 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrated by Sean McKinley. Hunter Quartermains Story by H. Ryder Haggard Sir Henry Curtis, as everybody acquainted with him knows, is one of the most hospitable men on earth. It was in the course of the enjoyment of his hospitality at his place in Yorkshire the other day, that I heard the hunting story which I am now about to transcribe. Many of those who read it will no doubt have heard some of the strange rumors that are flying about to the effect that Sir Henry Curtis and his friend, Captain Good, are in, 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 Quartermaine comes. He will arrive here from Africa tonight, and I am not going to say a word about the matter, or Good, either, until he turns up. Quartermaine 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 were 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 their faces, I saw them then. It was just at this moment that the door was opened and Mr. Allen Quartermaine announced, whereupon Good put the diamond in his pocket, and sprang at a little man who limped shyly into the room, convoyed by Sir Henry Curtis himself. Here he is Good, safe and sound, said Sir Henry gleefully. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to 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 brush, gentle brown eyes that seemed to notice everything, and a withered face, tanned to the color 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. Allen Quartermaine 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 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 to 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-paneled 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 in old bull. And having the tip of one horn split and chipped, I noticed that Mr. Quartermaine'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 trunks 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 him to Sir Henry when he left Natal some months ago, and Quartermaine 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, which when the servants had left the room could no longer be restrained. Now Mr. Quartermaine, said the lady next to him, we have been kept in an agony of suspense by Sir Henry and Captain Goode, who have persistently refused to tell us a word of the story about the hidden treasure till you came, and we simply can bear it no longer, so please begin at once. Yes, everybody said, go on, please! Hunter Quartermaine 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 Goode, 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 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 Goode, will bear me out in what I say. Yes, Quatermain, I think you are quite right, said Henry, precisely the same considerations have forced Goode and myself to hold our tongues, and 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. Quatermain rather sharply. Believe me, answered the old hunter, with a quaint courtesy and a little bow of his grizzled head. Though I have lived all my life in the wilderness and amongst savages I have neither the heart nor the want of manners to wish to deceive one so lovely. Where at 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. Quatermain. The least that you can do is to 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 tusks, 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, Quatermain, said Sir Henry, we shall all be delighted. Fire away, fill up your grass first. The little man did as he was bid, took a sip of claret, and began. About ten years ago I was hunting up in the far interior of Africa, at a place called Gatgara. Not a great way from the Chobh River, I had with me four native servants, namely a driver and voor-looper, or leader, who were natives of Matabella land. A hotentot, named Hans, who had once been the slave of a transvalbour, and a Zulu hunter, who, for five years, had accompanied me upon my trips, and whose name was Machune. Now near Gatgara I found a fine piece of healthy, park-like country, where the grass was very good, considering the time of year, and here I made a little camp or headquarters settlement. From once 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 Tsitsi 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 the Matabella leader and driver, and to start on a trip into the thorn country, accompanied only by the hotentot Hans and Machune. 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 mimosa trees torn out of the ground, and placed topsy-turvy on their flat crowns in order to enable the great beasts to feed 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 fortnight or more we dodged about after those elephants, coming up with them on two occasions, and a splendid herd they were. Only, however, to lose them again. At length we came up with them a third time. 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 copy overlooking the spot where the wagon stood. And I confess 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 civilized person. I reached the top of the copy, and looked in the direction where the friendly white tent of the wagon should be. But there was no wagon, only a black, burnt plane, 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 Hans and Machunet, I ran at full speed down the slope of the copy, and across the space of plain, below to the spring of water, where my camp had been. I was soon there, only to find that my worst suspicions were confirmed. The wagon and all of its contents, including my spare-gones 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 for my folly. A very proper illustration of the necessity, especially where natives are concerned, are doing a thing oneself 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, tembukki 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 felt by the spring, and gazed at the charred axles and diesel-boom of my wagon. And I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, I felt inclined to weep. As for Meshune and Hans, 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 Bamangwato, 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 velled shoes, or shoes of rawhide, my eight-bore rifle, and a few cartridges. Hans and Meshune had also each 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 uninhabited 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 our long journey towards civilization. Now, if I were to set to 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 memento. We had been traveling for about a month, living and getting along as best we could. When one evening we camped some forty miles from Bamanguato. By this time we were indeed in a melancholy plight, 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 haunts, and machunae, 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 had still a few matches. It was a charming spot to camp, I 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-cresses of an exact 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 oribe antelope, which I had shot two days previously. Accordingly, Hans, who was a better shot than machunae, took two of the three remaining Martini cartridges, and started out to see if he could not kill a buck for supper. I was too weak to go myself. Meanwhile, machunae employed himself in dragging together some dead boughs of the mimosa trees to make him 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, but 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, machunae and I heard a shot, apparently fired about a mile away. Hark to it, sangat machunae and Zulu, more I fancy, by way of keeping his spirits up than for any other reason, for he was a sort of black-marked taplie, 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 dried ox's punch, but they will soon be full of good meat. Hans is a hatentat, and an amfagazon, that is, a low-fellow, but he shoots straight. Ah, he certainly shoots straight. Be of a 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 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 the beasts were all at rest. I cannot 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 hatentat hans. 