THE CONSUMPTIVE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11056, 6 May 1899, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE CONSUMPTIVE.

"The gristly part of it is,' 1 said Tennant, "that if I go away from Grand Canary here, I shall forthwith die. Whereas if I could manage, to stay in the island, I could Lang on with life for another five months and a bit, and my esteemed cousin must certainly crumpk. up with his Bright disease before that time, and hand mo 011 the title and the estates. You can calculate out these things to such definite dates. That's the beauty of modern medical science when it begins to interest itself in diseases, even ir it can't cure them." Ho broke off and coughed for a couple of minutes, and then gasped, "Especially consumption. By Jove! isn't that greeny-blue on the sea splendid?" Addingham, the ether man, shivered. " 1 say, vou are gruesome," he complained. " What," said Tennant, with a wry smile, " do you grudge me a sight of colour on tho sea-water now? 2*o, 1 know what you mean, old man, and I'm sorry; but you must bear with me a bit. We consumptives have such a way of talking about our blessed health, and dreaming about it, and counting up the exact number of days we've got to live, and swapping views on vintages of cod-liver oil, that we forget that nil these details are a bit noisome to outsiders." '"Oh, it's not that," said Addingham, rather feebly. "Yes, but it is, and I'm going to make things worw by keeping on with the 6ame tale. Here are' the Americans on the point of declaring war with Spain; and when they actually dc, Las Palmas won't be a safe place for an Englishman to live ill," " I suppose it won't be for you," "Especially for me, as you say. If a toan will be tool enough to interfere in the National amusement of beating a mnle to death, he must expect tc be locally unpopular." "You nit that tartana driver across the 'face, remember, with your stick." "Because I was too limp and feeble to do more. My dear boy, I'd cheerfully have cut him to ribbons if I'd been equal to the exertion. You see, I'd been looking on at the process of torturing that mule for some time, and was naturally feeling rather sick and very wrathful. I suppose from the driver's point of view it's equally natural that he and his friends should have done their best to knife me at intervals ever eince."

Addingham nibbed bis cbin. "It's awkward," be said—"very. These Canarios are the tamest of people generally, but since this war trouble's been on they've developed a fine patriotism, and grown very excited over it. I don't suppose many Americans find their way as fa: out as this, and so, as an Englishman talks the same language, they make him do instead. In fact, to tell the truth, I was mobbed near the cathedral to-day, and had a bowling escort of them to see me home right out here to the hotel." " I wish the Yankees were at the devil!" paid Tennant irritablv. "Or rather, I wish they'd 'suspend hostilities' till I get through my five and a-lialf months here below, and then come down like the Assyrians and sweep the place clear." " And I wish you wouldn't talk of your horrible five and a-halt months," said Addingham, waking up to a memory that it is always a sound man's duty to hearten the sick. "You are looking a sight better than you did a week ago. You'll pull round again all right with a bit more rest." "My dear boy,' said Tennant, "don't pit your puny opinion against science. My local pill-mixer here has done nothing but handle consumptives foi the past ten years. Be gets hold of his patient on landing, sounds him, tries his wind, counts his teeth, puts th„ result on paper, and multiplies by ten. Three days later he takes a second observation to check the first, and then lie. tells your friends the exact number of weeks, days, and hours you've got to live. If they're new to Grand Canary, the friends bet he's wrong, and lose their money. fie tells you, of course, as all doctors are forced to by then initiation oath, or whatever it is, that there's not much the matter, and you'll probably live ior ever; but you can worm the truth out of servants for a, tip; and that's the way you get hold of the expert opipion that you've paid the doctor ,to give." Addingham was going to speak, but the sick man put bis thin, brown, bird's claw of a hand on his wrist, and stopped him. " Just let me have my way," he said, " without more argument. You know I'm right, and I know you know, and so let's chuck conventionality. I've stared at death too Jong, and guessed at what's behind too much, to have any room for further emotions on the matter. But you can do me a very real service ii you'll put me in the way of not being robbed of my appointed span. I'm always veiy sick at sea, and if I go away from here to Madeira or any of those places, I shall certainly shake myself to bits on the road, and die before I get there. If I do that, my venerable cousin will outlive me, and my will may be counted as wasto paper, and I shall die writhing. But if you can think of a way to let me dangle on to the end of my allotted tether, his Bright's disease must collar him for a certainty within this next week or sr., and then . . . well, I shall inherit, and can dispose of the cash as I please. But honestly, the only way I can think of is by grabbing the fort on the hill behind there from the local army, and holding it till ute'ra through. Otherwise an enthusiastic mob will scrag me to a certainty the day war breaks out." "You've left the money to that girl, I suppose?" "Of course."

