FINISHED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16570, 20 June 1917, Page 9

FINISHED.

Ijlp' BY H. RIDER HAGGARD, > Jnthor of " King Solomon's Mines," " Allan iaHh Quatermain." Heart of the World," Upl "She," "The People of the Mist," " Cleopatra." S||&-. (COPYRIGHT.) llM'i CHATTER IV.—(Continued). rspERSTAN'n." 1 answered, but renumbering Anscombe's story 1 reflected Plit'to myself that our venerable host was an [§©$ excellent liar. Or more probably lie meant ff||tto convey that be wished the subject of his youthful reminiscences to bo taboo. fe : ' Just then we reached the house, which llll&had a pretty patch of well-kept flower jgfe) garden "> front of it, surrounded by a PMfefence, covered with wire netting to keep out bin ';. By tho gate sauatted our three fPi retainers, looking very blown and rather . ashamed of themselves. " Your master wishes to thank you for I?' vour help in a dark hour, Foot sack, and \ wish to congratulate you all upon tho swiftness of your feet," 1 said in Dutch. Mgt l «0h! Baas, the Basutos were many, Strand their spears are sharp," he began fftiS apologetically. "Be silent, you running dog, 1 said, Iff! " a „d go help your master to dismount." Pyt':* Then we went through tho gate, AnsM§fr>Combe leaning on my shoulder and on that ifcjv" of Mr. Marnham. and up the path, which was bordered with fences of the monthly Sjte'jose, toward? the house. Really this was almost as charming to look at near at Rl hand as it had been from far away. Of life. course the whole tiling was crude in detail. tfF - Rough half-shaped blocks of marble from m- the neighbouring quarry had been built if! into walls and columns. Nothing was §)P finished, and considered bit by bit nJ was ffip coarse and ugly. Yet the general effect I®! was beautiful because it was an effect or design, the picture of an artist who did M. not, understand the technicalities of paint- § / ing, the work of a writer who had no lip proper skill in words. Never did I see pC a small building that struck me more; but then what experience have I of buildSt ings, and, £3 Anscombe reminded me Hi/ afterwards, it was but a copy of something 111 designed when the world was young, or rather when civilisation was voting, and gpl men new risen from the infinite ages of §fe savagery, saw beauty in his dreams and pfe tried to symbolise it in shapes of stone. flflfe We came to the broad stoep, to which |p several rough blocks of marble served as steps. On it in a long chair made of $|| native wood and seated with hide rimpis, sat or rather lolled a man in & dressinggown who was reading a book. He raised himself as we came, and the light of the tun, for the verandah faced to the east, |H shone full upon his face, so that I saw §gf* him well. It was that of a man of some|s£ thing under forty years of age, dark, ife- powerful, and weary—not a good face, I thought, Indeed, it gave me the impression of one who had allowed the evil 7< ; v which exists in the nature of all of us to become master, or had even encouraged it m- to do so. In the Psalms and elsewhere we are always reading of the righteous and the unrighteous until those terms become f,O, • wearisome. It is only of late years that I have discovered, or think that I have sri.!' discovered, what they mean. Our lives cannot be judged by our deeds; they must be judged by our desires or rather by our fg§ moral attitude. It is not what we do so ~ much as what we seek to do that counts if in the formation of character. All fait !|Bt short, all fail, but in the end those who |§£i seek to climb out of the pit, those who §p* strive, however vainly, to turn failure into Sp success, are, by comparison, the righteous, It while (hose who are content to wallow in |1| ! our native mire and to glut themselves |R- ' with the daily bread of vice, are the tins' righteous. At. least that is the best defi- | ' nition at which I in my simplicity can si arrive. K Such thoughts have often occurred to I" me in considering the character of Dr. E§"i Todd and some others whom I have m. known; indeed the germ of them arose in Wi/, mv mind which, being wearied at the time 1& and therefore somewhat vacant, was peril: haps the more open to external impress§;•' «ions, as I looked upon the face of this lis': stranger on the steep. _ Moreover, as I 'd; : am proud to record, I did not judge him IpJ altogether wrongly. He was a blackpfe 1 guard - who, under other influences or with ||l~} a few added grains of self-restraint and ® of the power of recovery, might have belief come a good or even a saintly man. But s# by some malice of Fate or some evil in'j-~ heritance from an unknown past, those jpj|- grains were lacking, and therefore he went to not up but down the hill. " Case for you, Todd," called out Mam- |||> ham. "Indeed," he answered getting to his jfe feet and speaking in a full voice, which, feii-". like his partner's, was that of an educated fif Englishman. "What's the matter. :j ■ Horse accident?" p. Then we were introduced, and AnskM combe began to explain his injury. "Um!" said the doctor, studying him WgZ' with his dark eyes. "Kaffir bullet M§' : " through the foot some days ago. Ought V-l to be attended to at once. Also you look few--- pretty done, so don't tire yourself with fe the story, which I can get from Mr. $ ' Quatermain. Come and lie down and M, I'll have a look at you while they are cook, - ing breakfast." £ Then he guided us to a room of which te.l-' .the double French windows opened on to tpr the stoep. a very pretty room with two & beds in it. Making Anscombe lie down on one of these he turned up his trouser, undid my rough bandage and examined §?' the wound. M--} "Painful?" he asked. |V- "Very," answered Anscombe, "right M. :: lip to the thigh." fe After this he drew off his nether gar- • ments and made a further examination. •.'. " Um," he said again, " I must syringe this out. Stay still while I get some 0 stuff." |&: £ I followed him from the room, and i; when we were out of hearing on the stoep |ij'r inquired what he thought. I did not like the look of that leg. "It is very bad," he answered, " so bad ' that I am wondering if it wouldn't be best to remove the limb below tho knee and make a job. You can see for yourself that it is septic and the inflammation . is spreading up rapidly." " Good heavens!" I exclaimed, " do you fear mortification?" V' He nodded. "Can't say what was on that slug or bit of old iron, and he hasn't V: had the best chance since. Mortification or tetanus, or both, are more than pos«Vi-. sible. Is he a temperate man?" "Very, so far as I know," I answered, |i|" v and stared at him while he thought, Then he said with decision : That makes a difference. To lose a ij}:, > foot is a serious thing; some might think ift almost a? bad as death. I'll give him a "J . chance, but if those symptoms do not abate in twenty hours I must operate. s"'; , You needn't be afraid, I was house suriV-;' geon at a London hospital—once, and I j | keep my hand in. Lucky you came straight here." _ | 0' -' Having made his preparations and aj|, washed his hands, he returned, syringed M the wound with some antiseptic stuff, and Mr, dressed and bandaged the leg up to the p' knee. After this he gave Anscombe hot Hp milk to drink, with two eggs broken into | ||it, and told him to rest a while as he j f£ must not cat anything solid at present. s>: Then he threw a blanket over him and, I 111 signing to me to come away, let down a mat over thr- window. b'V " I put a little something into that milk," ho said outside, "which will send life" him to sleep for a few hours. So we will leave him quiet. Now you'll want a ||Ss wash." " Where are you going to take Mr. jgP|- Quatermain?" asked Marnham, who was SP*f ,eat ed on the stocji. "Into my room, ' lie answered. late 3 "Wl.~? There's Heda's ready." 111? " Heda might return at any moment," Ites; replied the doctor. " Also Mr. Quater§S^® a 'n had better sleep in Mr. Anscombe's room. He will very likely want some* |Sl^s to look after him at night." ■Bfe ilanihatn opened his mouth to speak |||l: again, then changed his mind and was llp&jwlent, as a servant is silent under rebuke. MBf* 6 incident was quite trifling, yet it retho relative attitvide of these |||V tealed to me tho relative attitude of these

