“You must choose between me and your cigar.”—BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885.Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.We quarrelled about Havanas—we fought o'er a good cheroot,And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a space;In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie's face.Maggie is pretty to look at—Maggie's a loving lass,But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.There's peace in a Larranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay;But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away—Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown—But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!Maggie, my wife at fifty—grey and dour and old—With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar—The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket—With never a new one to light tho' it's charred and black to the socket!Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a while.Here is a mild Manila—there is a wifely smile.Which is the better portion—bondage bought with a ring,Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?Counsellors cunning and silent—comforters true and tried,And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,With only a Suttee's passion—to do their duty and burn.This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice betweenThe wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery lightOf stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?Open the old cigar-box—let me consider anew—Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.Light me another Cuba—I hold to my first-sworn vows.If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for Spouse!
Where the sober-colored cultivator smilesOn his byles;Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crowCome and go;Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,Hides and ghi;Where the Babu drops inflammatory hintsIn his prints;Stands a City—Charnock chose it—packed awayNear a Bay—By the Sewage rendered fetid, by the sewerMade impure,By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by the swampMoist and damp;And the City and the Viceroy, as we see,Don't agree.Once, two hundred years ago, the trader cameMeek and tame.Where his timid foot first halted, there he stayed,Till mere tradeGrew to Empire, and he sent his armies forthSouth and NorthTill the country from Peshawur to CeylonWas his own.Thus the midday halt of Charnock—more's the pity!Grew a City.As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,So it spread—Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and builtOn the silt—Palace, byre, hovel—poverty and pride—Side by side;And, above the packed and pestilential town,Death looked down.But the Rulers in that City by the SeaTurned to flee—Fled, with each returning spring-tide from its illsTo the Hills.From the clammy fogs of morning, from the blazeOf old days,From the sickness of the noontide, from the heat,Beat retreat;For the country from Peshawur to CeylonWas their own.But the Merchant risked the perils of the PlainFor his gain.Now the resting-place of Charnock, 'neath the palms,Asks an alms,And the burden of its lamentation is,Briefly, this:“Because for certain months, we boil and stew,So should you.Cast the Viceroy and his Council, to perspireIn our fire!”And for answer to the argument, in vainWe explainThat an amateur Saint Lawrence cannot fry:“All must fry!”That the Merchant risks the perils of the PlainFor gain.Nor can Rulers rule a house that men grow rich in,From its kitchen.Let the Babu drop inflammatory hintsIn his prints;And mature—consistent soul—his plan for stealingTo Darjeeling:Let the Merchant seek, who makes his silver pile,England's isle;Let the City Charnock pitched on—evil day!Go Her way.Though the argosies of Asia at Her doorsHeap their stores,Though Her enterprise and energy secureIncome sure,Though “out-station orders punctually obeyed”Swell Her trade—Still, for rule, administration, and the rest,Simla's best.The End* * * * * * * *
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shallmeet,Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great JudgmentSeat;But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,When two strong men stand face to face,tho' they come from the ends of the earth!Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side,And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride:He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and the day,And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides:“Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?”Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar:“If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are.“At dusk he harries the Abazai—at dawn he is into Bonair,But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare,So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly,By the favour of God ye may cut him off ere he win to the Tongue of Jagai.“But if he be past the Tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then,For the length and the breadth of that grisly plain is sown with Kamal's men.There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen.”The Colonel's son has taken a horse, and a raw rough dun was he,With the mouth of a bell and the heart of Hell and the head of the gallows-tree.The Colonel's son to the Fort has won, they bid him stay to eat—Who rides at the tail of a Border thief, he sits not long at his meat.He's up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly,Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai,Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back,And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack.He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide.“Ye shoot like a soldier,” Kamal said. “Show now if ye can ride.”It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, as blown dustdevils go,The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe.The dun he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above,But the red mare played with the snaffle-bars, as a maiden plays with a glove.There was rock to the left and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,And thrice he heard a breech-bolt snick tho' never a man was seen.They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn,The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn.The dun he fell at a water-course—in a woful heap fell he,And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free.He has knocked the pistol out of his hand—small room was there to strive,“'Twas only by favour of mine,” quoth he, “ye rode so long alive:There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree,But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee.“If I had raised my bridle-hand, as I have held it low,The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row:If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high,The kite that whistles above us now were gorged till she could not fly.”Lightly answered the Colonel's son: “Do good to bird and beast,But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast.“If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away,Belike the price of a jackal's meal were more than a thief could pay.“They will feed their horse on the standing crop, their men on the garneredgrain,The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are slain.“But if thou thinkest the price be fair,—thy brethren wait to sup,The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn,—howl, dog, and call them up!And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack,Give me my father's mare again, and I'll fight my own way back!”Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet.“No talk shall be of dogs,” said he, “when wolf and gray wolf meet.“May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath;What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?”Lightly answered the Colonel's son: “I hold by the blood of my clan:Take up the mare for my father's gift—by God, she has carried a man!”The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast;“We be two strong men,” said Kamal then, “but she loveth the younger best.So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my turquoise-studded rein,My broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups twain.”The Colonel's son a pistol drew and held it muzzle-end,“Ye have taken the one from a foe,” said he;“will ye take the mate from a friend?”“A gift for a gift,” said Kamal straight; “a limb for the risk of a limb.“Thy father has sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!”With that he whistled his only son, that dropped from a mountain-crest—He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a lance in rest.“Now here is thy master,” Kamal said, “who leads a troop of the Guides,And thou must ride at his left side as shield on shoulder rides.Till Death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and board and bed,Thy life is his—thy fate it is to guard him with thy head.“So, thou must eat the White Queen's meat, and all her foes are thine,And thou must harry thy father's hold for the peace of the Border-line,And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power—Belike they will raise thee to Ressaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur.”They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault,They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun,And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one.And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear—There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer.“Ha' done! ha' done!” said the Colonel's son.“Put up the steel at your sides!Last night ye had struck at a Border thief—tonight 'tis a man of the Guides!”Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,When two strong men stand face to face,tho' they come from the ends of the earth!
Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives,disregarding the orders of the English against Suttee, would have broken outof the palace had not the gates been barred.But one of them, disguised as the King's favourite dancing-girl, passedthrough the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing,she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court, to kill her. This he did, notknowing who she was.
Udai Chand lay sick to deathIn his hold by Gungra hill.All night we heard the death-gongs ringFor the soul of the dying Rajpoot King,All night beat up from the women's wingA cry that we could not still.All night the barons came and went,The lords of the outer guard:All night the cressets glimmered paleOn Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail,Mewar headstall and Marwar mail,That clinked in the palace yard.In the Golden room on the palace roofAll night he fought for air:And there was sobbing behind the screen,Rustle and whisper of women unseen,And the hungry eyes of the Boondi QueenOn the death she might not share.He passed at dawn—the death-fire leapedFrom ridge to river-head,From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars:And wail upon wail went up to the starsBehind the grim zenana-bars,When they knew that the King was dead.The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouthAnd robe him for the pyre.The Boondi Queen beneath us cried:“See, now, that we die as our mothers diedIn the bridal-bed by our master's side!Out, women!—to the fire!”We drove the great gates home apace:White hands were on the sill:But ere the rush of the unseen feetHad reached the turn to the open street,The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat—We held the dovecot still.A face looked down in the gathering day,And laughing spoke from the wall:“Ohe', they mourn here: let me by—Azizun, the Lucknow nautch-girl, I!When the house is rotten, the rats must fly,And I seek another thrall.