Part 4

The figure moves forward noiselessly out of the shadow. Ah! One knows him now! This is he whom most she dreads; he who, not husband, nor lover accepted, pursues her with vows, with threats, with all that there is of jealous passion; to whom, despite of fear, repulsion, dread, some mysterious tie binds her. _Le petit_ gazes--so he is there, that ogre, ah! And certainly he knows, that monster, of the expected visitor--he has read it in the passion of her eyes, upon her dumb but parted lips.

It is destiny--so much the better; once for all we will end all this.

The figure creeps forward, with raised hand clenched.

_Le petit_ steps in from the balcony.

‘’Léna,’ he says, and with his finger points.

She rises at the sound of his voice, and turning sees; then with a little cry of terror she comes to his arms for protection. That was like her. Afterwards, when _le petit_ wanted those white arms that hung around his neck--wanted them sorely in his sick estate, nigh unto death,--did she bring them then? Bah! All women are alike! and yet not all--not all.

Is that a devil that rages before one, foaming at the mouth?--Ah! no, only Juan Costello, a very evil-looking person!

‘My compliments to you, Monsieur, but this lady and myself wish to talk _affaires_; will Monsieur have the kindness to withdraw?’

Truly he is _canaille_, with his villainous tongue and his villainous eyes--also he makes a great noise, until they come and take him away; altogether it is a very stupid and common affair, pah!--Well, well, it is a long time ago, and a little noise more or less doesn’t matter to me now.

Also _le petit_ goes forth; and there is rage--a bitter, black rage--in his heart.

How slowly wing the hours away till the morning light--those hours of disappointment and burning hate. That dog! One will kill him with the first light.--The little bay near Cabbé Roquebrune--that little bay that recalls so greatly the far-away lagoons of the blessed South Seas.

Too good a resting-place for such a hound--far too good--yet it will serve.

Up and down, up and down, never still through the long night hours, head awhirl, eyes aflame. Bad training, my child, for the morning’s meeting.

Who cares? It is fate--his death at my hands is written in those stars that shine so steadily, so inexorably, above, in that dome of destiny.

Ah! There it is at last, that streak of light--omen of wrath and blood, dull, and red, and angry streak. ‘_Tant mieux!_’ Certainly there will be sport.

At last the little bay--and at the water’s edge the little tideless waves are whispering joyfully, and they are as glad as _le petit_, for this is a scene they love.

There he comes! he is glad, too--good--everything goes well.

‘You know these things, my friend; tell me where shall I hit him to kill?’

‘I reckon you’re a kind of a spitfire. Take the cuss under the arm, as he stands sideways, and keep your own elbow low.’

Ah! My friend, thou art an artist, and valued as such, but, when the blood surges and sings in the head, words count for little.

So I can see his hated face glaring at me above his pistol, the flames from our eyes are meeting. Ah, me! goodness and strength are gone out of me with that glance--pity to spend so much good hatred on a cur like that.

Yet ’tis not for long! and now ... ’tis all over, and they are carrying _le petit_ back from the regretful waters. And some time--when was it? who knows?--he drags himself to sea again, and the page is closed. And what of the other, that hound? And of her? Again, who knows?--Ah, yes, I have still the pain of that wound, but not greatly.

Well! well! a long time ago,--and it was but a page. Come, turn over.

Nay, not even the strength for that; thou hast had thy dose of life for the day, and the barrel-organ is gone, and thou art tired, and the fire is low, and the cigarette--pouf--it is but ashes.

‘TALLY HO’--BUDMASH

‘As the egg, so the chicken.’

--Free translation of a native proverb.

Two figures stood on the edge of the stream of traffic which flows unceasingly along Piccadilly in the dusty forenoons of the season. They stood with their eyes blinking watchfully in the sun that glared with a friendly and altogether satisfying glare upon the stone pavement. The one was the figure of a small boy; his legs were planted firmly apart, and a wide-brimmed straw hat was set sturdily on the very back of his head. A very small, very brown-faced boy was he, with round blue eyes, and hair fair almost to whiteness; rising a stout five, and his name--for the purposes of this chronicle--was ‘Tally Ho.’ The other was the presentment of a silent and melancholy Hindu, with a black beard, and turbaned head of a dusky mahogany; lean, and white-clothed, he stood slightly behind, in an attitude of respectful protection.

