 THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROBY JUKS by Rudyard Kipling. Alive or Dead, There Is No Other Way. Native Proverb. There is, as conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though he is the only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similar institution used to flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is a story that if you go into the heart of Bikinir, which is the heart of the great Indian desert, you shall come across not a village, but a town, where the dead, who did not die, but may not live, have established their headquarters. And since it is perfectly true that in the same desert is a wonderful city where all the rich moneylenders retreat after they have made their fortunes. Fortunes so vast that the owners cannot trust even the strong hand of the government to protect them, but take refuge in the waterless sands, and drive sumptuous seaspring barouches, and buy beautiful girls, and decorate their palaces with gold and ivory, and mint in tiles, and mother in pearl. I do not see why Jukes' tale should not be true. He is a civil engineer with a head for plans and distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not take the trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could earn more by doing his legitimate work. He never varies the tale in the telling, and grows very hot and indignant when he thinks of the disrespectful treatment he received. He wrote this quite straightforwardly at first, but he has since touched it up in places and introduced moral reflections thus. In the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever. My work necessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpatan and Muharakpur, a desolate, sandy stretch of country as everyone who has had them as fortunate to go there may know. My coolies were neither more nor less exasperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficient attention to keep me from moping had I been inclined to so unmanly a weakness. On the 23rd December, 1884, I felt a little feverish. There was a full moon at the time, and in consequence every dog near my tent was baying it. The brutes assembled in twos and threes and drove me frantic. A few days previously I had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended his carcass in terrorum about fifty yards from my tent door. But his friends fell upon, fought for, and ultimately devoured the body, and as it seemed to me sang their hymns of thanksgiving afterward with renewed energy. The light-heartedness which accompanies fever acts differently on different men. My irritation gave way after a short time to a fixed determination to slaughter one huge black-and-white beast who had been foremost in song and first in flight throughout the evening. Thanks to a shaking hand and a giddy head I had already missed him twice with both barrels of my shotgun. When it struck me that my best plan would be to ride him down in the open and finish him off with a hog-spear. This of course was merely the semi-delirious notion of a fever patient, but I remember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical and feasible. I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornick and bring him round quietly to the rear of my tent. When the pony was ready I stood at his head, prepared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again lift up his voice. Pornick, by the way, had not been out of his pickets for a couple of days. The night air was crisp and chilly, and I was armed with a specially long and sharp pair of persuaders with which I had been rousing a sluggish cob that afternoon. We'll easily believe, then, that when he was let go he went quickly. In one moment, for the brute bolted as straight as a die, the tent was left far behind and we were flying over the smooth sandy soil at racing speed. In another we had passed the wretched dog and I had almost forgotten why it was that I had taken the horse and hog-spear. The delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through the air must have taken away the remnant of my senses. I have a faint recollection of standing upright in my stirrups and of brandishing my hog-spear at the great white moon that looked down so calmly on my mad gallop, and of shout-log challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as they whizzed past. Once or twice I believe I swayed forward on Pornick's neck and literally hung on by my spurs, as the marks next morning showed. The wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed over what seemed to be a limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next I remember the ground rose suddenly in front of us and as we topped the ascent I saw the waters of the subtlete shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornick blundered heavily on his nose and we rolled together down some unseen slope. I must have lost consciousness for when I recovered I was lying on my stomach in a heap of soft white sand and the dawn was beginning to break dimly over the edge of the slope down which I had fallen. As the light grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand, opening on one side directly on the shoals of the subtlete. My fever had altogether left me and with the exception of a slight dizziness in the head I felt no bad effects from the fall overnight. Pornick, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good deal exhausted, but had not hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a favorite polo one, was much knocked about and had been twisted under his belly. It took me some time to put him to rights, and in the meantime I had ample opportunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishly dropped. At the risk of being considered tedious I must describe it at length. Inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its peculiarities will be of material assistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows. Imagine then, as I have said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. The slope by fancy must have been about sixty-five degrees. This crater enclosed a level piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part, with a crude well in the center. Round the bottom of the crater about three feet from the level of the ground proper ran a series of eighty-three semicircular ovoid square and multilateral holes, all about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that it was carefully shored internally with driftwood and bamboos, and over the mouth a wooden dripboard projected like the peak of a jockey's cap for two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but a most sickening stench pervaded the entire amphitheater. A stench fowler than any which my wanderings in Indian villages have introduced me to. Having remounted Pornick, who was as anxious as I to get back to camp, I rode round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exit would be practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not thought fit to put in appearance, so I was left to my own devices. My first attempt to rush Pornick up the steep sand banks showed me that I had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which the ant-lions sets for its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured down from above in tons and rattled on the dripboards of the holes like small shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down to the bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand, and I was constrained to turn my attention to the river bank. Here everything seemed easy enough. The sand hills ran down to the river edge, it is true, but there were plenty of shoals and shallows across which I could gallop Pornick and find my way back to terra firma by turning sharply to the right or left. As I led Pornick over the sands I was startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the river, and at the same moment a bullet dropped with a sharp, close to Pornick's head. There was no mistaking the nature of the missile, a regulation martini Henry Pickett. About five hundred yards away a country boat was anchored in midstream, and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bowels in the still-morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse? The treacherous sand slope allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited most involuntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal for a bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I'm afraid that I lost my temper very much indeed. Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to cool my porridge, and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to the horseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-five human beings from the badger holes which I had up till that point supposed to be untended. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of spectators, about forty men, twenty women, and one child who could not have been more than five years old. They were all scantily clothed in that salmon-colored cloth which one associates with Hindu mendicants. That first sight gave me the impression of a band of loathsome fakirs. The filth and repulsiveness of the assembly were beyond all description, and I shuddered to think what their life in the badger holes must be. Even in these days when local self-government has destroyed the greater part of a native's respect for Sahib, I have been accustomed to a certain amount of civility from my inferiors, and on approaching the crowd naturally expected that there would be some recognition of my presence. As a matter of fact there was, but it was by no means what I had looked for. The ragged crew actually laughed at me. Such laughter I hope I may never hear again. They cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked into their midst, some of them literally throwing themselves down on the grounded convulsions of unholy mirth. In a moment I had let go Pornick's head and irritated beyond expression at the morning's adventure commenced cuffing those nearest to me with all the force I could. The wretches dropped under my blows like nine pins, and the laughter gave place to wails for mercy, while those yet untouched clasped me around the knees imploring me in all sorts of uncouth tongues to spare them. In the tumult and just when I was feeling very much ashamed of myself for having thus easily given way to my temper, a thin, high voice murmured in English from behind my shoulder, Sahib, Sahib, do you not know me Sahib? It is Gangadhas, the telegraph master. I spun round quickly and faced the speaker. Gangadhas, I have, of course, no hesitation in mentioning the man's real name. I had known four years earlier before as a deaconee brahmin loaned by the Punjab government to one of the Kalsiya states. He was in charge of a branched telegraph office there, and when I last met him was a jovial full stomached portly government servant with a marvelous capacity for making bad puns in English. A peculiarity which made me remember him long after I had forgotten his services to me in his official capacity. It is seldom that a Hindu makes English puns. Now, however, the man was changed beyond all recognition, cast mark, stomach, slate-colored continuations and unctuous speech were all gone. I looked at a withered skeleton, turbanless and almost naked with long matted hair and deep-set codfish eyes, but for a crescent-shaped scar on the left cheek, the result of an accident for which I was responsible, I should never have known him. But it was indubitably Gangadhas, and for this I was thankful, an English-speaking native who might at least tell me the meaning of all that I had gone through that day. The crowd retreated to some distances I turned toward the miserable figure and ordered him to show me some method of escape from the crater. He held a freshly plucked crow in his hand, and in reply to my question climbed slowly on a platform of sand which ran in front of the holes and commenced lighting of fire there in silence. Dried bents, sand-poppies, and driftwood burned quickly, and I derived much consolation from the fact that he lit them with an ordinary sulfur match. When they were in a bright glow and the crow was nearly spitted in front thereof, Gangadhas began without a word of preamble. There are only two kinds of mansar, the alive and the dead. When you are dead, you are dead, but when you are alive, you live. Here the crow demanded his attention for an instant as it twirled before the fire in danger of being burned to a cinder. If you die at home and do not die, when you come to the ghat to be burned, you come here. The nature of the wreaking village was made plain now, and all that I had known or read of the grotesque and the horrible paled before the fact just communicated by the ex-Brahman. Sixteen years ago, when I first landed in Bombay, I had been told by a wandering Armenian of the existence somewhere in India, of a place to which such Hindus as had the misfortune to recover from trance or catalepsy were conveyed and kept, and I recollect laughing heartily at what I was then pleased to consider a traveller's tale. Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson's hotel with its swinging punkas, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced Armenian rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burst into a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd. Gangadhas, as he bent over the unclean bird, watched me curiously. Hindus seldom laugh, and his surroundings were not such as to move Gangadhas to any undue excess of hilarity. He removed the crow solemnly from the wooden spit, and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued his story, which I give in his own words. In epidemics of cholera you are carried to be burned almost before you are dead. When you come to the riverside, the cold air, perhaps, makes you alive, and then, if you are only little alive, mud is put in your nose and mouth, and you die conclusively. If you are rather more alive, more mud is put, but if you are too lively, they let you go and take you away. I was too lively, and made protestation with anger against the indignities that they endeavored to press upon me. In those days I was brahman and proud man. Now I am dead man, and eat. Here he eyed the well-nod breastbone with the first sign of emotion that I had seen in him since we met. Crows and other things. They took me from my sheets when they saw that I was too lively and gave me medicines for one week, and I survived successfully. Then they sent me by rail from my place to Okara Station, with a man to take care of me, and at Okara Station we met two other men, and they conducted we three on camels in the night from Okara Station to this place, and they propelled me from the top to the bottom, and the other two succeeded, and I have been here ever since, two-and-a-half years. Once I was brahman and proud man, and now I eat crows. There is no way of getting out. None of what kind at all. When I first came I made experiments frequently, and all the others also, but we have always succumbed to the sand which is precipitated upon our heads. But surely I broke in at this point, the river front is open, and it is worth while dodging the bullets while at night. I had already matured a rough plan of escape, which a natural instinct of selfishness forbade me sharing with Ganga Das. See, however, divined my unspoken thought almost as soon as it was formed, and to my intense astonishment gave vent to a long, low chuckle of derision, the laughter be it understood of a superior, or at least of an equal. You will not! He had dropped the sir completely after his opening sentence. Make any escape that way, but you can try. I have tried. Once only. The sensation of nameless terror and abject fear which I had in vain attempted to strive against over-mastered me completely. My long fast. It was now close upon ten o'clock, and I had eaten nothing since tiffin on the previous day, combined with the violent and unnatural agitations of the ride had exhausted me. And I verily believe that for a few minutes I acted as one mad. I hurled myself against the pitiless sand-slope. I ran round the base of the crater, blaspheming and praying by turns. I crawled out among the sedges of the river-front, only to be driven back each time in an agony of nervous dread by the rifle-bullets which cut up the sand round me. For I dared not face the death of a mad dog among that hideous crowd, and finally fell, spent, and raving at the curb of the well. No one had taken the slightest notion of an exhibition which makes me blush hotly even when I think of it now. Two or three men trod on my panting body as they drew water, but they were evidently used to this sort of thing, and had no time to waste upon me. The situation was humiliating. Gangadhas, indeed, when he had banked the embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half a cupful of fetid water over my head. An attention for which I could have fallen on my knees and thanked him. But he was laughing all the while in the same mirthless wheezy key that greeted