" Even after she wouldn't marry you?" " My dear boy, the boot was on the other leg. I wouldn't marry her. I got to know from a doctor at home that I was lungy, and I wasn't going to be brute enough to marry a girl with that- hanging over me." " So you went and deliberately—" The sick man snapped out "Shut up," and flushed scarlet. "Well, I suppose I'd better own up," he said a minute later, " as it's only to you. But a man has to do something if he wants to break off an enfagement with a girl who's very fond of im, and I couldn't think of any better : way than getting into a mess with another woman who . . . Oh, you know the whole dirty tale. I hadn't the brains to invent a cleverer way. Working up that mean, paltry, cold-blooded scandal was the only tiling that occurred to me. I'm a bit of a thick-head "

Addingham stretched out and gripped his Land rather shamefacedly for a second, and then turned away. " You're a decent sort, you know," he said.

" Ob, drop that," said Tennant fretfully. "Use your head and get me out of this mess. Can't you remember that she's as poor as a rat-, and will have to remain poor, o. dress on the doles that some rich husband pinches out to her, unless you manage to think of a way to make me outlive that ancient wreck ot a cousin of mine?" "Well." said Addingham, "it- seems to resolve Itself into this Wa. is going to be declared between America and Spain, whether you like it or not; Spain knows that she. will be badly licked, and Spaniards are mad accordingly; the local Spaniard hates you personally, and will find an opportunity to scupper you as soon as war starts; and so Las Palmas district ceases to be Wealthy for you from now on. You say that it would he fatal foi you to leave the 'island just now; so it seems time that the only alternative is to go and live en perdu up amongst the hills of the interior." "By Jove! that's just the very notion. Only, how am alone, I mean—to—" "Oh, if I hadn't intended tc come alone too, and nursery-maid you," said Adding Jiam brusquely, "I should nevs have suggested such a mad picnic. Well, as this sort or idea seems to chime in with your notions, I'll just be. off one-time (as those West African fellows say) and make some preparations. Wo shall have to take grub and clothes and things, and a transport systems got to be arranged for by which our retreat can't be traced. It would never do tc let- the general public know which .way we might be found, or we'd have your mule-beating friend and Lis cronies round (with their knives before the week was out." Now, Addingham was a man whe knew Grand Canary thoroughly. He had visited it- foi the first time eight years before, and, as wa. customary, the charm of the island grew upon him, and he had returned to it again at least once every year since. He knew every peak and every cinder-slide: lie had explored every one of thi great barrapcos; he knew personally every vineyard, :eveiy tomato garden, and every banana id.nn in the. circle of tic islandand,, fiaajly,