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. Maschune, I said at last. Where is Hans? My heart is heavy for him. Nay, my father, I know not. Mayhap he has weary and sleeps, or mayhap he has lost his way. Maschune, 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 hatentat to lose his path or to sleep upon the way to camp? Nay, Mechemazan, 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 talked thus, we neither of us liked to hint at what was in both our minds, namely, that misfortunate had overtaken the poor hatentat. Maschune, 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, and they come out of the water at night, and sit upon the banks to dry themselves. An Aisinoussi told it to me. Maschune 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, Mechemazan, if thy heart 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-cresses, of which I ate greedily. Art thou hungry? I asked the great Zulu presently, as he sat, eyeing me, eating. Never was I hungry in my father. Then eat, and I pointed to the water-cresses. Nay, Mechemazan, I cannot eat those herbs. If thou dost not eat, thou wilt starve. Eat, Maschune. He stared at the water-cresses 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-cresses 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 that he had a ludicrous way of putting things. Zulus do not like green food. Just after Maschune had finished his water-cresses, we heard the loud woof, woof of a lion, who was evidently promenading much nearer to our little skirm than was pleasant. Indeed, looking into the darkness and listening intently, I could hear his snoring breath and catch the light of his great yellow eyes. We shouted loudly, and Maschune 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 had this fright from the lion, the moon rose in her fullest splendor, throwing a robe of silver light over all 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 a little ridge that ran to our right, on their way to the drinking-place. Indeed, one buck, a large elend, came within twenty yards of the skirm, and stood at a gaze, staring at it suspiciously, his beautiful head, and 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 elend 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 hoofs. What's that, Maschunay? I asked him. That damn lion, buck-smell-him, replied the Zulu in English, of which he had a superficial knowledge. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth before we heard a sort of wine 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 fire, and shouted, with the result that the lions moved off. Maschunay, I said, do you watch till the moon gets over that tree when it will be 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. Cools, 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 haunts, and indeed, as to our own fate, left with sore feet, empty stomachs, and two cartridges to find our way to Bamangwato, forty miles off. Then the mere sensation of knowing that there are one or more hungry lions prowling round 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 the 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 pear is of its 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. Mekumazan into my ear. Indeed, the cobra hissed with such persistency that at last I roused myself. Mekumazan, Nanzea, Nanzea, there, there! whispered my Shune's voice into my drowsy ears. Raising myself, I opened my eyes, and I saw my Shune kneeling by my side and 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 ant-heap, and on the summit of the ant-heap, her four feet, 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 Shune 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 be 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, my Shune again gripped me by the arm, and pointed to a dark heap under the shade of a small mimositri, which grew not more than ten paces from the skirm. Well, what is it? I whispered. I can see nothing. It is another lion, he answered. Nonsense, thy heart is dread 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 stalked out of 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 sight of me, halted, and stood there, gazing straight towards us. He was so close that I could see the fire-light reflected in his wicked, greenish eyes. Shoot, shoot, said my Shune. 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 lion glanced 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 on 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 silent of the night, and in another second the great brute had landed on his head within four feet of us, and rolling over and over towards us was sending the bushes which composed our little fence flying with convulsive strokes of his great paws. We sprang out to 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 in the most heart-shaking volumes of sound. Suddenly in the middle of one of the loudest roars he rolled over on 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 mate 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 toward the prostrate brute, Machune, droning an improvised zulu song as he went about Hamakumazon, the hunter of hunters, whose eyes were 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 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 it 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 is, comparatively speaking, slight, owing to the smallest 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 dead lion beneath my head recalled the circumstances in which we were placed. I rose and eagerly looked round to see if I could discover any signs of haunts who, if he had escaped accident, would surely return to us at dawn. Then hope grew faint, and I felt that it was not well with the poor fellow. Setting Mascune to build 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, stranger 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 setting up, and after a drink of water and a wash at the pool we started to try to find haunts, leaving the dead lion to the tender mercies of the hyenas. Both Mascune and myself were, by constant practice, pretty good hands at tracking, and we had not much difficulty in following the hot and taut spore. Faint as it was, we had gone on 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 haunts, and 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 an 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, Mekumazan? See? said Mascune, 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 the crooked toe. Haunts had a bent toe. Look, here the bull came like a boulder down the hill, his hoofs turning up the earth like a hoe. Haunts had hit him. He bled as he came. There are the blood-spots. It is all written down there, my father, upon the earth. Yes, I said. Yes. But where is Hans? Even as I said it, Mascune 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. Forefixed 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, and 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 vile-like tongue. I had heard of such things before, but had always treated the stories as hunters' yarns. But I had no doubt about it now. Poor Hans' skeleton foot and ankle were in 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' bullet had struck him. But 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 well 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 charging at me as I did ten years ago, silhouetted against the green bush behind. On, on! With a shout Maschunne bolted off sideways toward the bush. I had instinctively lifted my eight bore, 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 Maschunne bolted, the bull slowed a little. With the momentary idea of following him, and as 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 traveled on under the skin into his flank. But it did not stop him, though for a second he staggered. Following myself onto the ground with the energy of despair, I rolled under the shelter of the projecting root of the thorn, crushing myself as far into the mouth of the ant-bare hole as I could. At a single instant the buffalo was after me, kneeling down on his injured knee, for one leg, that of which I had broken the shoulder, was swinging helplessly to and fro. I went 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 long, semi-circular 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 in 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 backward 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 round the shoulder joint and the hook of his horn. I felt that it was all up now, and it began to hollow out. He has got me, I shouted in mortal terror. Guaza, Maschine, guaza! Stab, Maschine, stab! One hoist at 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 sight of Maschine's stalwart from advancing with his Banguan, or broad-stabbing Essigai, 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 Maschine had driven the Essigai a foot or more into the carcass of the buffalo, and was turning to fly. Alas! it was too late. Bellowing 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 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 utter most distress, and took his hand. Is he dead, Makumazan? he whispered. My eyes are blind. I cannot see. Yes, he is dead. Did the black devil hurt the Makumazan? No, my poor fellow. I am not much hurt. Ow! I am glad. Then came along silence. Broken only by the sound of the air, whistling through the hole in his lung as he breathed. Makumazan, aren't thou there? I cannot feel thee. I am here, Masune. I die, Makumazan. The world flies around and around. I go. I go out into the dark. Surely, my father, at times and days to come, thou wilt think of Masune, who stood by thy side when thou killest elephants as we used, 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 bride Asagai by him, according to the custom 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 Quartermaine's Story by H. Ryder Haggard. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read and recorded by Deborah Lynn in northern Michigan, February 2007. Parting Tony and Patchwork by B. P. Shalaber. 7. Are you in favor of the prohibitive law or the license law? asked her opposite neighbor of the Relict of P. P., Corporal of the Blood Eleventh. She carefully weighed the question as though she was selling snuff and answered, Sometimes I think I am, and then again I think I am not. Her neighbor was perplexed and repeated the question, varying it a little. Have you seen the Mrs. Partington Twilight soap? She asked. Yes, was the reply. Everybody has seen that, but why? Because, said the dame, it has two sides to it, and it is hard to choose between them. Now here are my two neighbors, contagious to me on both sides. One goes for probation, the other for licentiousness, and I think the best thing for me is to keep nuisance. She meant neutral, of course. The neighbor admired and smiled while Ike lay on the floor with his legs in the air, trying to balance Mrs. Partington's fancy waiter on his toe. 9. Christmas Ike was made the happy possessor of a fiddle, which he found in the morning near his stocking. As he got a musical bent, Banfield asked of whom Mrs. Partington was buying the instrument. Bent indeed, said she. No, he is as straight as an error. He explained by repeating the question regarding his musical inclination. Yes, she replied, he's dreadfully inclined to music since he had a drum, and I want the fiddle to see if I can't make another pick and any or an old bowl of him. Jews harps as simple, though I can't see how King David played on one of them and sung his psalms at the same time. But the fiddle is best because genius can show itself plainer on it without much noise. Some prefers a violin, but I don't know. The fiddle was well improved till the horsehair all pulled out of the bow, and it was then twisted up into a fishline. 16. How limpid you walk, said a voice behind us, as we were making a hundred and fifty horsepower effort to reach a table whereon reposed a volume of bacon. What is the cause of your lameness? Partington's voice that spoke, and Mrs. Partington's eyes that met the glance we returned over our left shoulder. Gout, said we briefly, almost surly. Dear me, said she, you are highly flavored. It was only rich people and epicaques in living that had the gout in olden times. Ah! we growled partly in response and partly with an infernal twinge. Poor soul, she continued with commiseration like an anodyne in the tones of her voice. The best remedy I know for it is an embarkation of Roman Wormwood and Lobelia for the part infected. Though some say a cranberry poultice is best, but I believe the cranberries is for Aerosipolus. And whether either of them is a rostrum for the gout or not, I really don't know. If it was a fraction of the arm, I could just know what to subscribe. We looked into her eye with the determination to say something severely bitter because we felt allopathic just then. But the kind and sympathizing look that met our own disarmed severity and sinking into a seat with our coveted bacon, we thanked her. It was very evident, all the while that she or they stayed, that Ike was seeing how near he could come to our lame member and not touch it. He did touch it sometimes, but those didn't count. Twenty. I've always noticed, said Mrs. Partington on New Year's Day, dropping her voice to the key that people adopt when they are disposed to be philosophical or moral. I've always noticed that every year added to a man's life is apt to make him older. Just as a man who goes a journey finds as he jogs on, that every mile he goes brings him nearer where he is going and farther from where he started. I am not so young as I was once, and I don't believe I ever shall be if I live to the age of Samson, which heaven knows as well as I do I don't want to, for I wouldn't be a centurion or an octagon and survive my factories and become idiomatic by any means. But then there is no knowing how a thing will turn out till it takes place, and we shall come to an end someday though we may never live to see it. There was a smart tap on the looking glass that hung upon the wall, followed instantly by another. Gracious, said she, what's that? I hope the glass isn't fractured, for it is a sure sign of calamity, and mercy knows they come along full fast enough without helping them by breaking looking glasses. There was another tap, and she caught sight of a white bean that fell on the floor, and there reflected in the glass was the face of Ike, who was blowing beans at the mirror through a crack in the door. 21. As for the Chinese question, said Mrs. Partington reflectively, holding her spoon at present while the vapor of her cup of tea curled about her face which shone through it like the moon through a mist. It is a great pity that somebody don't answer it, though who, under the canister of heaven can do it with such letters as they have on their tea-chests, is more than I can tell. It's really too bad, though, that some lingester doesn't try it, and not have this provoking question asked all the time, as if we were ignoramuses and did not know too long from no strong, and there never was such a thing as the seventh commandment, which heaven knows suits this case to a tea, and I hope the breakers of it may escape, but I don't see how they can. The question must be answered unless it is like a cannon drum to be given up, which nobody of any spirit should do. She brought the spoon down into the cup and looked out through the windows of her soul into celestial fields peopled with pigtails that were all in her eye, while Ike took a double charge of sugar for his tea and gave an extra allowance of milk to the kitten. End of Parting Tunnion Patchwork The third ingredient by O. Henry. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Tomahawk. The so-called Valembrosa apartment house is not an apartment house. It is composed of two old-fashioned brownstone front residences welded into one. The parlor floor of one side is gay with the wraps and headgear of a modiste. The other is legubrious with the sophisticated promises and grisly display of a painless dentist. You may have a room for two dollars a week, or you may have one for twenty dollars. Among the Valembrosa's rumors are stenographers, musicians, brokers, shop girls, space-rate writers, art students, wiretappers, and other people who lean far over the banister rail when the doorbell rings. This treatise shall have to do with but two of the Valembrosians, though meaning no disrespect to the others. At six o'clock one afternoon Hedy Pepper came back to her wood floor rear three dollars and fifty cent room in the Valembrosa with her nose and chin more sharply pointed than usual. To be discharged from the department store where you've been working four years and with only fifteen cents in your purse does have a tendency to make your features appear more finely chiseled. And now for Hedy's thumbnail biography while she climbs the two flights of stairs. She walked into the biggest store one morning four years before with seventy-five other girls applying for a job behind the waste department counter. The phalanx of wage earners formed a bewildering scene of beauty carrying a total mass of blond hair sufficient to have justified the horseback gallops of a hundred Lady Godiva's. The capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man whose task it was to engage six of the contestants was aware of a feeling of suffocation as if he were drowning in a sea of frangipani while white clouds hand embroidered floated about him. And then a sail hove into sight. Hedy Pepper homely of countenance with small contemptuous green eyes and chocolate-colored hair dressed in a suit of plain burlap and a common-sense hat stood before him with every one of her twenty-nine years of life unmistakably in sight. Your on shouted the bald-headed young man was saved. And that is how Hedy came to be employed in the biggest store. The story of her rise to an eight-dollar a week salary is the combined stories of Hercules, Joan of Arc, Una, Job, and Little Red Riding Hood. You shall not learn from me the salary that was paid her as a beginner. There is a sentiment growing about such