“For I ruled the King as ne'er did Queen,—Tonight the Queens rule me!Guard them safely, but let me go,Or ever they pay the debt they oweIn scourge and torture!” She leaped below,And the grim guard watched her flee.They knew that the King had spent his soulOn a North-bred dancing-girl:That he prayed to a flat-nosed Lucknow god,And kissed the ground where her feet had trod,And doomed to death at her drunken nod,And swore by her lightest curl.We bore the King to his fathers' place,Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand:Where the gray apes swing, and the peacocks preenOn fretted pillar and jewelled screen,And the wild boar couch in the house of the QueenOn the drift of the desert sand.The herald read his titles forth,We set the logs aglow:“Friend of the English, free from fear,Baron of Luni to Jeysulmeer,Lord of the Desert of Bikaneer,King of the Jungle,—go!”All night the red flame stabbed the skyWith wavering wind-tossed spears:And out of a shattered temple creptA woman who veiled her head and wept,And called on the King—but the great King slept,And turned not for her tears.Small thought had he to mark the strife—Cold fear with hot desire—When thrice she leaped from the leaping flame,And thrice she beat her breast for shame,And thrice like a wounded dove she cameAnd moaned about the fire.One watched, a bow-shot from the blaze,The silent streets between,Who had stood by the King in sport and fray,To blade in ambush or boar at bay,And he was a baron old and gray,And kin to the Boondi Queen.He said: “O shameless, put asideThe veil upon thy brow!Who held the King and all his landTo the wanton will of a harlot's hand!Will the white ash rise from the blistered brand?Stoop down, and call him now!”Then she: “By the faith of my tarnished soul,All things I did not well,I had hoped to clear ere the fire died,And lay me down by my master's sideTo rule in Heaven his only bride,While the others howl in Hell.“But I have felt the fire's breath,And hard it is to die!Yet if I may pray a Rajpoot lordTo sully the steel of a Thakur's swordWith base-born blood of a trade abhorred,”—And the Thakur answered, “Ay.”He drew and struck: the straight blade drankThe life beneath the breast.“I had looked for the Queen to face the flame,But the harlot dies for the Rajpoot dame—Sister of mine, pass, free from shame,Pass with thy King to rest!”The black log crashed above the white:The little flames and lean,Red as slaughter and blue as steel,That whistled and fluttered from head to heel,Leaped up anew, for they found their mealOn the heart of—the Boondi Queen!
Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,of him is the story told.His mercy fills the Khyber hills—his grace is manifold;He has taken toll of the North and the South—his glory reacheth far,And they tell the tale of his charityfrom Balkh to Kandahar.
Before the old Peshawur Gate, where Kurd and Kaffir meet,The Governor of Kabul dealt the Justice of the Street,And that was strait as running noose and swift as plunging knife,Tho' he who held the longer purse might hold the longer life.
There was a hound of Hindustan had struck a Euzufzai,Wherefore they spat upon his face and led him out to die.It chanced the King went forth that hour when throat was bared to knife;The Kaffir grovelled under-hoof and clamoured for his life.
Then said the King: “Have hope, O friend! Yea, Death disgraced is hard;Much honour shall be thine”; and called the Captain of the Guard,Yar Khan, a bastard of the Blood, so city-babble saith,And he was honoured of the King—the which is salt to Death;And he was son of Daoud Shah, the Reiver of the Plains,And blood of old Durani Lords ran fire in his veins;And 'twas to tame an Afghan pride nor Hell nor Heaven could bind,The King would make him butcher to a yelping cur of Hind.
“Strike!” said the King. “King's blood art thou—his death shall be hispride!”Then louder, that the crowd might catch: “Fear not—his arms are tied!”Yar Khan drew clear the Khyber knife, and struck, and sheathed again.“O man, thy will is done,” quoth he; “a King this dog hath slain.”Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,to the North and the South is sold.The North and the South shall open their mouthto a Ghilzai flag unrolled,When the big guns speak to the Khyber peak,and his dog-Heratis fly:Ye have heard the song—How long? How long?Wolves of the Abazai!That night before the watch was set, when all the streets were clear,The Governor of Kabul spoke: “My King, hast thou no fear?Thou knowest—thou hast heard,”—his speech died at his master's face.And grimly said the Afghan King: “I rule the Afghan race.My path is mine—see thou to thine—tonight upon thy bedThink who there be in Kabul now that clamour for thy head.”That night when all the gates were shut to City and to throne,Within a little garden-house the King lay down alone.Before the sinking of the moon, which is the Night of Night,Yar Khan came softly to the King to make his honour white.The children of the town had mocked beneath his horse's hoofs,The harlots of the town had hailed him “butcher!” from their roofs.But as he groped against the wall, two hands upon him fell,The King behind his shoulder spake: “Dead man, thou dost not well!'Tis ill to jest with Kings by day and seek a boon by night;And that thou bearest in thy hand is all too sharp to write.“But three days hence, if God be good, and if thy strength remain,Thou shalt demand one boon of me and bless me in thy pain.For I am merciful to all, and most of all to thee.“My butcher of the shambles, rest—no knife hast thou for me!”Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,holds hard by the South and the North;But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows,when the swollen banks break forth,When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall,and his Usbeg lances fail:Ye have heard the song—How long? How long?Wolves of the Zuka Kheyl!They stoned him in the rubbish-field when dawn was in the sky,According to the written word, “See that he do not die.”They stoned him till the stones were piled above him on the plain,And those the labouring limbs displaced they tumbled back again.
