Fisherman CharlieCHARLIE THE COXA LIFE POEMBY HALL CAINEPainting byCHARLES NAPIER HEMY, R.A.Drawings byARCH. WEBB
Fisherman Charlie
Charliewas the cox of our Peel lifeboat. A braver spirit never sailed the sea.
Years ago, in a terrific gale, a ship from Norway, theSt. George, came dead on for the wildest part of our coast, the fierce headland that lies back of the old Castle rock. The sound signal was fired, and Charlie and his brave comrades went out to her. She was reeling on the top of a tremendous sea, and there was no coming near to her side.
Charlie the Cox
It was an awful task to get the crew aboard the lifeboat, but Charlie saved every soul, and lost not a hand of his own. When the "traveller" was rigged and the "breeches" were ready, and the crew of the doomed ship were at the bulwarks waiting to leave her, Charlie sang out over the clamour of the sea:
"How many are you?"
"Twenty-four," came back as answer.
Then Charlie cried, "I can see only twenty-three."
"The other man is hurt. He's dying. No use saving him," the Norseman shouted.
"You'll bring the dying man on deck before a soul of you leaves the ship," cried Charlie.
There was a woman among them, and when the carpenter came scudding down the rope he had a canvas bag on his back.
"No tools here," shouted Charlie.
"It's the child," said the man.
The captain came next. He had left everything else behind him—his money, his instruments, his clothes, his ship—but out of his pocket there peeped the head of a baby's doll.
ship
It was a thrilling rescue, but to see it in all its splendour you must have a drop of ourManx blood in you. Our forefathers were from Norway, our first Norse king was named Gorry. He landed on this island, not far from this spot. And on that day of the wreck of theSt. Georgehis children's children rescued from the sea the children's children of the kinsmen he had left at home.
Most of our men had Norse names. One of them was a Gorry, lineal descendant beyond doubt of the old sea king. The Norwegian Government felt the touch of great things in this incident. It was not merely that the bravery of the rescue fired their gratitude. Something called to them from that deep place where blood answers to the cry of blood. They sent medals for Charlie and his crew, and the Governor of the island distributed them inside the roofless walls of the old castle of the "Black Dog." It was like grasping hands with the past across the space of a thousand years.
The other day we had another great wind and another brave rescue. The sun had gone down overnight in a sullen red, very fierce and angry in his setting, and out of the black north-east the storm had come up while we slept. In the heavy grey of the dawn the sound-signal fired its double shot over our little town. A Welsh schooner, which had run in for shelter during the dark hours, was riding to an anchor in the bay and flying her ensign for help.
The sea was terrific—a slaty grey, streaked with white foam, like quartz veins. It was coming over the breakwater in sheets that hid it. Sometimes it was flying in clouds to the top of the round tower of the castle. The white sea-fowl were like dark specks darting through it, but no human ear could hear the cry of their thousand throats in the thunderous quake of the breakers on the cavernous rocks.
A crowd of men answered the call, and there was no shortness of hands to man the lifeboat. The big, slow-legged fellows who had been idling on the quay the day before when the sea was calm were struggling, chafing, and quarrelling to go out on it now that it was in storm, for the blood of the old Vikings is in our Manxmen still.
ocean
It was a splendid rescue. The crew of the Welshman were brought ashore. Then the abandoned schooner rode three hourslonger in the gale, and a hundred men stood and watched her, talking of other winds and other wrecks, and of Peel boys who were out on the sea. At last the ship parted her cables and went rolling like a blinded porpoise dead on for the jagged coast.
Seven men took an open fishing-boat and went after her, and we climbed the Head to look at them. The wind smote us there like an invisible wing, sometimes swirling us out of our course, often bringing us to our knees, and whipping our ears with our hair like rods. Sheets of spray were coming up to us from below and running along the cliffs like driven rain. The sun, which had broken in fierce brilliance from a green rent in the sky, made rainbows in the flying foam.
From the heights we watched the seven men and the open boat. They rose and fell, appeared and disappeared, but they overtook the Welshman before she had drifted on to the coast, boarded her with difficulty, let go another anchor and made her tight. There was nothing else to do, for she was disabled, and her sails were torn to shreds. The new anchor held the ship an hour longer, and then there was no help left for her. She was within a hundred feet of the rocks, and she fell on them with the groan of a living creature.