things, and I want no millionaire store proprietors climbing the fire escape of my tenement house to throw dynamite bombs into my skylight boudoir. The story of Hedy's discharge from the biggest store is so nearly a repetition of her engagement as to be monotonous. In each department of the store there is an omniscient, omnipresent and omnivorous person carrying always a mileage book and a red necktie and referred to as a buyer. The destinies of the girls in his department who live on C Bureau of Statistics so much per week are in his hands. This particular buyer was a capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man. As he walked along the aisles of his department, he seemed to be sailing on a sea of frangipani, while white clouds machine embroidered floated around him. Too many sweets bring surfeit. He looked upon Hedy Pepper's homely countenance, emerald eyes, and chocolate-colored hair as a welcome oasis of green in a desert of cloying beauty. In a quiet angle of a counter he pinched her arm kindly three inches above the elbow. She slapped him three feet away with one good blow of her muscular and not especially lily white right. So now you know why Hedy Pepper came to leave the biggest store at 30 minutes notice with one dime and a nickel in her purse. This morning's quotations list the price of rib beef at 6 cents per butcher's pound. But on the day that Hedy was released by the BS the price was 7.5 cents. That fact is what makes this story possible. Otherwise the extra 4 cents would have but the plot of nearly all the good stories in the world is concerned with shorts who were unable to cover so you can find no fault with this one. Hedy mounted with her rib beef to her $3.50 third floor back. One hot savory beef stew for supper. A night's good sleep and she would be fit in the morning to apply again for the tasks of Hercules, Joan of Arc, Una, Joe and Little Red Riding Hood. In her room she got the granite wear stew pan out of the two by four foot china or I mean earthenware and began to dig down in a rat's nest of paper bags for the potatoes and onions. She came out with her nose and chin just a little sharper pointed. There was neither a potato nor an onion. Now what kind of a beef stew can you make out of simply beef? You can make oyster soup without oysters turtle soup without turtles coffee cake without coffee but you can't make beef stew without potatoes and onions but rib beef alone in an emergency can make an ordinary pine door look like a wrought iron gambling house portal to the wolf with salt and pepper and a tablespoon of flour first well stirred in a little cold water twill serve. It is not so deep as a lobster a la new burg nor so wide as a church festival donut but twill serve. Hedy took her stew pan to the third floor hall. According to the advertisements of the Valembrosa there was running water to be found there between you me and the water meter it only ambled or walked through the faucets but technicalities have no place here. There was also a sink where housekeeping rumors often met to dump their coffee grounds and glare at one another's kimonos. At the sink Hedy found a girl with heavy gold brown artistic hair and plaintive eyes and two large Irish potatoes. Hedy knew the Valembrosa as well as anyone not owning double extra magnifying eyes could compass its mysteries. The kimonos were her encyclopedia her who's what her clearing house of news of goers and comers. From a rose pink kimono edge with nile grain she had learned that the girl with the potatoes was a miniature painter living in a kind of attic or studio as they prefer to call it Hedy was not certain in her mind what a miniature was but it certainly wasn't a house because house painters although they wear splashy overalls and poke ladders in your face on the street are known to indulge in a riotous perfusion of food at home. The potato girl was quite slim and small and handled her potatoes as an old bachelor uncle handles a baby who is cutting teeth. She had a dull shoemaker's knife in her right hand and she had to peel one of the potatoes with it. Hedy addressed her in the punctiliously formal tone of one who intends to be cheerfully familiar with you in the second round. Big pardon she said for budding into what's not my business but if you peel them potatoes you lose out they're new bermunas you want to scrape them let me show you. She took a potato and the knife and began to demonstrate. Oh thank you breathe the artist I didn't know and I did hate to see the thick peelings go it seemed such a waste but I thought they always had to be peeled when you've got only potatoes to eat the peelings count you know Say kid said Hedy stay your knife you ain't up against it too are you? The miniature artist smiled starvedly I suppose I am art or at least the way I interpret it doesn't seem to be much in demand. I have only these potatoes for my dinner but they aren't so bad boiled and hot with a little butter and salt Child said Hedy letting a brief smile soften her rigid rigid features fate has sent me and you together I've had it handed to me in the neck too but I've got a chunk of meat in my room as big as a lap dog and I've done everything to get potatoes except pray for them let's me and you bunch our commissary departments and make a stew of them we'll cook it in my room if only we had an onion to go with it Say kid you haven't got a couple of pennies that have slipped down into the lining of your last winter seal skin have you I could step down to the corner and get one at Old Giuseppe stand a stew without an onion is worse than a matinee without candy you may call me Cecilia said the artist no I spent my last penny three days ago then we'll have to cut the onion out instead of slicing it in said Hedy I'd ask the janitors for one but I don't want them hip just yet in fact I'm pounding the asphalt for another job but I wish we did have an onion in the shop girl's room the two began to prepare their supper Cecilia's part was to sit on the couch helplessly and beg to be allowed to do something in the voice of a cooing rain dove Hedy prepared the rib beef putting it in cold salted water in the stew pan and setting it on the one burner gas stove I wish we had an onion said Hedy on the wall opposite the couch was pinned a flaming gorgeous advertising picture of one of the new ferry boats of the PUFF railroad that had been built to cut down the time between Los Angeles and New York City one eighth of a minute Hedy turning her head during her continuous monologue saw tears running from her guest's eyes as she gazed on the idealized presentment of the speeding foam girdle transport say Cecilia kid said Hedy poisoning her knife is it as bad art as that I ain't a critic but I thought it kind of brightened up the room of course a manicure painter could tell it was a bum picture in a minute I'll take it down if you say so I wish to the holy saint potluck we had an onion but the miniature miniature painter had tumble down sobbing with her nose indenting the hard woven drapery of the couch something was here deeper and the artistic temperament offended at crude lithography Hedy knew she had accepted her role long ago how scant the words with which we try to describe a single quality of a human being when we reach the abstract we are lost the nearer to nature that the babbling of our lips comes the better do we understand figuratively let us say some people are bosoms some are hands some are heads some are muscles some are feet some are backs for burdens Hedy was a shoulder hers was a sharp sinewy shoulder but all her life people had laid their heads upon it metaphorically or actually and had left there all or half their troubles looking at life anatomically which is as good a way as any she was preordained to be a shoulder there were few truer collar bones anywhere on hers Hedy was only 33 and she had not yet outlived the little pang that visited her whenever the head of youth and beauty leaned upon her for consolation but one glance in their mirror always served as an instantaneous painkiller so she gave one pale look into the crinkly old looking glass on the wall above the gas stove turned down the flame a little lower from the bubbling beef and potatoes went over to the couch and lifted Cecilia's head to its confessional go on and tell me honey she said I know now that it ain't art that's worrying you you met him on a ferry boat didn't you go on Cecilia kid and tell your aunt Hedy about it but youth and melancholy must first spin the surplus of sighs and tears that waft and float the bark of romance to its harbor in the delectable aisles presently through the stringy tendons that formed the bars of the confessional the penitent, or was it the glorified communicant of the sacred flame told her