One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the batteredthing,And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King.
It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan,The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan.From shattered breast through shrivelled lips broke forth the rattling breath,“Creature of God, deliver me from agony of Death.”They sought the King among his girls, and risked their lives thereby:“Protector of the Pitiful, give orders that he die!”“Bid him endure until the day,” a lagging answer came;“The night is short, and he can pray and learn to bless my name.”Before the dawn three times he spoke, and on the day once more:“Creature of God, deliver me, and bless the King therefor!”They shot him at the morning prayer, to ease him of his pain,And when he heard the matchlocks clink, he blessed the King again.Which thing the singers made a song for all the world to sing,So that the Outer Seas may know the mercy of the King.Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,of him is the story told,He has opened his mouth to the North and the South,they have stuffed his mouth with gold.Ye know the truth of his tender ruth—and sweet his favours are:Ye have heard the song—How long? How long?from Balkh to Kandahar.
When spring-time flushes the desert grass,Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.Lean are the camels but fat the frails,Light are the purses but heavy the bales,As the snowbound trade of the North comes downTo the market-square of Peshawur town.In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;And the bubbling camels beside the loadSprawled for a furlong adown the road;And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;And there fled on the wings of the gathering duskA savour of camels and carpets and musk,A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,The knives were whetted and—then came ITo Mahbub Ali the muleteer,Patching his bridles and counting his gear,Crammed with the gossip of half a year.But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,“Better is speech when the belly is fed.”So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deepIn a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,And he who never hath tasted the food,By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.Four things greater than all things are,—Women and Horses and Power and War.We spake of them all, but the last the most,For I sought a word of a Russian post,Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed swordAnd a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyesIn the fashion of one who is weaving lies.Quoth he: “Of the Russians who can say?When the night is gathering all is gray.But we look that the gloom of the night shall dieIn the morning flush of a blood-red sky.“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wiseTo warn a King of his enemies?We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,But no man knoweth the mind of the King.“That unsought counsel is cursed of GodAttesteth the story of Wali Dad.“His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen;And the colt bred close to the vice of each,For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech.“Therewith madness—so that he soughtThe favour of kings at the Kabul court;And travelled, in hope of honour, farTo the line where the gray-coat squadrons are.“There have I journeyed too—but ISaw naught, said naught, and—did not die!He harked to rumour, and snatched at a breathOf 'this one knoweth' and 'that one saith',—Legends that ran from mouth to mouthOf a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South.“These have I also heard—they passWith each new spring and the winter grass.“Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,Back to the city ran Wali Dad,Even to Kabul—in full durbarThe King held talk with his Chief in War.“Into the press of the crowd he broke,And what he had heard of the coming spoke.
“Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,As a mother might on a babbling child;But those who would laugh restrained their breath,When the face of the King showed dark as death.“Evil it is in full durbarTo cry to a ruler of gathering war!Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,That grew by a cleft of the city wall.“And he said to the boy: 'They shall praise thy zealSo long as the red spurt follows the steel.“And the Russ is upon us even now?Great is thy prudence—await them, thou.Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong,Surely thy vigil is not for long.“The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?Surely an hour shall bring their van.Wait and watch. When the host is near,Shout aloud that my men may hear.'“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wiseTo warn a King of his enemies?A guard was set that he might not flee—A score of bayonets ringed the tree.“The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,When he shook at his death as he looked below.By the power of God, who alone is great,Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.“Then madness took him, and men declareHe mowed in the branches as ape and bear,And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,And sleep the cord of his hands untied,And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.“Heart of my heart, is it meet or wiseTo warn a King of his enemies?We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,But no man knoweth the mind of the King.“Of the gray-coat coming who can say?When the night is gathering all is gray.“To things greater than all things are,The first is Love, and the second War.“And since we know not how War may prove,Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!”
