 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read and recorded by William Kuhn, November 2006. His Worship The Goose Driver by Arnold Bennett 1. It was an amiable but deceitful afternoon in the third week of December. Snow fell heavily in the windows of the confectioner's shops, and Father Christmas smiled in Keats's bazaar the fawning smile of a myth who knows himself to be exploded. But beyond these and similar efforts to remedy the forgetfulness of a careless climate, there was no sign anywhere in the five towns, and especially in Bursley, of the immediate approach of the season of peace, goodwill, and gluttony on earth. At the tiger, next door to Keats's in the market place, Mr. Josiah Topham Curtenty had put down his glass. The port was kept specially for him, and told his boon companion, Mr. Gordon, that he must be going. These two men had one powerful sentiment in common. They loved the same woman. Mr. Curtenty aged twenty-six in heart, thirty-six in mind, and forty-six in looks, was fifty-six only in years. He was a rich man. He had made money as an earthenware manufacturer in the good old times before Satan was ingenious enough to invent German competition, American tariffs, and the price of coal. He was still making money with the aid of his son Harry, who now managed the works. But he never admitted that he was making it. No one has yet succeeded, and no one ever will succeed, in catching an earthenware manufacturer in the act of making money. He may confess with a sigh that he has performed the feat in the past. He may give utterance to a vague preposterous hope that he will perform it again in the remote future. But as for surprising him in the very act, you would as easily surprise a hen laying an egg. Nowadays Mr. Curtenty, commercially secure, spent most of his energy in helping to shape and control the high destinies of the town. He was Deputy Mayor and Chairman of the General Purposes Committee of the Town Council. He was also a guardian of the poor, a justice of the peace, President of the Society for the Prosecution of Felons, a sidesman, an odd fellow, and several other things that meant dining, shrewdness, and good nature. He was a short, stiff, stout, red-faced man, jolly with the jollity that springs from a kind heart, a humorous disposition, and perfect digestion, and the respectful deference of one's bank manager. Without being a member of the Browning Society, he held firmly to the belief that all's right with the world. Mr. Gordon, who has but a sorry part in the drama, was a younger, quieter, less forceful person, rather shy, a municipal mediocrity, perhaps a little inflated that day by reason of his having been elected to the chairmanship of the Gas and Lighting Committee. Both men had sat on their committees at the town hall across the way that deceitful afternoon, and we see them now after refreshment well earned and consumed about to separate and sink into private life. But as they came out into the portico of the tiger, the famous calypso-like bar made of the tiger a hovering enchantment in the background, it occurred that a flock of geese were meditating, as geese well, in the middle of the road. The goose-herd, a shabby, middle-aged man, looked as though he had recently lost the battle of Marathon, and was asking himself whether the path of his retreat might not lie through the bar parlor of the tiger. Business pretty good, Mr. Cattenti inquired of him cheerfully. In the five towns business takes the place of weather as a topic of salutation. Business echoed the goose-herd. In that one unassisted noun, scorning the aid of verb, adjective, or adverb, the goose-herd, by a masterpiece of profound and subtle emphasis, contrived to express the fact that he existed in a world of dead illusions, that he had become a convert to Schopenhauer, and that Mr. Cattenti's inapposite geniality was a final grievance to him. There ain't no business, he added. Ah! returned Mr. Cattenti thoughtful. Such an assertion of the entire absence of business was a reflection upon the town. See they, said the goose-herd in ruthless accents, I drove these air geese into this air town this morning. Here he exaggerated the number of miles traversed. Twelve geese and two gander, a Brent and a barnacle. And how many is there now? How many? Fourteen, said Mr. Gordon, having counted, and Mr. Cattenti gazed at him in reproach, for that he, a town counselor, had thus mathematically demonstrated the commercial decadence of Bursley. Machado was stocked, eh? Mr. Cattenti suggested, throwing a side glance at Callier the polterer's close by, which was crammed with everything that flew, swam, or waddled. Call this a market, said the goose-herd. I stake my lot over to Handbridge, where there's a bit doin' by all accounts. Now, Mr. Cattenti had not the least intention of buying those geese, but nothing could be better calculated to straighten the back of a Bursley man than a reference to the mercantile activity of Handbridge that Chicago of the five towns. How much for the lot, he inquired. In that moment he reflected upon his reputation. He knew that he was a cure, a card, a character. He knew that everyone would think it just like Joss Cattenti, the renowned deputy mayor of Bursley, to stand on the steps of the tiger and pretend to chaffer with a goose-herd for a flock of geese. His imagination caught the sound of an oft-repeated inquiry. Did you hear about old Joss's latest, trying to buy them their geese? And the appreciative laughter that would follow. The goose-herd faced him in silence. Well, said Mr. Cattenti again, his eyes twinkling, how much for the lot? The goose-herd gloomily and suspiciously named a sum. Mr. Cattenti named a sum startlingly less, ending in six pence. I'll take it, said the goose-herd in a tone that closed on the bargain like a vice. The deputy mayor perceived himself the owner of twelve geese and two ganders, one brant, one barnacle. It was a shock, but he sustained it. Involuntarily he looked at Mr. Gordon. How are you going to get him home, Cattenti? asked Gordon, with coarse sarcasm. Drive him. Nettled Mr. Cattenti retorted. Now, then, gas Gordon. The barmaid laughed aloud at the sober-kay which that same evening was all over the town and which has stuck ever since to the chairman of the Gas and Lighting Committee. Mr. Gordon wished, and has never ceased to wish, either that he had been elected to some other committee or that his name had begun with some other letter. The goose-herd received the purchase money like an affront, but when Mr. Cattenti, full of private mirth, said, The chakas you'll stick in. He gave him the stick and smiled under reservation. Joss Cattenti had no use for the geese. He could conceive no purpose which they might be made to serve, no smallest corner for them in his universe. Nevertheless, since he had rashly stumbled into a ditch, he determined to emerge from it grandly, impressively, magnificently. He instantaneously formed a plan by which he would snatch victory out of defeat. He would take Gordon's suggestion and himself drive the geese up to his residence in Hillport, that lofty and aristocratic suburb. It would be an immense and unparalleled farce, a wonder, a topic for years, the crown of his reputation as a card. He announced his intention with that misleading sobriety and ordinariness of tone which has been the foible of many great humorists to assume. Mr. Gordon lifted his head several times very quickly as if to say, what next? And then actually departed, which was a clear proof that the man had no imagination and no soul. The goose-herd winked. You'll be rightly called catenty, Mr. said he, and passed into the tiger. That's the best joke I ever heard, Joss said to himself. I wonder whether he saw it. Then the procession of the geese and the deputy mayor commenced. Now, it is not to be assumed that Mr. Catenty was necessarily bound to look foolish in the driving of geese. He was known in compoop. On the contrary, he was one of those men who, bringing common sense and presence of mind to every action of their lives, do nothing badly and always escape the ridiculous. He marshaled his geese with noble gumption, adopted towards them exactly the correct stress of persuasion, and presently he smiled to see them proceeding him in the direction of Hillport. He looked neither to right nor left, but simply at his geese, and thus the quidnunks of the marketplace and the supporters of shop fronts were unable to catch his eye. He tried to feel like a gooseherd, and such was his histrionic quality, his instinct for the dramatic, that he was a gooseherd. Despite his blue melt and overcoat, his hard-felt hat with the flattened top, and that opulent curving collar which was the secret despair of the young dandies of Hillport. He had the most natural