The instant her head was down the white lions of the sea leapt over her, the water swirled through her bulwarks and plunged down her hatch; her helm was unshipped, her sails were torn from their gaskets, and the floating home wherein men had sailed and sung and slept and laughed and jested was a broken wreck in the heavy wallowings of the waves.
When it was over and we were coming back, drenched through and green with the drift of the sea foam caked thick on our faces, some of us began to think of Charlie. He had not been there that day. A year or more ago, in the prime of a splendid manhood, he was stricken by heart disease. He kept a good heart, nevertheless, and by indomitable will held on for some time. First a little work, then no work at all, only a sail now and then if the sea was calm, but of late hardly ever well enough to take the open air. The old hulk of his poor body had been anchored deep, but she was parting her cables at last.
ocean
Charlie lay dying while this second rescue was being made. He had not answered the signal for the lifeboat, but he had heard it in thefierce light of morning, and they could not keep him in bed. The soul of the old sea dog leapt to the call, but his ailing body held him down. He wanted to go out. Wasn't he cox? Had the boat ever gone out without him?
Fisherman
His house is one of the little places like children's Noah's arks which dot the line of this hungry shore. He could hear everything and see a good deal. Often he could hardly keep himself from crying and shouting aloud. In spirit he was out on the boiling surf, dipping, rising, stooping, going over, righting again, clambering back, exulting, glorying, getting nearer the ship, standing off her, rigging the "traveller," and fetching men aboard in the "breeches." And then away from the rolling hulk, and sing ho, my lads, and haul through the white waves for home. But his poor dying body was down on the bed and his face was sickly scarlet.
Charlie's volcanic soul did not go off to the deep of deeps on the big breakers and through the wild noises of the storm. He died later. After the great wind there came a great calm. The air was quiet and full of the odour of seaweed; banks of seaweed were on the shore, and the broken schooner was covered with brown wrack, like any rock of the coast; the sky was round as the inside of a shell, and pale pink like the shadow of flame; the water was smooth, and land and sea lay like a sleeping child. In this broad and steady weather our little town was startled by the double shot again. We went to the windows in surprise, and saw the red flag over the rocket house, which is the signal for the lifeboat.
Charlie was dead. He had just breathed his last, and his rugged comrades, who know nothing of poetry, but are poets nevertheless to the deepest grain of them, had run up the flag mast-high (not half-mast) as signal to the Great Cox of all that here was a soul in the troubled waters of death waiting for the everlasting lifeboat to bear him to the eternal shore.
In row boats
The sea takes some of our bravest and best. Charlie it did not take. Not so sure is it that he who lives by the sword will perish by the sword, as that he who baulks the sea the sea will surely have for its prey. Charlie had battled with the giant time and again, but he has gone to sleep on the land.
We buried him to-day in the little cemetery looking on to the grey water that was more than half his element. The funeral was beautiful in its old simplicity. First a hymn at the door of the house in the little alley by the beach, "Safe in the arms of Jesus," with the coffin on the ground and all standing round; the sea quiet, hardly a breeze as soft as human breath moving its tranquil surface; the deadly rival in its everlasting coming and going making no triumphant clamour now the sea-warrior was down. Then the companions of his dangers, the crew of his boat, a group of stalwart fellows who have never known what it is to be afraid, carrying him up the hill, shoulder high, each in his red stocking cap and his life-belt, emblems of how they had fought the sea and beaten it.
There were some of us whose eyes were wet, but if these brave boys wept at all, it was only for the helpless little ones left behind. For Charlie they did not weep. His spirit is not dead for them—it cannot die. When brave deeds have to be done, they will see its light, like a beacon that does not fail, over the mountains of the fiercest storm; they will hear its voice above the thunder of the loudest waves.
A full moon is shining to-night on the place of Charlie's rest, and if the old Norse story is true, that while the body lies in sight of the sea the spirit lives in the winds above it, Charlie is not done with his old enemy yet. He will come back to this sea-bound land in warning whispers of the mighty and mysterious power that lures men to itself.