This is the ballad of Boh Da Thone,Erst a Pretender to Theebaw's throne,Who harried the district of Alalone:How he met with his fate and the V.P.P.At the hand of Harendra Mukerji,Senior Gomashta, G.B.T.Boh Da Thone was a warrior bold:His sword and his Snider were bossed with gold,And the Peacock Banner his henchmen boreWas stiff with bullion, but stiffer with gore.He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weakFrom the Salween scrub to the Chindwin teak:He crucified noble, he sacrificed mean,He filled old ladies with kerosene:While over the water the papers cried,“The patriot fights for his countryside!”But little they cared for the Native Press,The worn white soldiers in Khaki dress,Who tramped through the jungle and camped in the byre,Who died in the swamp and were tombed in the mire,Who gave up their lives, at the Queen's Command,For the Pride of their Race and the Peace of the Land.Now, first of the foemen of Boh Da ThoneWas Captain O'Neil of the “Black Tyrone”,And his was a Company, seventy strong,Who hustled that dissolute Chief along.There were lads from Galway and Louth and MeathWho went to their death with a joke in their teeth,And worshipped with fluency, fervour, and zealThe mud on the boot-heels of “Crook” O'Neil.But ever a blight on their labours lay,And ever their quarry would vanish away,Till the sun-dried boys of the Black TyroneTook a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone:And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends,The Boh and his trackers were best of friends.The word of a scout—a march by night—A rush through the mist—a scattering fight—A volley from cover—a corpse in the clearing—The glimpse of a loin-cloth and heavy jade earring—The flare of a village—the tally of slain—And...the Boh was abroad “on the raid” again!They cursed their luck, as the Irish will,They gave him credit for cunning and skill,They buried their dead, they bolted their beef,And started anew on the track of the thiefTill, in place of the “Kalends of Greece”, men said,“When Crook and his darlings come back with the head.”They had hunted the Boh from the hills to the plain—He doubled and broke for the hills again:They had crippled his power for rapine and raid,They had routed him out of his pet stockade,And at last, they came, when the Day Star tired,To a camp deserted—a village fired.A black cross blistered the Morning-gold,And the body upon it was stark and cold.The wind of the dawn went merrily past,The high grass bowed her plumes to the blast.And out of the grass, on a sudden, brokeA spirtle of fire, a whorl of smoke—And Captain O'Neil of the Black TyroneWas blessed with a slug in the ulnar-bone—The gift of his enemy Boh Da Thone.(Now a slug that is hammered from telegraph-wireIs a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.)
The shot-wound festered—as shot-wounds mayIn a steaming barrack at Mandalay.The left arm throbbed, and the Captain swore,“I'd like to be after the Boh once more!”The fever held him—the Captain said,“I'd give a hundred to look at his head!”The Hospital punkahs creaked and whirred,But Babu Harendra (Gomashta) heard.He thought of the cane-brake, green and dank,That girdled his home by the Dacca tank.He thought of his wife and his High School son,He thought—but abandoned the thought—of a gun.His sleep was broken by visions dreadOf a shining Boh with a silver head.He kept his counsel and went his way,And swindled the cartmen of half their pay.
And the months went on, as the worst must do,And the Boh returned to the raid anew.But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife,And in far Simoorie had taken a wife.And she was a damsel of delicate mould,With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold,And little she knew the arms that embracedHad cloven a man from the brow to the waist:And little she knew that the loving lipsHad ordered a quivering life's eclipse,And the eye that lit at her lightest breathHad glared unawed in the Gates of Death.(For these be matters a man would hide,As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.)And little the Captain thought of the past,And, of all men, Babu Harendra last.