air in the world. The geese were the victims of this imaginative effort of Mr. Cretantis. They took him seriously as a gooseherd. These fourteen intelligences, each with an object in life, each bent on self-aggrandizement and the satisfaction of desires, began to follow the line of least resistance in regard to the superior intelligence unseen but felt behind them, feigning, as geese will, that it suited them to submit, and that in reality they were still quite independent. But in the peculiar eye of the barnacle gander who was leading, an observer with sufficient fancy might have deciphered a mild revolt against this triumph of the absurd, the accidental, and the feudal, a passive yet Promethean spiritual defiance of the supreme powers. Mr. Cretantis got his fourteen intelligences safely across the top of St. Luke's Square, and gently urged them into the deep defile of Old Castle Street. By this time rumor had passed in front of him and run off down side streets like water let into an irrigation system, and every corner was a knot of people at most windows aface, and the deputy mayor never spoke nor smiled. The farce was enormous. The memory of it would survive revolutions and religions. Halfway down Old Castle Street the first disaster happened. Electric tramways had not then knitted the five towns in a network of steel, but the last word of civilization and refinement was about to be uttered, and a gang of men were making patterns with wires on the skyscape of Old Castle Street. One of the wires, slipping from its temporary gripper, swirled with an extraordinary sound into the roadway and writhed there in spirals. Several of Mr. Cretantis geese were knocked down and rose obviously annoyed. But the barnacle gander fell with a clinging circle of wire around his muscular, glossy neck and did not rise again. It was a violent, mysterious, agonizing and sudden death for him, and must have confirmed his theories about the arbitrariness of things. The thirteen passed pitilessly on. Mr. Cretantis freed the gander from the coiling wire and picked it up, but finding it far too heavy to carry he handed it to a corporation road sweeper. I'll send for it, he said. Wait here. These were the only words uttered by him during a memorable journey. The second disaster was that the deceitful afternoon turned to rain, cold, cruel, rain, persistent rain, full of sinister significance. Mr. Cretantis ruefully raised the velvet of his melton, as he did so a broam rolled into Old Castle Street, a little in front of him, from the direction of St. Peter's Church, and vanished towards Hillport. He knew the carriage. He had bought it and paid for it. Deep, far down in his mind stirred the thought. I'm the least bit glad she didn't see me. He had the suspicion, which recurs even to optimists, that happiness is, after all, a chimera. The third disaster was that the sun set and darkness descended. Mr. Cretantis had, unfortunately, not reckoned with this diurnal phenomenon. He had not thought upon the undesirability of being under compulsion to drive geese by the sole illumination of gas lamps lighted by corporation gas. After this, disasters multiplied. Dark and the rain had transformed the farce into something else. It was five-thirty when at last he reached the furs, and the garden of the furs was filled with lamentable complainings of a remnant of geese. His van, pond, met him with a stable lantern. D'apce, said pond. Oh, not to speak of, said Mr. Cretantis, and taking off his hat, he shot the fluid contents of the brim into pond's face. It was his way of dotting the eye of irony. Misses come in? Yes, sir, I have but just rubbed the oils down. So far no reference to the surrounding geese, all four lorn in the heavy winter rain. I've gotten a two-three geese and one gander here for Christmas, said Mr. Cretantis, after a pause. To inferiors he always used the dialect. Yes, sir. Turn him into the orchard, as you call it. Yes, sir. They aren't all here. Dalman put the horse in the trap and fetched the rest I send. Yes, sir. One's dead. A roadman's taken care on at an old castle street. He'll wait for thee. Give him sixpence. Yes, sir. There's another gart into the cut. Canal. Yes, sir. There's another street in the railway line. It happened its run over by this. Yes, sir. And one's makin' the best of her way to old castle. Couldn't a coax her in here. Yes, sir. Collect them. Yes, sir. Mr. Cretantis walked away towards the house. Mr. Pond called after him, flashing the lantern. Oh, well, lad. There's no gander in this lot. Hest forgotten the Count thy son, Mr. Cretantis answered blightly from the shelter of the side door. But within himself he was a little crestfallen to think that the surviving gander should have escaped his vigilance, even in the darkness. He had set out to drive the geese home, and he had driven them home, most of them. He had kept his temper, his dignity, his cheerfulness. He had got a bargain in geese. So much was indisputable ground for satisfaction. And yet the feeling of an anticlimax would not be dismissed. Upon the whole his transit lacked glory. It had begun in splendor, but it had ended in discomfort and almost ignominy. Nevertheless Mr. Cretantis' unconquerable soul asserted itself in a quite genuine and tuneful whistle as he entered the house. The fate of the Brent gander was never ascertained. The dining room of the furs was a spacious and inviting refectory, which owed nothing of its charm to William Morris, Regent Street, or the Arts and Crafts Society. Its triple aim was richness, solidity, and comfort, but especially comfort, and this aim was achieved in new oak furniture of immovable firmness, in a turkey carpet which swallowed up the feet like a feather bed, and in large oil paintings whose darkly glinting frames were a guarantee of their excellence. On a winter's night, as now, the room was at its richest, solidest, most comfortable. The blue plush curtains were drawn on their stout brass rods across door and French window. Finest select silkstone fizzed and flamed in a patent grate which had the extraordinary gift of radiating heat into the apartment instead of up the chimney. The shaded Wellsbach lights of the chandelier cast the dazzling luminance on the tea table of snow and silver, while leaving the pictures in a gloom so discreet that not Ruskin himself could have decided whether these were by Whistler or Peter Paul Rubens. On either side of the marble mantelpiece were two easy chairs of an immense, incredible capacity, chairs of crimson plush for titans, chairs softer than moss, more pliant than a loving heart, more enveloping than a caress. In one of these chairs, that to the left of the fireplace, Mr. Crattenty was accustomed to snore every Saturday and Sunday afternoon and almost every evening. The other was usually empty, but tonight it was occupied by Mrs. Crattenty, the jewel of the casket. In the presence of her husband she always used a small rocking chair of ebonized cane. To glance at this short, slight yet plump little creature as she reclined crosswise in the vast chair, leaving great spaces of the seat unfilled, was to think rapturously to oneself, this is a woman. Her fluffy head was such a dot against the back of the chair, the curve of her chubby-ringed hand above the head was so adorable, her black eyes were so provocative, her slippered feet so wee. Yes, and there was something so mysteriously thrilling about the fall of her skirt that you knew instantly her name was Clara, her temper both fiery and obstinate, and her personality distracting. You knew that she was one of those women of frail physique who can endure fatigues that would destroy a camel, one of those demonic women capable of doing without sleep for ten nights in order to nurse you, capable of dying and seeing you die rather than give way about the tint of a necktie, capable of laughter and tear simultaneously, capable of never being in the wrong except for the idle whim of so being. She had a big mouth and very wide nostrils and her years were thirty-five. It was no matter. It would have been no matter had she been a hundred and thirty-five. In short, Clara Cretenti wore tight-fitting black silk with a long gold chain that descended from her neck nearly to her waist and was looped up in the middle to an old-fashioned gold brooch. She was in mourning for a distant relative. Black preeminently suited her. Consequently her distant relatives died at frequent intervals. The basalt clock on the mantelpiece trembled and burst into the song of six. Clara Cretenti rose swiftly from the easy chair and took her seat in front of the tea-tray. Almost at the same moment a neat black-and-white parlor made brought in teapot, copper kettle, and a silver-covered dish containing hot pikelets. Then departed. Clara was alone