REPRESENTATION OF NATIVE PEOPLE IN SHORT STORIES A POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

Tyas Nuriska

The objectives of this research are to describe the representation of native people in “The Man Who Would Be King” by Rudyard Kipling, “The Revenge of Her Race” by Mary Beaumont, and “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad and to find the reflection of colonialism based on the representation of native in the short stories. This research uses Postcolonial studies as approach and applies Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics as the methodology. This research is classified as qualitative research. The data are divided into main data and secondary data. Three short stories written by different authors are used as the main data. They are “The Man Who Would Be King” by Rudyard Kipling, “The Revenge of Her Race” by Mary Beaumont, and “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad. The first two stories are taken from anthology Stories by English Author: Orient (1902) published by Project Gutenberg. The last short story is taken from anthology entitled Tale of Unrest (1888) published by Free Classic e-book. The secondary data are taken from other sources related to this research, both printed and online resources. The three short stories analyzed in this study contain the representation of native people. The authors construct two contradictory places to show the white men’s superiority to the native people. The native people are presented as a primitive race while the white people pictured as a civilized race. This representation is not accurate because the authors only have partial knowledge of the native people. The native people are placed as second class in class division. The ambivalence occurs within the native people both negative and positive. The ambivalence in “The Man Would Be King” and “The Revenge of Her Race” are negative while it has positive atmosphere in “An Outpost of Progress”. Keywords: British short story, Postcolonial, Hermeneutics

