No More Learning

Some of his best tales — notably “The
Man Who Would Be King'— vividly present this newspaper experi-
ence, which was indubitably a good thing for a man like Kipling.
Meanwhile, in the intervals of supplying mere prosaic “copy,” for
which there was a loud call in the composing-room, he was doing


## p. 8634 (#246) ###########################################

8634
RUDYARD KIPLING
>
what many another hard-worked newspaper man has done before
him. turning out stories and verses — which were quickly caught up
by the press and circulated through East India. Then Kipling, in
1886, having attained to man's estate in years, had bound up
in
rough fashion in his office a small volume of his verse: "a lean
oblong docket, wire-stitched, to imitate a D. 0. government envelope,
printed on one side only, bound in brown paper and secured with red
tape. ” And this bard's bantling had a good sale thereabouts; and as
he himself puts it, (at last the book came to London with a gilt
top and a stiff back. ” Its subsequent history is not private: few first
volumes have had so cordial a reception. The Indian stories too,
Plain Tales from the Hills) (1888), were collected in book shape,
eagerly read by the writer's local clientèle, and found a continually
widening public. Kipling's verse and prose were of honestest birth:
sprung from local experience, his writings appealed primarily to a
local audience; but possessing the essential qualities and interests,
the work proved acceptable to anybody on earth capable of being
moved by the earnest, truthful, forcible portrayal of life in words.
When Plain Tales from the Hills) appeared as a book, it was seen
to be the manifesto of a new talent. The vitality, distinction, new-
ness of theme, the pathos, drama, and humor of the work, set it clean
aside from anything else contemporaneous in fiction of the short-
story kind. The defects in the earlier books were an occasional
abuse of the technical in word or allusion, and a young-man cynicism,
appearing especially in the Gadsby series,-a mood soon sloughed off
by the maturer Kipling. But the merits were of the overpowering
sort, and the dynamic force of the tales was beyond question. That
a man but little more than twenty should have written them made
the performance spectacular. In the use of plain Biblical language
and the selection of realistic themes there was something of the
audacity and immediateness of journalism; but the result almost
always justified the method.
The tales found in the volumes — about a dozen in number –
published between 1886 and 1895, are of several kinds. Some treat
pathetic, realistic, or weirdly sombre situations, either of native or
soldier life: a class containing some masterpieces, of which «The Man
Who Would Be King,' (The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes,' (The
Mark of the Beast,' Without Benefit of Clergy,) (The Phantom Rick-
shaw,' and Beyond the Pale) are illustrations. Another division, of
which (Wee Willie Winkie) is the type, grouped in the book Wee
Willie Winkie and Other Stories) (1888), deals with children, and
exhibits a very winning aspect of the author. Still another contains
the humorous cycle personified in the inimitable triad Mulvaney,
Ortheris, and Learoyd, brought into an artistic unity by their common
(


