.
The gentlemen assembled with their horses and faced him in line, dismounted, I in front of the centre of the troop. How clearly I can see every feature and detail of that morning's scene, and hear every word and sound.
"Tell off by sections," commanded Burker.
"One, two, three, four—one, two, three, four…."
There were exactly six sections.
"Flanks of sections, proof."
"Section leaders, proof."
"Centre man, proof."
"Prepare to mount."
"Mount."
"Sections right."
"Sections left."
The last two words were the last words Burker ever spoke. Passing on foot along the line of mounted men, to inspect saddlery, accoutrements, and the adjustment of rifle-buckets and slings, he halted immediately behind me, where I sat on my charger in front of the centre of the troop.
I could not have placed him more exactly with my own hands. Fate sat with down-pointing thumb.
Turning round, as though to look at the troop, I rested my hand on my horse's back—just behind the saddle—and pressed hard. He lashed out with both hoofs and Sergeant Burker dropped—and never moved again.
The base of his skull was smashed like an egg, and his back was broken like a dry stick….
The terrible accident roused wide sympathy with the unfortunate man, the local reporter used all his adjectives, and a military funeral was given to the soldier who had died in the execution of his duty.
On reaching home, after satisfying myself at the Station Hospital that the man was dead, I said to my poor, pale and red-eyed wife:—
"Dolores, Sergeant Burker met with an accident this morning on parade.
He is dead. Let us never refer to him again."
She fainted.
I spent that night also in meditation, questioning myself and examining my soul—with every honest endeavour to be not a self-deceiver.
I came to the conclusion that I had acted rightly and in the only way in which a gentleman could act. I had snatched Dolores from his foul clutches, I had punished him without depriving Dolores of my protection, and I had avenged the stain on my honour.
"You have committed a treacherous cowardly murder," whispered the Fiend in my ear.
"You are a liar," I replied. "I did not fear the man and I took this course solely on account of Dolores. I was strong enough to accept this position—and to risk the accusation of murder, from my conscience, from the Devil, or from man."
Any doubt I might otherwise have had was forestalled and inhibited by the obvious Fate that placed Burker in the one spot favourable to my scheme of punishment.
God had willed it?
God had not prevented it.
Surely God was consenting unto it….
And Dolores? I would forgive her and offer her the choice of remaining with me or leaving me and receiving a half of my income and possessions—both alternatives being contingent upon good conduct.
At dawn I prepared tea for her, and entered our bedroom. Dolores had wound a towel round her neck, twisted the ends tightly—and suffocated herself.
She had been dead for hours….
At the police inquiry, held the same day, I duly lied as to the virtues of the "deceased," and the utter impossibility of assigning any reason for the rash and deplorable act. The usual smug stereotyped verdict was pronounced, and, in addition to expressing their belief that the suicide was committed "while of unsound mind," the officials expressed much sympathy with the bereaved husband.
Dolores was buried that evening and I returned to an empty house.
I believe opinion had been divided as to whether I was callous or "stunned"—but the sight of her little shoes caused pains in my throat and eyes. Had Burker been then alive I would have killed him with my hands—and teeth. Yes, teeth.
I spent that night in packing every possession and trace of Dolores into her boxes, and then in trying to persuade myself that I should have acted differently.
I could not do so. I had acted for the best—so let God who gave me free-will, intelligence, conscience and opportunity, approve the deed or take the blame.
And let God remember how that opportunity came so convincingly—so impellingly—and if He would judge me and ask for my defence I would ask him who sent Burker here, and who placed him on that fatal spot?
Does God sit only in judgment?
Does God calmly watch His creatures walking blindfold to the Pit—struggling to tear away the bandage as they walk? Can He only judge, and can He never help?
"Pray?"
Is God a petty-minded "jealous" God to be propitiated like the gods of the heathen?
Must we continually ask, or, not asking, not receive?
And if we know not to ask aright and to demand the best and highest?
Cannot the well-fed, well-read, well-paid Chaplain give advice?
"God knoweth best. Ask unceasingly. Pray always."
Why?—if. He knows best, is All Merciful, All Powerful?
"Praise?"
Is God a child, a savage, a woman? Shall I offer adulation that would sicken me.
"God is our Father which art in heaven."