he probably knew more about the Guanche caves than any Englishman living. He had visited all the mummy caves, the stoie caves, and the living caves of that dead race which were already known tc exist, and during his rumblings amongst the lava cliffs and the dry, crumbling hills, he had found others whose existence he had kept to himself, lest vandal tourists, and more vandal museum collectors, might desecrate those few remaining signatures of the past. Ho had grown to have a feeling akin to comradeship for those long-forgotten dead, and on the rare occasions when he thought about the matter in such an aspect, he congratulated himself that at least he had never done anything to rip more of the cloak from their decent past, for the vulgar stares of the ten-days' tourist. Incidentally, in wandering about the island, Addingham had learned the Canary patois of Spanish, the intricacies of local paths and transport, and a list ot the needs for a residence in the highlands of the interior; and so, on the day after the subject was broached between them, he was able to get Tennant away from the hotel, and through Las Palma., and out past Monte and Santa Brigida, without his journey being in any way noticed. It is forbidden by doctors' law for consumptives to be exposed to the air of evening, and so that night they stayed under a roof, and Tennant- coughed in a tempered atmosphere; but next morning, when the sun had made the air benign, they left thoir carriage and set off again, this time with one pack-mule and another for riding, and left the road finally behind them. They were none too soon either. War had been declared the previous night; and though slr.drid and even Spain itself, might be calm and unemotional, the towns and villages of Grand Canary were in a seethe of patriotic ferment. Even the locally-known Addingham would have been in considerable personal danger, and as for the unpopular Tennant, with his foreign prejudices against beating a mere worn-out mule to death, his life would nob have been worth ten minutes' purchase. The way they traversed I also have trod; but as I am under pledge of secrecy, it will not- bo described here. Indeed, without a map, it would bo hard to direct a traveller so that ho might re-find it. There are so many stony barrancos, leading to so many barren valleys, in the interioi of the isle of Grand Canary; and each one at limes has the same semi-tropical sun blazing with ger.ial warmth overhead, and the same euphorbia bushes growing from the austere cinders underfoot, and the same dwellingcaves, and store-caves, and mummy-caves of those long-dead Guanches discreetly screened behind ingenious rocks. They journeyed 011 and on, up and down end up, till the weak, sick man on the jolting mule was nearly at the end of his meagre strength, game though he might be in uncomplaining endurance; and then the two beasts were hobbled in a tiny dell of coarse grasses (where moisture accumulated from the slope above), and there remained before the men a climb toe steep even for a Spanish mule. The Guanche of those dead, old years had his enemies, and so he delved his house at some spot where he would have full advertisement of an enemy's

approach. Addingham clapped a sturdy arm round Tenant's waist, and lialf dragged, half carried him up the inclines; and Tennant, with vicious energy, thrust out the last embers of his strength to help. "You're sweating like a pig," he gasped, as they grappled their way up the rocks, "and so am I. By the Lord, it's fine to do a climb, just once again." " You stay here and get back your wind," said Addingham, when at List they scrambled through the hole which made the entrance, and sprawled on the floor of the cave. "I'll gc down and bring up the furniture and the grub to fit out this desirable residence."

It took him four journeys to bring the contents of the mule's pack up the rocks, and when the work was finished night had fallen, and Tenmint was sleeping a calm sleep of exhaustion. The mountain air was cool and sweet and fresh, and slightly tinged with salt from the South-East Trade; a great globe of moon hung above their valley, lighting the lava cliffs and the harsh cinders in stern black and white; and behind him, in the ramifications of tho | cave, Addingham fancied he could hear tho ghosts of goatskin-clad mummies passing the news in whispers concerning these strange men or non-Guanche race who had arrived out of space to visit them. " Men have been bora in these caves." Addingham mused, "and have lived here all their days, and have died here, and have beer buried in the caves beyond, where their dust and parchment still remain; and presently I suppose anothei man will die where those others have died before him. For me it will be to look on. and watch helplessly whilst he coughs himself into the next world. We're friends, I know, and I suppose it's my duty to stay on and watch, and help, but—" He broke off in his definite musing, and shuddered at a vague horroi of tlioughfe. The caves and the valley were lonely beyond words, and the idea of his isolation, and of the man dying by inches close by, shook him and unstrung his nerves. "I suppose it was a foolish thing to do aftci what poor old Tennant told me, and after what lie's done himself, but I'm glad I wrote that letter to the girl. Bah! what a miserable coward a man can be when lie's got a bad sickness to nurse!" Addingham woke with the first of the dawn, and saw that the sick man was still warm and sleeping. He lit a candle, and rambled away into the dark of the caves, returning presently with a stone measure full of grain and a primitive quern, also of stone. He toasted the grain, pinch by pinch, over a spirit stove, and then, after sprinkling it wiji salt, ground it in the quern. Then he kneaded it with water into a dough, and prepared to make his breakfast.