me on my first attempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, I lay till noon. Then being only a man, after all, I felt hungry and intimated as much to Gangadhas, whom I had begun to regard as my natural protector. Following the impulse of the outer world when dealing with natives, I put my hand into my pocket and drew out four anas. The absurdity of the gift struck me at once, and I was about to replace the money. Gangadhas, however, was of a different opinion. Give me the money, said he. All you have, or I will get help, and we will kill you. All this as if it were the most natural thing in the world. A Briton's first impulse, I believe, is to guard the contents of his pockets. But a moment's reflection convinced me of the futility of differing with the one man who had it in his power to make me comfortable, and with whose help it was possible that I might eventually escape from the crater. I gave him all the money in my possession, ours, nine, eight, five, nine rupees, eight anas, and five pie, for I always kept small change as Bakshish when I am in camp. Gangadhas clutched the coins and hid them at once in his ragged loincloth, his expression changing to something diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no one had observed us. Now I will give you something to eat, said he. What pleasure the possession of my money could have afforded him, I am unable to say. But in as much as it did give him evident delight, I was not sorry that I had parted with it so readily, for I had no doubt that he would have had me killed if I had refused. One does not protest against the vagaries of a den of wild beasts, and my companions were lower than any beasts. While I devoured what Gangadhas had provided, a coarse chapati, and a cupful of the foul well-water, the people showed not the faintest sign of curiosity, that curiosity which is so rampant as a rule in an Indian village. I could even fancy that they despised me. At all events they treated me with the most chilling indifference, and Gangadhas was nearly as bad. I plied him with questions about the terrible village and received extremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather it had been in existence from time immemorial, whence I concluded that it was at least a century old. And during that time no one had ever been known to escape from it. I had to control myself here with both hands lest the blind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me raving round the crater. Gangadhas took a malicious pleasure in emphasising this point, and in watching me wince. Nothing that I could do would induce him to tell me who the mysterious they were. It is so ordered, he would reply, and I do not yet know anyone who has disobeyed the orders. Only wait till my servants find that I am missing, I retorted, and I promise you that this place will be cleared off the face of the earth, and I'll give you a lesson in civility, too, my friend. Your servants would be torn in pieces before they came near this place, and besides, you are dead, my dear friend. It is not your fault, of course, but, nonetheless, you are dead and buried. At irregular intervals supplies of food I was told were dropped down from the landside into the amphitheatre, and the inhabitants fought for them like wild beasts. When a man felt his death coming on he retreated to his lair and died there. The body was sometimes dragged out of the hole and thrown onto the sand, or allowed to rot where it lay. The phrase, thrown onto the sand, caught my attention, and I asked Kangadas whether this sort of thing was not likely to breed a pestilence. That said he, with another of his wheezy chuckles you may see for yourself subsequently. You will have much time to make observations. Whereas to his great delight I winced once more and hastily continued the conversation. And how do you live here from day to day? What do you do? The question elicited exactly the same answer as before, coupled with the information that this place is like your European heaven. There is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Kangadas had been educated at the mission school, and as he himself admitted had he only changed his religion like a wise man might have avoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long as I was with him I fancy he was happy. Here was Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless as a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a deliberate, lazy way he set himself to torture me as a school-boy would devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled beetle. Or as a ferret in a blind barrow might glue himself comfortably to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there was no escape, of no kind whatever, and that I should stay here till I died and was thrown onto the sand. If it were possible to forejudge the conversation of the damned on the advent of a new soul in their abode, I should say that they would speak as Kangadas did to me throughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer, all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicable terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can compare the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against the overpowering nausea of the channel passage, only my agony was of the spirit and infinitely more terrible. As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to appear in full strength to catch the rays of the afternoon sun which were now sloping in at the mouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots and talked among themselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About four o'clock as far as I could judge, Kangadas rose and dived into his lair for a moment, emerging with a live crow in his hands. The wretched bird was in a most draggled and deplorable condition but seemed to be in no way afraid of its master. Advancing cautiously to the river-front, Kangadas stepped from Tussak to Tussak until he had reached a smooth patch of sand directly in the line of the boat's fire. The occupants of the boat took no notice. Here he stopped and with a couple of dexterous turns of the wrist pegged the bird on its back with outstretched wings. As was only natural, the crow began to shriek at once and beat the air with its claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted the attention of a bevy of wild crows on a shoal a few hundred yards away, where they were discussing something that looked like a corpse. Half a dozen crows flew over at once to see what was going on, and also as it proved to attack the pinioned bird. Kangadas, who had lain down on a Tussak motion to me to be quiet, though I fancy this was a needless precaution. In a moment and before I could see how it happened, a wild crow who had grappled with the shrieking and helpless bird was entangled in the latter's claws, swiftly disengaged by Kangadas and pegged down beside its companion in adversity. Curiosity had seemed overpowered the rest of the flock, and almost before Kangadas and I had time to withdraw to the Tussak, two more captives were struggling in the upturned claws of the decoys. So the chase, if I can give it so dignified a name, continued until Kangadas had captured seven crows. One of them he throttled at once, reserving two for further operations another day. I was a good deal impressed by this to me novel method of securing food and complimented Kangadas on his skill. It is nothing to do, said he, to-morrow you must do it for me. You are stronger than I am. This calm assumption of superiority upset me not a little, and I answered preemptorily, Indeed, you old ruffian, what do you think I have given you money for? Very well, was the unmoved reply, perhaps not to-morrow, nor the day after, nor subsequently, but in the end, and for many years, you will catch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that you have crows to catch and eat. I could have cheerfully strangled him for this, but I judged it best under the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating one of the crows, and as Kangadas had said thanking my God that I had a crow to eat, for as long as I live shall I forget that evening meal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform opposite their dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes. Death, having once laid his hand upon these men and foreborn to strike, seemed to stand aloof from them now. For most of our company were old men, bent and worn and twisted with years, and women aged to all appearance as the fates themselves. They