again, not the same Clara now, but a personage to mirror, prim, precise, frightfully upright of back, a sort of impregnable stronghold, without doubt a deputy mayorus. At five past six Josiah Cretenti entered the room, radiant from a hot bath and happy in dry clothes, a fine and mature figure of a man. His presence filled the whole room. "'Well, my chock,' he said and kissed her on the cheek.' She gazed at him with a look that might mean anything. Did she raise her cheek to his greeting, or was it fancy that she had endured rather than accepted his kiss? He was scarcely sure, and if she had endured instead of accepting the kiss, was her mood to be attributed to his lateness for tea, or the fact that she was aware of the episode of the geese? He could not divine. "'Pikelets! Good!' he exclaimed, taking the cover off the dish. This strong, successful, and dominant man adored his wife and went in fear of her. She was his first love, but his second spouse, they had been married ten years. In those ten years they had quarreled only five times, and she had changed the very colour of his life. Till his second marriage he had boasted that he belonged to the people and retained the habits of the people. Clara, though she also belonged to the people, very soon altered all that. Clara had a passion for the gentile, like many warm-hearted, honest, clever, and otherwise sensible persons. Clara was a snob. But a charming little snob. She ordered him to forget that he belonged to the people. She refused to listen when he talked in the dialect. She made him dress with opulence, and even with tidiness. She made him buy a fashionable house and fill it with fine furniture. She made him buy a broam in which her gentility could pay calls and do shopping. She shopped in Old Castle, where a decrepit aristocracy of tradesmen sneered at Hanbridge's lack of style. She had her day. She taught the servants to enter the reception rooms without knocking. She took tea in bed in the morning and tea in the afternoon in the drawing-room. She would have instituted dinner at seven, but she was a wise woman and realized that too much tyranny often means revolution in the crumbling of thrones. Therefore the ancient plebeian custom of high tea at six was allowed to persist and continue. She it was who had compelled Josiah, or bewitched, beguiled, coaxed and wheedled him after a public refusal to accept the unusual post of deputy mayor. In two years' time he might count on being mayor. Why then should Clara have been so anxious for the secondary dignity? Because in that year of royal festival, Bursley, in common with many other burrows, had a fancy to choose a mayor out of the House of Lords. The Earl of Chell, a magnate of the county, had consented to wear the mayoral chain and dispense the mayoral hospitalities on condition that he was provided with a deputy for daily use. It was the idea of herself being deputy to the lovely, meddlesome and arrogant Countess of Chell that had appealed to Clara. The deputy of a Countess at length spoke. Will Harry be late at the works again tonight? She asked in her colder, small talk manner, which committed her to nothing as Josiah well knew. Her way of saying that word Harry was inevitably significant. She gave it an air. She liked Harry, and she liked Harry's name because it had a Kensingtonian sound. Harry, so accomplished in business, was also a dandy, and he was a dog. My stepson! she loved to introduce him. So tall, manly, distinguished, and dandyacle. Harry, enriched by his own mother, belonged to a London club. He ran down to Landudno for weekends, and it was reported that he had been behind the scenes at the Alhambra. Clara felt for the word Harry the unreasoning affection which most women lavish on George. Like is not, said Josiah, I haven't been to the works this afternoon. Another silence fell, and then Josiah feeling himself unable to bear any further suspense as to his wife's real mood and temper, suddenly determined to tell her all about the keys and know the worst. And precisely at the instant that he opened his mouth the maid opened the door and announced, Mr. Duncalf wishes to see you at once, sir. He won't keep you a minute. Ask him in here, Mary, said the Deputy Mayor, sweetly, and bring another cup and saucer. Mr. Duncalf was the town clerk of Bursley, legal, portly, dry, and a little shy. I won't stop, Catenti. How do you do, Mrs. Catenti? No, thanks rarely. But she, smiling exquisitely gracious, flattered and smoothed him into a chair. Any interesting news, Mr. Duncalf, she said and added, but we're glad that anything should have brought you in. Well, said Duncalf, I've just had a letter by the afternoon post from Lord Chell. Oh, the earl, indeed, how very interesting. What's he after? inquired Josiah cautiously. He says he's just been appointed Governor of East Australia, announcement'll be in tomorrow's papers, and so he must regretfully resign the mayoralty. Says he'll pay the fine, but of course we shall have to remit that by special resolution of the Council. Well, I'm damned, Josiah exclaimed. Topham! Mrs. Catenti remonstrated, but with a delightful acquitting dimple. She never would call him Josiah much less joss. Topham came more easily to her lips, and sometimes top. Your husband, said Mr. Duncalf impressively to Clara, will of course have to step into the mayor's shoes, and you'll have to fill the place of the Countess. He paused and added, and very well you'll do it too. Very well. Nobody better. The town clerk frankly admired Clara. Mr. Duncalf, Mr. Duncalf. She raised a finger at him. You are the most shameless flatterer in the town. The flatterer was flattered. Having delivered the weighty news, he had leisure to savor his own importance as the bearer of it. He drank a cup of tea. Josiah was thoughtful, but Clara brimmed over with a fascinating lequacity. Then Mr. Duncalf said that he really must be going, and having arranged with the mayor-elect to call a special meeting of the council at once, he did go, all the while wishing he had the enterprise to stay. Josiah accompanied him to the front door. The sky had now cleared. Thank ye for calling, said the host. Oh, that's all right. Good night, Catenti. Got that goose out of the canal? So the story was abroad. Josiah returned to the dining-room, imperceptibly smiling. At the door the sight of his wife halted him. The face of that precious and adorable woman flamed out lightning and all menace and offence. Her lowering eyes showed what a triumph of dissimulation she must have achieved in the presence of Mr. Duncalf. But now she could speak her mind. Yes, Topham! She exploded as though finishing at her rang. And on this day of all days you choose to drive geese in the public road behind my carriage. Jos was stupefied, annihilated. Did you see me then, Clary? He vainly tried to carry it off. Did I see you? Of course I saw you! She withered him up with the hot wind of scorn. Well, he said foolishly, How was I to know that the earl would resign just today? How are you to— Harry came in for his tea. He glanced from one to the other, discreet, silent. On the way home he had heard the tale of the geese in seven different forms. The deputy mayor, so soon to be mayor, walked out of the room. Upon his just-come-back father, said Harry, I drove up the hill with him. And as Josiah hesitated a moment in the hall, he heard Clary exclaim, Oh, Harry! Down! he murmured. Three The signal of the following day contained the announcement which Mr. Duncalf had forecast. It also stated on authority that Mr. Josiah Curtenti would wear the mayoral chain of Bursley immediately, and added as its own private opinion that in default of the right honourable the earl of Chal and his countess no better civic heads could have been found than Mr. Curtenti and his charming wife. So far the tone of the signal was unimpeachable. But underneath all this was a subtitle, amusing exploit of the mayor-elect, followed by an amusing description of the procession of the geese, a description which concluded by referring to Mr. Curtenti as his worship the goose-driver. Hanbridge, Knipe, Long Shawl and Turnhill laughed heartily, and perhaps a little viciously at this paragraph, but Bursley was annoyed by it. In print the affair did not look at all well. Bursley prided itself on possessing a unique dignity as the mother of the five towns, and to be presided over by a goose-driver, however humorous and hospitable he might be, did not consort with that dignity. A certain mayor of Long Shaw years before had driven a sow to market, and arrived with tremendous advertisement therefrom. But Bursley had no wish to rival Long Shaw in any particular. Bursley regarded Long Shaw as the inferno of the five towns. In Bursley you were bidden to go to Long Shaw as you were bidden to go