Tennant woke and saw him, "What's that stuff you've got there?" he asked. " Gofio. All the country people in the Canaries cat it, and for a change I like it myself." "I didn't know you'd brought up any corn with you on the mule." "I didn't. This was stored up by the last tenant of these caves a thousand years ago, in a stone rat-proot chest, which I'll show you directly if you like. The original slorer doesn't want it) now, and as the stuff as good to-day as it was the hour it was put there, I'm robbing him. I didn't expect you were going to wake yet. However, I'll set to and make your breakfast now. Have a nip of cod-liver oil just as an appetiser?" " Hang the cod-livei oil! Give me some of that gofio stuff." Addingham looked doubtful. "It's hardly grub a man would care fox if lie feels a bit chippy.'" " Respect an invalid's whims," said Tennant, sitting up and stretching out a hand. " Surrender your breakfast, my deal boy, and make yourself some more. I'm as hungry as a wolf. No, hang coffee too. If we're going to play at being Guanches, let's do the thing thoroughly and drink water. It won't be typhoidy up here." He ate his meal with appetite. " I don't wonder at this gofio being the principal food that's eaten in the Canaries without break for Lord knows how many thousand years. It's fine; especially if you're hungry. I say, Mr. Caterer, you've a small notion of one's capacity. Look here, show me how, and let me help cook some more. I'm feeling frightfully energetic just now." Now, it is no place hero to give a diary of the existence of those two men, the sick and the sound, in those Guanche caves in the centre of the isle of Grand Canary, 'lhey lived on the stores they had brought up; on banana bunches and other fruits, which Addingham raided under cover of night from plantations on the lower ground ; on occasional chickens, which probably came from the same source; and especially on the hoard of grain stored up by that forgotten savage in the rat-proof coffer in one of the inner caves. Some days Tennant was worse, and counted up with calm cynicism the inroads which were being made into his allotted five months and ahalf; and some days he was better, and talked of swindling the doctors and upsetting current wagers. And as time went oil the percentage of the hopeful days increased, as Addingham's strained mind was quick to notice. Of the Spanish-American war and its defeats and successes they heard ne word; but from one sign and another Addingham learned that the Canarios were still excited, and that they must continue to live en Guancht if Tennant was to be safe from the knife of tie injured tartana driver. Addingham had also another tiling which weighed on his mind, and that was the letter he had written on the day of their flight I from Las Palmas. Until it could reach ! England, and be answered in pefson,

was merely troubled in spirit, and took no other mcve; but when that time had elapsed, he made his nightly raids the excuse for calling at a rendezvous which lie had named in the letter, but every night found it cold and unvisited. The weeks grew 011 into a month, the month into several months, and still there was no news at the rendezvous. Tennant was quite confident now of outliving his cousin with the Bright's disease, and at times suggested that he "would have to be shot when his date arrived, so as to keep up the doctor's reputation for accuracy." He developed a large interest in the bygone Guanche race and their doings, and ate gofio made from prehistoric wheat with an appetite that was frequently wolfish. Day by day Addingham watched him with wonderment and growing satisfaction. t I But at last there came the event which Addingham had now begun to dread. He went out one midnight as usual to the rendezvous, and from that moment Tennant did not see him at the Guanche cave again. Instead, there came with the first rays of morning a woman, who crawled in through the tiny entrance-way of the cave, and threw herself upon him, and woke him with her kisses. He got up, kissed her once, and then thrust her from him. " Oh, go," he said, "go. It's hard enough to die without having you here. That brute Addingham must have written to you. I'll never forgive him for this." "I was travelling in India," she said, " and his lettei followed after me, That is why I was so long in coming to you, my dear. What a fool I was not to see through your dear old stupid ruse before!" Tennant gave a whimsical laugh. " That scandal wither— other woman? Oh, I chucked you and cared for her just then. I'm very changeable." She lifted his arms and tucked them round her ,ieck and looked him in the eyes. "Are you?" said she. "You don't seem to have' changed your way of looking at me." " 'Man can't help his unfortunate persona; appearance." He took his arms resolutely from her neck, and deliberately moved away from her to the opposite side of the cave. "Mary," he said, "I found out I was in a galloping consumption, and as I knew you'd have some silly notion that you ought to stick to me, I just used my brilliant head to invent a definite order for you to clear out. It. was luck on Mrs.—er the other woman, of course; but she doesn't deserve much consideration, any way." '' My darling." she said, " I would rather he your widow than the wife of any other man in all the world. But lam going to bo your wife, and remain yoni wife. You are not going to die. Addingham told me that you had been very ill, but he said you were marvellously better. He said it was the mountain air or something, and that he was convinced that the consumption had stopped. My sweetheart, you shall not die. Listen to me: I tell you you shall not. You shall live on. I must have you." Someone from outside the cave whistled cheerfully, and the noise came of shoes slipping ovei rock, and the panting of a man's breath. Presently the mail himself crawled in through the narrow opening, and sat puffing and mopping his forehead 011 the floor.