They gazed curiously at the changing, throbbing flow of Western energy, and ever and again the flow glanced over its shoulder in its ceaseless, and apparently objectless, quest, to wonder in its turn at those two strange figures from an unknown and far-off land, washed up high and dry on the edge of the stream.

‘De big fire is velly hot,’--Tally Ho always called the sun the big fire--‘as hot as Inja, doesn’t ’oo tink, Kotah Lal?’

‘If Tally Ho Sahib say, then so it is; yet it is in his servant’s mind that in India there were even days when Tally Ho Sahib called that they should put the big fire out, and greatly pull the punkah, and, as the Sahib knows, there be no punkahs this side of the big water.’

‘My mislemembers,’ said Tally Ho. ‘What do ’ose memsahibs goin’ lound on de wheels, dey’re velly ugly, dey makle my’s head ache--tell dem to ’top, Kotah Lal,’ and he indicated with a stumpy brown forefinger two dashing young females on the inevitable bicycle.

‘They go thus because after them comes a big bad god, and so perchance they will escape,’ said Kotah Lal, with a glimmer of a smile on his impassive features.

‘For why are deir leggies one on each side?’ said the irrepressible Tally Ho loudly, as another dame flew by; ‘it is not so in my country; are de wheels alive, Kotah Lal?’

‘It may be so; thy servant is a stranger in this land, Sahib, where all men seem possessed of devils, so fast they run to do naught all the day long. But the Doctor Sahib on the big ship did tell me that in this country there be a great and bad spirit called Indi-Gesti-Un, who pursues men to their undoing, so that they run ever faster to escape.’

‘Where does he live, Kotah Lal?’ said Tally Ho, concernedly.

Kotah Lal placed his hand upon the regions of his middle, and smiled mournfully. This seemed to supply Tally Ho with a fresh idea.

‘Kotah Lal,’ he said suddenly, thrusting his small brown fists deeply into the pockets of his holland knickers, ‘what is dere for my’s tiffin? Is dere cully and lice, allee samee as on de big ship?’

‘The Sahib commanded and the order has gone forth; without doubt there be these things for the Sahib’s lunch.’

‘Velly dood, my tinks my’s empty.’ Tally Ho withdrew one hand from his pocket, and passed it meditatively over his small stomach. ‘Which is de way, Kotah Lal?’

‘It will be necessary to walk down the market of the dried grasses, and through the square where are the four great lions that the Sahib looked upon with favour yesterday, to where the trains run in the smokey black hole under the ground. So said the Sahib in the blue clothes of whom I asked anon.’

‘Turn on,’ said Tally Ho; ‘my’s _velly_ empty, my wiss Foo Ching was in Ingeliland; he made exkullent dood chow-chow; my loves Foo Ching, Kotah Lal.’

Foo Ching, the Chinese cook of the steamer which had two days before achieved the honour of safely bearing from India, and landing one ‘Tally Ho,’ baptismally known as Geoffrey Standing Blount, was that young man’s latest bosom friend, and at that time mainly responsible for the eccentricities of his speech.

‘My wiss my was corpington (corpulent), like Foo Ching; Foo Ching was velly nice and corpington, and my’s _velly_ empty.’

Tally Ho, who usually carried his head loftily, drooped it to contemplate mournfully his small person, and in so doing butted it into the stomach of an elderly commercial hurrying to his mid-day meal.

‘My begs ’oor pardon,’ said Tally Ho, pained but polite, raising his hat and rubbing his snub nose. The commercial, with soul intent on the undercut, paid no attention, but hurried on. ‘Oos a lude man,’ said Tally Ho, indignantly; ‘a velly lude man.’ He stared reproachfully after him up the street till the stream had swallowed him up.

In time, and by dint of much circuitous marching and counter-marching, escaping with many a dodge and device the rumbling onslaught of ’busses, and the ‘scorching’ attack of bicycles, they reached the black hole known to the Westerns as Charing Cross Station. The interview between Kotah Lal and the ticket clerk ended satisfactorily in his obtaining tickets for not more than two stations further than their destination. Armed with these, the Hindu secured Tally Ho by the arm, and descended gravely to the platform.

‘Dlefful ’tuffy,’ commented Tally Ho, with a sniff of disgust; ‘my wantee tum scent on my’s hankeychoo.’

‘Let the Sahib abide but a moment in patience--here cometh the panting one with the fiery eye.’