to... Certain acute people in Hillport saw nothing but a paralyzing insult in the opinion of the signal, first and foremost a Hanbridge organ, that Bursley could find no better civic head than Josiah Quartenti. At least three aldermen and seven councilors privately, and in the tiger, disagreed with any such view of Bursley's capacity to find heads. And underneath all this brooding dissatisfaction lurked the thought, as the alligator lurks in a muddy river, that the earl wouldn't like it, meaning the geese episode. It was generally felt that the earl had been badly treated by Josiah Quartenti. The town could not explain its sentiments, could not argue about them. They were not, in fact, capable of logical justification. But they were there. They violently existed. It would have been useless to point out that if the inimitable Jos had not been called to the mayoralty, the episode of the geese would have passed as a gorgeous joke, that everyone had been vastly amused by it until that desolating issue of the signal announced the earl's retirement, that Jos Quartenti could not possibly have foreseen what was about to happen, and that, anyhow, goose-driving was less a crime than a social solicism, and less a social solicism than a brilliant eccentricity. Bursley was hurt, and logic is no balm for wounds. Some may ask, if Bursley was offended, why did it not mark its sense of Josiah's failure to read the future by electing another mayor? The answer is that while all were agreed that his antique was inexcusable, all were equally agreed to pretend that it was a mere trifle of no importance. You could not deprive a man of his prescriptive right for a mere trifle of no importance. Besides, nobody could be so foolish as to imagine that goose-driving, though reprehensible and a mayor about to succeed an earl, is an act of which official notice can be taken. The most curious thing in the whole embrolio is that Josiah Cretenti secretly agreed with his wife and the town. He was ashamed, overset. His procession of geese appeared to him in an entirely new light, and he had the strength of mind to admit to himself, I've made a fool of myself. Harry went to London for a week, and Josiah, under plea of his son's absence, spent eight hours a day at the works. The broam remained in the coach-house. The town council duly met in special conclave, and Josiah Topham Cretenti became mayor of Bursley. Shortly after Christmas, it was announced that the mayor and mayoress had decided to give a New Year's treat to four hundred poor old people in the St. Luke's covered market. It was also spread about that this treat would eclipse and extinguish all previous treats of a similar nature, and that it might have affected some slight foretaste of the hospitality which the mayor and mayoress would dispense in that memorable year of royal festival. The treat was to occur on January 9th, the mayoress's birthday. On January 7th Josiah happened to go home early. He was proceeding into the drawing-room without enthusiasm to greet his wife when he heard voices within, and one voice was the voice of Gas Gordon. Josh stood still. It has been mentioned that Gordon and the mayor were in love with the same woman. The mayor had easily captured her under the very guns of his not formidable rival, and he had always thereafter felt a kind of benevolent, good-humored, contemptuous pity for Gordon. Gordon, whose life was a tragic blank, Gordon, who lived a melancholy and defeated bachelor with his mother and two unmarried sisters older than himself. That Gordon still worshipped at the shrine and disturbed him. On the contrary, it pleased him. Poor Gordon. But really, Mrs. Cretanti, Gordon was saying, really, you know I, that is really to please me? Mrs. Cretanti entreated with a seductive charm that Josh felt even outside the door. Then there was a pause. Very well, said Gordon. Mrs. Cretanti tipped out away and back into the street. He walked in the dark nearly to Old Castle and returned about six o'clock, but Clara said no word of Gordon's visit. She had scarcely spoken to Topham for three weeks. The next morning, as Harry was departing to the works, Mrs. Cretanti followed the handsome youth into the hall. Harry, she whispered, bring me two ten-pound notes this afternoon, will you, and say nothing to your father. Gas Gordon was to be on the platform at the Poor People's Treat. As he walked down Trafalgar Road, his eye caught a still-exposed fragment of a decayed bill on a hoarding. It referred to a meeting of the local branch of the anti-gambling league a year ago in the lecture hall of the Wesleyan Chapel, and it said that Councillor Gordon would occupy the chair on that occasion. Mechanically, Councillor Gordon stopped and tore the fragment away from the hoarding. The treat, which took the form of a dinner, was an unqualified success. It surpassed all expectations. Even the diners themselves were satisfied, a rare thing at such affairs. Goose was a prominent item on the menu. After the repast, the replete guests were entertained from the platform, the mayor being, of course, in the chair. Harry sang in Old Madrid, accompanied by his stepmother, with faultless expression. Mr. Duncalf astonished everybody with the famous North Country recitation, the patent hair-brushing machine. There was also a banjo solo, a skirt dance of discretion, and a campinological turn. At last, towards ten o'clock, Mr. Gordon, who had hitherto done nothing, rose in his place amid good-natured cries of, GAS! I feel sure that you will all agree with me, he began, that this evening would not be complete without a vote of thanks, a very hearty vote of thanks to our excellent toast and chairman. Ears splitting applause. I've got a little story to tell you, he continued, a story that up to this moment has been a close secret between his worship to Mayor and myself. The worship looked up sharply at the speaker. You've heard about some geese, I reckon, laughter. Well, you've not heard all, but I'm going to tell you. I can't keep it to myself any longer. You think his worship drove those geese, I hope they're digesting well, loud laughter. Just for fun, he didn't. I was with him when he bought them, and I happened to say that goose-driving was a very difficult accomplishment. Depends on the geese! shouted a voice. Yes, it does, Mr. Gordon admitted. Well, his worship contradicted me, and we had a bit of an argument. I don't bet, as you know, at least not often, but I don't mind confessing that I offered to bet him a sovereign he couldn't drive his geese half a mile. Look here, Gordon, he said to me, there's a lot of distress in the town just now, trade, bed, and so on and so on. How lay you a level ten pounds I drive these geese to Hillport myself, the loser to give the money to charity? Done, I said. Don't say anything about it, he said. I won't, I says, but I am doing. Applauds. I feel at my duty to say something about it. More applause. Well, I lost, as you all know. He drove them to Hillport. Get old jolts! That's not all. The mayor insisted upon putting his own ten pounds to mine making it twenty. Here are the two identical notes, his and mine. Mr. Gordon waved the identical notes amid an uproar. We've decided that everyone who has died here tonight shall receive a brand new shilling. I see Mr. Septimus love it from the bank there with a bag. He will attend to you as you go out. Wild outbreak and tumult of rapturous applause. And now three cheers for your mayor and mayorus. It was colossal the enthusiasm. And full gas golden! called several voices. The cheers rose again in surging waves. Everyone remarked that the mayor, usually so imperturbable, was quite overcome, seemed as if he didn't know where to look. Afterwards, as the occupants of the platform descended, Mr. Gordon glanced into the eyes of Mrs. Crattenty and found there his exceeding reward. The mediocrity had blossomed out that evening into something new and strange. Liar, deliberate liar and self-accused gambler as he was, he felt that he had lived during that speech. He felt that it was the supreme moment of his life. What a perfectly wonderful man your husband is! said Mrs. Duncap to Mrs. Crattenty. Clara turned to her husband with a sublime gesture of satisfaction. In the brawling, going home, she bewitched him with wifely endearments. She could afford to do so. The stigma of the geese episode was erased. But the barmaid of the tiger, as she let down her bright hair that night in the attic of the tiger, said to herself, Well, of all the— Just that. End of his Worship the Goose Driver by Arnold Bennett. It was in the course of the enjoyment of his hospitality at his place in Yorkshire the other day that I heard the haunting story which I am now about to transcribe. Many of those who read it will no doubt have heard some of