By the extension of the Brahmaputra Valley line to meet the newly-developed China Midland, the Calais railway ticket held good via Karachi and Calcutta to Hongkong. The round trip could be managed in a fraction over forty-seven days, and, filled with fatal exultation, John Hay told the secret of his longevity to his only friend, the house-keeper of his rooms in London. He spoke and passed; but the woman was one of resource, and immediately took counsel with the lawyers who had first informed John Hay of his golden legacy. Very many sovereigns still remained, and another Hay longed to spend them on things more sensible than railway tickets and steamer accommodation.
The chase was long, for when a man is journeying literally for the dear
life, he does not tarry upon the road. Round the world Hay swept anew,
and overtook the wearied Doctor, who had been sent out to look for him,
in Madras. It was there that he found the reward of his toil and the
assurance of a blessed immortality. In half an hour the Doctor, watching
always the parched lips, the shaking hands, and the eye that turned
eternally to the east, won John Hay to rest in a little house close to
the Madras surf. All that Hay need do was to hang by ropes from the roof
of the room and let the round earth swing free beneath him. This was
better than steamer or train, for he gained a day in a day, and was
thus the equal of the undying sun. The other Hay would pay his expenses
throughout eternity.
It is true that we cannot yet take tickets from Calais to Hongkong,
though that will come about in fifteen years; but men say that if you
wander along the southern coast of India you shall find in a neatly
whitewashed little bungalow, sitting in a chair swung from the
roof, over a sheet of thin steel which he knows so well destroys the
attraction of the earth, an old and worn man who for ever faces the
rising sun, a stop-watch in his hand, racing against eternity. He cannot
drink, he does not smoke, and his living expenses amount to perhaps
twenty-five rupees a month, but he is John Hay, the Immortal. Without,
he hears the thunder of the wheeling world with which he is careful to
explain he has no connection whatever; but if you say that it is only
the noise of the surf, he will cry bitterly, for the shadow on his brain
is passing away as the brain ceases to work, and he doubts sometimes
whether the doctor spoke the truth.
‘Why does not the sun always remain over my head?’ asks John Hay.
THROUGH THE FIRE
[Footnote: Copyright, 1891, by MACMILLAN & Co.]
The Policeman rode through the Himalayan forest, under the moss-draped oaks, and his orderly trotted after him.
‘It’s an ugly business, Bhere Singh,’ said the Policeman. ‘Where are they?’
‘It is a very ugly business,’ said Bhere Singh; ‘and as for THEM, they are, doubtless, now frying in a hotter fire than was ever made of spruce-branches.’
‘Let us hope not,’ said the Policeman, ‘for, allowing for the difference between race and race, it’s the story of Francesca da Rimini, Bhere Singh.’