LANGUID LOVES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6132, 19 March 1898, Page 2

LANGUID LOVES.

(St James's Budget.) " A man who travels in the East," said Captain Maitland, "ought to insure his nose." v Then, as if determined just to contradict him, a shower of rose leaves fluttered in his face. He looked up, and at a window saw white hands — whiter than usual in Constantinople—pulling away the petals of a full-blown rose. "When it rains roses," said the Captain, " Love is in the air. I'll see the owner of those hands." Accordingly he made a survey of the wall. "I've done worse bitß in Switzerland," he said. With that.he hitched his walkingstick behind him and began to climb, and was soon within a few feet of the window. "So far, so good !" said he, and paused to think how he might compass the remaining distance. But, sad to say, the creepers, hitherto his friends, befriended him no more, and the uncompromising wall offered no help. " I wonder if my walking-stick will hold/ he said as he unhitched it. He fixed it in the green Venetian shutter. "If it doesn't, then I go a cropper, that is all !" he said, and swung. It bore. "Cheers," said the Captain, as he laid hold of the window-sill. Then lam afraid he swore ; for no sooner did his head appear than the owner of the hands which he had climbed to see flew to the window, dainty as day, clapped it to and bolted it. " The deuce take the little vixen !" said the Captaiu. " But she's pretty." Now by rights so ungallant a wish, however qualified, should have been visited with punishment at once. But, as it happened, the young lady felt disposed to peep. Timidly, therefore, she returned and peeped ; and, peeping, found that there was something irresistible about the Captain's eyes. For what docs she but peep again ? " Gad !" said the Captaiu, " but she's worth the climb; and his bright eyes twinkled with the merriest of laughter. What could Litarka do but peep again and blush ? " Ob, hang the window !" said the Captain. " This won't do." So he pretended to be slipping. "Open, or I fall! "he cried. The girl moved forward, put a hand out, hesitated, stopped. The Captaiu slipped a little further, and the window opened. " Good!" said the Captain, and climbed in. But the girl had hid her face behind her hands. "So!" said the Captain. "Shy!" and waited. " You ought not to have come," murmured the girl. " Why did you come, and how ?" " I climbed to see the face thy hands are hiding," said the Captain fc truthfully. " The Englishman ia bfave," replied the girl, still from behind her hands. "I had seen these," said the Captain, laying his hands lightly upon hers, " and they were magnets." The girl did not move. "Good!" said the Captain. "And I have seen thy beauty tco !" he added. "Is there any need to hide it longer?" and he gently drew her hands aside and smiled. The girl's eyelids drooped and her long lashes curled back from her cheek. The Captain bent down slightly, sniling still. " When the moon is in eclipse," he said, " men shoot at it." The girl laughed quickly. Their eyes met. " All right," said the Captain. " Are there, then, devils in my eyes ?" she asked. ". Do devils dwell in paradise ?" said he and they were friends. Soon they were lovers also, and too soon the Captain had to go. Many a time he kissed Litarka, and with every kiss he promised he would come again. At last he moved towards the wiudow. " Goes my lord that way ?" cried the girl. " By the way he came to happiness," replied the Captaiu, "by the same way he returns." " God prosper thee !" exclaimed Litarka, shuddering, " but thou art brave !" Now, as a matter of fact, the Captain, though he went ont by the window, did not return precisely by tho way he came ; for, being an Alpine climber, he devised a new descent — of which hereafter. Tremblingly, Litarka watched him from the window, and many a prayer did she send up to Allah for his safety, and many a tender word did she send down to him as he climbed; and many a time the Captain stopped to answer her. Then suddenly there was a shout, a sound as of one running, and a cry, "My father ! Ho will kill thee! have a care. My lord, my love !" "This looks like fun," observed the Captain, looking for a place to put his foot} but his attentions to Litarka had somehow lefb him stranded about seven feet from the ground. And luckily for him as it happened, for Litarka's father, an impetuous, irascible, middle-nged Mussulman merchant, was there dancing up and down below, screaming aud spluttering with rage, and in the intervals of shrill abuse making wild slashes at the Captain's lega with a rusty sword too short to reach. At evei-y slash Litarka shrieked, the Captain laughed, and the angry father howled ; so there was quite a pretty scene for bystanders as they collected : Litarka at the window wringing her white hands, her father on the ground stamping and cursinc and slashing, the Captain clinging batlike to the wall, convulsed with laughter. But the bysianders, beiug Mussulmans, had views, and were beginning to express « i' rather think it's time 1 made a speech," remarked the Captain. Accordingly 'ho £ot a good grip of a creeper, turned halfway round towards the road, and proceeded to address the people over th« vituperative father's head. ••' Gentlemen ! " he began, and mischief prompted him to raise his left hand slightly for effect. " Gentlemen, you will please to understand " (he raised it higher) "that I am an Englishman" (for emphasis he raised it higher still, and, rash man, leaned out a little from the wall), "and that England"— he brought it down with a commanding gesture ; but his branch gave way and ho fell plump upon Litarka's father's head, extinguishing his volubility. Litarka fainted ; the crowd was amused. " Thank heaven he dropped his sword ! " remarked the Captain, piekin? himself up and the sword too. Then, finding no harm done, hb set the angry fatUer on his legs apologised profusely and departed. ' Next morning he returned to find the house shut up, and no Litarka. Nor could he obtain a paiticle of information. For the next few dnys he ate his head off, so to speak, trying to trace her but without success, until a letter came giving an address, and suggesting if » c wished, a plan. "Gad, but she's game !" exclaimed the j Captain, reading it Then he went out to [make his preparations. He bought a