two men. Without a doubt Todd was! the master of his partner, who did not even care to dispute with him about the matter of the use of his daughter's bedroom. They were a queer couple who, had it not been for my anxiety as to Anßcombc's illness, would have interested mo very much, as indeed they were destined to do.

Well, I went to tidy up in the doctor's room, and as he left me alone while I washed, had the opportunity of studying it a little. Like the rest of the house it was lined with native wood which was made to serve as tho backs of booksha'ves and of cupboards filled with medicines Mid instruments. Tho books formed a queer collection. There were medical works, philosophical works, histories, novels, most of them French, and other volumes of a sort that I imagine are generally kept under lock and key; also some that had to do with occult matters. There was even a Bible. I opened it thoughtlessly, half in idle curiosity, to see whether it was ever used, only to replace it in haste. For at the Aery page that my eye fell on, 1 remember it was one of my favourite chap. ters in Isaiah, was a stamp in violet ink marked H.M.'s Prison— I won't say 1 where. I may state, however, that the clue enabled me in after years to learn an episode in this man's life which had brought about his ruin. There is no need to repeat it, or to say more than that gambling and an evil use of his medical knowledge to provide the money to pay his debts, were the cause of his fall. The ( strange thing is that he should ever have kept the book, which had probably been given to him by the prison chaplain. Still, everybody makes mistakes sometimes. Or it may have had associations for him, and of course he had never seen this stamp upon an unread page, which happened to leap to my eye. Now I was able to make a shrewd guess at his later career. After his trouble he had emigrated and began to practice in South Africa. Somehow his identity had been discovered; his past was dragged up against him, possibly by rivals jealous of his skill; his business went, and he found it advisable to retire to the Transvaal before the annexation, at that time the home of sundry people of broken reputations. Even there he did not stop in a town, but hid himself upon the edge of savagery. Here he foregathered with anJ other man of queer character, Marnham, and in his company entered upon some doubtful but lucrative form of trade while I still indulging his lovo of medicine by docI toring and operating upon natives, over whom he would in this way acquire great influence. Indeod, as I discovered before the day was over, he had quite a little hospital at the back of the house, in which were four or five beds occupied by Kaffirs, and served by two native nurses whom he had trained. Also numbers of out-patients visited him, some of whom travelled from great distances, and occasionally, but not often, he attended white people who chanced to be in the neighbourhood. The^ three of us breakfasted in a really charming room, from the window of which could bo studied a view as beautiful as any I know. The Kaffirs who waited were trained and dressed in neat linen uniforms. The cooking was good; there was real silver on the table, then a strange sight in that part of Africa, and amongst engravings and other pictures upon the walls, hung an oil portrait of a very beautiful young woman with dark hair and eyes. "Is that your daughter, Mr. Marnham?" I asked.