sat together in knots and talked, God knows what they found to discuss, in low, equable tones, curiously in contrast to the strident babble with which natives are accustomed to make a day hideous. Now and then an access of that sudden fury which had possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man or a woman, and with yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack the steep slope until baffled and bleeding he fell back on the platform incapable of moving a limb. The others would never even raise their eyes when this happened, as men too well aware of the futility of their fellow's attempts and wearied with their useless repetition. I saw four such outbursts in the course of the evening. Gangadhas took an eminently business-like view of my situation, and while we were dining I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, but it was painful enough at the time, propounded the terms on which he would consent to do for me. My nine rupees, eight anas, he argued, at the rate of three anas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-one days or about seven weeks. That is to say he would be willing to cater for me for that length of time. At the end of it I was to look after myself. For further consideration, by delicit, my boots, he would be willing to allow me to occupy the den next to his own and would supply me with as much dried grass for bedding as he could spare. Very well, Gangadhas, I replied. To the first terms I cheerfully agreed, but as there is nothing on earth to prevent me from killing you as you sit here and taking everything that you have. I thought of the two invaluable crows at the time. I flatly refused to give you my boots and shall take whatever den I please. The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it had succeeded. Gangadhas changed his tone immediately and disavowed all intention of asking for my boots. At the time it did not strike me at all strange that I, a civil engineer, a man of thirteen years standing in the service, and I trust an average Englishman, should thus calmly threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for a consideration it is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the world at seemed four centuries. I was as certain then as I am now of my own existence, that in the accursed settlement there was no law save that of the strongest, that the living dead men had thrown behind them every canon of the world which had cast them out, and that I had to depend for my own life on my strength and vigilance alone. The crew of the ill-fated Minyanet are the only men who would understand my frame of mind. At present, I argued to myself, I am strong and a match for six of these wretches. It is imperatively necessary that I should, for my own sake, both health and strength until the hour of my release comes, if it ever does. Fortified with these resolutions I ate and drank as much as I could, and made Gangadhas understand that I intended to be his master, and that the least sign of insubordination on his part would be visited with the only punishment I had it in my power to inflict, sudden and violent death. Shortly after this I went to bed, that is to say Gangadhas gave me a double armful of dried bents which I thrust down the mouth of the lair to the right of his, and followed myself feet foremost, the whole running about nine feet into the sand with a slight downward inclination, and being neatly shored with timbers. From my den which faced the riverfront I was able to watch the waters of the suttlage flowing past under the light of a young moon and compose myself to sleep as best I might. The horrors of that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly as narrow as a coffin and the sides had been worn smooth and greased by the contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelled abominably. Sleep was altogether out of the question to one in my excited frame of mind. As the night wore on it seemed that the entire amphitheater was filled with legions of unclean devils that, trooping up from the shoals below, mocked the unfortunates in their lairs. Personally I am not of an imaginative temperament. Very few engineers are. But on that occasion I was as completely prostrated with nervous terror as any woman. After half an hour or so, however, I was able to once more calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit by the steep sand walls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly convinced of this some time before. It was possible—just possible—that I might, in the uncertain moonlight, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle-shots. The place was so full of terror for me that I was prepared to undergo any risk in leaving it. Imagine my delight then, when after creeping stealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was not there. My freedom lay before me in the next few steps. By walking out to the first shallow pool that lay at the foot of the projecting left horn of the horseshoe I could wait across, run the flank of the crater and make my way inland. Without a moment's hesitation I marched briskly past the tussocks where Gangadas had snared the crows and out in the direction of the smooth white sand beyond. My first step from the tufts of dried grass showed me how utterly futile was any hope of escape. For as I put my foot down I felt an indescribable drawing, sucking motion of the sand below. Another moment and my leg was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the moonlight the whole surface of the sand seemed to be shaken with the devilish delight at my disappointment. I struggled clear, sweating with terror and exertion back to the tussocks behind me and fell on my face. My only means of escape from the semi-circle was protected with a quicksand. How long I lay I have not the faintest idea, but I was roused at last by the malevolent chuckle of Gangadas at my ear. I would advise you protector of the poor, the ruffian was speaking English. To return to your house, it is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover when the boat returns you will most certainly be rifled at. He stood over me in the dim light of the dawn, juggling and laughing to himself, suppressing my first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him onto the quicksand. I rose solemnly and followed him to the platform below the burrows. Suddenly and futile as I thought while I spoke I asked, Gangadas what is the good of the boat if I can't get out anyhow? I recollect that even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the waste of ammunition and guarding an already well protected foreshore. Gangadas laughed again and made answer. They have the boat only in daytime. It is for the reason that there is a way. I hope we shall have the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasant spot when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow long enough. I staggered, numbed and helpless toward the fetid burrow allotted to me and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing scream, the shrill high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those who have once heard that will never forget the sound. I found some little difficulty in scrambling out of my burrow. When I was in the open I saw a pornic, my poor old pornic lying dead on the sandy soil. How they had killed him I cannot guess. Gangadas explained that horse was better than crow and greatest good of greatest number is political maxim. We are now Republic, Mr. Jukes, and you are entitled to a fair share of the beast. If you like we will pass a vote of thanks, shall I propose? Yes, we were a Republic indeed. A Republic of wild beasts penned at the bottom of a pit to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted no protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sight in front of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this, pornic's body was divided in some unclear way or other. The men and women had dragged the fragments onto the platform and were preparing their normal meal. Gangadas cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was weary'd laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gangadas was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him say something. You will live here till you die, like the other Ferengi, he said, coolly watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing. What other sahib, you swine, speak at once, and don't stop to tell me a lie. He is over there, answered Gangadas, pointing to a barrel-mouth about four