"Hullo, Doc.," said Tennant, "didn't expect a visit from you this morning. Have the Americans taken the island and have they tariffed you out of your practice?" "Tito Americans are nil right at their own fireside, writing puffs of themselves in the newspapers, and the island's simmered down into its usual doze again. I say, you're a pretty sort of fraud, making mo out a liar like this! Here, let me look at you and see how that lung's going on." The girl watched, holding her breath. The doctor went through his examination with careful system. "Well," she whispered when he had finished, "is it consumption?" "It's a marvel. He was as clear a case of phthisis as ever I saw when he landed, and, between ourselves, I didn't give him long to livo, though of course I didn't breathe a word of that fo anybody." Yes, you did," said Tennant, with a grim chuckle; "you said five montlis and eighteen days was tho exact length of my tether."

"I said nothing of tho kind; it would have been most unprofessional. Tho beggars invented it. But, anyway, young man, your diseaso is stopped, and you can make the most of that. How it's been done, the Lord above knows best. It may lie the sir up here, or the water, or some hidden virtue in the cave, or that diet of mummy-wheat gofio which Addingham tells me you're so keen on. I don't knew which it is. I wish I did. It I'd the ghost of a. notion, I'd write a letter about you to the Lancet, and claim to have found a new consumption cure, and become famous. - ' "Then do you warrant nic sound?" asked Tennant, with almost a tremble in his voice.

"You're marvellously, yes, miraculously better than you were when I saw you last, but you'll do with a bit more coddling before you leave the island, and after that you can go home, and know yourself to be as sound a man as there is in England." "Am I to go down to Las Palmas again, then?"

"Well, I don't personally admire your carriage entrance here—in' fact, I'm not built for these sort of gymnastics; but as the neighbourhood seems to suit you so finely, I'd stay on a bit. longer if I were von and complete the cure. Of course, you've lost vour mate, I know, no told me just now he daren't come back, because lie was afraid you'd shoot him on sight for what he'd done." "I fancy I'd let him off." "I think he could lie replaced," said the girl, with a blush. "The guide-book said there was an English chaplain oil the island "

"Of course there is," said the doctor, still . moin with his handkerchief. "Think we're heathens and savages? My dear, you shall come again with me tonight, and to-morrow we'll bring up the padre and fix you up nice and tight." He nodded to Tennant. "My man, you needn't look scared. I know what you'think, and I know what s right. I'll take the responsibility for this, and I don't make a mistake a second time. But there's one tiling I want to impress upon you. When you dr. sel up your new menago up here, buy your bananas and chickens openly, and pay for them in hard pesetas. They say there's a chicken thief somewhere in this neighbourhood, and the farmers are beginning to lay traps for him." "I've done with disreputableness," said Tennant gaily. "We'll be tho most respectable pair of cave-dwellers in Grand Canary. Bv,the way, Mary, I'm a bit behindhand with news, but—are you going to be a countess to-morrow?" "A countess' I don't understand. Oh, yes, I see what you mean." And she laughed. "No, the doctors made another mistake there, and that cousin of yours hasn't got Bright's disease at all. He'll probably live on fa. years, and you're as poor as a rat, deal. "If you hadn't been,'' said she, cockingi her chin at him, "I shouldn't have been brazen enough to come here for you." "Don't believe you," said Tennant, cheerally. " I say, old lady, what frauds these doctors are!" i , "I haven't made a mistake about you this second time, any way," said the Las 1 almas doctor, as he fanned himself with Ins hat. I can tell you I look upjon you With remarkable pride and gratifiWon. Why.man, think what an advertisement you 11 be for Grand Canary ! In a month's feme you II be having a syndicate cominf to the cave here, asking what your terms are for an exhibition as Strong Man in the London music-halls." "All right," said Tennant; " anything, so long as you've brought me to life again." The girl linked her fingers over his arm and looked up wistfully into his worn face' and murmured, " Life ! Isn't it wonderful' ■wonderful ?"—C. J. Cdtcliffe Hyne. in P.all Mall Magazine.