" No," he replied rather shortly, " it is her mother."

Immediately afterwards he was called from the room to speak to someone, whereon the doctor said : "A foreigner as you see, a Hungarian; the Hungarian women are very good looking and very charming." " So I have understood," I answered, " but does this lady live here " Oh, no. She is dead, or I believe that she is dead. I am not sure, because I make it 'a rule never to pry into people's private affairs. All I know about her is that she was a beauty whom Marnham married late in life upon the Continent, when she was but eighteen. As it common in such cases, he was very jealous of her, but it didn't last long, as she died, I understand that she died, within a year of her daughter's birth. The loss affected him so much that he emigrated to South Africa with the child, and began life anew. I do not think that they correspond with Hungary, and he never speaks of her even to hi: daughter, which suggests that she is dead."

I reflected that all these circumstances might equally well suggest several other things, out said nothing, thinking it wisest not to pursue the subject. Presently Marnham returned and informed me (hat a native had just brought him word that the Basutos had made off homeward with our cattle, but had left the waggon and its contents quite untouched, not even stealing the spare guns and ammunition.

"That's luck," I said, astonished, "but extremely strange. How do you explain it, Mr. Marnham!" He shrugged his shoulders and answered : "As everyone knows, you are a much greater expert in native habits and customs than I am, Mr. Quatermain." " There are only two things that I can think of," I said. " One is that for some reason or other they thought the waggon tagati, bewitched, you know, and that it would bring evil on them to touch it though this did not apply to the oxen. Tiie other is that they supposed it, but not the oxen, to belong to some friend of their own whose, property they did not wish to injure." He looked at me sharply but said nothing, and I went on to tell them the detail? of the attack that had been made upon us, adding: ...... " The odd part of the affair is that one of these Basutos called out to us that some infernal scoundrel of a white man had warned Sekukuni of our coming, and that he had ordered them to take our guns and cattle. This Basuto, who was wounded and praying for mercy, was drowned before he could tell me who the white man was." " I will send some of our boys to help your servants to bring everything the waggon contains up here," said Marnham. " Can't you lend me a team of oxen," I asked, "to drag it to the house?" " No, we have nothing but young cattle left. Both red-waterand lung-Sickness have been so bad this season that all the oxen have been swept out of the country. I doubt whether you could beg, borrow or steal a team of oxen this side of Pretoria, except from some of the Dutchmen, who won't part." " That's awkward. I hoped to be able to trek in a day or two." " Your friend won't be able to trek for a good manv days at the best," broke in the doctor, who had been listening unconcernedly, "but of course you away on the horse after it has rested. " You told me you left a span of oxen at Pretoria," said" Marnham. " Why not go and fetch them here, or if you don't like to leave Mr. Anscombe, send your driver and the boys.' ' " Thanks for the idea. I will think it over," I answered. That morning after Footsack and the vocrlooper had been sent with some of the servants from the Temple to fetch up the contents of the waggon, for I was too tired to accompany thorn, havinpr found that Anscombe was still asleep, I determined to follow his example. Finding a lone chair on the stoep, I sat down, and slumbered in it sweetly for hours. 1 dreamt of all sorts of things, then through my dreams it seemed to me that I beard two voices talking, those of our hosts, Marnham and Todd, not on the stoep, but at a distance from it. As a matter of fact thev were talking, but so far away that in my ordinary waking state I could never have' heard them. Mv own belief is that the senses, and I may add the semi-spiri-tual part of us, are much more acute when we lie half bound in the bonds of sleep, than when we are what is railed wideawake. • Doubtless when we are. quite bound they attain the limits of their power, and, I think, sail to the uttermost ends of being. But unhappily of their experiences we remember nothing when we awake. In half sleep it is different; then we do retain some recollection. (To b* continued on Saturday next.)