## p. 8635 (#247) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8635
1112
.
lot as British-Indian privates (with Dinah Shadd as a minor deity),
one of the most spontaneous and successful of 'Kipling's ventures.
The three sharply differentiated individualities have a reality as tan-
gible as Dumas's Guardsmen. The range and variety of the stories
under these heads furnish an emphatic testimonial to Kipling's many-
sidedness. The successive volumes of short stories, from (Plain
Tales' to Many Inventions) in 1893, have only strengthened the
feeling made by his début. The work has been prevailingly, though
by no means exclusively, inspired by Anglo-Indian motives; -- one
such exception as the superbly imaginative psychologic study, A
Disturber of Traffic, indicates his independence of any prescribed
place or subject. Kipling went to England in 1889, and a little later
settled in the United States, where he married Miss Balestier, the
sister of his friend Wolcott Balestier, with whom he collaborated in
the novel “The Naulakha”; a name he afterwards gave to the sightly
house he has built in Brattleboro, Vermont. His English and Ameri-
can experience has entered into and somewhat conditioned his fiction,
which so far however has made its most distinct impression when it
has come out of the East. But whatever the material of the art, the
Kiplingesque attributes are pretty steadily present: a sinewy vernac-
ular strength and beauty of diction; a wonderful power to see and to
represent with bold synthetic effect; and a deep, broad, brotherly
apprehension of the large fundamental passions and interests of
humanity. If one had to name off-hand the qualities most noticeable
in Kipling's short stories, one would say, strength and democratic
sympathy.
Having done short-story work of so much power and flexibility,
Kipling in 1894 produced that unique and wonderful series of animal
fables, The Jungle Book); a Second Jungle Book' following in 1895.
Here was an absolutely fresh handling of the beast-epic,- a theme
familiar since the Middle Ages. But Kipling's attitude is new: the
beast kind are considered from their own side of the fence, and man
is an inferior rather than superior race. The writer's marvelous com-
prehension of animal life, and his equally marvelous technical knowl-
edge of the Indian beast haunts, combine to give to what might
have been grotesquely imaginative the realism of a latter-day annal;
and a rich ethical suggestion covers it like an atmosphere. Kipling
has given no plainer proof of his rightful claim to greatness than
these Jungle fables. His Mowgli is a creation as definite as any of
Æsop's; and its note of sympathy has a modernness which appeals to
the present-day reader.
The essays in full-length fiction also call for attention; though this
work is, up to the present, minor. In 1890 appeared The Light that
Failed'; a novelette which certainly possesses strength of description
1
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## p. 8636 (#248) ###########################################

8636
RUDYARD KIPLING
(
>
-
14
-
and characterization, with some very dramatic scenes, but which does
not strike one as 'having the form germane to the writer's genius.
(The Naulakha' (1892) is a very readable novel, the second part of
which, where the scene shifts from the western United States to
India, and some gruesomely powerful situations are well handled,
Kipling is responsible for. The book as a whole is not close-knit
enough nor homogeneous enough to make it an impressive piece of
sustained art-work. Nor, judging Kipling by the high standard set
by his own short tales, can the Captains Courageous! (1897) – a
spirited narrative of the Gloucester (Massachusetts) fishermen, and
the first long study of American life he has made the short story
“The Walking Delegate) also used a piquant American subject) — be
ranked among his major works. In a word, Kipling has so far
found his authentic prose utterance in the short-story form.
It remains to speak of his poetry, which is now seen to be one of the
most important outcomes of his literary genius. Readers of Kipling's
short stories were early attracted by the snatches of verse myste-
riously prefixed thereto and ascribed to imaginary sources. These
fragments were sometimes startling for power and felicity in the
pathetic, dramatic, and satiric veins. But before long the books of
verse which appeared were a notification — if any were needed, for
Kipling is a prose poet in much of his fiction — that the virile young
Anglo-Indian must be reckoned with both as singer and sayer. De-
partmental Ditties and Other Verses' (1891), (Barrack-Room Ballads
and Other Verses) (1892), and “The Seven Seas) (1896), are collections
of steadily ascending worth and importance. Kipling has come to his
position as poet later and more slowly than was the case with his
fiction; but his seat will be quite as secure, for recognition among
the judicious is now general and hearty. His first appeal was as a
maker of rollicking rhymes, in which the common British soldier in
his picturesque variations was hymned and limned. Kipling became
the barrack-room bard whose seamy heroes, Danny Deever, Tommy
Atkins, Bill 'Awkins, and their likes, were drawn in their habits as
they lived, in their dramatic virtues and equally dramatic sins. The
zest, the high-heartedness, and the infectious lilt of these verses were
such as to commend them not only to the military of many lands,
but to the great international democracy of civilians who love vital
literature. The accent was caught, the epic of the rank-and-file
revealed.
Had Kipling done no more than the barrack-room songs, he would
have won place as a verse-writer; but his flight has been freer and
higher. In his latest poetic utterance he has published himself as the
“bard of the greater Britain,” the uncrowned laureate of the whole
English-speaking folk wherever established. He has shown himself