A train drew up, they got into an empty carriage, and, as Tally Ho remarked, ‘de Injun blewed its nose,’ and ‘shaking its head,’ went on its way towards the west. Now it is not to be peculiarly remembered against Kotah Lal that upon this stifling afternoon he was inclined to doze, bearing in mind that for two nights, being cumbered with the duties of arrival, he had not slept,--moreover, the fact that within two minutes of entering the train he fell into a deep and dreamless slumber, he himself has since been heard to explain as a particular and malicious visitation of the Evil One.

Before Westminster Bridge was reached Tally Ho had exhausted the fascinations of the carriage, and was become unfeignedly bored.

‘My will wait till de tlain ’tops,’ he thought, ‘and ask Kotah Lal if my may det down and ’peak to Blown.’

Brown, a particular friend of his, was an engine-driver on the little one-horse line that ran past his home in the North-West Provinces. The train pulled up with a jerk at the station, and Tally Ho turned to proffer his request, but a gently ecstatic snore from the turbaned head in the opposite corner warned him that his protector was far away in the Land of Nod.

‘Poo’ah Kotah Lal,’ said Tally Ho compassionately, ‘he’s velly sleepy, my will not wakle him up.’ This he said consideringly, having in his small mind the semi-conviction that it might be better _not_ to ask for his protector’s leave in this matter. ‘My tinks,’ pursued Tally Ho, ‘Blown will be wanting my.’

He moved towards the door, but at this moment the train resumed its grimy way, and burrowed once more into the bowels of the city. Tally Ho paused, his small fist on the handle.

‘My will wait,’ he said, ‘till de silly tlain ’tops again.’

He amused himself by turning and returning the handle, putting his whole soul into the operation, and missing being projected into a murky space by the dispensation of a merciful Providence, and the skin of his tiny white teeth. The train emerged into the light, and pulled up again in the open space just eastward of St James’s Park Station. Kotah Lal snored peacefully.

‘My’s velly good not to wakle him,’ mused Tally Ho, as he slid out of the carriage and bumped on his little seat to the ground. ‘My will ’peak clossly to Blown--dis is a baddy tlain.’

He frowned as he picked himself up, and, shaking himself, took his grubby way almost under the train towards the engine. The engine-driver was looking ahead and turning on steam as Tally Ho caught him in profile.

‘_It’s not Blown_,’ he gasped, astonished, and the train moved on past a gaping atom of humanity.

‘’Top, ’top, you baddy tlain, my says ’top!’ But the train stopped not, and went on its way rejoicing into the cleaner parts of the city, bearing with it an unconsciously slumbering Hindu.

Now the word ‘tears’ had not been in Tally Ho’s vocabulary this many a day.

‘Baddy tlain,’ he said, ‘’t has runned away wid my’s Kotah Lal,’ forgetting, perchance, that it was Tally Ho that had first deserted the train, and not the train Tally Ho. ‘My will catchee it!’

His small legs twinkled rapidly down the line of the train. But the train had the start, and was flourishing out of St James’s Park Station at the one end as Tally Ho trotted into it at the other. He laboured up the steep incline on to the platform as the tail light was swallowed up in the opposite blackness. Tally Ho stopped, at a loss what to do.

‘Velly baddy tlain,’ he panted, ‘my--’ here a small mustard Dandie Dinmont sniffed at his legs. ‘Oh! _what_ a nice doggie!’ said Tally Ho, with characteristic irrelevance, and stooped to pat it. A whistle sounded, the Dandie trotted away obediently, and Tally Ho trotted after in hot pursuit. The platform was disgorging a stream of passengers, and Tally Ho, his mind and eye fixed on the dog, passed the ticket collector, unchecked, at the skirt of a stout middle-aged female.

‘Hi,’ said the collector, ‘hi, lydy,--ticket for the youngster, please.’

‘What youngster?’ said the indignant lady.

‘That there youngster of yourn, in the holland breeks.’

The owner thereof was now well up the staircase, and twinkling over the bridge in pursuit of the Dandie.

‘You impident person!’ said the choleric dame, ‘holland breeks indeed!’

‘Now then, ma’am, don’t you give me none of your bluff--holland breeks it is, and a smudgy seat at that,--py up please, if you y’nt got no ticket.’

‘But I tell you I haven’t got any children; I’m a single woman; you must be intoxicated, collector.’

‘Go it, breeks!’ came a voice from the half-amused and half-impatient crowd.