doors to the left of my own. You can see for yourself he died in the barrel as you will die, and as I will die, and as all these men and women and the one child will also die. For pity's sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he come, and when did he die? This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gangadas only leered and replied, I will not, unless you give me something first. Then I recollected where I was and struck the man between the eyes, partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet led me round to the barrel which he had indicated. I know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witness that I do not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was shot from the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from attempting. He was shot here. Gangadas laid his hand on his lean stomach and bowed to the earth. Well, and what then? Go on! And then, Your Honor, we carried him to his house and gave him water and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his house and gave up the ghost. In how long? In how long? Half an hour after he received his wound. I called Vishnu to witness, yelled the wretched man, that I did everything for him, everything which was possible that I did. He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles, but I had no doubts about Gangadas' benevolence and kicked him off as he lay protesting. I believe you robbed him of everything he had, but I can find out in a minute or two. How long was the Sahib here? Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad, but hear me swear, Protector of the Poor, won't Your Honor hear me swear that I never touched an article that belonged to him. What is your worship going to do? I had taken Gangadas by the waist and had hauled him on to the platform opposite the deserted Barrow. As I did so, I thought of my wretched fellow prisoner's unspeakable misery among all these horrors for eighteen months, and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole, with a bullet wound in the stomach. Gangadas fancied I was going to kill him and howled pitifully. The rest of the population in the plethora that follows a full flesh meal watched us without stirring. Go inside, Gangadas said I, and fetch it out. I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gangadas nearly rolled off the platform and howled aloud. But I am Brahman, Sahib, a high-cast Brahman. By your soul, by your father's soul, do not make me do this thing. Brahman or no Brahman, by my soul and my father's soul, in you go. I said, and seizing him by the shoulders I crammed his head into the mouth of the Barrow, kicked the rest of him in, and sitting down covered my face with my hands. At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak. Then Gangadas in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself. Then a soft thud, and I uncovered my eyes. The dry sand had turned the corpse and trusted to its keeping into a yellow-brown mummy. I told Gangadas to stand off while I examined it. The body, clad in an olive-green hunting suit, much stained and worn with leather pads on the shoulders, was that of a man between thirty and forty above middle height with light sandy hair, long moustache, and a rough, unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. From the second finger of the left hand was a ring, a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold with a monogram that might have been either B.K. or B.L. On the third finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gangadas deposited a handful of trifles he had picked out of the Barrow at my feet, and covering the face of the body with my handkerchief I turned to examine these. I give the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of the unfortunate man. One. Bowl of a briar wood pipe, serrated at the edge, much worn and blackened, bound with string at the crew. Two. Two patent lever-keys, wards of both broken. Three. Tortoise shell-handled pen-knife, silver-roared nickel, name-plate marked with monogram B.K. Four. Postmark undiscipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp, addressed to Miss Mon, rest-illegible, ham and tea. Five. Imitation crocodile skin notebook with pencil, first forty-five pages blank, four and a half illegible, fifteen others filled with private memoranda relating chiefly to three persons. A Mrs. L. Singleton abbreviated several times to Lott Single, Mrs. S. May, and Garmason, referred to in places as Jerry or Jack. Six. Handle of a small-sized hunting-knife, blade-snapped short, Buxhorn, diamond cut, with swivel and ring on the butt, fragment of cotton cord attached. It must not be supposed that I invaderied all of these things on the spot as fully as I have here written them down. The notebook first attracted my attention, and I put it in my pocket with a view to studying it later on. The rest of the articles I conveyed to my Barrow for safety's sake, and there, being a methodical man, I inventoried them. I then returned to the corpse and ordered Gangadas to help me carry it out to the riverfront. While we were engaged in this, the exploded shell of an old brown cartridge dropped out of one of the pockets and rolled at my feet. Gangadas had not seen it, and I felt the thinking that a man does not carry exploded cartridge cases, especially browns, which will not bear loading twice about with him when shooting. In other words, that cartridge case had been fired inside the crater. Consequently, there must be a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of asking Gangadas but checked myself knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge of the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to push it out and let it be swallowed up, the only possible mode of burial that I could think of. I ordered Gangadas to go away. Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so it was lying face downward. I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coat open, disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have already told you that the dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment's glance showed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gunshot wound. The gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The shooting-coat being intact had been drawn over the body after death, which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch's death was plain to me in a flash. Someone of the crater, presumably Gangadas, must have shot him with his own gun. The gun that fitted the brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the rifle fire from the boat. I pushed the corpse out hastily and saw it sink from sight literally in a few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed half-conscious way I turned to peruse the notebook. A stained and discolored slip of paper had been inserted between the binding in the back and dropped out as I opened the pages. This is what it contained. Four out from crow-clump. Three left. Nine out. Two right. Three back. Two left. Fourteen out. Two left. Seven out. One left. Nine back. Eight. Six back. Four right. Seven back. The paper had been burned and charred at the edges. What it meant I could not understand. I sat down on the dried bents turning it over and over between my fingers until I was aware of Gangadas standing immediately behind me with glowing eyes and outstretched hands. Have you got it? He panted. Will you not let me look at it also? I swear that I will return it. Got what? Return what? I asked. Get what you have in your hands. It will help us both. He stretched out his long bird-like talons trembling with eagerness. I could never find it, he continued. He had secreted it about his person. Therefore I shot him. But nevertheless I was unable to obtain it. Gangadas had quite forgotten his little fiction about the rifle-bullet. I received the information perfectly calmly. Morality is blunted by consorting with the dead who are alive. What on earth are you raving about? What is it you want me to give you? The piece of paper in the notebook. It will help us both. Oh! You fool! You fool! Can you not see what it will do for us? We shall escape! His voice rose almost to a scream, and he danced with excitement before me. I own. I was moved at the chance of my getting away. Don't skip. Explain yourself. Do you mean to say that this slip of paper will help us? What does it mean? Read it aloud. Read it aloud. I pray you to read it aloud. I did so. Gangadas listened delightfully and drew an irregular line in the sand with his