the strange rumours that are flying about to the effect that Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, R.N., recently found a vast treasure of diamonds out in the heart of Africa, supposed to have been hidden by the Egyptians or King Solomon or some other antique people. I first saw the matter alluded to in a paragraph in one of the society papers the day before I started for Yorkshire to pay my visit to Curtis, and arrived, needless to say, burning with curiosity, for there is something very fascinating to the mind in the idea of hidden treasure. When I reached the hall I at once asked Curtis about it, and he did not deny the truth of the story, but on my pressing him to tell it he would not, nor would Captain Good, who was also staying in the house. You would not believe me if I did, Sir Henry said, with one of the hearty laughs which seemed to come right out of his great lungs. You must wait till Hunter Coordermaine comes. He will arrive here from Africa to-night, and I am not going to say a word about the matter or good either until he turns up. Coordermaine was with us all through. He has known about the business for years and years, and if it had not been for him we should not have been here today. I am going to meet him presently. I could not get a word more out of him, nor could anybody else. Though we are all dying of curiosity, especially some of the ladies, I shall never forget how they looked in the drawing-room before dinner when Captain Good produced a great rough diamond, weighing fifty carats or more, and told them that he had many larger than that. If ever I saw curiosity and envy printed on fair faces, I saw them then. It was just at this moment that the door was open and Mr. Alan Coordermaine announced whereupon Good put the diamond into his pocket and sprang at a little man who limped shyly into the room, convoied by Sir Henry Curtis himself. Here he is! Good! Safe and sound! said Sir Henry gleefully. Gentlemen, let me introduce to you one of the oldest hunters and the very best shot in Africa, who has killed more elephants and lions than any other man alive. Everybody turned and stared politely at the curious-looking little lame man, and though his size was insignificant he was quite worth staring at. He had short, grizzled hair, which stood about an inch above his head like the bristles of a bush, gentle brown eyes that seemed to notice everything, and a withered face, went to the colour of mahogany from exposure to the weather. He spoke, too, when he returned Good's enthusiastic greeting with a curious little accent which made his speech noticeable. It so happened that I sat next to Mr. Alan Coordermaine at dinner, and of course did my best to draw him, but he was not to be drawn. He admitted that he had recently been on a long journey into the interior of Africa with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, and that they had found treasure. And then politely turned the subject, and began to ask me questions about England, where he had never been before, that is, since he came, two years of discretion. Of course I did not find this very interesting, and so cast about for some means to bring the conversation round again. Now we were dining in an oak-penelled vestibule, and on the wall opposite to me were fixed two gigantic elephant tusks, and under them a pair of buffalo horns, very rough and knotted, showing that they came off an old bull, and having the tip of one horn split and chipped. I noticed that Coordermaine's eyes kept glancing at these trophies, and took an occasion to ask him if he knew anything about them. I ought to, he answered, with a little laugh, the elephant to which those tusks belonged tore one of our party right in two about eighteen months ago, and as for the buffalo horns they were nearly my death, and were the end of a servant of mine to whom I was much attached. I gave them to Sir Henry when he left Natale some months ago, and Mr. Coordermaine sighed, and turned to answer a question from the lady whom he had taken down to dinner, and who, needless to say, was also employed in trying to pump him about the diamonds. Indeed, all around the table there was a simmer of scarcely suppressed excitement, when the servants had left the room, could no longer be restrained. Now Mr. Coordermaine, said the lady next to him, we have been kept in an agony of suspense by Sir Henry and Captain Good, who have persistently refused to tell us a word of this story about the hidden treasure till you came, and we simply can bear it no longer, so please, begin it once. Yes, said everybody, go on, please! Hunter Coordermaine glanced around the table apprehensively. He did not seem to appreciate finding himself the object of so much curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, he said at last, with a shake of his grizzled head, I am very sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot do it. It is this way. At the request of Sir Henry and Captain Good, I have written down a true and plain account of King Solomon's minds and how we found them, so you will soon be able to learn all about that wonderful adventure for yourselves, but until then I will say nothing about it, not from any wish to disappoint your curiosity or to make myself important, but simply because the whole story partakes so much of the marvellous that I am afraid to tell it in a piecemeal, hasty fashion. For I fear I should be set down as one of those common fellows of whom there are so many in my profession, who are not ashamed to narrate things they have not seen, and even to tell wonderful stories about wild animals they have never killed, and I think that my companions in adventure, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, will bear me out in what I say. Yes, Court of Main, I think you are quite right, said Sir Henry, precisely the same considerations have forced Good and myself to hold our tongues. We did not wish to be bracketed with, well, with other famous travellers. There was a murmur of disappointment at these announcements. I believe you are all hoaxing us, said the young lady next to Mr. Court of Main rather sharply. Believe me, answered the old hunter, with a quaint courtesy of a little bow of his grizzled head. Though I have lived all my life in the wilderness and among savages I have neither the heart nor the want of manners to wish to deceive one so lovely. Whereout the young lady who was pretty looked appeased. This is very dreadful I broke in. We ask for bread and you give us a stone, Mr. Court of Main. The least that you can do is tell us the story of the tusks opposite the buffalo horns underneath. We won't let you off with less. I am but a poor storyteller, put in the old hunter, but if you will forgive my want of skill I shall be happy to tell you, not the story of the tusk, for that is part of the history of our journey to King Solomon's minds, but that of the buffalo horns beneath them, which is now ten years old. Bravo, Court of Main, said Sir Henry! We shall all be delighted, fire away, fill up your glass first! The little man did as he was bid, took a sip of clare and began. About ten years ago I was hunting in the far interior of Africa at a place called Getgera, not a great way from the Kobe River. I had with me four native servants, namely a driver and vorloper or leader, who were natives of Metabelland, a hot and taut named Hans, who had once been the slave of a transvalbore and a zulu hunter who for five years had accompanied me on my trips and whose name was Mashun. Now near Getgera I found a piece of healthy, park-like country where the grass was very good considering the time of year, here I made a little camp or headquarter settlement from whence I went expeditions on all sides in search of game, especially elephant. My luck, however, was bad. I got but little ivory. I was therefore very glad when some natives brought me news that a large herd of elephants were feeding in a valley about thirty miles away. At first I thought of trekking down to the valley, wagon and all, but gave up the idea on hearing that it was infested with the deadly testy fly, which is certain death to all animals except men, donkeys and wild game, so I reluctantly determined to leave the wagon in the charge of Metabell, leader and driver, and to start on a trip into the Thorn Country, accompanied only by the hot and taut Hans and Mashun. Accordingly on the following morning we started, and on the evening of the next day reached the spot where the elephants were reported to be. But here again we were met by ill luck. That the elephants had been there was evident enough, for their spore was plentiful, and so were other traces of their presence in the shape of mimoso trees torn out of the ground and placed topsy-turvy on their flat crowns in order to