Fancies and Goodnights, стр. 66
Albert's face was as dead as Eva's, till suddenly it was galvanized by an expression too distracted and too fleeting to be called hope. Thump, thump, thump, he heard: he thought it was her heart beating again. Then he realized it was footsteps coming near.
He raised his head. Someone was on the other side of the bushes. «They shan't disturb you, my darling,» he said to Eva, and got up and stumbled round to face the intruders.
It was not policemen: it was two ordinary men, filthy, unshaven, looking at Albert out of wicked eyes.
«Nice goings on,» said one of them.
«We seen you,» said the other.
«There's a law against that sort of thing,» said the first. He gazed up at the sky. «Might be worth a couple of quid, not to be run in for that sort of thing.»
«For a decent girl it would,» said the other.
«Not to be dragged along to the copper-station with her thin-gummys hanging round her ankles,» said the first.
«You keep off,» said Albert. «I haven't got no money. Straight. You can search me if you like.»
«Perhaps the young lady 'as,» said the first man, having verified this point.
«If she is a young lady, she 'as,» said the second.
«And if not,» said the first. «If not, Alf — What do you say? Looked O.K. to me. Nice bit of goods!»
«I'm game,» said Alf, glancing round.
The men made a move. Albert got in front of them, his arms spread wide. «Keep back,» he said again, feeling how light and flat and useless the words were.
«Sit on him, Alf,» said the first man. «Then I will.»
There was a scuffle. Albert, heaven knows how, tore himself away from Alf, and rushed after the first man, seizing him by the collar and raining blows on his hard head. «Strewth!» cried the man. «'Ere, take him off, Alf, 'e's stinging me.»
Albert felt a hand seize him. He turned; there was Alf's grinning face. «Come on, dearie,» said Alf. Albert, yielding for a moment, suddenly kicked as hard and viciously as he could. There was a terrifying howl. Alf was rolling on the ground.
«What'll they do to me?» thought Albert. «Eva! I did it for you.»
«He's done it to me!» cried Alf. «He's done it to me. Kill the — Kill 'im!»
Something hit Albert on the side of the jaw, and a bombshell burst in his brain. «The knock-out,» said the first man, turning again to go round to where Eva lay.
«Let me get my boots on him,» said Alf, scrambling to his feet.
«Gawd's trewth! Look here, Alf,» cried the first man from the other side of the bushes. «It's a bloody dummy.»
«You come back here,» said Alf. «You 'it 'im. I didn't!»
«What's up?» cried the other, hurrying round.
«He's a goner,» said Alf. «I'm off.»
«Wait a minute, pal,» cried the first man. «Have some sense. You're in it as much as me. Look here, you kicked him. Do you think I can't see? Never mind. Let's get him hid; that's the main thing.»
«Chuck 'em down in the chalk pit, both of 'em,» said the other. «Come on! It'll look as if he fell in of his own accord. We've never seen him, have we?»
A few minutes later the men were gone. The sun poured down on the glinting common, scorching everywhere except in the cool bottom of the chalk pit, where Eva and Albert lay unsought and undisturbed. His head lay limp on her neck; her stiff arm was arched over him. In the autumn, when the over-hang crumbled down on them, it pressed him close to her for ever.
ROPE ENOUGH
Henry Fraser, well assured that almost everything is done by mirrors, was given a job in India. No sooner had he set foot on shore than he burst into a horse-laugh. Those who were meeting him asked in some alarm the cause of this merriment. He replied he was laughing at the mere idea of the Indian Rope Trick.
He emitted similar startling sounds, and gave the same explanation, at a tiffin where he was officially made welcome; likewise on the Maidan, over chota peg, in rickshaws, in bazaars, in the Club, and on the polo ground. Soon he was known from Bombay to Calcutta as the man who laughed at the Indian Rope Trick, and he gloried in the well-deserved publicity.
There came a day, however, when he was sitting in his bungalow, bored to death. His boy entered, and, with suitable salaams, announced that a mountebank was outside, who craved the honour of entertaining the sahib with a performance of the Indian Rope Trick. Laughing heartily, Henry consented, and moved out to his chair upon the veranda.
Below, in the dusty compound, stood a native who was emaciated to a degree, and who had with him a spry youngster, a huge mat basket, and a monstrous great sword. Out of the basket he dragged some thirty feet of stout rope, made a pass or two, and slung it up into the air. It stayed there. Henry chuckled.
The boy then, with a caper, sprang at the rope, clutched it, and went up hand over hand, like a monkey. When he reached the top he vanished into thin air. Henry guffawed.
Soon the man, looking upwards with an anxious expression, began to hoot and holler after the boy. He called him down, he ordered him down, he begged him down, he began to swear and curse horribly. The boy, it seemed, took no notice at all. Henry roared.
Now the black, clapping his abominable great scimitar between his teeth, took hold of the rope himself, and went up it like a sailor. He, also, disappeared at the top. Henry's mirth increased.
Pretty soon some yelps and squeals were heard coming out of the empty air, and then a blood-curdling scream. Down came a leg, thump onto the ground, then an arm, a thigh, a head and other joints, and finally (no ladies being present) a bare backside, which struck the earth like a bomb. Henry went into fits.
Then the black came sliding down, holding on with one hand, fairly gibbering with excitement. He presented to Henry, with a salaam, his reeking blade for inspection. Henry locked in his chair.
The black, seemingly overwhelmed with remorse, gathered up the fragments of his little stooge, lavishing a hundred lamentations and endearments upon each grisly member, and he stowed them all in the giant basket.
At that moment Henry, feeling the time had come for a showdown, and willing to bet a thousand to one they'd planted the whole compound full of mirrors before calling him out there, pulled out his revolver, and blazed away all six chambers in different directions, in the expectation of splintering at least one of those deceiving glasses.
Nothing of that sort happened, but the black, doing a quick pirouette in alarm, looked down in the dust at his feet, and held up a villainous little snake, no thicker than a lead pencil, which had been killed by one of Henry's stray bullets. He gave a gasp of relief, touched his turban very civilly, turned round again, and made a pass or two over the basket. At once, with a wriggle and a frisk, the boy sprang out, whole, alive, smiling, full of health and wickedness.
The black hastily hauled down the rope, and came cringing up to Henry, overflowing with gratitude for having been saved from that villainous little snake, which was nothing more nor less than a krait — one nip and a man goes round and round like a Catherine wheel for eleven seconds; then he is as dead as mutton.
«But for the Heavenborn,» said the black, «I should have been a goner, and my wicked little boy here, who is my pride and delight, must have lain dismembered in the basket till the sahib's servants condescended to throw him to the crocodiles. Our worthless lives, our scanty goods, are all at the sahib's disposal.»
«That's all right,» said Henry. «All I ask is, show me how the trick is worked, or the laugh will be on me from now on.»
«Would not the sahib,» said the blade diffidently, «prefer the secret of a superb hair-restorer?»