## p. 8637 (#249) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8637
>
E
the strongest living ballad-writer of the tongue. Tennyson, shortly
before his death, wrote Kipling concerning «The Ballad of East and
West' that it was the finest thing of the kind in English verse. "The
English Flag,' «The Last Chantey,' (A Song of the English,' McAn-
drew's Hymn,' (The Native Born,' — such pieces as these could come
only from a man of puissant power. Kipling has seized, with superb
courage and strong grasp, upon contemporaneous motives whose
connotation is what we call practical, even vulgar; and as only the
largely endowed, truly called poet can, has lifted the bald subject into
the higher realms of imaginative thought and feeling. This is the
truest of all idealism, because it stands four-square upon fact. A
horny-handed and sin-seared skipper, a lawless soldier with a light-o'-
love in every port, a cattle-keeper on shipboard, an engineer amidst
his oily engines, are put before us so that we recognize them as lov-
able fellow-creatures, responsive to the «thousandfold thrill of life. ”
An electric cable, a steam-engine, a banjo, or a mess-room toast offer
occasion for song; and lo, they are converted by the alchemy of the
imagination until they become a type and an illumination of the red-
blooded life of human kind. The ability to achieve this is a crowning
characteristic and merit of Rudyard Kipling's poetry.
It is unnecessary to ask if Kipling's American residence will more
and more color his work. Where he finds his stimulus is immaterial,
so long as the resulting literature is good. His is a restless spirit,
with the adventure quest in the blood, implied in the short compact
figure and the thin alert face, out of which keen eyes behind glasses
peer forth at the human show. He likes to exchange at short notice
the New England hills for the London club or the Indian bungalow.
It is enough to be sure he will follow the Terentian injunction,
surveying men and morals widely and closely and deeming nothing
human alien to his interest. Prophecy concerning his literary work
still to come is likewise foolish. The conventional remark that he
has shown great promise, with the implied postponement of full
accomplishment to the limbo of a dim imaginary future, is not appli-
cable to a Kipling. Already his promise has become performance: he
has done enough to display his genius and define his place with the
few modern English authors of originality, force, and superlative gift.
He is an answer in the concrete to the dyspeptic query,
( What is
the end of the present century doing in literature ? »
METER LIBRARIE


## p. 8638 (#250) ###########################################

8638
RUDYARD KIPLING
WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY
From Harper's Weekly, by permission of Harper & Brothers
‘BºT
1
son
ut if it be a girl ? »
“Lord of my life, it cannot be! I have prayed for so
many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badl's shrine so
often, that I know God will give us a - a man-child that
shall grow into a man. Think of this and be glad. My mother
shall be his mother till I can take him again, and the mullah of
the Pattan Mosque shall cast his nativity — God send he be born
in an auspicious hour! - and then and then thou wilt never
weary of me, thy slave. ”
« Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen ? ”
“Since the beginning — till this mercy came
to me,
How
could I be sure of thy love when I knew that I had been bought
with silver ? »
“Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother. ”
“And she has buried it, and sits upon it all day long like a
hen. What talk is yours of dowry? I was bought as though I
had been a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a child. ”
"Art thou sorry for the sale ? ”
“I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt never
cease to love me now? Answer, my king. ”
Never — never. No. "
“Not even though the mem-log — the white women of thy own
blood — love thee? And remember, I have watched them driving
in the evening; they are very fair. ”
“I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred; I have seen the
moon, and
then I saw no more fire-balloons.
Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. “Very good talk,"
she said. Then, with an assumption of great stateliness, “It is
enough. Thou hast my permission to depart—if thou wilt. ”
The man did not move. He was sitting on
a low red-lac-
quered couch, in a room furnished only with a blue-and-white
floor-cloth, some rugs, and a very complete collection of native
cushions. At his feet sat a woman of sixteen, and she was all-
but all the world in his eyes. By every rule and law she should
have been otherwise; for he was an Englishman and she a Mus-
sulman's daughter, bought two years before from her mother,
who being left without money, would have sold Ameera, shriek-
ing, to the Prince of Darkness, if the price had been sufficient.
(
11
>>
4
2
1