story without art or illumination it was only three days ago I was coming back on the ferry from Jersey City old Mr. Shrum, an art dealer told me of a rich man in Newark who wanted a miniature of his daughter painted the same and showed him some of my work when I told him the price would be $50 he laughed at me like a hyena he said an enlarged crayon 20 times the size would cost him only $8 I had just enough money to buy my ferry ticket back to New York I felt as if I didn't want to live another day I must have looked as I felt for I saw him on the row of seats opposite me looking at me as if he understood he was nice looking but oh above everything else he looked kind when one is tired or unhappy or hopeless kindness counts more than anything else when I got so miserable that I couldn't fight against it any longer I got up and walked slowly out the rear door of the ferry boat cabin no one was there and I slipped quickly over the rail and dropped into the water oh friend heady it was cold cold for just one moment I wished I was back in the old Valembrosa starving and hoping and then I got numb and didn't care and then I felt that somebody else was in the water close by me holding me up he had followed me and jumped in to save me somebody threw a thing like a big white donut at us and he made me put my arms through the hole then the ferry boat back and they pulled us on board oh heady I was so ashamed of my wickedness in trying to drown myself and besides my hair it all tumbled down and was sopping wet and I was such a sight and then some men in blue clothes came around and he gave them his card and I heard him tell them he had seen me drop my purse on the edge of the boat outside the rail and in leaning over to get it I had fallen overboard and then I remembered having read in the papers that people who try to kill themselves are locked up in cells with people who try to kill other people and I was afraid but some ladies on the boat took me downstairs to the furnace room and got me nearly dry and did up my hair when the boat landed he came and put me in a cab he was all dripping himself but laughed as if he thought it was all a joke he begged me but I wouldn't tell him my name nor where I lived I was so ashamed you were a fool child said heady kindly wait till I turn the light up a bit I wish to heaven we had an onion then he raised his hat went on to see you and said very well but I'll find you anyhow I'm going to claim my rights of salvage then he gave money to the cab driver and told him to take me wherever I wanted to go and walked away what is salvage heady the edge of a piece of goods that ain't hemmed said the shop girl you must have looked pretty well frazzled out to the little hero boy it's been three days moaned the miniature painter and he hasn't found me yet extend the time said heady this is a big town think of how many girls he might have to see soaked in water hair down before he would recognize you stew's getting on fine but oh for an onion I'd even use a piece of garlic if I had it the beef and potatoes bubbled merrily exhaling a mouth watering saver that yet lacked something leaving a hunger on the palate a haunting, wistful desire for some lost and needful ingredient I came near drowning in that awful river said Cecilia, shuddering it ought to have more water in it said heady the stew I mean I'll go get some at the sink it smells good said the artist that nasty old north river objected heady smells to me like soap factories and wet setter dogs oh you mean the stew well I wish we had an onion for it did he look like he had money first he looked kind said Cecilia I'm sure he was rich but that matters so little when he drew out his bill folder to pay the cab man you couldn't help seeing hundreds and thousands of dollars in it and I looked over the cab doors and saw him leave the ferry station in a motor car and the chauffeur gave him his bear skin to put on before he was sopping wet and it was only three days ago what a fool said heady shortly oh the chauffeur wasn't wet but he's Cecilia and he drove the car away very nicely I mean you said heady for not giving him your address I never give my address to chauffeurs said Cecilia haughtily I wish we had one said heady disconsolidely what for for the stew of course oh I mean an onion heady took a picture and started to the sink at the end of the hall a young man came down the stairs from above just as she was opposite the lower step he was decently dressed but pale and hangered his eyes were dull with the stress of some burden of physical or mental woe in his hand he bore an onion a pink smooth solid shining onion as large around as a 98 cent alarm clock heady stopped so did the young man there was something Joan of Arkesh Herculean and Eunesh in the look and pose of the shop lady she had cast off the roles of Job and Little Red Riding Hood the young man stopped at the foot of the stairs and coughed distractedly he felt marooned, held up attacked, assailed levied upon, sacked assessed, panhandled, brow beaten though he knew not why it was the look in heady's eyes that did it in them he saw the jolly Roger fly to the mast head and enable semen with a dirt between his teeth scurry up the rat lines and nail it there but as yet he did not know that the cargo he carried was the thing that had caused him to be so nearly blown out of the water without even a parlay bait your pardon said heady as sweetly as her dilute acidic acid tones permitted but did you find that onion on the stairs there was a hole in the paper bag and I've just come out to look for it the young man coughed for half a minute the interval may have given him the courage to defend his own property also he clutched his pungent prize greedily and with a show of spirit faced his grim way layer no he said huskily I didn't find it on the stairs it was given to me by Jack Bevan's on the top floor David ask him I'll wait until you do I know about Bevan said heady sourly he writes books and things up there for the paper and rags man we can hear the postman guide him all over the house when he brings them thick envelopes back say do you live in the valembrosa I do not said the young man I come to see Bevan sometimes he's my friend I live two blocks west what are you going to do with the onion begging your pardon said heady I'm going to eat it raw yes as soon as I get home haven't you got anything else to eat with it the young man considered briefly no he confessed there's not another scrap of anything in my diggings to eat I think old Jack is pretty hard up for grub in his shack too he hated to give up the onion to parting with it man said heady fixing him with their world sapient eyes and laying a bony but impressive finger on his sleeve you've known trouble too haven't you lots said the onion owner promptly but this onion is my own property endlessly come by if you will excuse me I must be going listen said heady pailing a little with anxiety raw onion is a mighty poor diet and so is be stew without one now if you're Jack Bevin's friend I guess you're nearly right there's a little lady a friend of mine in my room there at the end of the hall both of us are out of luck and we just have potatoes and meat between us they're stewing now but it ain't got any soul there's something lacking to it there's certain things in life that are naturally intended to fit and belong together one is pink cheesecloth and green roses and one is ham and eggs one is Irish and trouble and the other is beef and potatoes with onions and still another is people who are up against it and other people in the same fix the young man went into a protracted paroxysm of coughing with one hand he hugged his onion to his bosom no doubt no doubt said he at length but as I said I must be going because heady clutched his sleeve firmly don't be a go little brother don't eat raw onions chip it in towards the dinner and line yourself inside with the best do you ever lick the spoon over must two ladies knock a gentleman down and drag him inside for the honor of dining with him no harm shall befall you little brother loosen up and fall into line the young man's pale face relaxed into a grin believe I'll go he said brightening if my onion is good as a credential I'll accept the invitation gladly it's good as that but better as seasoning said heady you come and stand outside the door till I ask my lady friend if she has any objections and don't run away with that letter of recommendation before I come out heady went into a room and closed the door the young man waited outside Cecilia kid said the shop girl oiling the sharp saw of her voice as well as she could there's an onion outside with a young man attached I've asked him into dinner you ain't going to kick are you oh dear Cecilia sitting up and