fingers. See now! It was the length of his gun-barrels without the stock. I have those barrels, four gun-barrels out from the place where I caught crows. Straight out, do you follow me? Then three left. Ah! How well I remember when that man worked it out night after night. Then nine out, and so on. That is always straight before you across the quicksand. He told me so before I killed him. But if you knew all this, why didn't you get out before? I did not know it. He told me that he was working it out a year and a half ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boat had gone away, and he could get out near the quicksand safely. Then he said that we would get away together. But I was afraid that he would leave me behind one night when he had worked it all out, and so I shot him. Besides, it is not advisable that the men who once get in here should escape. Only I, and I, am a Brahmin. The prospect of escape had brought Gangadhasas cast back to him. He stood up, walked about, and gesticulated violently. Eventually I managed to make him talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spent six months night after night in exploring inch by inch the passage across the quicksand. How he had declared it to be simplicity itself up to within about twenty yards of the river bank after turning the flank of the left horn of the horseshoe. This much he had evidently not completed when Gangadhas shot him with his own gun. In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollect shaking hands effusively with Gangadhas, after we had decided that we were to make an attempt to get away that very night. It was weary work waiting throughout the afternoon. About ten o'clock as far as I could judge when the moon had just risen above the lip of the crater, Gangadhas made a move for his burrow to bring out the gun barrels whereby to measure our path. All the other wretched inhabitants had retired to their lairs long ago. The guardian boat drifted downstream some hours before, and we were utterly alone by the crow-clump. Gangadhas, while carrying the gun barrels, let slip the piece of paper which was to be our guide. I stooped down hastily to recover it, and as I did so I was aware that the diabolical Brahmin was aiming a violent blow at the back of my head with the gun barrels. It was too late to turn round. I must have received the blow somewhere on the nape of my neck. A hundred thousand fiery stars danced before my eyes, and I fell forwards, senseless at the edge of the quicksand. When I recovered consciousness the moon was going down, and I was sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gangadhas had disappeared, and my mouth was full of blood. I laid down again and prayed that I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I had before mentioned laid hold upon me, and I staggered inland toward the walls of the crater. It seemed that someone was calling to me in a whisper, Sahib! Sahib! Sahib! Exactly as my bearer used to call me in the morning. I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sand fell at my feet. Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the amphitheater. The head of Dhanu, my dog-boy, who attended to my colleagues. As soon as he had attracted my attention he held up his hand and showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro for a while, that he should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punko ropes knotted together with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and under my arms, heard Dhanu erred something forward, was conscious that I was being dragged face downward up the steep sand slope, and the next instant found myself choked and half fainting on the sand hills overlooking the crater. Dhanu, with his face ashy gray in the moonlight, implored me not to stay but to get back to my tent at once. It seems that he had tracked Pornick's footprints fourteen miles across the sands to the crater, had returned and told my servants who flatly refused to meddle with anyone white or black once fallen into the hideous village of the dead, whereupon Dhanu had taken one of my ponies and a couple of punko ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out as I have described. To cut a long story short, Dhanu is now my personal servant on a gold mower 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 Gangadas I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to do so. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that someone 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. End of The Strange Ride of Morobee Jukes by Rudyard Kipling The Top Attic in Pringles Mansion, Edinburgh by Elliot O'Donnell This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Graham Dunlop The Top Attic in Pringles Mansion, Edinburgh by Elliot O'Donnell A charming lady, Miss South, informs me that no house interested her more as a child than Pringles Mansion, Edinburgh. Pringles Mansion, by the by, is not the real name of the house, nor is the original building still standing. The fact is, my friend has been obliged to disguise the locality for fear of an action for slander of title. Such has happened in the Egham case of 1904-07. Miss South never saw, save in a picture, the house that so fascinated her, but through repeatedly hearing about it from her old nurse, she felt that she knew it by heart, and used to amuse herself hour after hour on the nursery, drawing diagrams of the rooms and passages, which to make quite realistic she named and numbered. There was the Admiral's room, Madame's room, Miss O'Felia's room, Master Gregory's room, Lettice, the nurse's room, the cook's room, the butler's room, the housemaid's room, and the haunted room. The house was very old, probably the 16th century, and was concealed from the thoroughfare by a high wall that enclosed it on all sides. It had no garden, only a large yard covered with faded yellow paving stones, and containing a well with an old-fashioned roller and bucket. When the well was cleaned out, an event which took place periodically on a certain date, every utensil in the house was called into requisition for ladling out the water, and the Admiral, himself supervising, made every servant in the establishment take an active part in the proceedings. On one of these occasions, the Admiral announced his intention of going down the well in the bucket. That was a rare moment in Lettice's life, for when the Admiral had been let down in the bucket, the rope broke. Indeed, the thought of what the Laird would say when he came up almost resulted in his not coming up at all. However, someone, rather bolder than the rest, retained sufficient presence of mind to effect a rescue, and the timid ones, thankful enough to survive the explosion, had to be content on, off Russian, still further notice. But in spite of its association with such a martinet, and in spite of her ghostly experiences in it, Lettice loved the house and was never tired of singing its praises. There was a two-storied mansion with roomy cellars, but no basement. There were four reception rooms, all oak-paneled, on the ground floor, numerous kitchen offices, including a cosy housekeeper's room, and a capacious entrance hall in the center of which stood a broad oak staircase. The cellars, three in lumber, and chiefly used as lumber rooms, were deep down, and dank, and horrid. On the first floor, eight bedrooms opened onto a gallery overlooking the hall, and the top story, where the servants slept, consisted solely of attics connected with one another by a dark, narrow passage. It was one of these attics that was haunted, although as a matter of fact, the ghost had been seen in all parts of the house. When Lettice entered the admiral's service, she was but a bairn, and had never even heard of ghosts, nor did the other servants surprise her of her hauntings, having received strict conjunctions not to do so from the laird. But Lettice's home, humble though it was, had been very bright and cheerful, and the dark precincts of the mansion filled her with dismay. Without exactly knowing why she was afraid, she shrank in terror from descending into the cellars, and felt anything but pleased at the prospect of sleeping alone in an attic. Still, nothing occurred to really alarm her until about a month after her arrival. It was early in the evening, soon after twilight, and she'd gone down into one of the cellars to look for a boot jack, which the admiral swore by all that was holy must be found before supper. Placing the light she had brought with her on a packing case, she was groping