in a boat
drummerCANADA'S WORDBY RALPH CONNORDrawings byA. J. GOUGHWoman warrior
drummer
Woman warrior
O Canada!A voice calls through the mist and spumeAcross the wide wet salty leagues of foamFor aid. Whose voice thus penetrates thy peace?Whose? Thy Mother's, Canada, thy Mother's voice.O Canada! A drum beats through the night and day,Unresting, eager, strident, summoningTo arms. Whose drum thus throbs persistent?Whose? Old England's, Canada, Old England's drum.O Canada! A sword gleams, leaping swift to strikeAt foes that press and leap to kill brave menOn guard. Whose sword thus gleams fierce death?Whose? 'Tis Britain's, Canada, Great Britain's sword.O Canada! A prayer beats hard at Heaven's gate,Tearing the heart wide open to God's eye,For righteousness. Whose prayer thus pierces Heaven?Whose? 'Tis God's prayer, Canada, Thy Kingdom come!O Canada! What answer make to calling voice and beating drum,To sword flash and to pleading prayer of GodFor right? What answer makes my soul?"Mother, to thee! God, to Thy help! Quick! My sword!"
soldiers
BY A. CONAN DOYLEPainting and Drawings byR. TALBOT KELLY, R.I.
spears shield uniform
Itwas in the days when the tide of Mahdism, which had swept in such a flood from the Great Lakes and Darfur to the confines of Egypt, had at last come to its full, and even begun, as some hoped, to show signs of a turn. At its outset it had been terrible. It had engulfed Hicks's army, swept over Gordon and Khartoum, rolled behind the British forces as they retired down the river, and finally cast up a spray of raiding parties as far north as Assouan. Then it found other channels to east and west, to Central Africa and to Abyssinia, and retired a little on the side of Egypt. For ten years there ensued a lull, during which the frontier garrisons looked out upon those distant blue hills of Dongola. Behind the violet mists which draped them lay a land of blood and horror. From time to time some adventurer went south towards those haze-girt mountains, tempted by stories of gum and ivory, but none ever returned. Once a mutilated Egyptian and once a Greek woman, mad with thirst and fear, made their way to the lines. They were the only exports of that country of darkness. Sometimes the sunset would turn those distant mists into a bank of crimson, and the dark mountains would rise from that sinister reek like islands in a sea of blood. It seemed a grim symbol in the southern heaven when seen from the fort-capped hills by Wady Halfa. Ten years of lust in Khartoum, ten years of silent work in Cairo, and then all was ready, and it was time for Civilisation to take a trip south once more, travelling as her wont is in an armoured train. Everything was ready, down to the last pack-saddle of the last camel, and yet no one suspected it, for an unconstitutional Government has its advantage. A great administrator had argued, and managed, and cajoled; a great soldier had organised and planned, and made piastres do the work of pounds. And then one night these two master spirits met and clasped hands, and the soldier vanished away upon somebusiness of his own. And just at that very time, Bimbashi Hilary Joyce, seconded from the Royal Mallow Fusiliers, and temporarily attached to the Ninth Soudanese, made his first appearance in Cairo.
on camel
Napoleon had said, and Hilary Joyce had noted, that great reputations are only to be made in the East. Here he was in the East with four tin cases of baggage, a Wilkinson sword, a Bond's slug-throwing pistol, and a copy of "Green's Introduction to the Study of Arabic." With such a start, and the blood of youth running hot in his veins, everything seemed easy. He was a little frightened of the general; he had heard stories of his sternness to young officers, but with tact and suavity he hoped for the best. So, leaving his effects at "Shepherd's Hotel," he reported himself at headquarters. It was not the general, but the head of the Intelligence Department who received him, the chief being still absent upon that business which had called him. Hilary Joyce found himself in the presence of a short, thick-set officer, with a gentle voice and a placid expression which covered a remarkably acute and energetic spirit. With that quiet smile and guileless manner he had undercut and outwitted the most cunning of Orientals. He stood, a cigarette between his fingers, looking at the newcomer. "I heard that you had come. Sorry the chief isn't here to see you. Gone up to the frontier, you know."
"My regiment is at Wady Halfa. I suppose, sir, that I should report myself there at once?"
"No; I was to give you your orders." He led the way to a map upon the wall, and pointed with the end of his cigarette. "You see this place. It's the Oasis of Kurkur—a little quiet, I am afraid, but excellent air. You are to get out there as quick as possible. You'll find a company of the Ninth, and half a squadron of cavalry. You will be in command."
Hilary Joyce looked at the name, printed at the intersection of two black lines without another dot upon the map for several inches around it. "A village, sir?"
"No, a well. Not very good water, I'm afraid, but you soon get accustomed to natron. It's an important post, as being at the junction of two caravan routes. All routes are closed now, of course, but still you never know whomightcome along them."