patting her artistic hair she cast a mournful glance at the fairy boat poster on the wall nip said heady it ain't him you're up against a real life now I believe you said your hero friend had money in automobiles this is a poor schizix that's got nothing to eat but an onion but he's easy spoken and not a freshie I imagine he's been a gentleman he's so low down now and we need the onion shall I bring him in I'll guarantee his behavior heady dear sighed Cecilia I'm so hungry what difference does it make whether he's a prince or a burglar I don't care onion man if he's got anything to eat with him heady went back into the hall the onion man was gone her heart missed a beat and a gray look settled over her face except on her nose and cheekbones and then the tides of life flowed in again for she saw him leaning out of the front window at the other end of the hall she hurried there he was shouting to someone below the noise of the street overpowered she looked down over his shoulder saw whom he was speaking to and heard his words he pulled himself in from the window sill and saw her standing over him heady's eyes bored into him like two steel gimlets don't lie to me she said calmly what were you going to do with that onion the young man suppressed a cough and faced her absolutely his manner was that of one who had been bearded sufficiently I was going to eat it said he with emphatic lotus just as I told you before and you have nothing else to eat at home not a thing what kind of work do you do I am not working at anything just now then why said heady with her voice on its sharpest edge do you lean out of windows and give orders to chauffeurs in green automobiles in the street below the young man flushed and his dull eyes began to sparkle because madam said he in accelerando tones I pay the chauffeurs wages and I own the automobile and also this onion madam he flourished the onion within an inch of heady's nose the shop lady did not retreat a hair's breadth then why did you eat onions she said with biting contempt and nothing else I never said I did retorted the young man heatedly I said I had nothing else to eat where I live I am not a delicatessen then why pursued heady inflexibly were you going to eat a raw onion my mother said the young man always made me eat one for a cold pardon my referring to a physical infirmity but you may have noticed that I have a very very severe cold I was going to eat the onion and go to bed I wonder why I am standing here and apologizing to you for it how did you catch this cold went on heady suspiciously the young man seemed to have arrived at some extreme height of feeling there were two modes of descent open to him a burst of rage or surrendered to the ridiculous he chose wisely and the empty hall echoed his horse laughter you're a dandy said he and I don't blame you for being careful I don't mind telling you but I was on a north fairy a few days ago when a girl jumped over board of course I he extended her hand interrupting his story give me the onion she said the young man set his jaw a trifle harder give me the onion she repeated he grinned and laid it in her hand then heady's infrequent him melancholy smile showed itself she took the young man's arm and pointed with her other hand to the door of her room little brother she said go in there the little fool you fished out of the river is there waiting for you go on in I'll give you three minutes before I come potatoes is in there waiting go on in onions wrapped at the door heady began to peel and wash the onion at the sink she gave a gray look at the gray roofs outside and the smile on her face vanished by little jerks and twitches but it's us she said grimly to herself it's us that furnished the beef end of the third ingredient by O. Henry this is a LibriVax recording all LibriVax recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVax.org read and recorded by Debra Lynn in northern Michigan February 2007 The Unrest Cure by Saki on the rack in the railway carriage immediately opposite Clovis was a solidly wrought traveling bag with a carefully written label on which was inscribed J. P. Huddle the Warren tillfield near Slowboro immediately below the rack set the human embodiment of the label a solid sedate individual sedately dressed sedately conversational even without his conversation which was addressed to a friend seated by his side and touched chiefly on such topics as the backwardness of Roman hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the rectory one could have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and mental outlook of the traveling bag's owner but he seemed unwilling to leave anything to the imagination of a casual observer and his talk grew presently personal and introspective I don't know how it is told his friend I'm not much over forty but I seem to have settled down at a young age my sister shows the same tendency we like everything to be exactly and it's a custom place we like things to happen exactly after appointed times we like everything to be usual orderly punctual methodical to a hare's breath to a minute it distresses and upsets us if it is not so for instance to take a very trifling matter a thrush has built its nest and the cat can tree on the lawn this year for no obvious reason it is building in the ivy on the garden wall we have said very little about it but I think we both feel that the change is unnecessary and just a little irritating perhaps said the friend it is a different thrush we have suspected that said JP Huddle and I think it gives us even more cause for annoyance we want a change of thrush at our time of life and yet as I have said we have scarcely reached an age when these things should make themselves seriously felt what you want said the friend is an unrest cure an unrest cure I've never heard of such a thing you've heard of rest cures for people who've broken down under stress of too much worry and strenuous living while you're suffering from over much repose and placidity you need the opposite kind of treatment but where would one go for such a thing well you might stand as an orange candidate for Kilkenny or do a course of district visiting in one of the Apache quarters of Paris or give lectures in Berlin to prove that most of Wagner's music was written by Gambetta and there's always the interior of Morocco to travel in but to be really effective the unrest cure ought to be tried in the home how you would do it I haven't the faintest idea it was at this point in the conversation that Clovis became galvanized into alert attention after all his two days visit to an elderly relative at Slowburrow did not promise much excitement before the train had stopped he had decorated his sinister shirt cuff with the inscription J. P. Huddle the Warren Tillfield near Slowburrow two mornings later Mr. Huddle broke in on his sister's privacy as she sat reading country life in the morning room it was her day and hour in place for reading country life and the intrusion was absolutely irregular but he borne his hand a telegram and in that household telegrams were recognized as happening by the hand of God this particular telegram partook of the nature of a thunderbolt bishop examining a conformation class in neighborhood unable stay rectory unaccount measles invokes your hospitality sending secretary a range I scarcely know the bishop I've only spoken to him once exclaimed J. P. Huddle with the exculpating air of one who realizes too late the indiscretion of speaking to strange bishops Miss Huddle was the first to rally she disliked thunderbolts as fervently as her brother did but the womanly instinct in her told her that thunderbolts must be fed we can curry the cold duck she said it was not the appointed day for curry but the little orange envelope involved a certain departure from rule and custom her brother said nothing but his eyes thanked her for being brave a young gentleman to see you announced the parlor maid the secretary murmured the girls in unison they instantly stiffened into a demeanor which proclaimed that though they held all strangers to be guilty they were willing to hear anything they might have to say in their defense the young gentleman who came into the room with a certain elegant haughtiness was not at all Huddle's idea of a bishop's secretary he had not supposed that the Episcopal establishment could have afforded such an expensively upholstered article but the bishop's secretary asked Huddle the bishop's secretary asked Huddle becoming consciously deferential his confidential secretary answered Clovis you may call me Stanislaus my other name doesn't matter the bishop and colonel Albert said you are the bishop's secretary you are the bishop's secretary you are the bishop's secretary the bishop and colonel Albert