SNAKE & SWORD. P. C. Wren

by the white butler (so like the Chaplain of Bimariabad in grave respectability and solemn pompousness) and its extraordinary white "ayahs" or maids, and silver-haired Mrs. Pont, called the "house-keeper". Was she a pukka Mem-Sahib or a nowker¹³ or what? And how did she "keep" the house?

      A wonderful place—but far and away the most thrilling and delightful of its wonders was the little white girl, Lucille—Damocles' first experience of the charming genus.

      The boy never forgot his first meeting with Lucille.

      On his arrival at Monksmead he had been "vetted," as he expressed it, by the Burra-Sahib, the General; and then taken to an attractive place called "the school-room" and there had found Lucille….

      "Hullo! Boy," had been her greeting. "What's your name?" He had attentively scrutinized a small white-clad, blue-sashed maiden, with curling chestnut hair, well-opened hazel eyes, decided chin, Greek mouth and aristocratic cheek-bones. A maiden with a look of blood and breed about her. (He did not sum her up in these terms at the time.)

      "Can you ride, Boy?"

      "A bit."

      "Can you fight?"

      "A bit."

      "Can you swim?"

      "Not well."

      "I can—ever so farther. D'you know French and German?"

      "Not a word."

      "Play the piano?"

      "Never heard of it. D'you play it with cards or dice?"

      "Lucky dog! It's music. I have to practise an hour a day."

      "What for?"

      "Nothing … it's lessons. Beastly. How old are you?"

      "Seven—er—nearly."

      "So'm I—nearly. I've got to be six first though. I shall have a birthday next week. A big one. Have you brought any ellyfunts from India?"

      "I've never seen a nellyfunt—only in pictures."

      A shudder shook the boy's sturdy frame.

      "Why do you go like that? Feel sick?"

      "No. I don't know. I seemed to remember something—in a book. I dream about it. There's a nasty blue room with a mud floor. And Something. Beastly. Makes you yell out and you can't. You can't run away either. But the Sword dream is lovely."

      Lucille appeared puzzled and put this incoherence aside.

      "What a baby never to see ellyfunts! I've seen lots. Hundreds. Zoo. Circuses. Persessions. Camels, too."

      "Oh, I used to ride a camel every day. There was one in the compound with his oont-wallah,¹⁴ Abdul Ghaffr; and Khodadad Khan used to beat the oont-wallah on cold mornings to warm himself."

      "What's an oont-wallah?"

      "Don't you know? Why, he's just the oont-wallah, of course. Who'd graze the camel or load it up if there wasn't one?"

      At tea in the nursery the young lady suddenly remarked:—

      "I like you, Boy. You're worth nine Haddocks."

      This cryptic valuation puzzled Damocles the more in that he had never seen or heard of a haddock. Had he been acquainted with the fowl he might have been yet more astonished.

      Later he discovered that the comparison involved the fat boy who sat solemnly stuffing on the other side of the table, his true baptismal name being Haddon.

      Yes, Lucille was a revelation, a marvel.

      Far quicker of mind than he, cleverer at games and inventing "make believe," very strong, active, and sporting, she was the most charming, interesting, and attractive experience in his short but eventful life.

      How he loved to make her laugh and clap her hands! How he enjoyed her quaint remarks, speculations, fairy-tales and jokes. How he yearned to win her approval and admiration. How he strove to please her!

      In Lucille and his wonderful new surroundings he soon forgot Major Decies, who returned to live (and, at a ripe old age, to die) at Bimariabad, where had lived and died the woman whom he had so truly and purely loved. The place where he had known her was the only place for him.

      On each of his birthdays Damocles received a long fatherly letter and a handsome present from the Major, and by the time he went away to school at Wellingborough, he wondered who on earth the Major might be.

      To his great delight Damocles found that he was not doomed to discontinue his riding, fencing, boxing, and "dismounted drill without arms".

      General Seymour Stukeley sent for a certain Sergeant Havlan (once a trooper in his own regiment), rough-rider, swordsman, and boxer, now a professional trainer, and bade him see that the boy learned all he could teach him of arms and horsemanship, boxing, swimming, and general physical prowess and skill. Lucille and Haddon Berners were to join in to the extent to which their age and sex permitted.

      The General intended his great-nephew to be worthy of his Stukeley blood, and to enter Sandhurst a finished man-at-arms and horseman, and to join his regiment, Cavalry, of course, with nothing much to learn of sword, lance, rifle, revolver, and horse.

      Sergeant Havlan soon found that he had little need to begin at the beginning with Damocles de Warrenne in the matter of riding, fencing or boxing, and was unreasonably annoyed thereat.

      In time, it became the high ambition and deep desire of Dam to overcome Sergeant Havlan's son in battle with the gloves. As young Havlan was a year his senior, a trained infant prodigy, and destined for the Prize Ring, there was plenty for him to learn and to do.

      With foil or sabre the boy was beneath Dam's contempt.

      Daily the children were in Sergeant Havlan's charge for riding and physical drill, Dam getting an extra hour in the evening for the more manly and specialized pursuits suitable to his riper years.

      He and Lucille loved it all, and the Haddock bitterly loathed it.

      Until Miss Smellie came Dam was a happy boy—but for queer sudden spasms of terror of Something unknown; and, after her arrival, he would have been well content could he have been assured of an early opportunity of attending her obsequies and certain of a long-postponed resurrection; well content, and often wildly happy (with Lucille) … but for the curious undefinable fear of Something … Something about which he had the most awful dreams … Something in a blue room with a mud floor. Something that seemed at times to move beneath his foot, making his blood freeze, his knees smite together, the sunlight turn to darkness….