"We are there, I presume, to prevent raiding?"
row of camels
"Well, between you and me, there's really nothing to raid. You are there to intercept messengers. They must call at the wells. Of course you have only just come out, but you probably understand already enough about the conditions of this country to know thatthere is a great deal of disaffection about, and that the Khalifa is likely to try and keep in touch with his adherents. Then, again, Senoussi lives up that way"—he waved his cigarette to the westward—"the Khalifa might send a messenger to him along that route. Anyhow, your duty is to arrest every one coming along, and get some account of him before you let him go. You don't talk Arabic, I suppose?"
"I am learning, sir."
"Well, well, you'll have time enough to study there. And you'll have a native officer, Ali something or other, who speaks English, and can interpret for you. Well, good-bye—I'll tell the chief that you reported yourself. Get on to your post now as quickly as you can."
on a camel
Railway to Baliani, the post-boat to Assouan, and then two day on a camel in the Libyan desert, with an Ababdeh guide, and three baggage-camels to tie one down to their own exasperating pace. However, even two and a half miles an hour mount up in time, and at last, on the third evening, from the blackened slag-heap of a hill which is called the Jebel Kurkur, Hilary Joyce looked down upon a distant clump of palms, and thought that this cool patch of green in the midst of the merciless blacks and yellows was the fairest colour effect that he had ever seen. An hour later he had ridden into the little camp, the guard had turned out to salute him, his native subordinate had greeted him in excellent English, and he had fairly entered into his own. It was not an exhilarating place for a lengthy residence. There was one large, bowl-shaped, grassy depression sloping down to the three pits of brown and brackish water. There, also, was the grove of palm trees beautiful to look upon, but exasperating in view of the fact that Nature has provided her least shady trees on the very spot where shade is needed most. A single wide-spread acacia did something to restore the balance. Here Hilary Joyce slumbered in the heat, and in the cool he inspected his square-shouldered, spindle-shanked Soudanese, with their cheery black faces and their funny little pork-pie forage caps. Joyce was a martinet at drill, and the blacks loved being drilled, so the Bimbashi was soon popular among them. But one day was exactly like another. The weather,the view, the employment, the food—everything was the same. At the end of three weeks he felt that he had been there for interminable years. And then at last there came something to break the monotony.
palm trees
One evening, as the sun was sinking, Hilary Joyce rode slowly down the old caravan road. It had a fascination for him, this narrow track, winding among the boulders and curving up the nullahs, for he remembered how in the map it had gone on and on, stretching away into the unknown heart of Africa. The countless pads of innumerable camels through many centuries had beaten it smooth, so that now, unused and deserted, it still wound away, the strangest of roads, a foot broad, and perhaps two thousand miles in length. Joyce wondered as he rode how long it was since any traveller had journeyed up it from the south, and then he raised his eyes, and there was a man coming along the path. For an instant Joyce thought that it might be one of his own men, but a second glance assured him that this could not be so. The stranger was dressed in the flowing robes of an Arab, and not in the close-fitting khaki of a soldier. He was very tall, and a high turban made him seem gigantic. He strode swiftly along, with head erect, and the bearing of a man who knows no fear.
Who could he be, this formidable giant coming out of the unknown? The precursor possibly of a horde of savage spearmen. And where could he have walked from? The nearest well was a long hundred miles down the track. At any rate the frontier post of Kurkur could not afford to receive casual visitors. Hilary Joyce whisked round his horse, galloped into camp, and gave the alarm. Then, with twenty horsemen at his back, he rode out again to reconnoitre. The man was still coming on in spite of these hostile preparations. For an instant he hesitated when first he saw the cavalry, but escape was out of the question, and he advanced with the air of a man who makes the best of a bad job. He made no resistance, and said nothing when the hands of two troopers clutched at his shoulders, but walked quietly between their horses into camp. Shortly afterwards the patrol came in again. There were no signs of any dervishes. The man was alone. A splendid trotting camel had been found lying dead a little way down the track. The mystery of the stranger's arrival was explained. But why, and whence, and whither?—these were questions for which a zealous officer must find an answer.
row of camels
Hilary Joyce was disappointed that there were no dervishes. It would have been a great start for him in the Egyptian army had he fought a little action on his own account. But even as it was, he had a rare chance of impressing the authorities. He would love to show hiscapacity to the head of the Intelligence, and even more to that grim chief who never forgot what was smart, or forgave what was slack. The prisoner's dress and bearing showed that he was of importance. Mean men do not ride pure-bred trotting camels. Joyce sponged his head with cold water, drank a cup of strong coffee, put on an imposing official tarboosh instead of his sun-helmet, and formed himself into a court of inquiry and judgment under the acacia tree. He would have liked his people to have seen him now, with his two black orderlies in waiting, and his Egyptian native officer at his side. He sat behind a camp-table, and the prisoner, strongly guarded, was led up to him. The man was a handsome fellow, with bold grey eyes and a long black beard.
