No. II.—BURRA MURRA BOKO.
(By KIPPIERD HERRING, Author of "Soldiers' Tea," "Over the Darodees," "Handsome Heads on the Valets," "More Black than White," "Experimental Dittos," &c., &c.)
[NOTE.—The MS. of this story arrived from India by pneumatic despatch, a few puffs having been apparently sufficient. In a letter which was enclosed with it the author modestly apologises for its innumerable merits. "But," he adds, "I have several hundred of the same sort in stock, and can supply them at a moment's notice. Kindly send £1000 in Bank of England notes, by registered letter, to K. HERRING. No farther address will be required.">[
Polla dan anta cat anta. What will you have, Sahib? My heart is made fat, and my eyes run with the water of joy. Kni vestog rind. Scis sorstog rind, the Sahib is as a brother to the needy, and the afflicted at the sound of his voice become as a warming-pan in a fôr postah. Ahoo! Ahoo! I have lied unto the Sahib. Mi ais an dlims, I am a servant of sin. Burra Murra Boko! Burra Murra Boko!
There came a sound in the night as of an elephant-herd trumpeting in anger, and my liver was dissolved, and the heart within me became as a Patoph But'ah under the noon-day sun. I made haste, for there was fear in the air, Sahib, and the Pleez Mahn that walketh by night was upon me. But, oh, Sahib, the cunning of the serpent was with me, and as he passed I tripped him up, and the raging river received him. Twice he rose, and the gleam of his eyes spake in vain for help. And at last there came a bubble where the man had been, and he was seen no more. Burra Murra Boko! Burra Murra Boko!
That night I spake unto her as she stood in the moonlight. "Oh, sister of an oil-jar, and daughter of pig-troughs, what is it thou hast done?" And she, laughing, spake naught in reply, but gave me the Tcheke Slahp of her tribe, and her fingers fell upon my face, and my teeth rattled within my mouth. But I, for my blood was made hot within me, sped swiftly from her, making no halt, and the noise of fifty thousand devils was in my ears, and the rage of the Smâk duns burnt fierce within the breast of me, and my tongue was as a fresh fig that grows upon a southern wall. Auggrh! pass me the peg, for my mouth is dry. Burra Murra Boko! Burra Murra Boko! Then came the Yunkum Sahib, and the Bunkum Sahib, and they spake awhile together. But I, like unto a Brerra-bit, lay low, and my breath came softly, and they knew not that I watched them as they spake. And they joked much together, and told each to the other how that the wives of their friends were to them as mice in the sight of the crouching Tabbikat, and that the honour of a man was as sand, that is blown afar by the storm-wind of the desert, which maketh blind the faithful, and stoppeth their mouths. Such are all of them, Sahib, since I that speak unto you know them for what they are, and thus I set forth the tale that all men may read, and understand. Burra Murra Boko! Burra Murra Boko!
'"Twas the most ondacint bedivilmint ever I set eyes on, Sorr. There was I, blandandhering widout"—
"Pardon me," I said, "this is rather puzzling. A moment back you were a Mahajun of Puli, in Marwur, or a Delhi Pathan, or a Wali Dad, or something of that sort, and now you seem to have turned into an Irishman. Can you tell me how it is done?"
"Whist, ye oncivilised, backslidhering pagin!" said my friend, Private O'RAMMIS, for it was indeed he. "Hould on there till I've tould ye. Fwhat was I sayin'? Eyah, eyah, them was the bhoys for the dhrink. When the sun kem out wid a blink in his oi, an' the belly-band av his new shoot tied round him, there was PORTERS and ATHUS lyin' mixed up wid the brandy-kegs, and the houl of the rigimint tearin' round like all the divils from hell bruk loose.