over amongst the boxes, when she perceived to her astonishment that the flame of the candle had suddenly turned blue. She then felt icy cold and was much startled on hearing, a loud clatter as of some metal instrument on the stone floor in the far off corner of the cellar. Glancing in the direction of the noise, she saw, looking at her, two eyes, two obliquely set, lurid, light eyes full of the utmost devilry. Sick with terror and utterly unable to account for that which she beheld, she stood stock still, her limbs refusing to move, her throat parched, her tongue tied, the clanging was repeated and a shadowy form began slowly to crawl towards her. She dared not afterwards surmise what would have happened to her, had not the lair himself come down at this moment, that the sound of his stentorian voice, the phantasm vanished. But the shock had been too much for Leti. She fainted and the admiral, carrying her upstairs as carefully as if she'd been his own daughter, gave peremptory orders that she should never be allowed to go down into the cellar alone again. But now that Leti herself had witnessed a manifestation, the other servants no longer felt bound to secrecy and soon poured into her ears endless accounts of the hauntings. Everyone they informed her, except Master Gregory and Perkins, the butler, had seen one or other of the ghosts and the cellar apparition was quite familiar to them all. They also declared that there were other parts of the house quite as badly haunted as the cellar and it might have been partly owing to these gruesome stories that poor Leti always felt scared when crossing the passages leading to the attics. As she was hastening down one of them early one morning, she heard someone running after her. Thinking it was one of the other servants, she turned round, pleased to think that someone else was up so early too and saw to her horror a dreadful looking object that seemed to be partly human and partly animal. The body was quite small and its face bloated and covered with yellow spots. It had an enormous animal mouth, the lips of which moving furiously without emitting any sound, showed that the creature was endeavoring to speak but could not. The moment Leti screamed for help, the phantasm vanished but her worst experience was yet to come. The spare attic which she was told was so badly haunted that no one would sleep in it was the room next to hers. It was a room Leti could well believe was haunted for she'd never seen another equally gloomy. The ceiling was low and sloping, the window tiny and the walls exhibited all sorts of odd nooks and crannies. A bed, antique and worm eaten, stood in one recess, a black oak chest in another and at right angles with the door in another recess stood a wardrobe that used to creak and groan alarmingly every time Leti walked along the passage. Once she heard a chuckle, a low diabolical chuckle which she fancied came from the chest. And once when the door of the room was open, she caught the glitter of a pair of eyes. The same pale malevolent eyes that so frightened her in the cellar. From Aurelia's childhood, Leti had been periodically given to somnambulism. And one night, just about a year after she went into service, she got out of bed and walked in her sleep into the haunted room. She awoke to find herself standing, cold and shivering in the middle of the floor and it was some seconds before she realized where she was. Her horror when she did discover where she was is not easily described. The room was bathed in moonlight and the beams falling with noticeable brilliancy on each piece of furniture the room contained at once riveted Leti's attention and so fascinated her that she found herself utterly unable to move. A terrible and most unusual silence predominated everywhere. And although Leti's senses were wonderfully and painfully on the alert, she could not catch the slightest sound from any of the rooms on the landing. The night was absolutely still. No breath of wind, no rustle of leaves, no flapping of ivy against the window. Yet the door suddenly swung back on its hinges and slammed furiously. Leti felt that this was the work of some supernatural agency and fully expecting that the noise had awakened the cook who was a light sleeper, or pretended she was, listened in a fever of excitement to hear her get out of bed and call out. The slightest noise and the spell that held her prisoner would, Leti felt sure, be broken. But the same unbroken silence prevailed. A sudden rustling made Leti glance fearfully at the bed and she perceived to her terror the valance swaying violently to and fro. Sick with fear, she was now constrained to stare and abject helplessness. Presently there was a slight, very slight movement on the mattress. The white dust cover rose and under it, Leti saw the outlines of what she took to be a human figure gradually take shape. Hoping, praying that she was mistaken and that what appeared to be on the bed was but a trick of her imagination, she continued staring in an agony of anticipation. But the figure remained, extended at full length like a corpse. The moment slowly passed, a church clock boomed too and the body moved. Let his jaw fell, her eyes almost bulged from her head whilst her fingers closed convulsively on the folds of her nightdress. The unmistakable sound of breathing now issued from the region of the bed and the dust cover commenced slowly to slip aside. Inch by inch it moved until first of all, Leti saw a few wisps of dark hair, then a few more, then a thick cluster, then something white and shining, a protruding forehead. Then dark, very dark brows, then two eyelids yellow, swollen and fortunately tightly closed. Then a purple conglomeration of Leti knew not what, of anything but what was human. The sight was so monstrous it appalled her and she was overcome with a species of oren repulsion for which the language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression. She momentarily forgot that what she looked on was merely super physical but regarded it as something alive, something that ought to have been a child, comely and healthy as herself and she hated it. It was an outrage on maternity, a blot on nature, a filthy discredit to the house, a blight, a sore, a gangrene. It turned over in its sleep, the cover was hurled aside and a grotesque object, round, pulpy, webbed and of leprous whiteness, an object which Leti could hardly associate with a hand came groveling out. Leti's stomach heaved, the thing was beastly, indecent, vile, it ought not to live. And the idea of killing flashed through her mind, boiling over with indignation and absurdly forgetful of her surroundings. She turned round and groped for a stone to smash it. The moonlight on her naked toes brought her to her senses. The thing in the back was a devil. Though brought up a member of the free church with an abhorrence of anything that could in any way be contorted into papest practices, Leti crossed herself. As she did so, a noise in the passage outside augmented her terror. She strained her ears painfully and the sound developed into a footstep, soft, light and surreptitious. It came gently towards the door. It paused outside and Leti intuitively felt that it was listening. Her suspense was now so intolerable that it was almost with a feeling of relief that she beheld the door slowly, very slowly begin to open. A little wider, a little wider and yet a little wider, but still nothing came. Ah, Leti's heart turned to ice. Another inch and a shadowy something slipped through and began to wriggle itself stealthily over the floor. Leti tried to divert her gaze, but could not. An irresistible magnetic attraction keeping her eyes glued to the gradually approaching horror. When within a few feet of her, it halted. And again, Leti felt it was listening, listening to the breathing on the bed which was heavy and bestial. Then it twisted round and Leti watched it crawl into the wardrobe. After this, there was a long and anxious wait. Then Leti saw the wardrobe door slyly open and the eyes of the cellar, inexpressibly baleful and glittering like burnished steel in the strong phosphorescent glow of the moon, peep out, not at her, but through her at the object lying on the bed. They were not only eyes this time, but a form, vague, misty and irregular, but still with sufficient shape to enable Leti to identify it as that of a woman, tall and thin and with a total absence of hair which was emphasized in the most lurid and ghastly fashion. With a snake-like movement, the evil things slithered out of the wardrobe