"Why!" cried Joyce, "the rascal is making faces at me." A curious contraction had passed over the man's features, but so swiftly that it might have been a nervous twitch. He was now a model of Oriental gravity. "Ask him who he is, and what he wants?" The native officer did so, but the stranger made no reply, save that the same sharp spasm passed once more over his face. "Well, I'm blessed!" cried Hilary Joyce. "Of all the impudent scoundrels! He keeps on winking at me. Who are you, you rascal? Give an account of yourself! D'ye hear?" But the tall Arab was as impervious to English as to Arabic. The Egyptian tried again and again. The prisoner looked at Joyce with his inscrutable eyes, and occasionally twitched his face at him, but never opened his mouth. The Bimbashi scratched his head in bewilderment.
"Look here, Mahomet Ali, we've got to get some sense out of this fellow. You say there are no papers on him?"
"No, sir; we found no papers."
"No clue of any kind?"
"He has come far, sir. A trotting camel does not die easily. He has come from Dongola, at least."
"Well, we must get him to talk."
"It is possible that he is deaf and dumb."
"Not he. I never saw a man look more all there in my life."
"You might send him across to Assouan."
"And give some one else the credit? No, thank you. This is my bird. But how are we going to get him to find his tongue?"
The Egyptian's dark eyes skirted the encampment and rested on the cook's fire. "Perhaps," said he, "if the Bimbashi thought fit——" He looked at the prisoner and then at the burning wood.
"No, no; it wouldn't do. No, by Jove, that's going too far."
row of camels
"A very little might do it."
"No, no. It's all very well here, but it would sound just awful if ever it got as far as Fleet Street. But, I say," he whispered, "we might frighten him a bit. There's no harm in that."
"No, sir."
"Tell them to undo the man's galabeeah. Order them to put a horseshoe in the fire and make it red-hot." The prisoner watched the proceedings with an air which had more of amusement than of uneasiness. He never winced as the black sergeant approached with the glowing shoe held upon two bayonets.
"Will you speak now?" asked the Bimbashi, savagely. The prisoner smiled gently and stroked his beard.
"Oh, chuck the infernal thing away!" cried Joyce, jumping up in a passion. "There's no use trying to bluff the fellow. He knows we won't do it. But Icanand Iwillflog him, and you can tell him from me that if he hasn't found his tongue by to-morrow morning I'll take the skin off his back as sure as my name's Joyce. Have you said all that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you can sleep upon it, you beauty, and a good night's rest may it give you!" He adjourned the Court, and the prisoner, as imperturbable as ever, was led away by the guard to his supper of rice and water. Hilary Joyce was a kind-hearted man, and his own sleep was considerably disturbed by the prospect of the punishment which he must inflict next day. He had hopes that the mere sight of the koorbash and the thongs might prevail over his prisoner's obstinacy. And then, again, he thought how shocking it would be if the man proved to be really dumb after all. The possibility shook him so that he had almost determined by daybreak that he would send the stranger on unhurt to Assouan. And yet what a tame conclusion it would be to the incident! He lay upon his angareeb still debating it when the question suddenly and effectively settled itself. Ali Mahomet rushed into his tent.
"Sir," he cried, "the prisoner is gone!"
"Gone!"
"Yes, sir, and your own best riding camel as well. There is a slit cut in the tent, and he got away unseen in the early morning."
row of camels
The Bimbashi acted with all energy. Cavalry rode along every track; scouts examined the soft sand of the wadys for signs of the fugitive, but no trace was discovered. The man had utterly disappeared. With a heavy heart, Hilary Joyce wrote an official report of the matter and forwarded it to Assouan. Five days later there came a curt order from the chief that he should report himself there. He feared the worst from the stern soldier, who spared others as little as he spared himself. And his worst forebodings were realised. Travel-stained and weary, he reported himself one night at the general's quarters. Behind a table piled with papers and strewn with maps the famous soldier and his Chief of Intelligence were deep in plans and figures. Their greeting was a cold one.