paoking-ense ; he looked to its ventilation; had it padded; fixed a strong spring mattress iv it) ; tested it himself ; hired a dray and drivers and a chaplain; gave them directiono; chartered a tug; made arrangements with the captain of a ship ; . and wont on board and waited as patiently as would-be bridegrooms gonorally do. Meanwhile, at a certain housij in a certain street in Tst:\u)l»>ni, Litarka packed, and I Laia, her sister, h.. peil her. ! "But if it shouli not come?" Litarka asked. "Nay, but for certain it will come," said Laia. " Vever fear, he had the letter ; it- will come." "Do I do very wrong, my sister," asked Litarka, " thus to leave my kindred ? " "I have seen him/ Lnia replied a little shortly. " I have seen him, and his eyes are amulets. No, girl, you do -no wrong. But hearken ! " A sound of Wheels was heard. "It comes," sa.id.Lfna. " Art sure it comes ?" Litarlca asked.';, little anxiously. " It conies," said Lai'aj Vit cc»mQ3; nay, it is hero. Take thy bundle, child, aud leap, and Allah prosper thee! Farewell." Litarka, trembling somewhat). threw her arms about her sister's neck." "Farewell, dear Laia," she said, aud clung 1 .to her. •'Farewell!" Raid Laia-, "farewell! Bun, child, and jump ; quick, ere it be too late." Litarka ran. to the window. Lai'a watched from the door. Litarka looked out of the window. The packing-case was there and open, but it was a great way down. Sho looked again; perhaps the shadows made the way seem longer, for Litarka looked ug-ain. Then she threw her bundle. It fell softly. " But, Allah, what a distance !" she exclaimed. "Mahomet's coffin!" muttered LaTa. " Why does the girl not jump ?" Litarka looked again and trembled. The packing-case was certainly a great way down. "I daren't," she said, and' ran back to her sister. . • "Well, if you daren't, I dare!" Baid Laia, and ran ..and lightly leapt. Litarka sighed; . . The packing-case was closed, screwed down, and driven oil', and in due time safely lodged on board the ship where Maitland, wild with expectation, waited .with: the chaplain at his si le. The packing-case was opened. Laia stepped out, collected but not very prepossessing. For a moment her fate hung there in the balance. Then the Captain said, "Hang it, madam ! but I like your spirit ! Dashed if I don't marry you ! " And marry her he did.