Would I have my son praise me to my face continually—or at all. Would I compel him to pester me with demands for what he desired,—good, bad and indifferent?
And would I give him what he asked regardless of what was best for him—or say, "If you ask not, you receive not?" Give me a God finer and greater and juster and nobler than myself—something higher than the Chaplain's jealous, capricious, inconsequent and illogical God. Anthropomorphism!
Is there a God at all?
I shall soon know.
If so—
Oh Thou, who man of baser earth didst make
And ev'n with Paradise devised the Snake,
For all the Sin the face of wretched man
Is black with—Man's forgiveness give—and take!
At dawn I said aloud:—
"This Chapter is closed. The story of Burker and Dolores is written. I may now strive to forget."
I was wrong.
Major Jackson of the R.A.M.C. came to see me soon after daylight. He gave me an opiate and I slept all that day and night. I went on parade next morning, fresh, calm, and cool—and saw Burker riding toward the group of gentlemen who were awaiting the signal to "fall in".
I say I was fresh, calm, and cool.
I was.
And there was Burker—looking exactly as in life, save for a slight nebulosity, a very faint vagueness of outline, and a hint of transparency.
I had been instructed by the Adjutant to assume the post of Instructor (as the end of the Mounted Infantry drill season was near)—and I blew the "rally" on my whistle as many of the gentlemen were riding about, and shouted the command: "Fall in".
Twenty living men and one dead faced me, twenty dismounted and one mounted. I called the corporal in charge of the armoury.
"How many on parade?" I asked.
He looked puzzled, counted, and said:—
"Why—twenty, ain't there?"
I numbered the troop.
Twenty—and Burker.
"Tell off by sections."
Five sections—and Burker.
"Sections right."
A column of five sections—and Burker, in the rear.
I called out the section-leader of Number One section.
"Are the sections correctly proved?" I asked, and added: "Put the troop back in line and tell-off again".
"Five sections, correct," he reported.
I held that drill, with five sections of living men, and a single file of dead, who manoeuvred to my word.
When I gave the order "With Numbers Three for action dismount," or "Right-hand men, for action dismount," Burker remained mounted. When I dismounted the whole troop, Burker remained mounted. Otherwise he drilled precisely as Number Twenty-one would have drilled in a troop of twenty-one men.
Was I frightened? I do not know.
At first my heart certainly pounded as though it would leap from my body, and I felt dazed, lost, and shocked.
I think I was frightened—not of Burker so much as of the unfamiliar, the unknown, the impossible.
How would you feel if your piano suddenly began to play of itself? You would be alarmed and afraid probably, not frightened of the piano, but of the fact.
A door could not frighten you—but you would surely be alarmed at its persistently opening, each time you shut, locked, and bolted it, if it acted thus.
Of Burker I had no fear—but I was perturbed by the fact that the dead could ride with the living.
When I gave the order "Dismiss" at the end of the parade Burker rode away, as he had always done, in the direction of his bungalow.
Returning to my lonely house, I sat me down and pondered this appalling event that had come like a torrent, sweeping away familiar landmarks of experience, idea, and belief. I was conscious of a dull anger against Burker and then against God.
Why should He allow Burker to haunt me?…
Why should Evil triumph?…
Was I haunted? Or was it, after all, but a hallucination—due to grief, trouble, and the drug of the opiate?
I sat and brooded until I thought I could hear the voices of Burker and
Dolores in converse.
This I knew to be hallucination, pure and simple, and I went to see my friend (if he will let me call him what he is in the truest and highest sense) Major Jackson of the R.A.M.C.
He took me for a long ride, kept me to dinner, and manufactured a job for me—a piece of work that would occupy and tire me.
He assured me that the Burker affair was pure hallucination and staked his professional reputation that the image of Burker came upon my retina from within and not from without. "The shock of the deaths of your wife and your friend on consecutive days has unhinged you, and very naturally so," he said.
Of course I did not tell him that I had killed Burker, though I should have liked to do so. I felt I had no right to put him in the position of having to choose between denouncing me and condoning a murder—compounding a felony.
Nor did I see any reason for confessing to the Police what I had done (even though Dolores was dead) and finishing my career on the scaffold.
One owes something to one's ancestors as well as to oneself. Well, perhaps it was a hallucination. I would wait.
At the next drill Burker was present and rode as Number Three in Section
Six.