## p. 8639 (#251) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8639
1 x 2,10
106
It was a contract entered into with a light heart.
But even
before the girl had reached her bloom she came to fill the greater
portion of John Holden's life. For her and the withered hag, her
mother, he had taken a little house overlooking the great red-
walled city, and found, when the marigolds had sprung up by the
well in the court-yard, and Ameera had established herself accord-
ing to her own ideas of comfort, and her mother had ceased
grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking-places, the distance
from the daily market, and matters of housekeeping in general,
that the house was to him his home. Any one could enter his
bachelor's bungalow by day or night, and the life that he led
there was an unlovely one. In the house in the city, his feet
only could pass beyond the outer court-yard to the women's rooms;
and when the big wooden gate was bolted behind him he was
king in his own territory, with Ameera for queen. And there
was going to be added to his kingdom a third person, whose
arrival Holden felt inclined to resent. It interfered with his
perfect happiness. It disarranged the orderly peace of the house
that was his own. But Ameera was wild with delight at the
thought of it, and her mother not less so. The love of a man,
and particularly a white man, was at the best an inconstant
affair; but it might, both women argued, be held fast by a baby's
Bands. "And then, Ameera would always say — “then he will
Dever care for the white mem-log. I hate them all — I hate them
all. )
“He will go back to his own people in time,” said the mother;
but by the blessing of God, that time is yet afar off. ”
Holden sat silent on the couch, thinking of the future, and
his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life
are manifold. The government, with singular care, had ordered
him out of the station for a fortnight on special duty, in the
place of a man who was watching by the bedside of a sick wife.
The verbal notification of the transfer had been edged by a
cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in
being a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news
to Ameera.
"It is not good,” she said slowly, “but it is not all bad.
There is my mother here, and no harm will come to me - unless
in deed I die of pure joy. Go thou to thy work, and think no
troublesome thoughts. When the days are done, I believe - nay,
I am sure.
And- and then I shall lay him in thy arms, and
,
»
(
11
4
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## p. 8640 (#252) ###########################################

8640
RUDYARD KIPLING
thou wilt love me forever. The train goes to-night — at mid-
night, is it not ? Go now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by
cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning! Thou wilt
not stay on the road to talk to the bold white mem-log! Come
back to me swiftly, my life! ”
As he left the court-yard to reach his horse, that was tethered
to the gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-haired old watchman
who guarded the house, and bade him under certain contingen-
cies dispatch the filled-up telegraph form that Holden gave him.
It was all that could be done; and with the sensations of a man
who has attended his own funeral, Holden went away by the
night mail to his exile. Every hour of the day he dreaded the
arrival of the telegram, and every hour of the night he pictured
to himself the death of Ameera. In consequence, his work for
the State was not of first-rate quality, nor was his temper towards
his colleagues of the most amiable. The fortnight ended with-
out a sign from his home; and torn to pieces by his anxieties,
Holden returned to be swallowed up for two precious hours by a
dinner at the club, wherein he heard, as a man hears in a swoon,
voices telling him how execrably he had performed the other
man's duties, and how he had endeared himself to all his asso-
ciates. Then he fled on horseback through the night with his
heart in his mouth. There was no answer at first to his blows
on the gate; and he had just wheeled his horse round to kick it
in, when Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and held his stirrup.
«Has aught occurred ? ” said Holden.
« The news does not come from my mouth, Protector of the
Poor, but — » He held out his shaking hand, as befitted the
bearer of good news who is entitled to a reward.
Holden hurried through the court-yard. A light burned in
the upper room. His horse neighed in the gateway, and he
heard a pin-pointed wail that sent all the blood into the apple of
his throat. It was a new voice, but it did not prove that Ameera
was alive.
“Who is there? ” he called up the narrow brick staircase.
There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then the voice
of her mother, tremulous with old age and pride: “We be two
women and — the— man — thy son. ”
On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on
dagger that was laid there to avert ill-luck, and it broke at the
hilt under his impatient heel.
या
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## p. 8641 (#253) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8641
»
(
(
-
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17
1
"God is great! ” cooed Ameera in the half-light. « Thou hast
taken his misfortunes on thy head. ”
"Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life?
Old woman,
how is it with her ? »
"She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child is
born. There is no harm; but speak softly,” said the mother.
“It only needed thy presence to make me all well,” said
Ameera. “My king, thou hast been very long away. What gifts
hast thou for me? Ah! ah! It is I that bring gifts this time.
Look, my life, look! Was there ever such a babe ? Nay, I am
too weak even to clear my arm from him. ”
“Rest, then, and do not talk. I am here, bachheri” [little
woman).
« Well said; for there is a bond and a heel-rope (peecharee]
between us now that nothing can break. Look — canst thou see
in this light? He is without spot or blemish. Never was such
a man-child. Ya illah! he shall be a pundit- no, a trooper of
the Queen. And my life, dost thou love me as well as ever,
though I am faint and sick and worn ? Answer truly. ”
« Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my soul.
Lie still,
pearl, and rest. ”
« Then do not go. Sit by my side here — so. Mother, the
lord of this house needs a cushion. Bring it. ”
There was an
almost imperceptible movement on the part of the new life that
lay in the hollow of Ameera's arm. "Aho! ” she said, her voice
breaking with love. “The babe is a champion from his birth.
He is kicking me in the side with mighty kicks. Was there ever
such a babe ? And he is ours to us— -thine and mine. Put thy
hand on his head; but carefully, for he is very young, and men
are unskilled in such matters. ”
Very cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his fingers
the downy head.
"He is of the Faith,” said Ameera; for, lying here in the
night-watches, I whispered the Call to Prayer and the Profession
of Faith into his ears. And it is most marvelous that he was
born upon a Friday, as I was born. Be careful of him, my life;
but he can almost grip with his hands.
”
Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on
h is finger. And the clutch ran through his limbs till it settled
a bout his heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera.
He began to realize that there was some one else in the world,
C
1
1
1
XV-541