"Thin I knew there'd be thrubble, for ye must know, Sorr, there was a little orf'cer bhoy cryin' as tho' his little heart was breakin', an' the Colonel's wife's sister, wid her minowderin' voice—"
"Look here, O'RAMMIS," I said, "I don't like to stop you; but isn't it just a trifle rash—I mean," I added hastily, for I saw him fingering his bayonet, "is it quite as wise as it might be to use up all your materials at once? Besides, I seem to have met that little Orf'cer bhoy and the Colonel's wife's sister before. I merely mention it as a friend."
"You let 'im go, Sir," put in PORTERS, with his cockney accent. "Lor, Sir, TERENCE knows bloomin' well wot 'e's torkin' about, an' wen 'e's got a story to tell you know there ain't one o' us wot'll get a bloomin' word in; or leastways, Hi carn't."
"Sitha," added JOCK ATHUS. "I never gotten but one story told mysen, and he joomped down my throaat for that. Let un taalk, Sir, let un taalk."
"Very well," I said, producing one of the half-dozen bottles of champagne that I always carried in my coat-tail pockets whenever I went up to the Barracks to visit my friend O'RAMMIS, "very well. Fire away, TERENCE, and let us have your story."
"I'm an ould fool," continued O'RAMMIS, in a convinced tone. "But ye know, JOCK, how 'twas. I misremember fwhat I said to her, but she never stirred, and only luked at me wid her melancolious ois, and wid that my arm was round her waist, for bedad, it was pretty, she was under the moon in the ould barrick square. 'Hould on there,' she says, 'ye boiled thief of Deuteronomy. D'ye think I've kem here to be philandhering afther you. I'd make a better man than you out av empty kyartridges and putty.' Wid that she turned on her heel, and was for marching away. But I was at her soide agin before she'd got her left fut on the beat. 'That's quare,' thinks I to myself; 'but, TERENCE, me bhoy, 'tis you know the thricks av the women. Shoulder arrums,' I thinks, 'and let fly wid the back sight.' Wid that I just squeezed her hand wid the most dellikit av all squeezings, and, sez I, 'MARY, me darlint,' I sez, 'ye're not vexed wid TERENCE, I know;' but you never can tell the way av a woman, for before the words was over the tongue av me, the bhoys kem raging an' ramshackling—"
"Really, O'RAMMIS," I ventured to observe, for I noticed that he and his two friends had pulled all the other five bottles out of my pocket, and had finished them, "I'm a little disappointed with you to-day. I came out here for a little quiet blood-and-thunder before going to bed, and you are mixing up your stories like the regimental laundress's soapsuds. It's not right of you. Now, honestly, is it?"
But the Three Musketeers had vanished. Perhaps they may reappear, bound in blue-grey on the railway bookstalls. Perhaps not. And the worst of it is, that the Colonel will never understand them, and the gentlemen who write articles will never understand them. There is only one man who knows all about them, and even he is sometimes what my friend O'RAMMIS calls "a blandandhering, philandhering, misundherstandhering civilian man."
Which his name is KIPPIERD HERRING. And that is perfectly true.
SO MUCH FOR KNOTTING'EM.—The Dean of Rochester to be henceforth known as The Dean of Knotting'em. His new motto,—
"Whack a 'Shack'
Smack on his back."
Perhaps the Dean would then like to make a Moslem of the lolloping do-nothing offender, and call him "Shackaback."
WAITING FOR THE EXPRESS. (NOUS AVONS CHANGÉ TOUT CELA.)
FIRST-CLASS PASSENGERS:—SIR GORGIUS MIDAS, LADY MIDAS, AND GORGIUS MIDAS, ESQ., JUNR.
SECOND-CLASS DITTO:—BUTLERS, FOOTMEN, GROOMS, MAIDS, &C, OF THE HOUSE OF MIDAS.
THIRD-CLASS DITTO:—THE HON. AND REV. JAMES AND LADY SUSAN DE VERE, GENERAL SIR JOHN AND LADY HAUTCASTLE, F. MADDER LAKE, ESQ., R.A., AND DAUGHTERS, PROFESSOR PARALLAX, F.R.S., &C., &C., &C.