‘That’ll do, ma’am, that’ll do,’ said the collector, majestically; ‘your name and address, if _you_ please.’

‘Certainly,’ bellowed the now infuriated female, ‘certainly. Maria James, 4 Smith Square; and I’ll take good care you’re not a collector of this company for long. Holland breeks indeed!’

‘You see,’ mused the collector to the crowd, as he took the remaining tickets, ‘it tykes ’em this w’y sometimes--these ’ere _single_ femyles.’

Now in the meantime the ‘disturber of traffic,’ having said to himself, ‘my wants to pat that doggie,’ had to his great disgust only arrived at seeing the object of his desires lifted into a cab, and whirled from before his eyes, at the gates of St James’s Park. This was enough to damp the spirits of a hero. Tally Ho entered the park with a momentarily dejected step, and wandered on to the bridge; but there his dejection ceased, for below him, swimming in circles, in semi-circles, in parabolas, in zig-zags, were ducks--ducks more sleek and beautiful than any he had ever beheld, and fat--words could not describe the nature of their fatness. Tally Ho sank on his knees, stuck his head through the girders, and gazed. His affections particularly rivetted themselves on two small bronze-green ducks taking first lessons in diving from an attentive parent.

‘My wantles _dem_,’ said Tally Ho, joyfully and loudly, through the girders, to the intense astonishment of a military-looking old gentleman, from between whose legs the words arose.

‘Gawd bless me! What’s that?’

‘My wantles ’oo for each of my’s tlowser’s pottets,’ bellowed Tally Ho across the water to the ducks.

‘Gawd bless me! It’s the ducks the boy wants,’ commented the ancient warrior, stepping with much care clear of Tally Ho, and noting the direction of his gestures. At this precise instant Tally Ho withdrew his head from between the girders and scrambled on to his feet, and as he did so his eye lighted on the stranger whose elderly but martial form he had been doing his level best to upset.

‘Salaam, Genelal Sahib,’ he said, saluting affably and without embarrassment, ‘my is Tally Ho--my wantles dose ducks.’

The General saluted in turn, screwed a gold-rimmed eyeglass carefully into his eye, stroked his grizzled moustache, and gazed curiously at his interlocutor.

‘Tan my have dose two nickle gleeny-blown ducks?’ said Tally Ho, pointing into the water, and pulling abstractedly at the General’s grey frock coat.

‘’Tenshun,’ said the latter, and Tally Ho dropped his hands mechanically to his side, and drew himself up with his feet at a correct 45 degrees. ‘Now, then, what d’ye want the ducks for, heh?’

The ‘heh’ was rather alarming, but Tally Ho passed it by unconcernedly.

‘Oos velly like my Daddy,’ he remarked with condescension; ‘but my wantles dose ducks to takle home in my’s pottets,’ he continued, reverting to business.

‘Bless the boy! But you can’t have those ducks; they belong to the Queen!’

‘Dod bless her!’ said Tally Ho, raising his hat abstractedly, for his attention had wandered to the stick with the skull handle in the General’s hand. ‘Velly plitty ‘tick,’ he murmured to himself, ‘my will walkle wid ’oo, if ’oos not tired,’ he added aloud considerately to the stranger.

‘Gawd bless me!’ said the dumfoundered General. ‘He’d take command of a division for two pins! Gentleman though--Indian--know the breed. Wonder who he is--seems lost--never mind, take him along--pump him--no fool. Come along Mr--Tally Ho, Sir; eyes front, quick march.’

Tally Ho made one manful endeavour to compass the General’s stride, and then relapsed philosophically into a regular two for one. He had quite forgotten the ducks, he wanted that stick so badly to carry over his shoulder like a rifle. After completing the length of the bridge, side by side with the General, and cogitating silently, Tally Ho saluted, and said:

‘_Ettafakhan_ de Genelal Sahib finds de ’tick velly heavy.’

‘Gawd bless me! Persian! Very talented boy, great diplomatist--_Ettafakhan_,’ he continued aloud to Tally Ho (the which is the Persian for ‘peradventure’), and without another word transferred the stick to his small and grubby fist. The latter, too well bred to show the transports of joy swelling in his small bosom, halted, salaamed profoundly, and after hugging the stick, which was at least as tall as himself, heaved it over his shoulder, and marched manfully on. The General was an old man; he stooped slightly and walked slowly, and his eyes, that looked like those of an old dog, gazed curiously ever and anon from under his shaggy eyebrows at the small brown urchin tramping at his side. They reached the gates of the park before he had in the least made up his mind what course to pursue with this strange little mortal. As they were crossing the Mall towards St James’s Palace, a new idea struck Tally Ho; he halted suddenly, stuck the stick into the ground, and leaning on it, looked around him with a self-satisfied air.