## p. 8642 (#254) ###########################################

8642
RUDYARD KIPLING
11
T
»
but he could not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. He
sat down to think, and Ameera dozed lightly.
“Get hence, sahib,” said her mother, under her breath. “It
is not good that she should find you here on waking. She must
be still. ”
“I go,” said Holden submissively. «Here be rupees.
See
that my baba gets fat and finds all that he needs. ”
The chink of the silver roused Ameera. “I am his mother,
and no hireling,” she said weakly. «Shall I look to him more or
less for the sake of money? Mother, give it back. I have borne
my lord a son. ”
The deep sleep of weakness came upon her almost before the
sentence was completed. Holden went down to the court-yard
very softly, with his heart at ease. Pir Khan, the old watchman,
was chuckling with delight.
« This house is now complete,” he said; and without fur-
ther comment thrust into Holden's hands the hilt of a sabre
worn many years ago, when Pir Khan served the Queen in the
police.
The bleat of a tethered goat came from the well-curb.
« There be two,” said Pir Khan — «two goats of the best. I
bought them, and they cost much money; and since there is no
birth-party assembled, their flesh will be all mine. Strike craft.
ily, sahib. 'Tis an ill-balanced sabre at the best. Wait till they
raise their heads from cropping the marigolds. ”
"And why? ” said Holden, bewildered.
“For the birth sacrifice. What else ? Otherwise the child,
being unguarded from fate, may die. The Protector of the Poor
knows the fitting words to be said. ”
Holden had learned them once, with little thought that he
would ever say them in earnest. The touch of the cold sabre
hilt in his palm turned suddenly to the clinging grip of the child
up-stairs, — the child that was his own son, — and a dread of loss
filled him.
« Strike! » said Pir Khan. "Never life came into the world
but life was paid for it. See, the goats have raised their heads.
Now! With a drawing cut! ”
Hardly knowing what he did, Holden cut twice as he mut-
tered the Mohammedan prayer that runs, “Almighty! In place
of this my son I offer life for life, blood for blood, head for
head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for skin. ” The waiting
f
»