and gliding past Leti approached the bed. Leti was obliged to follow every proceeding. She saw the thing deftly snatch the bolster from under the sleeping head, noted the gleam of hellish satisfaction in its eyes that pressed the bolster down and watched the murdered creatures' contortions grow fainter and fainter until they finally ceased. The eyes then left the room and from a far off, away below in the abysmal cellars of the house came the sound of digging, faint, very faint, but unquestionably digging. This terminated the grim phantasmal drama for that night at least and Leti chilled to the bone but thoroughly alert, escaped to her room. She spent her few remaining hours of rest wide awake determining never to go to bed again without fastening one of her arms to the iron staples. With regard to the history of the house Leti never learned anything more remarkable than that long ago an idiot child was supposed to have been murdered in the haunted attic by whom tradition did not say. The Admiral and his family left Pringles Mansion the year Leti became Miss South's nurse and as no one would stay in the house presumably on account of the hauntings it was pulled down and an inexcusably inartistic edifice was a record in its place. End of the top attic in Pringles Mansion, Edinburgh. The Vampire by Jan Neruda. This is a Librebox recording all Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit Librebox.org Recording by David Rhys-Thomas. The Vampire by Jan Neruda. The excursion steamer brought us from Constantinople to the shore of the island of Prinkypo and we disembarked. The number of passengers was not large. There was one Polish family, a father, a mother, a daughter and a bridegroom and then we too. Oh yes, I must not forget that when we were already on the wooden bridge which crosses the golden horn to Constantinople, a Greek, a rather youthful man joined us. He was probably an artist judging by the portfolio he carried under his arm. Long black locks floated to his shoulders. His face was pale and his black eyes were deeply set in their sockets. From the first moment he interested me especially for his obligingness and for his knowledge of local conditions but he talked too much and I then turned away from him. All the more agreeable was the Polish family. Their father and mother were good natured, fine people, the lover, a handsome young fellow of direct and refined manners. They had come to Prinkypo to spend the summer months for the sake of the daughter who was slightly ailing. The beautiful pale girl was either just recovering from a severe illness or else a serious disease was just fastening and told upon her. She leaned upon her lover when she walked and very often sat down to rest while a frequent dry little cough interrupted her whispers. Whenever she coughed, her escort would considerably pause in their walk. He always cast upon her a glance of sympathetic suffering and she would look back at him as if she would say, it is nothing, I am happy. They believed in health and happiness. On the recommendation of the Greek who departed from us immediately at the pier, the family secured quarters in the hotel on the hill. The hotel keeper was a Frenchman and his entire building was equipped comfortably and artistically according to the French style. We breakfasted together and when the noon heat had abated somewhat, we all took ourselves to the heights where in the grove of Siberian stone pines we could refresh ourselves with the view. Hardly had we found a suitable spot and settled ourselves when the Greek appeared again. He greeted us lightly, looked about and seated himself only a few steps from us. He opened his portfolio and began to sketch. I think he purposely sits with his back to the rock so that we can't look at his sketch, I said. We don't have to, said the young Paul. We have enough before us to look at. After a while he added, it seems to me he's sketching us in a sort of background. Well, let him. We truly did have enough to gaze at. There is not a more beautiful or more happy corner in the world than that very Prinkypo. The political martyr Irene, contemporary of Charles the Great, lived there for a month as an exile. If I could live a month of my life there, I would be happy for the memory of it for the rest of my days. I shall never forget even that one day spent at Prinkypo. The air was as clear as a diamond, so soft, so caressing that one's whole soul swung out upon it into the distance. At the right beyond the sea projected the brown Asiatic summits. To the left in the distance purpled the steep coasts of Europe. The neighbouring Chalky, one of the nine islands of the Prince's Archipelago rose with its cypress forests into the peaceful heights like a sorrowful dream, crowned by a great structure and asylum for those whose minds are sick. The sea of Marmara was but slightly ruffled and played in all colours like a sparkling opal. In the distance the sea was as white as milk, then rosy between the two islands of glowing orange and below us it was beautifully greenish blue like a transparent sapphire. It was resplendent in its own beauty. Nowhere were there any large ships, only two small craft flying the English flag sped along the shore. One was a steamboat as big as a watchman's booth. The second had about 12 oarsmen and when the oars rose simultaneously molten silver dripped from them. Trustful dolphins darted in and out among them and dove with long arching flights above the surface of the water. Through the blue heavens now and then calm eagles winged their way measuring the space between two continents. The entire slope below us was covered with blossoming roses whose fragrance filled the air. From the coffee house near the sea music was carried up to us through the clear air hushed somewhat by the distance. The effect was enchanting. We all sat silent and steeped our souls completely in the picture of paradise. The young Polish girl lay on the grass with her head supported on the bosom of her lover. The pale oval of her delicate face was slightly tinged with soft color and from her blue eyes tears suddenly gushed forth. The lover understood bent down and kissed tear after tear. Her mother was also moved to tears and I even I felt a strange twinge. Here mind and body both must get well, whispered the girl. How happy a land this is. God knows I haven't any enemies but if I had I would forgive them here. Said the father in a trembling voice and again we became silent. We were all in such a wonderful mood so unspeakably sweet at all words. Each felt for himself a world of happiness and each one would have shared his happiness with the whole world. All felt the same and so no one disturbed another. We had scarcely even noticed the Greek after an hour or so had arisen, folded his portfolio and with a slight nod had taken his departure. We remained. Finally after several hours when the distance was becoming over spread with a darker violet so magically beautiful in the south the mother reminded us it was time to depart. We arose and walked down toward the hotel with the easy elastic steps that characterized carefree children. We sat down in the hotel under the handsome veranda. Hardly had we been seated when we heard below the sounds of quarreling and oaths. Our Greek was wrangling with the hotel keeper and for the entertainment of it we listened. The amusement did not last long. If I didn't have other guests, growled the hotel keeper and ascended the steps towards us. I beg you to tell me sir, asked the young Paul of the approaching hotel keeper who is that gentleman? What's his name? Oh, who knows what that fellow's name is? Grumbled the hotel keeper and he had gazed venomously downwards. We call him the vampire. An artist? Fine trade. He sketches only corpses. Just as soon as someone in Constantinople or here in the neighborhood dies, that very day he has a picture of the dead one completed. That fellow paints them beforehand and he never makes a mistake, just like a vulture. The old Polish woman shrieked frightedly. In her arms lay her daughter, a palest chalk she had fainted. In one bound the lover had leaped down the steps. With one hand he seized the Greek and with the other reached for the portfolio. We ran down after him. Both men were rolling in the sand. The contents of the portfolio were scattered all about. On one sheet sketch with a crayon was the head of the young Polish girl. Her eyes closed and a wreath of myrtle on her brow. End of The Vampire by Jan Neruda. Recording by David Rhys-Thomas at www.davidrhysthomas.com.