enable the great beast to feast on their sweet roots. But the elephants themselves were conspicuous by their absence. They had elected to move on. This being so, there was only one thing to do, and that was to move after them, which we did, and a pretty hunt they led us. For a fortnight or more we dodged a boat after those elephants, coming up with them on two occasions, and as splendid heard they were, only however, to lose them again. At length we came up with them a third time, and I managed to shoot one bull, and then they started off again, where it was useless to try and follow them. After this I gave it up in disgust, and we made the best of our way back to the camp, not in the sweetest of tempers, carrying the tusks of the elephant I had shot. It was on the afternoon of the fifth day of our tramp that we reached the little copie overlooking the spot where the wagon stood, and I confessed that I climbed it with a pleasurable sense of homecoming. For his wagon is the hunter's home, as much as his house is that of the civilised person. I reached the top of the copie, and looking in the direction where the friendly white tent of the wagon should be. But there was no wagon, only a black, burnt plain, stretching away as far as the eye could reach. I rubbed my eyes, looked again, and made out on the spot of the camp, not my wagon, but some charred beams of wood, half wild with grief and anxiety, followed by hands and massoon, I ran at full speed down the slope of the copie, and across the space of the plain below the spring of water where my camp had been. I was soon there only to find my worst suspicions were confirmed. The wagon and all its contents, including my spare guns and ammunition, had been destroyed by a grass-fire. Now before I started I had left orders with the driver to burn off the grass around the camp in order to guard against accidents of this nature, and here was the reward of my folly. A very proper illustration of the necessity, especially where natives are concerned, of doing a thing one self if one wants it done at all. Evidently the lazy rascals had not burnt around the wagon. Most probably indeed they had themselves carelessly fired the tall and resinous Tambuki grass nearby. The wind had driven the flames on to the wagon tent, and there was quickly an end of the matter. As for the driver and leader, I know not what became of them. Probably fearing my anger they bolted taking the oxen with them. I have never seen them from that hour to this. I sat down on the black belt by the spring, and gazed at the charred axels and dissel-boom of my wagon, and I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, I felt inclined to weep. As for massoon and hands, they cursed away vigorously, one in Zulu and the other in Dutch. Ours was a pretty position. We were nearly three hundred miles away from Bemegwato, the capital of Kama's country, which was the nearest spot where we could get any help, and our ammunition, spare guns, clothing, food, and everything else were all totally destroyed. I had just what I stood in, which was a flannel shirt, a pair of veltscoons or shoes of rawhide, my eight-bore rifle, and a few cartridges. Hands and massoon also each had a martini rifle and some cartridges, not many. And it was with this equipment that we had to undertake a journey of three hundred miles through a desolate and almost uninhabitable region. I can assure you that I have rarely been in a worse position, and I have been in some queer ones. However, these things are the natural incidents of a hunter's life, and the only thing to do was to make the best of them. Accordingly, after passing a comfortless night by the remains of my wagon, we started next morning on a long journey toward civilization. Now, if we were to set work to tell you all the troubles and incidents of that dreadful journey, I should keep you listening here till midnight, so I will with your permission. Pass on to the particular adventure of which the pair of buffalo horns opposite are the melancholy momento. We had been travelling for about a month, living and getting along as best we could, when one evening we camped some forty miles from Bemaguato. By this time we were indeed in a melancholy plate, foot sore, half-starved, and utterly worn out, and in addition I was suffering from a sharp attack of fever which half blinded me and made me weak as a babe. Our ammunition, too, was exhausted. I had only one cartridge left for my eight-bore rifle, and hands and maschoon who were armed with Martini Henry's had three between them. It was about an hour from sundown when we halted and lit a fire, for luckily we still had a few matches. It was a charming spot to remember. Just off the game-track we were following was a little hollow, fringed about with flat-crowned mimosa trees, and at the bottom of the hollow a spring of clear water welled up out of the earth and formed a pool, round the edges of which grew an abundance of water-cress, of an exactly similar kind to those which were handed round the table just now. Now we had no food of any kind left having that morning devoured the last remains of a little oryb antelope which I had shot two days previously. Accordingly, Hans, who was a better shot than maschoon, took two of the remaining Martini cartridges and started out to see if he could not kill a buck for supper. I was too weak to go out myself. Meanwhile, maschoon employed himself in dragging together some dead boughs from the mimosa tree to make a sort of skirm or shelter for us to sleep in, about forty yards from the edge of the pool of water. We had been greatly troubled with lions in the course of our long trap, and only on the previous night have very nearly been attacked by them, which made me nervous, especially in my weak state. Just as we had finished the skirm, or rather something which did duty for one, maschoon and I heard a shot apparently fired about a mile away. Hark to it! sung out maschoon and zulu, more I fancy by way of keeping his spirits up than for any other reason, for he was a sort of black mark-toply and very cheerful under difficulties. Hark to the wonderful sound with which the mabuna, the boars, shook our fathers to the ground at the battle of the Blood River. We are hungry now, my father, our stomachs are small and withered up like a dry ox's punch, but they will soon be full of good meat, hands is a hot and taut, and an umphagosan, that is, a long fellow, but he shoots straight, ah, he certainly shoots straight, be of good heart, my father, there will soon be meat upon the fire, and we shall rise up men. And so he went on talking nonsense till I told him to stop, because he made my headache with his empty words. Shortly after we heard the shot the sun sank in his red splendor, and there fell upon the earth and sky the great hush of the African wilderness. The lions were not up as yet, they would probably wait for the moon, and the birds and beasts were all at rest. I could not describe the intensity of the quiet of the night, to me in my weak state, and fretting as I was over the non-return of the hot and taut hands, it seemed almost ominous, as though nature were brooding over some tragedy which was being enacted in her sight. It was quiet, quiet as death, and lonely as the grave. Massoon, I said at last, where is Hans, my heart is heavy for him. Nay, my father, I know not, may happy is weary, and sleeps, or may happy is lost his way. Massoon, art thou a boy to talk folly to me, I answered? Tell me, in all the years thou hast hunted by my side, didst thou ever know a hot and taut to lose his path, or to sleep upon the way to camp? Nay, Makumasan, that ladies is my native name, and means the man who gets up by night, or who is always awake. I know not where he is. But though we talk thus, we neither of us like to hint at what was both in our minds, namely that misfortune had overtaken the poor hot and taut. Massoon, I said at last, go down to the water, and bring me of those green herbs that grow there, I am hungered and must eat something. Nay, my father, surely the ghosts are there, they come out of the water at night, and sit upon the banks to dry themselves. An Ishanusi, that is, witchfinder, told me. Massoon was, I think, one of the bravest men I ever knew in the daytime, but he had a more than civilized dread of the supernatural. Must I go myself, thou fool, I said sternly. Nay, Makumasan, if I hurt yearns for strange things like a sick woman, I go, even if the ghosts devour me. And accordingly he went, and soon returned, with a large bundle of water-cress, of which I ate greedily. Art thou not hungry, I asked the great Zulu presently, as he sat eyeing me eating? Never was I hungrier, my father. Then eat, and I pointed to the water-cress. Nay, Makumasan, I cannot eat those herbs. If thou dost