## p. 8643 (#255) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8643
(
horse snorted and bounded in his pickets at the smell of the raw
blood that spurted over Holden's riding-boots.
“Well smitten! ” said Pir Khan, wiping the sabre. "A swords-
man was lost in thee. Go with a light heart, heaven-born. I
am thy servant, and the servant of thy son. May the Pres-
ence live a thousand years, and — the flesh of the goats is all
mine ? »
Pir Khan drew back richer by a month's pay.
Holden swung
himself into the saddle, and rode off through the low-hanging
wood smoke of the evening. He was full of riotous exultation,
alternating with a vast vague tenderness directed towards no
particular object, that made him choke as he bent over the neck
of his uneasy horse. “I never felt like this in my life," he
thought. “I'll go to the club and pull myself together. ”
A game of pool was beginning, and the room was full of
men. Holden entered, eager to get to the light and the com-
pany of his fellows, singing at the top of his voice,
(
>
« In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet. '»
ISIN
tie
<< Did
19
"Did you ? ” said the club secretary from his corner.
she happen to tell you that your boots were wringing wet ?
Great goodness, man, it's blood! ”
“Bosh! ” said Holden, picking his cue from the rack. “May
I cut in ? It's dew. I've been riding through high crops. My
faith! my boots are in a mess, though!
TI
((
1
« And if it be a girl, she shall wear a wedding-ring;
And if it be a boy, he shall fight for his king;
With his dirk, and his cap, and his little jacket blue,
He shall walk the quarter-deck ) »
(
« Yellow on blue green next player,” said the marker mo-
notonously.
« (He shall walk the quarter-deck' — am I green, marker ? -
He shall walk the quarter-deck'-ouch! that's a bad shot! -
'as his daddy used to do! » »
"I don't see that you have anything to crow about,” said a
zealous junior civilian acidly. «The government is not exactly
pleased with your work when you relieved Sanders. ”
"Does that mean a wigging from headquarters? ” said Holden,
with an abstracted smile. “I think I can stand it. ”
»


## p. 8644 (#256) ###########################################

8644
RUDYARD KIPLING
The talk beat up round the ever-fresh subject of each man's
work, and steadied Holden till it was time to go to his dark,
empty bungalow, where his butler received him as one who
knew all his affairs. Holden remained awake for the greater
part of the night, and his dreams were pleasant ones.
9
11
“How old is he now ? »
“Ya illah! What a man's question! He is all-but six weeks
old; and on this night I go up to the house-top with thee, my
life, to count the stars. For that is auspicious. And he was
born on
a Friday, under the sign of the Sun, and it has been
told to me that he will outlive us both and get wealth.
Can we
wish for aught better, beloved ? »
« There is nothing better. Let us go up to the roof, and thou
shalt count the stars — but a few only, for the sky is heavy with
cloud. ”
« The winter rains are late, and maybe they come out of sea-
son. Come, before all the stars are hid. I have put on my rich-
est jewels. ”
“Thou hast forgotten the best of all. ”
"Ai! Ours. He comes also. He has never yet seen the
skies. ”
Ameera climbed the narrow staircase that led to the flat roof.
The child, placid and unwinking, lay in the hollow of her right
arm, gorgeous in silver-fringed muslin, with a small skull-cap on
his head. Ameera wore all that she valued most: the diamond
nose-stud that takes the place of the Western patch in drawing
attention to the curve of the nostril, the gold ornament in the
centre of the forehead studded with tallow-drop emeralds and
flawed rubies, the heavy circlet of beaten gold that was fastened
round her neck by the softness of the pure metal, and the chink-
ing curb-patterned silver anklets hanging low over the rosy
ankle-bone. She was dressed in jade-green muslin, as befitted a
daughter of the Faith, and from shoulder to elbow and elbow to
wrist ran bracelets of silver tied with floss silk; frail glass ban-
gles slipped over the wrist in proof of the slenderness of the
hand, - and certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part in
her country's ornaments, but since they were Holden's gift, and
fastened with a cunning European snap, delighted her immensely.
They sat down by the low white parapet of the roof, over-
looking the city and its lights.
10