As there were twenty-three (living) on parade I ordered Number Twenty-three to ride as Number Four of his section and leave a blank file.
Burker rode in that blank file and drilled so, throughout—save that he would not dismount.
Once, as the troop rode in column of sections, I fell to the rear and, coming up behind, struck with all my might at that slightly nebulous figure, with its faint vagueness of outline and hint of transparency.
My heavy cutting-whip whistled—and touched nothing. I was as one who beats the air. Section Six must have thought me mad…. Twice again the dead man drilled with the living, and each time I described what happened to Major Jackson.
"It is a persistent hallucination," said he; "you must go on leave."
"I won't run from Burker, nor from a hallucination," I replied.
Then came the end.
At the next drill, twenty-one gentlemen were present and Number Twenty-one, the Sessions Judge of Duri, a Scot, kept staring with looks of amazement and alarm at Burker, who rode as Number Four on his flank, making an odd file into a skeleton section. I was certain that he saw Burker.
As the gentlemen "dismissed" after parade, the Judge rode up to me and, with a white face, demanded:—
"Who the devil was that rode with me as Number Twenty-four? It was—it was—like—Sergeant Burker."
"It was Sergeant Burker, Sir," said I.
"I knew it was," he replied, and added: "Man, you and I are fey."
"Will you tell Major Jackson of this, Sir?" I begged. "He knows I have seen Burker's ghost here before, and tells me it is a hallucination."
"I'll go and see him now." he replied. "He is an old friend of mine, and—he's a damned good doctor. Man—you and I are fey." He rode to where his trap, with its spirited cob, was awaiting him, dismounted and drove off.
As everybody knows, Mr. Blake of the Indian Civil Service, Sessions Judge of Duri, was thrown from his trap and killed. It happened five minutes after he had said to me, with a queer look in his eyes, and a queer note in his voice, "Man! you and I are fey"…. So it is no hallucination and I am haunted by Burker's ghost. Very good. I will fight Burker on his own ground.
My ghost shall haunt Burker's ghost—or I shall be at peace.
Though the religion of the Chaplain has failed me, the religion of my Mother, taught to me at her knee, has implanted in me an ineradicable belief in the ultimate justice of things, and the unquenchable hope of "somehow good".
I am about to go before my Maker or to obliteration and oblivion. If the former, I am prepared to say to Him: "You made me a man. I have played the man. I look to you for justice, and that is—compensation and not 'forgiveness'. Much less is it punishment. You have treated me ill and given me no help. You have bestowed free-will without free-dom. Compensate me or know Yourself unjust."
To a servant or child who spoke so to me and with equal reason, I would reply:—
"Compensation is due to you and not 'forgiveness'—much less punishment," and I would act accordingly…. Why should I cringe to God—and why should He love a cringer more than I do?
God help Men and Women—and such Children as are doomed to grow up to be
Men and Women.
As I finish this sentence I shall put my revolver in my mouth and seek
Justice or Peace….
* * * * *
"Bad luck," murmured Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison, "that was the man of all men for me! A gentleman, wishful to die…. That is the sort that does things when swords are out and bullets fly. Seeks a gory grave and gets a V.C. instead. He and Mike Malet-Marsac and I would have put a polish on the new Gungapur Fusiliers…. Rough luck…."
He was greatly disappointed, for his experiences in the bazaars, market-places, secret-meeting houses, and the bowers of Hearts' Delights,—the Rialtos of Gungapur (he disguised, now as an Afghan horse-dealer, now as a sepoy, now as a Pathan money-lender, again as a gold-braided, velvet waistcoated, swaggering swashbuckler from the Border)—his experiences were disquieting, were such as to make him push on preparations, perfect plans, and work feverishly at the "polishing" of his re-organized Corps.
Also the reports of his familiar, a Somali yclept Moussa Isa, were disquieting, disturbing to a lover of the Empire who foresaw the Empire at war in Europe.
Moussa Isa also knew that there was talk among Pathan horse-dealers and budmashes of the coming of one Ilderim the Weeper, a mullah of great influence and renown, and talk, moreover, among men of other race, of a Great Conspiracy.
Moussa was bidden to take service as a mill-coolie in one of Colonel Dearman's mills, and to report on the views and attitude of the thousands who laboured therein. This he did and there learnt many interesting facts.