But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road,The Government Bullock Train toted its load.Speckless and spotless and shining with ghee,In the rearmost cart sat the Babu-jee.And ever a phantom before him fledOf a scowling Boh with a silver head.Then the lead-cart stuck, though the coolies slaved,And the cartmen flogged and the escort raved;And out of the jungle, with yells and squeals,Pranced Boh Da Thone, and his gang at his heels!Then belching blunderbuss answered backThe Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack,And the blithe revolver began to singTo the blade that twanged on the locking-ring,And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed,As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist,And the great white bullocks with onyx eyesWatched the souls of the dead arise,And over the smoke of the fusilladeThe Peacock Banner staggered and swayed.Oh, gayest of scrimmages man may seeIs a well-worked rush on the G.B.T.!The Babu shook at the horrible sight,And girded his ponderous loins for flight,But Fate had ordained that the Boh should startOn a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe,The Babu fell—flat on the top of the Boh!For years had Harendra served the State,To the growth of his purse and the girth of hispet.There were twenty stone, as the tally-man knows,On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs.And twenty stone from a height dischargedAre bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.Oh, short was the struggle—severe was the shock—He dropped like a bullock—he lay like a block;And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear,Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear.And thus in a fashion undignifiedThe princely pest of the Chindwin died.
Turn now to Simoorie where, lapped in his ease,The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees,Where the whit of the bullet, the wounded man's screamAre mixed as the mist of some devilish dream—Forgotten, forgotten the sweat of the shamblesWhere the hill-daisy blooms and the gray monkey gambols,From the sword-belt set free and released from the steel,The Peace of the Lord is with Captain O'Neil.
Up the hill to Simoorie—most patient of drudges—The bags on his shoulder, the mail-runner trudges.“For Captain O'Neil, Sahib. One hundred and tenRupees to collect on delivery.”Then(Their breakfast was stopped while the screw-jack and hammerTore waxcloth, split teak-wood, and chipped out the dammer;)Open-eyed, open-mouthed, on the napery's snow,With a crash and a thud, rolled—the Head of the Boh!And gummed to the scalp was a letter which ran:—“IN FIELDING FORCE SERVICE.Encampment,—th Jan.“Dear Sir,—I have honour to send, as you said,For final approval (see under) Boh's Head;“Was took by myself in most bloody affair.By High Education brought pressure to bear.“Now violate Liberty, time being bad,To mail V.P.P. (rupees hundred) Please add“Whatever Your Honour can pass. Price of BloodMuch cheap at one hundred, and children want food;“So trusting Your Honour will somewhat retainTrue love and affection for Govt. Bullock Train,“And show awful kindness to satisfy me,I am,Graceful Master,YourH. MUKERJI.”
As the rabbit is drawn to the rattlesnake's power,As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour,As a horse reaches up to the manger above,As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love,From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow,The Captain bent down to the Head of the Boh.And e'en as he looked on the Thing where It lay'Twixt the winking new spoons and the napkins' array,The freed mind fled back to the long-ago days—The hand-to-hand scuffle—the smoke and the blaze—The forced march at night and the quick rush at dawn—The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn—The stench of the marshes—the raw, piercing smellWhen the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell—The oaths of his Irish that surged when they stoodWhere the black crosses hung o'er the Kuttamow flood.As a derelict ship drifts away with the tideThe Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year,When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water,In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,And men who had fought with O'Neil for the lifeHad gazed on his face with less dread than his wife.For she who had held him so long could not hold him—Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled him—But watched the twin Terror—the head turned to head—The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage Red—The spirit that changed from her knowing and flew toSome grim hidden Past she had never a clue to.But It knew as It grinned, for he touched it unfearing,And muttered aloud, “So you kept that jade earring!”Then nodded, and kindly, as friend nods to friend,“Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end.”
The visions departed, and Shame followed Passion:—“He took what I said in this horrible fashion,“I'll write to Harendra!” With language unsaintedThe Captain came back to the Bride... who had fainted.
And this is a fiction? No. Go to SimoorieAnd look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri,A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin—She's always about on the Mall of a mornin'—And you'll see, if her right shoulder-strap is displaced,This: Gules upon argent, a Boh's Head, erased!