## p. 8645 (#257) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8645
.
(
we
1
)
"They are happy down there,” said Ameera. « But I do not
think that they are as happy as we. Nor do I think the white
nem-log are as happy. And thou ? ”
“I know they are not. ”
« How dost thou know ? »
"They give their children over to the nurses. "
“I have never seen that,” said Ameera, with a sigh; “nor
do I wish to see. Ahi! " --- she dropped her head on Holden's
shoulder-"I have counted forty stars, and I am tired. Look
at the child, love of my life. He is counting too. ”
The baby was staring with round eyes at the dark of the
heavens. Ameera placed him in Holden's arms, and he lay there
without a cry.
“What shall call him among ourselves ? » she said.
"Look! Art thou ever tired of looking? He carries thy very
eyes! But the mouth - »
"Is thine, most dear. Who should know better than I ? »
'Tis such a feeble mouth. Oh, so small! And yet it he
my heart between its lips. Give him to me now. He has been
too long away. ”
“Nay, let him lie: he has not yet begun to cry.
“When he cries thou wilt give him back, eh? What a man
of mankind thou art! If he cried he were only the dearer to
me. But, my life, what little name shall we give him ? »
The small body lay close to Holden's heart. It was utterly
helpless and very soft. He scarcely dared to breathe for fear of
crushing it. The caged green parrot, that is regarded as a sort
of guardian spirit in most native households, moved on its perch
and fluttered a drowsy wing.
« There is the answer,” said Holden. “Mian Mittu has
Spoken. He shall be the parrot. When he is ready he will talk
mightily and run about. Mian Mittu is the parrot in thy - in
the Mussulman tongue, is it not ? ”
“Why put me so far off ? ” said Ameera fretfully. “Let it be
like unto some English name – but not wholly. For he is mine. ”
“Then call him Tota, for that is likest English. ”
“Ay, Tota ! and that is still the parrot. Forgive me, my lord,
for a minute ago; but in truth he is too little to wear all the
weight of Mian Mittu for name. He shall be Tota-
our Tota
Hearest thou, O small one? Littlest, thou art Tota. ”
She touched the child's cheek, and he waking wailed, and it
was necessary to return him to his mother, w
11
»
>
(C
»
soothed him
to us.


## p. 8646 (#258) ###########################################

8646
RUDYARD KIPLING
with the wonderful rhyme of "Aré koko, Ja ré koko! ” which
says: -
“Oh, crow! Go, crow! Baby's sleeping sound,
And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound.
Only a penny a pound, Baba — only a penny a pound. ”
Reassured many times as to the price of those plums, Tota
cuddled himself down to sleep. The two sleek white well-bullocks
in the court-yard were steadily chewing the cud of their evening
meal; old Pir Khan squatted at the head of Holden's horse, his
police sabre across his knees, pulling drowsily at a big water-
pipe that croaked like a bull-frog in a pond. Ameera's mother
sat spinning in the lower veranda, and the wooden gate was shut
and barred. The music of a marriage procession came to the
roof above the gentle hum of the city, and a string of flying-
foxes crossed the face of the low moon.
“I have prayed,” said Ameera after a long pause, with her
chin in her hand—“I have prayed two things. First, that I may
die in thy stead, if thy death is demanded; and in the second,
that I may die in the place of the child. I have prayed to the
Prophet and to Beebee Miriam. Thinkest thou either will hear ? »
"From thy lips who would not hear the lightest word?
“I asked for straight talk, and thou hast given me sweet talk.
Will my prayers be heard ? »
“How can I say? God is very good. ”
“Of that I am not sure.
Listen now.
When I die or the
child dies, what is thy fate? Living, thou wilt return to the
bold white mem-log, for kind calls to kind. ”
“Not always. ”
« With a woman, no.
With a man it is otherwise. Thou wilt
in this life, later on, go back to thine own folk. That I could
almost endure, for I should be dead. But in thy very death
thou wilt be taken away to a strange place and a paradise that
I do not know. ”
“Will it be paradise ? ”
"Surely; for what God would harm thee? But we two-I
and the child - shall be elsewhere; and we cannot come to thee,
nor canst thou come to us. In the old days, before the child
was born, I did not think of these things; but now I think of
them perpetually. It is very hard talk. ”
“It will fall as it will fall. To-morrow we do not know, but
to-day and love we know well. Surely we are happy now. ”
(


## p. 8647 (#259) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8647
woman.
»
* So happy that it were well to make our happiness assured.
And thy Beebee Miriam should listen to me; for she is also a
But then she would envy me. It is not seemly for
Inen to worship a woman. ”
Holden laughed aloud at Ameera's little spasm of jealousy.