may be here to launch I shall be here in any case it sounded rather like the program of a royal visit the bishop is examining a conformation class in the neighborhood isn't he asked Miss Huddle ostensibly with the dark reply followed by a request for a large scale map of the locality Clovis was still immersed in a seemingly profound study of the map when another telegram arrived it was addressed to Prince Stanislaus care of Huddle the Warren etc Clovis glanced at the contents and announced the bishop and Albert he won't be here until late in the afternoon then he returned to a scrutiny of the map the luncheon was not a very festive function the princely secretary ate and drank with fair appetite but severely discouraged conversation at the finish of the meal he broke suddenly into a radiant smile thanked his hostess for a charming repast and kissed her hand with deferential rapture Miss Huddle was unable to decide in her mind whether the action savored of Louis Quatorzian courtliness or the reprehensible Roman attitude towards the Sabine women it was not her day for having a headache but she felt that the circumstances excused her and retired to her room to have as much headache as possible before the bishop's arrival Clovis having asked the way to the nearest telegraph office disappeared presently down the carriage-drive Mr. Huddle met him in the hall some two hours later and asked when the bishop would arrive he is in the library with Albert was the reply but why wasn't I told I never knew he had come exclaimed Huddle no one knows he is here I can keep matters the better and on no account disturb him in the library those are his orders but what is all this mystery about and who is Alberti and isn't the bishop going to have tea the bishop is out for blood not tea blood he asked Huddle who did not find that the thunderbolt improved on acquaintance tonight is going to be a great night in the history of Christendom said Clovis to massacre every Jew in the neighborhood to massacre the Jews said Huddle indignantly do you mean to tell me there is a general rising against them no it's the bishop's own idea he is in there arranging all the details now but the bishop is such a tolerant humane man that is precisely what will heighten the effect of his action the sensation will be enormous that at least Huddle could believe he will be hanged he exclaimed with conviction a motor is waiting to carry him to the coast where a steam yacht is in readiness but there aren't thirty Jews in the whole neighborhood protested Huddle whose brain under the repeated shocks of the day was operating with the uncertainty of a telegraph wire during earthquake disturbances we have twenty six on our lists at Clovis referring to a bundle of notes we shall be able to deal with them all the more thoroughly do you mean to tell me that you are meditating violence against a man like Sir Leon Burberry stammered Huddle he's one of the most respected men in the country he's down on our list said Clovis carelessly after all we've got men we can trust to do our job so we shan't have to rely on local assistance and we've got some Boy Scouts helping us as auxiliaries Boy Scouts when they understood there was real killing to be done they were even keener than the men this thing will be a block on the twentieth century and your house will be the blotting pad have you realized that half the papers of Europe and the United States will publish pictures of it by the way I've sent some photographs of you and your sister that I found in the library to the Matine and Diwarsh I hope you won't mind also a sketch of the staircase most of the killing will probably be done on the staircase the emotions that were surging in JP Huddle's brain were almost too intense to be disclosed in speech but he managed to gasp out there aren't any Jews in this house not at present said Clovis I shall go to the police shouted Huddle with sudden energy in the shrubbery said Clovis I posted ten men who have orders to fire on anyone who leaves the house without my signal of permission another armed picket is in ambush near the front gate the boy scouts watch the back premises at this moment the cheerful hoot of a motor horn was heard from the drive Huddle rushed to the hall door with the feeling of a man half awakened from a nightmare and beheld Sir Leon Burberry who had driven himself over in his car I got your telegram he said what's up telegram seemed to be a day of telegrams come here at once urgent James Huddle was the purport of the message displayed before Huddle bewildered eyes I see it all he exclaimed suddenly in a voice shaken with agitation and with a look of agony in the direction of the shrubbery he hauled the astonished Burberry into the house Tee had just been laid in the hall but the now thoroughly panic-stricken Huddle dragged his protesting guest upstairs and in a few minutes time the entire household had been summoned to that region of momentary safety Clovis alone graced the tea table with his presence the fanatics in the library were evidently too immersed in their monstrous machinations to dally with the solace of tea cup and hot toast once the youth rose in answer to the summons of the front doorbell and admitted Mr. Paul Isaac's shoemaker and parish counselor who had also received a pressing invitation to the warren with an atrocious assumption of courtesy which a Borgia could hardly have outdone the secretary escorted this new captive of his net to the head of the stairway where his involuntary host awaited him and then ensued a long ghastly vigil of watching and waiting once or twice Clovis left the house to stroll across to the shrubbery returning always to the library for the purpose evidently of making a brief report once he took in the letters from the evening postman and brought them to the top of the stairs with punctilious politeness after his next absence he came halfway up the stairs to make an announcement the boy scouts mistook my signal and have killed the postman I've had very little practice in that sort of thing you see time I shall do better the housemaid who was engaged to be married to the evening postman gave way to clamorous grief remember that your mistress has a headache said JP Huddle Miss Huddle's headache was worse Clovis hastened downstairs and after a short visit to the library returned with another message the bishop is sorry to hear that Miss Huddle has a headache he is issuing orders that as far as possible no firearms should be used near the house any killing that is necessary on the premises will be done with cold steel the bishop does not see why a man should not be a gentleman as well as a Christian that was the last they saw of Clovis it was nearly seven o'clock in his elderly relative liked him to dress for dinner but though he had left them forever the lurking suggestion of his presence haunted the lower regions of the house during the long hours of the wakeful night and every creek of the stairway every rustle of wind through the shrubbery was fraught with horrible meaning at about seven next morning the gardener's boy and the early postman finally convinced the watchers that the twentieth century was still unblotted I don't suppose mused Clovis as an early train bore him town words that they will be in the least grateful for the unrest cure end of the Unrest Cure by Saki 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 Coon February 2007 when papa swore in Hindustani by PG Woodhouse Sylvia yes papa that infernal dog of yours oh papa yes that infernal dog of yours has been at my carnations again Colonel Reynolds VC glared sternly across the table at Miss Sylvia Reynolds and Miss Sylvia Reynolds looked in a deprecatory manner back at Colonel Reynolds VC while the dog in question a foppish pug happened to meet the Colonel's eye in transit crawled un ostentatiously under the sideboard and began to wrestle with a bad conscience oh naughty Tommy said Miss Reynolds mildly in the direction of the sideboard yes my dear assented the Colonel and if you could convey to him the information that if he does it once more yes just once more I shall shoot him on the spot you would be doing him a kindness and the Colonel bit a large crescent out of his toast with all the energy and conviction of a man who has thoroughly made up his mind at six o'clock this morning continued he in a voice of gentle melancholy I happened to look out of my bedroom window and saw him he had then destroyed two of my best plants and was commencing on a third with every appearance of self-satisfaction I threw two large brushes and a boot at him oh papa they didn't hit him no my dear they did not the brushes missed him by several yards and the boot smashed a fourth carnation however I was so fortunate as to attract his