Bimbashi Joyce painting
"I understand, Captain Joyce," said the general, "that you have allowed a very important prisoner to slip through your fingers."
"I am sorry, sir."
"No doubt. But that will not mend matters. Did you ascertain anything about him before you lost him?"
"No, sir."
"How was that?"
"I could get nothing out of him, sir."
"Did you try?"
"Yes, sir; I did what I could."
"What did you do?"
"Well, sir, I threatened to use physical force."
"What did he say?"
"He said nothing."
"What was he like?"
"A tall man, sir. Rather a desperate character, I should think."
"Any way by which we could identify him?"
"A long black beard, sir. Grey eyes. And a nervous way of twitching his face."
"Well, Captain Joyce," said the general, in his stern, inflexible voice, "I cannot congratulate you upon your first exploit in the Egyptian army. You are aware that every English officer in this force is a picked man. I have the whole British army from which to draw. It is necessary, therefore, that I should insist upon the very highest efficiency. It would be unfair upon the others to pass over any obvious want of zeal or intelligence. You are seconded from the Royal Mallows, I understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"I have no doubt that your colonel will be glad to see you fulfilling your regimental duties again." Hilary Joyce's heart was too heavy for words. He was silent. "I will let you know my final decision to-morrow morning." Joyce saluted and turned upon his heel.
"You can sleep upon that, you beauty, and a good night's rest may it give you!"
row of camels
Joyce turned in bewilderment. Where had those words been used before? Who was it who had used them? The general was standing erect. Both he and the Chief of the Intelligence were laughing. Joyce stared at the tall figure, the erect bearing, the inscrutable grey eyes.
"Good Lord!" he gasped.
"Well, well, Captain Joyce, we are quits!" said the general, holding out his hand. "You gave me a bad ten minutes with that infernal red-hot horseshoe of yours. I've done as much for you. I don't think we can spare you for the Royal Mallows just yet awhile."
"But, sir; but——!"
"The fewer questions the better, perhaps. But of course it must seem rather amazing. I had a little private business with the Kabbabish. It must be done in person. I did it, and came to your post in my return. I kept on winking at you as a sign that I wanted a word with you alone."
"Yes, yes. I begin to understand."
"I couldn't give it away before all those blacks, or where should I have been the next time I used my false beard and Arab dress? You put me in a very awkward position. But at last I had a word alone with your Egyptian officer, who managed my escape all right."
"He! Mahomet Ali!"
"I ordered him to say nothing. I had a score to settle with you. But we dine at eight, Captain Joyce. We live plainly here, but I think I can do you a little better than you did me at Kurkur."
Riding a camel
BY J. H. FABRE("The Insects' Homer")Painting and Drawings byE. J. DETMOLDTranslated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Copyright U.S.A., 1914, by Hughes Massie & Co.
Mybig and little readers, look at the picture illustrating this story and tell me what you see. First of all, a hideous little monster. It has six short legs and an enormous body—the sign of an insatiable appetite—and carries on its head two sharp-pointed, curved, movable horns, which open and shut like a savage pair of pincers. Suppose we were to hear that, in a desert island, a monster like that, but the size of a wolf, was just emerging from the thick jungle and making for a traveller, for some modern Robinson Crusoe, and that, in another moment, it would be sticking its tusks into him, how thrilling we should find it! We should hope that the man whose life was in danger was armed with the most effective weapons, which would help him to come victorious out of the contest: a twelve-chambered revolver at least, to say nothing of a breech-loading rifle and explosive bullets!
But we must not take an unfair advantage of the animal's ugly appearance in order to provoke unnatural excitement, for what I am about to tell is history and not a fairy-tale: proper, genuine history. I will lose no time in saying that the creature is quite harmless to any of us, even the smallest. By this I do not mean to suggest that it has not a very fierce and brutal temper; only, the victims of its bloodthirsty instincts move in a world so tiny that we tread it under foot unnoticed. It is an ogre, ever hungering after fresh meat, like the famous ogre of your fairy-tales: you know, the one who welcomed Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his brothers to his house one evening, meaning to put them all in a pie like so many pigeons; in short, just the sort of ogre who makes your blood run cold.
bug
Our little monster, then, wants its dinner, a thing not always easy to find in this world, especially for an ogre. Hunger is gnawing at its inside; it must eat or die. Its usual prey is the Ant, a good runner, whose nimble legs promptly take to flight and baffle the clumsy, corpulent hunter's attempts to attack her. You might as well tell the Tortoise to run and catch the Gazelle. Our ogre possesses no greater agility in comparison with the Ant; and moreover there is another reason that makes it quite impossible for him to run after anything:like the Crab, he can only really walk backwards, which is not exactly the way to overtake your quarry when it's in front of you.