not eat, thou wilt starve, eat, Massooni. He stared at the water-cress doubtfully for a while, and at last seized a handful, and crammed them into his mouth, crying out as he did so. Oh, why was I born, that I should live to feed on green weeds like an ox? Surely if my mother could have known it she would have killed me when I was born. And so he went on lamenting between each fistful of water-cress till all were finished, when he declared that he was full indeed of stuff. But it lay very cold on his stomach, like snow upon a mountain. At any other time I should have laughed, for it must be admitted he had a ludicrous way of putting things. Zulus do not like green food. Just after Massoon had finished his water-cress we heard the loud woof woof of a lion, who was evidently promenading much nearer to our little skirm than was pleasant. Indeed, on looking into the darkness and listening intently, I could hear his snoring breath, and catch the light of his green-yellow eyes. We shouted loudly, and Massoon threw some sticks on the fire to frighten him, which apparently had the desired effect, for we saw no more of him for a while. Just after we had this fright from the lion, the moon rose in her fullest splendor, throwing a robe of silver light all over the earth. I have rarely seen a more beautiful moon-rise. I remember that sitting in the skirm I could with ease read faint pencil-notes in my pocket-book. As soon as the moon was up, game began to trek down to the water just below us. I could, from where I sat, see all sorts of them passing along the little ridge that ran to our right on their way to the drinking-place. Indeed, one buck, a large eland, came within twenty yards of the skirm, and I stood at gaze, staring at it suspiciously, his beautiful head in twisted horns standing out clearly against the sky. I had, I recollect, every mind to have a pull at him on the chance of providing ourselves with a good supply of beef. But remembering that we had but two cartridges left, and the extreme uncertainty of a shot by moonlight, I at length decided to refrain. The eland presently moved on to the water, and a minute or two afterwards there arose a great sound of splashing, followed by the quick fall of galloping hooves. What's that, Mesheune? I asked. That damn lion buck smell him, replied the Zulu in English, of which he had a very superficial knowledge. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth before we heard a sort of whine over the other side of the pool which was instantly answered by a loud coughing roar close to us. By Jove, I said! There are two of them. They have lost the buck. We must look out. They don't catch us. And again we made up the lion shouted, with the result that the lions moved off. Mesheune, I said. Do you watch till the moon gets over that tree, when it will be in the middle of the night? Then wake me. Watch well now, or the lions will be picking those worthless bones of yours before you are three hours older. I must rest a little, or I shall die. Course, chief! answered the Zulu. Sleep, my father. Sleep in peace. My eyes shall be open as the stars, and like the stars watch over you. Although I was so weak I could not at once follow his advice. To begin with, my head ached with fever, and I was torn with anxiety as to the fate of the hot and taut hands, and indeed, as to our own fate, left with sore feet, empty stomachs, and two cartridges, to find a way to Bama Guata forty miles off. Then the mere sensation of knowing that there are one or more hungry lions prowling around you somewhere in the dark is disquieting. However well one may be used to it, and, by keeping the attention on the stretch, tends to prevent one from sleeping. In addition to all these troubles too, I was, I remember, seized with a dreadful longing for a pipe of tobacco, whereas under the circumstances I might as well have longed for the moon. At last, however, I fell into an uneasy sleep as full of bad dreams as a prickly tears of points, one of which I recollect, was that I was setting my naked foot upon a cobra, which rose upon its tail and hissed my name, makumazan, into my ear. Indeed, the cobra hissed with such persistency that at last I roused myself, makumazan, nazya, nazya! There, there, whispered my shoon's voice into my drowsy ear. Raising myself I opened my eyes, and I saw my shoon kneeling by my side, pointing towards the water. Following the line of his outstretched hand my eyes fell upon a sight that made me jump, old hunter as I was, even in those days. About twenty paces from the little skirm was a large anteep, and on the summit of the anteep, her forefeet rather close together, so as to find standing space, stood the massive form of a big lioness. Her head was towards the skirm, and in the bright moonlight I saw her lower it and lick her paws. My shoon thrust the martini rifle into my hands, whispering that it was loaded. I lifted it and covered the lioness, but found that even in that light I could not make out the foresight of the martini. As it would have been madness to fire without doing so, for the result would probably be that I should wound the lioness if indeed I did not miss her altogether. I lowered the rifle, and hastily tearing a fragment of paper from one of the leaves of my pocket-book, which I had been consulting just before I went to sleep. I proceeded to fix it on to the front-site. But all this took a little time, and before the paper was satisfactorily arranged, Massume again gripped me by the arm, and pointed to the dark heap under the shade of a small mimosa-tree which grew not more than ten paces from the skirm. "'Well, what is it?' I whispered. "'I can see nothing.' "'It's another lion,' he answered. "'Nonsense! Thy heart is dead with fear, thou seest double.' And I bent forward over the edge of the surrounding fence, and stared at the heap. Even as I said the words, the dark mass rose and stocked out into the moonlight. It was a magnificent black-maned lion, one of the largest I had ever seen. When he had gone two or three steps he caught the sight of me, halted, and there stood him, posing straight towards us. He was so close that I could see the fire-light reflected in his wicked greenish eyes. "'Shoot! Shoot!' said Massume. "'The devil is coming. He is going to spring!' I raised the rifle, and got the bit of paper on the fore-site, straight on to a little path of white hair, just where the throat is set into the chest and shoulders. As I did so, the glance back over his shoulder, as according to my experience, a lion nearly always does before he springs. Then he dropped his body a little, and I saw his big paws spread out upon the ground as he put his weight upon them to gather purchase. In haste I pressed the trigger of the martini, and not a moment too soon, for as I did so he was in the act of springing. The report of the rifle rang out sharp and clear on the intense silence of the night, and in another second the great brute had landed on his head within four feet of us, rolling over and over towards us, was sending the brushes which composed our little fence flying with convulsive strokes of his great paws. We sprang out of the other side of the skirm, and he rolled on to it and into it, and then right through the fire. Next he raised himself and sat upon his haunches like a great dog, and began to roar heavens how he roared. I never heard anything like it before or since. He kept filling his lungs with air, and then emitting it in the most heart-shaking volumes of sound. Suddenly, in the middle of one of the loudest roars, he rolled over onto his side and lay still, and I knew that he was dead. A lion generally dies upon his side. With a sigh of relief I looked up towards his maid upon the anteep. She was standing there, apparently petrified with astonishment, looking over her shoulder and lashing her tail, but to our intense joy when the dying beast ceased roaring she turned, and with one enormous bound vanished into the night. Then we advanced cautiously towards the prostrate brute, machine droning and improvised Zulu song as he went, about how Makumazan, the hunter of hunters whose eyes are opened by night as well as by day, put his hand down the lion's stomach when it came to devour him and pulled out his heart by the roots, et cetera, et cetera, by way of expressing his satisfaction in his hyperbolic Zulu way at the turn events had taken. There was no need for caution the lion was as dead as though he had already been stuffed with straw. The martini bullet had entered within an inch of the white spot I had aimed at, and travelled right through him, passing out at the right buttock near the root of the tail. The martini has wonderful driving-power, though the shock it gives to the system comparatively speaking slight owing to the smallness of