No More Learning

It seems that he had tracked Pornic's footprints fourteen miles across
the sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatly
refused to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into the
hideous Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my ponies
and a couple of punkah-ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out
as I have described.

To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my personal servant on a gold
mohur a month--a sum which I still think far too little for the services
he has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near that
devilish spot again, or to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than I
have done. Of Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to
do. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that some
one may possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which I
have given above, the corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting-suit.

* * * * *




THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy.

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to
follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under
circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other
was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came
near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and was
promised the reversion of a Kingdom--army, law-courts, revenue, and
policy all complete. But, today, I greatly fear that my King is dead,
and if I want a crown I must go hunt it for myself.

The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to Mhow
from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated
travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class,
but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions
in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate,
which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty,
or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy
from refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and
buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside
water.
This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the
carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.

My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached
Nasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered,
and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He
was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated
taste for whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of
out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and
of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food.

"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than
the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy
millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred
millions," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed
to agree with him.

We talked politics,--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from
the under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,--and we
talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram
back from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the
Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money
beyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at
all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was
going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the
Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to
help him in any way.

"We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,"
said my friend, "but that'd mean inquiries for you and for me, and I've
got my hands full these days. Did you say you were travelling back along
this line within any days? "

"Within ten," I said.

"Can't you make it eight? " said he. "Mine is rather urgent business. "

"I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you," I
said.