To be fat and heavy, to walk backwards and to be obliged to have live Ant for one's dinner is a difficult, a very difficult problem. What would you do in such a case? Come, try to find something! Rack your brains! You can think of nothing? Well, never mind: plenty of others, including myself, could not think of anything either.
Everyday common-sense, expressed in proverbs, tells us over and over again that necessity is the mother of invention. This great truth, which we have learnt by personal experience, we shall learn once more from the Ant-hunter. But first let us give him a name, to simplify our story. Naturalists call him the Ant-lion, a very happy term, which reminds us that, like the Lion, he lives by carnage, slaughtering live prey, in this case Ants. Now that we have christened him we can go on.
When he wants his dinner, the Ant-lion says to himself:
"You're a fat little beggar, you know, short-legged and slow-moving; you'll never catch Ants by running after them. On the other hand, you can walk backwards, that's capital; you have a head flattened like a navvy's shovel, that's first-rate; your pincers are long and grip like a knife, that's perfect, absolutely perfect. We'll use that talent for walking backwards; we'll use those tools, the shovel and tongs; we'll make craft take the place of the agility which we lack; and the dinner will come along."
No sooner said than done. In a nice dry spot, warmed by the sun and sheltered from the rain by an overhanging rock, the wily animal selects a place where Ants are incessantly moving to and fro on household matters. Gravely, with the mathematical accuracy of an engineer tracing the foundation of a well-planned building, the Ant-lion walks backwards, with his body dug into the sand; he turns and turns and in this way hollows out a groove shaped like a perfect circle. Then, still moving backwards and still digging deeper and deeper into the sand, he repeats the circuit many times over, but gradually coming nearer the centre, where he arrives in the end. If any obstacle, such as a large bit of gravel, which would spoil the work, makes its appearance, the Ant-lion takes it on his flat head and, with a vigorous jerk of his neck, flings it to a distance over the edge of the hole. We should use a shovel in exactly the same way to throw out the rubbish when digging.
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The result of this labour is a sort of funnel, two inches wide and a little less in depth. For that matter, each Ant-lion scoops himself out one proportioned to his size: the larger ones, the giants of the family, produce one almost big enough to hold an orange; the younger and smaller ones are content with a hollow which a walnut would fill. But, whether great funnels or modest dents, all these cavities are constructed on one and the same principle: the slope is very steep and formed of extremely loose sand; nothing, however light, can set foot upon it without producing a landslip, followed by a headlong fall.
When the work is finished, the scoundrel buries himself in the sand, right at the bottom of the funnel; his pincers alone appear outside, ever ready to snap, but nevertheless hidden as far as possible. And now the Ant-lion remains completely motionless and waits; he waits for hours, for days, for weeks, if necessary, for his patience is unequalled; he waits for his dinner to come to him, as he cannot go after his dinner himself.
Ant Lion painting
Let us do as he does and wait, very attentively. What will happen? See, an Ant comes trotting along, suspecting no harm, bringing a little honey in her crop for her mates, who are working at a distance, just as the goodwife, on the stroke of noon, brings the reaper his midday meal in the fields. In her hurry, or perhaps in her heedlessness, she has not seen the precipice. She steps upon it, but only just on the edge. It makes no difference: as soon as her foot is on the perfidious slope, the sand gives way and the poor thing is dragged down. If our eyes were sharp enough, we should see signs of fierce delight betrayed by the formidable jaws at the bottom.
Thank goodness! A microscopic bit of straw has interfered with the landslide. The fall ends in the middle of the slope; and the Ant, recovering her balance, tries to scramble back to the top. The sand trickles under her feet; no matter: she goes to work with so much prudence, she so skilfully makes use of the smallest solid support, she is so careful to move sideways instead of going straight up the slope that it looks as though the climb ought to be achieved without fresh impediment. Her knees, her delicate feelers seem atremble with excitement. One more effort, only a little effort, and the thing is done. The edge is there, close by; the Ant must reach it.
