No More Learning

"At five, tomorrow then," said the Venus Annodomini. "And mind you are
punctual. "

"At five punctual," said "Young" Gayerson. "You can lend your old father
a horse I dare say, youngster, can't you? I'm going for a ride tomorrow
afternoon. "

"Certainly," said "Very Young" Gayerson. "I am going down tomorrow
morning. My ponies are at your service, Sir. "

The Venus Annodomini looked at him across the half-light of the room,
and her big gray eyes filled with moisture. She rose and shook hands
with him.

"Goodbye, Tom," whispered the Venus Annodomini.




THE BISARA OF POOREE.

Little Blind Fish, thou art marvellous wise,
Little Blind Fish, who put out thy eyes?
Open thine ears while I whisper my wish--
Bring me a lover, thou little Blind Fish.
--The Charm of the Bisara.
Some natives say that it came from the other side of Kulu, where
the eleven-inch Temple Sapphire is. Others that it was made at the
Devil-Shrine of Ao-Chung in Thibet, was stolen by a Kafir, from him by
a Gurkha, from him again by a Lahouli, from him by a khitmatgar, and by
this latter sold to an Englishman, so all its virtue was lost: because,
to work properly, the Bisara of Pooree must be stolen--with bloodshed if
possible, but, at any rate, stolen.

These stories of the coming into India are all false. It was made at
Pooree ages since--the manner of its making would fill a small book--was
stolen by one of the Temple dancing-girls there, for her own purposes,
and then passed on from hand to hand, steadily northward, till it
reached Hanla: always bearing the same name--the Bisara of Pooree. In
shape it is a tiny, square box of silver, studded outside with eight
small balas-rubies. Inside the box, which opens with a spring, is
a little eyeless fish, carved from some sort of dark, shiny nut and
wrapped in a shred of faded gold-cloth. That is the Bisara of Pooree,
and it were better for a man to take a king cobra in his hand than to
touch the Bisara of Pooree.

All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with except in India
where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, toy-scum stuff that people
call "civilization. " Any man who knows about the Bisara of Pooree will
tell you what its powers are--always supposing that it has been honestly
stolen. It is the only regularly working, trustworthy love-charm in the
country, with one exception.

[The other charm is in the hands of a trooper of the Nizam's Horse, at a
place called Tuprani, due north of Hyderabad. ] This can be depended upon
for a fact. Some one else may explain it.

If the Bisara be not stolen, but given or bought or found, it turns
against its owner in three years, and leads to ruin or death. This is
another fact which you may explain when you have time.

Meanwhile, you can laugh at it.