‘My’s losted,’ he announced.

The General, in rapt amazement at the calmness of this remark, halted also, and a hansom, sweeping by, nearly ran over his toes, and knocked off Tally Ho’s hat with the edge of its wheel.

‘Damned scoundrels!’ muttered the exasperated warrior below his breath, ‘plucky boy, though--near thing.... All right, heh?’--this to Tally Ho, who was contemplating a large splash of mud on the crown of his hat.

‘My’s noo ’at!’ he said, ruefully.

‘Never mind your hat s’long’s _you’re_ all right, heh? That’s it! Come along.’ A bright idea struck him. ‘Are you hungry? Course he is, all boys hungry. Gawd bless me! what was I thinking of? Come and have some tiffin at my club, Mr--Tally Ho, sir.’

‘Tank’oo, my will be _dee_lighted, my’s _velly_ empty,’ said Tally Ho, frankly and cheerfully.

‘Course you are. Come along, sir, come along.’

As the oddly assorted couple took their way down Pall Mall, the passers-by turned to stare. The sentries at Marlborough House saluted--Tally Ho appropriated and returned the salutes with a pre-occupied air--he was thinking now of the General’s white hat, and of how he desired it greatly to keep his mongoose ‘Bengy’ in--he was sure he had seen little windows in the top of it. ‘Perhaps the Genelal Sahib will takle it off again, and sclatchle his head as Blown does sometimes, den my will see,’ he reflected.

Now they had arrived at the corner of St James’s Square, and the sweet-faced old sweeper at the crossing had made her double-barrelled bob to the sunburnt, white-haired veteran and the sun-browned, white-haired child. At the steps of a great service club the General halted, and took off his hat to mop his brow, for the day was hot, and his mind was perplexed.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said aloud to himself, ‘boy’s hungry--tiffin first, pump afterwards. Gawd bless me! What’s that?’ For Tally Ho, swelling with joy of verification, was threading his thumbs through the vent-holes of the white hat, and saying to himself with subdued emphasis:

‘My will makle two mores, _eke oper eke_’ (one upon the top of the other).

‘Devil you will!’ said the General, and feeling from the absorption of his guest’s eye that no time was to be lost, he hastily replaced his hat, and extended two fingers to assist Tally Ho up the steps.

‘No t’ank ’oo,’ said the latter; ‘my will runle up.’ He proceeded to mount the stairs on all-fours, and sat on the top step at the feet of the hall porter, awaiting the arrival of his distinguished but disconcerted host.

‘Gawd bless me! regular young budmâsh (rogue)--fine fellow, though--very fine fellow! Heh! Wilkins!’ he said, with a perplexed twirl of his moustache, to the unmoved janitor.

‘New member, General, or friend of yours only, sir? What name shall I enter, General?’

‘This gentleman will tiffin with me, Wilkins. Name, heh! what?--Quite so. Mr--Tally Ho, sir,’ he said, turning to Tally Ho, who with his hat off was examining the tape machine in the hall with an interested eye, ‘the servant wishes to know your name, so that he may put it in the visitors’ book. What shall I tell him?’

‘Geoffley Standin’ Blount,’ returned Tally Ho. His knees were grubby, his hat was torn, his seat was dusty, but he looked very much of a gentleman.

‘Mr Geoffrey Standing Blount, Wilkins,’ said the General with dignity. The smile flickering into Wilkins’ eye flickered out again, and he turned to the visitors’ book. The General led the way to the lavatory past a group of younger men in the hall, who greeted him with respectful if amused recognition. Tally Ho, smiling affably, followed him. Arrived at the lavatory, he looked with a pleased anticipation at the row of basins, for though of tender years, soap and water were after his heart. He was feeling hot and dusty, the taps ran so nicely, and--that was all, alas!--impossible to reach those basins, those nicely flowing taps--so he stood in the middle and waited while the General washed, politely silent, but feeling his inches, or want of inches, keenly. At last he said, ‘My’s nickle, but my’s growin’!’ An apology for his host’s want of thought was in the last words.