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Alas, she does not reach it! Suddenly from the sky there falls upon the poor wretch, thick as hailstones, a rain of grains of sand, which, for the tiny Ant, is as bad as a regular rain of pebbles. Whois the brute that takes delight in thus stoning the distressed Ant, who clings in her despair now to this side, now to that, as best she may, so as not to roll to the bottom of the precipice? The brute is the Ant-lion, the ruffian, lying in ambush down in his funnel. See what he is doing. He takes on his flat head a load, a shovelful of sand, and flings it in the air towards the Ant, with a sudden, quick jerk of the neck, like the movement of a spring. The shovelfuls follow rapidly, one after the other. Whoosh! And whoosh! Do you want another? There's one! You don't want another? There's one all the same!
What can the Ant do, I ask you, on the slope of that terrible trap, where the ground falls from under her in a rushing torrent, while a hail of pebbles dashes down from above? In vain she struggles, with all the pluck of despair: for each step forward she takes three back, coming nearer and nearer to the dreadful jaws that are waiting for her at the bottom of the funnel. Bruised and dazed with the stoning, she rolls over and over, right into the jaws. The jaws seize her and everything disappears under the sand; not a trace remains of the recent tragedy.
Peacefully buried in the sand of his lair, the Ant-lion devours his astutely-captured prey. When the meal is over, there remains a dry carcass, which must be thrown away, for, if left in the funnel, it might frighten any game in future and betray the hunter in his ambush. A jerk of the shovel, that is to say, a toss of the flat head, flings it outside the hole.
Then the Ant-lion repairs the damage done to his trap, removes the coarser grains of sand, touches up the slopes to make them ready for a new slide. He buries himself as I have described and awaits the coming of the next Ant.
That is how the Ant-lion secures his dinner. And yet there are people who say that animals have no sense!
dragon-flies
A TRUE STORYBY ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLERDrawings bySTEVEN SPURRIER, R.I.
"Youmay talk about the Germans as much as you like," remarked Mrs. Batterby with her customary decision; "but, for my part, I have no doubt that we shall beat them in the end: no doubt whatsoever!"
"Still, the German hosts are very numerous, and their artillery is magnificent," said Mrs. Veale, who, much as she longed for the defeat of Germany, longed for the defeat of Mrs. Batterby still more.
Little Miss Skipworth hastened, as usual, to thrust in the olive-branch. "Dear Mrs. Batterby is thinking of the superior courage of our brave English soldiers," she explained gently.
But Mrs. Batterby could not stand being Bowdlerised, or even translated. "No, I wasn't, Matilda; at least not at that particular minute, though nobody admires the courage of the British Army more than I do, and always have done, and especially with Lord Kitchener at their head and in action against the enemy. I've got a very high opinion of the British soldier myself; none higher: much too high, in fact, to allow him to wear a collar to his bed-jacket like the one you are making, Matilda, without speaking a word in his defence."
Matilda collapsed at once: she was composed of the most collapsible material ever provided for the manufacture of souls. "What is wrong with my collar, Mrs. Batterby? I thought I was exactly copying the pattern sent to us by the Red Cross. Anyway, I was trying to do so."
"Trying and succeeding are two different things, which I should have thought you'd have found out by this time, Matilda, and you five-and-forty, if you are a day! Give me the collar, and I'll fix it for you, or else the wounded soldier that wears it will wish he had died in the trenches before he had the chance of putting it on."
It was the afternoon of the Red Cross weekly working-party, held in the village of Summerglade, in the early stages of the Great War. The party was a small one, consisting of Mrs. Batterby, a farmer's wife, in whose parlour the meeting was held; Mrs. Veale, the wife of the village doctor; Mrs. Windybank, a gloomy widow; and Miss Skipworth, an ingenuous and tender-hearted spinster. Between Mrs. Batterby and Mrs. Veale there existed a bitter and abiding warfare.
"May I ask what you were thinking of—if not of the bravery of our own dear soldiers—when you expressed your assurance of the ultimate success of the Allied Forces?" asked Mrs. Veale, with her needle in her fingers and the light of battle in her eye.
"By all means," replied Mrs. Batterby; "and, a civil question demanding a civil answer, I don't mind telling you that I feel sure we shall win, because we know that God is on our side and is fighting for us."
"But their numbers are so great and their guns so magnificent," repeated Mrs. Windybank with a lugubrious sigh. "I sometimes fear that they will win in the end, and we shall all be blown up by Zeppelins and trampled underfoot. I'm sure I pray every morning that our armies may win, but I tremble when I think of the forces against us."