the hole it makes, but fortunately the lion is an easy beast to kill. I passed the rest of that night in a profound slumber my head reposing upon the deceased lion's flank, a position that had I thought a beautiful touch of irony about it, though the smell of his singed hair was disagreeable. When I woke again the faint primrose lights of dawn were flushing in the eastern sky. For a moment I could not understand the chill sense of anxiety that lay like a lump of ice at my heart. Till the feel and smell of the skin of the deadline beneath my head recalled the circumstances in which we replaced. I rose and eagerly looked round to see if I could discover any sign of Hans, who, if he had escaped accident, would surely return to us at dawn, but there was none. Then hope grew faint, and I felt that it was not well with the poor fellow. Setting massoon to build up the fire I hastily removed the hide from the flank of the lion which was indeed a splendid beast, and cutting off some lumps of flesh we toasted and ate them greedily. Lion's flesh, strange as it may seem, is very good eating, and tastes more like veal than anything else. By the time we had finished our much needed meal the sun was getting up, and after a drink of water and a wash at the pool we started to try and find Hans, leaving the dead lion to the tender mercies of the hyenas. Both massoon and myself were, by constant practice, pretty good hands at tracking, and we had not much difficulty in following the hot-and-tot spore, faint as it was. We had gone in this way for half an hour or so, and were perhaps a mile or more from the site of our camping-place when we discovered the spore of a solitary bull buffalo mixed up with the spore of Hans, and we were able, from various indications, to make out that he had been tracking the buffalo. At length we reached a little glade in which there grew a stunted old mimosa thorn, with a peculiar and overhanging formation of root, under which a porcupine, or ant-bear, or some such animal, had hollowed out a wide-lipped hole. About ten or fifteen paces from this thorn-tree there was a thick patch of bush. "'See, macumason! See!' said massoon excitedly as we drew near the thorn, the buffalo has charged him. Look, here he stood to fire at him. See how firmly he planted his feet upon the earth. There is the mark of his crooked toe.' Hans had one bent toe. "'Look! Here the bull came like a boulder down the hill, his hooves turning up the earth like a hoe. Hans had hit him. He bled as he came. There are the blood-spots. It is all written down there, my father, there upon the earth.' "'Yes,' I said. "'Yes, but where is Hans?' Even as I said it, massoon clutched my arm and pointed to the stunted thorn just by us. Even now, gentlemen, it makes me feel sick when I think of what I saw.' For fixed in a stout fork of the tree, some eight feet from the ground was Hans himself, or rather his dead body, evidently tossed there by the furious buffalo. One leg was twisted round the fork, probably in a dying convulsion. In the side, just beneath the ribs, was a great hole from which the entrails protruded. But this was not all. The other leg hung down to within five feet of the ground, the skin, and most of the flesh were gone from it. For a moment we stood aghast and gazed at this horrifying sight. Then I understood what had happened. The buffalo, with that devilish cruelty which distinguishes the animal, had, after his enemy was dead, stood underneath his body and licked the flesh off the pendant leg with his file-like tongue. I had heard of such a thing before, but had always treated the stories as hunter's yarns. But I had no doubt about it now. Poor Hans's skillet and foot and ankle were ample-proof. We stood aghast under the tree, and stared and stared at this awful sight, when suddenly our cogitations were interrupted in a painful manner. The thick bush, about fifteen paces off, burst asunder with a crashing sound, and uttering a series of ferocious pig-like grunts the bull buffalo himself came charging out straight at us. Even as he came I saw the blood mark on his side where poor Hans's bullet had struck him, and also, as is often the case with particularly savage buffaloes, that his flanks had recently been terribly torn in an encounter with a lion. On he came his head welled up, a buffalo does not generally lower his head till he does so to strike. Those great black horns, as I look at them before me, gentlemen, I seem to see them coming charging at me as I did ten years ago, silhouetted against the green bush behind, on, on. With a shout, my shun bolted off sideways towards the bush. I had instinctively lifted my eight-bor, which I had in my hand. It would have been useless to fire at the buffalo's head, for the dense horns must have turned the bullet, but as my shun bolted the bull slew a little with the momentary idea of following him, and this gave me a ghost of a chance. I let drive my only cartridge at his shoulder. The bullet struck the shoulder-blade and smashed it up, and then travelled under the skin into his flank, but it did not stop him, though for a second he staggered. Throwing myself onto the ground with the energy of despair, I ruled under the shelter of the projecting root of the thorn, crushing myself as far into the mouth of the ant-bear-hole as I could. In a single instant the buffalo was after me, kneeling down on his uninjured knee, for one leg that of which I had broken the shoulder, was swinging helplessly to and fro. He set to work to try and hook me out of the hole with his crooked horn. At first he struck at me furiously, and it was one of the blows against the base of the tree which splintered the tip of the horn in the way that you see. Then he grew more cunning, and pushed his head as far under the root as possible, made along semicircular sweeps at me grunting furiously, and blowing saliva and hot steamy breath all over me. I was just out of reach of the horn, though every stroke by widening the hole and making more room for his head brought it closer to me. But every now and again I received heavy blows in the ribs from his muzzle. Feeling that I was being knocked silly, I made an effort, and seizing his rough tongue which was hanging from his jaws I twisted it with all my force. The great brute bellowed with pain and fury, and jerked himself backwards so strongly that he dragged me some inches further from the mouth of the hole, and again made a sweep at me, catching me this time around the shoulder-joint in the hook of his horn. I felt that it was all up now, and began to holla. He has got me, I shouted in mortal terror. Guassá, machún, guassá! Stab, machún, stab! One hoist of the great head, and out of the hole I came like a periwinkle out of his shell. But even as I did so I caught the sight of machún's stalwart form advancing with his baguan, or broad stabbing assagai, raised above his head. In another quarter of a second I had fallen from the horn, and heard the blow of the spear, followed by the indescribable sound of steel shearing its way through flesh. I had fallen on my back, and looking up I saw that the gallant machún had driven the assagai a foot or more into the carcass of the buffalo, and was turning to fly. Alas! it was too late! Following madly, and spouting blood from mouth and nostrils, the devilish brute was on him, and had thrown him up like a feather, and then gored him twice as he lay. I struggled up with some wild idea of affording help. But before I had gone a step the buffalo gave one long, sighing bellow, and rolled over dead by the side of his victim. Machún was still living, but a single glance at him told me that his hour had come. The buffalo's horn had driven a great hole in his right lung, and inflicted other injuries. I knelt down beside him in the uttermost distress, and took his hand. Is he dead, Machún, he whispered. My eyes are blind. I cannot see. Yes, he is dead. Did the black devil hurt thee, Machún? No, my poor fellow. I am not hurt much. Oh, I am glad. Then came a long silence, broken only by the sound of the air whistling through the hole in his lungs as he breathed. Machún, art thou there? I cannot feel thee. I am here, Machún. I die, Machún. The world flies round and round. I go, I go out into the dark. Surely, my father, at times and days to come, thou will think of me, Machún, who stood by thy side, when thou killest elephants as we used. They were his last words, his brave spirit passed with him. I dragged his body to the hole under the tree, and pushed it in, placing his broad, asagai by him, according to the customs of his people, that he might not go defenseless on his long journey. And then, ladies, I am not ashamed to confess, I stood alone there before it, and wept like a woman. End of Hunter Quartermane's Story by H. Ryder Haggard