attention and he left off I can't think what makes him do it I suppose it's bones he's got bones buried all over the garden well if he does it again we'll find that there will be a few more bones buried in the garden said the Colonel Grimly and he subsided into his paper Sylvia loved the dog partly for its own sake but primarily for that of the giver one Reginald Dallas whom it had struck at an early period of their acquaintance that he and Miss Sylvia Reynolds were made for one another on communicating this discovery to Sylvia herself he had found that her views upon the subject were identical with his own and all would have gone well had it not been for a melancholy accident one day while out shooting with the Colonel with whom he was doing his best to ingratiate himself with a view to obtaining his consent to the match he had allowed his sporting instincts to carry him away to such a degree that in sporting parlance he wiped his eye badly now the Colonel prided himself with justice on his powers as a shot today he had a touch of liver which resulted in his shooting over the birds and under the birds and on each side of the birds but very rarely at the birds Dallas being in especially good form it was found when the bag came to be counted that while he had shot 70 brace the Colonel had only managed to secure five and a half his bed marksmanship destroyed the last remnant of his temper he swore for half an hour in Hindustani and for another half hour in English after that he felt better and when at the end of dinner Sylvia came to him with the absurd request that she might marry Mr. Reginald Dallas he did not have a fit but merely signified in fairly moderate terms his entire and absolute refusal to think of such a thing this happened a month before and the pug which had changed hands in the earlier days of the friendship still remained at the imminent risk of its life to soothe Sylvia and madden her father it was generally felt that the way to find favor in the eyes of Sylvia which were a charming blue and well worth finding favor in was to show an intelligent and affectionate interest in her dog this was so up to a certain point but no farther for the mournful recollection of Mr. Dallas prevented her from meeting their advances in quite the spirit they could have wished however they persevered and scarcely a week went by in which Thomas was not rescued from an artfully arranged horrible fate by somebody but all their energy was in reality wasted for Sylvia remembered her faithful Reggie who corresponded vigorously every day and refused to be put off with worthless imitations the lovesick swains however could not be expected to know this and the rescuing of Tommy proceeded briskly now one, now another playing the role of hero the very day after the conversation above recorded had taken place a terrible tragedy occurred the Colonel returning from a poor day's shooting observed through the mist that was beginning to rise a small form busily engaged in excavating in the precious carnation bed slipping in a cartridge he fired and the skill which had deserted him the day came back to him there was a yelp then silence and Sylvia rushing out from the house found the luckless Thomas breathing his last on a heap of uprooted carnations the news was not long and spreading the cook told the postman and the postman thoughtfully handed it on to the servants of the rest of the houses on his round by noon it was public property and in the afternoon at various times two to five nineteen young men were struck quite independently of one another with a brilliant idea the results of this idea were apparent on the following day is that all asked the Colonel of the servant as she brought in a couple of letters at breakfast time there's a hamper for Miss Sylvia sir a hamper is there well bring it in if you please sir there are several of them what? several how many are there nineteen sir said Mary restraining with some difficulty and inclination to giggle a what nineteen? nonsense where are they we put them in the coach house for the presence sir and if you please sir cook says she thinks there's something alive in them something alive yes sir and John says he thinks it's dog sir the Colonel uttered a sound that was almost a bark and followed by Sylvia rushed to the coach house they are sure enough as far as the eye could reach were the hampers and as they looked a sound proceeded from one of them that was unmistakably the plaintive note of a dog that had been shut up and is getting tired of it instantly the other eighteen hampers joined in until the whole coach house rang with the noise the Colonel subsided against a wall and began to express himself softly in Hindustani poor dears said Sylvia how stuffy they must be feeling she ran to the house and returned with a basin of water poor dears she said again you'll soon have something to drink she knelt down by the nearest hamper and cut the cord that fastened it a pug jumped out like a jack in the box and rushed to the water Sylvia continued her work of mercy and by the time the Colonel had recovered sufficiently to be able to express his views in English eighteen more pugs had joined their companion get out you brute shouted the Colonel as a dog insinuated itself between his legs Sylvia put them back again this minute you had no business to let them out put them back but I can't papa I can't catch them she looked helplessly from him to the seething mass of dogs and back again where's my gun began the Colonel papa don't you couldn't be so cruel they aren't doing any harm poor things if I knew who sent them perhaps there's something to show yes here's a visiting card in this hamper who's is it bellowed the Colonel through the din Jay Darcy Henderson the furs red Sylvia at the top of her voice young black odd balled the Colonel I expect there's one in each of the hampers yes here's another W.K. Ross the Elms the Colonel came across and began to examine the hampers with his own hand each hamper contained a visiting card and each card bore the name of a neighbor the Colonel returned to the breakfast room and laid the nineteen cards out in a row on the table hmm... he said at last Mr. Reginald Dallas does not seem to be represented Sylvia said nothing no he seems not to be represented I did not give him credit for so much sense then he dropped the subject and breakfast proceeded in silence a young gentleman met the Colonel on his walk that morning morning Colonel said he good morning said the Colonel grimly Colonel I suppose Mr. Reginald's got that dog all right to which dog do you refer it was a pug you know it ought to have arrived by this time yes I am inclined to think it has had it any special characteristics no I don't think so just an ordinary pug well young man if you will go to my coach-house you will find nineteen ordinary pugs and if you would kindly select your beast and shoot it I should be much obliged nineteen said the other in astonishment why are you setting up as a dog fancier and your old age Colonel this was too much for the Colonel he exploded can't found your impudence dog fancier no sir I have not become a dog fancier in what you are pleased to call my old age but while there is no law to prevent a lot of dashed young puppies like yourself sir like yourself sending your confounded pug dogs to my daughter who ought to have known better than to have them let out of their dashed hampers I have no defense dog fancier get unless those dogs are removed by this time tomorrow sir they will go straight to the Battersea Home where I devoutly trust they will poison them here are the cards of the other gentlemen who are kind enough to think that I might wish to set up for a dog fancier in my old age perhaps you will kindly return them to their owners and tell them what I have just said and he strode off leaving the young man in a species of trance Sylvia said the Colonel on arriving home yes papa do you still want to marry that Dallas fellow now for heaven's sake don't start crying goodness knows I've been worried enough this morning without that please answer a plain question in a fairly sane manner do you or do you not of course I do papa then you may he's the furthest from being a fool of any of the young puppies who live about here and he knows one end of a gun from the other I'll write to him now dear Dallas wrote the Colonel I find on consideration that you are the only sensible person in the neighborhood I hope you will come to lunch today and if you still want to marry my daughter you may to which Dallas replied by return of messenger thanks for both invitations I will an hour later he arrived in person and the course of true love pulled itself together and began to run smooth again end of when papa swore in Hindustani by PG Woodhouse