REPRESENTATION OF NATIVE PEOPLE IN RUDYARD KIPLING’S “THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING”, MARY BEAUMONT’S “THE REVENGE OF HER RACE”, AND JOSEPH CONRAD’S “AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS” (A POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES) THESIS Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Sarjana Humaniora Degree in English Department Faculty of Cultural Sciences Sebelas Maret University By Tyas Nuriska C0310063 ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF CULTURAL SCIENCES SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY 2015 REPRESENTATION OF NATIVE PEOPLE IN RUDYARD KIPLING’S “THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING”, MARY BEAUMONT’S “THE REVENGE OF HER RACE”, AND JOSEPH CONRAD’S “AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS” (A POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES) By Tyas Nuriska C0310063 Approved to be examined by the Board of Examiners, Faculty of Cultural Sciences Sebelas Maret University Thesis Supervisor Drs. Mugijatna, M.Si.,Ph.D NIP. 195110201 198601 1001 The Head of English Department Drs. Agus Hari Wibowo, M.A, Ph.D NIP.19670830 199302 1001 ii REPRESENTATION OF NATIVE PEOPLE IN RUDYARD KIPLING’S “THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING”, MARY BEAUMONT’S “THE REVENGE OF HER RACE” AND JOSEPH CONRAD’S “AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS” (A POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES) By Tyas Nuriska C0310063 Approved to be examined by the Board of Examiners, Faculty of Cultural Sciences Sebelas Maret University on 20 May 2015 Position Chairperson Name Signature Dra. Sri Kusumo Habsari, M. Hum., Ph. D NIP. 196703231995122001 Secretary Dra. Endang Sri Astuti, M. S. NIP. 195208141981032001 First Examiner (…………..) Drs. Mugijatna, M.Si.,Ph.D NIP. 1951102011986011001 Second Examiner (…………..) (…………..) Dra. Nani Sukarni, M. S. NIP. 195103211981032002 The Dean of Faculty of Cultural Sciences Sebelas Maret University Prof. Drs. Riyadi Santosa, M. Ed., Ph.D NIP. 19600328 198601 1001 iii (…………..) PRONOUNCEMENT Name : Tyas Nuriska Student Number : C0310063 Hereby declare that this thesis entitled Representation of Native People in Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King”, Mary Beaumont’s “The Revenge of Her Race”, and Joseph Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress” (A Postcolonial Studies) is neither a plagiarism nor written by others. Any materials and theories used as references are written in direct quotation or in paraphrase. Otherwise, if it is proven that I cheat, I would take any consequences given from the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Sebelas Maret University Surakarta, The Researcher Tyas Nuriska iv MOTTOS Be yourself; everyone else is already taken - Oscar Wilde - When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everbody will respect. - Lao Tzu – No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Elanor Roosevelt - Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. - Albert Camus - Freedom is never voluntary given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed. - Martin Luther King, Jr - v DEDICATION For my beloved parents For the ones who pursue freedom, mind and body vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Praise to Allah S.W.T for blessing and guiding me during this research. Many people encourage me to finish this thesis. Therefore, I would like to express my gratitude, particularly to: 1. Prof. Drs. Riyadi Santoso, M.Ed., Ph.D., as the Dean of Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Sebelas Maret University. 2. Drs. Agus Hari Wibowo, M.A., Ph.D., as the Head of English Department. 3. Karunia Purnia Kusciati S. S., M. Si., as my academic supervisor. 4. Drs. Mugijatna, M.Si., Ph.D., as my thesis supervisor, for all advice and guidance during the writing process. 5. Dra. Sri Kusumo Habsari, M. Hum., Ph. D, for all suggestion given to improve this thesis. 6. My beloved parents, for all countless help, patience, support, reminder and encouragement to finish this thesis. 7. My fellow literature mainstream students, Titis, Mulad, Clara, Agus and Erik for all discussion and support inside and outside the class. 8. My greatest friends, Aya, Ajeng, Putri, Mifta, Erwin, Rifan for helping and sticking up with me from the first year. My thanks to Gracia, Intan and Erni to lend an ear about my thesis. vii 9. All of English Department 2010, it is an honor to learn and experience together. 10. My internship supervisor, Drs. Dwi Harjanto, for his wisdom about life. 11. My sisters from TIARA, mbak Arum, mbak Hani, mbak Nunu, mbak Merlyta, April, Ari, Hani, Dina and Asih who keeping tabs on me through Facebook. Thanks for your support. 12. Everyone who cannot be mentioned here, for all support and help. Surakarta, May 2015 Tyas Nuriska viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Cover .............................................................................................................. i Approval of The Thesis Supervisor .............................................................. ii Approval of The Board Examiners .............................................................. iii Pronouncement ............................................................................................... iv Mottos .............................................................................................................. v Dedication ....................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgement .......................................................................................... vii Table of Contents ........................................................................................... x Abstract ........................................................................................................... xi Chapter I Introduction A. Research Background ............................................................................. 1 B. Problem Statements ................................................................................ 5 C. Objective of Study .................................................................................. 6 D. Scope of Study ........................................................................................ 6 E. Benefit of Study ...................................................................................... 6 F. Research Methodology ........................................................................... 7 ix G. Theoretical Approach ............................................................................. 9 H. Thesis Organization ................................................................................ 11 Chapter II Literature Review A. Previous Researches ............................................................................... 12 B. Postcolonial Studies ................................................................................ 15 1. Orientalism by Edward Said .............................................................. 18 2. The Location of Culture by Homi Bhabha ........................................ 26 C. Hermeneutic Phenomenology................................................................. 30 Chapter III Analysis A. Representation of Native People in Kipling’s, Beaumont’s, and Conrad’s Short Stories ............................................................................ 36 B. Reflection of Colonialism ....................................................................... 59 Chapter IV Conclusion and Recommendation A. Conclusion .............................................................................................. 64 B. Recommendation .................................................................................... 66 References ....................................................................................................... 68 Appendixes x ABSTRACT Tyas Nuriska. C0310063. Representation of Native People in Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King”, Mary Beumont’s “The Revenge of Her Race”, and Joseph Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress” (A Postcolonial Studies). Undergraduate Thesis. Faculty of Cultural Sciences. Sebelas Maret University The objectives of this research are to describe the representation of native people in “The Man Who Would Be King” by Rudyard Kipling, “The Revenge of Her Race” by Mary Beaumont, and “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad and to find the reflection of colonialism based on the representation of native in the short stories. This research uses Postcolonial studies as approach and applies Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics as the methodology. This research is classified as qualitative research. The data are divided into main data and secondary data. Three short stories written by different authors are used as the main data. They are “The Man Who Would Be King” by Rudyard Kipling, “The Revenge of Her Race” by Mary Beaumont, and “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad. The first two stories are taken from anthology Stories by English Author: Orient (1902) published by Project Gutenberg. The last short story is taken from anthology entitled Tale of Unrest (1888) published by Free Classic e-book. The secondary data are taken from other sources related to this research, both printed and online resources. The three short stories analyzed in this study contain the representation of native people. The authors construct two contradictory places to show the white men’s superiority to the native people. The native people are presented as a primitive race while the white people pictured as a civilized race. This representation is not accurate because the authors only have partial knowledge of the native people. The native people are placed as second class in class division. The ambivalence occurs within the native people both negative and positive. The ambivalence in “The Man Would Be King” and “The Revenge of Her Race” are negative while it has positive atmosphere in “An Outpost of Progress”. Keywords: British short story, Postcolonial, Hermeneutics xi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Research Background In early thirteenth century, the Europe countries such as Portuguese, Spain, France, Dutch and Great Britain began to command their navy for finding a shortest route to Asia. Spice and territory are the main purpose of the expeditions. These expeditions later led Europe’s desire to control all the area with the precious goods which marked the beginning of imperialism. In 14th century, Portugal and Spain were the leading countries while Dutch dominated the activities in the following century. Among the explorer countries mentioned above, British rise to control many territories around the world. Around 16th century, British Empire began to be known with its imperial ambition with matching skills. During this century, British had its rivalry with Dutch and fought against each other in series of war. The British Empire also faced the other Europe countries such as French and Spanish for territory outside Europe especially in Asia and Africa. At the peak of British Empire, their territory covered America (13 colonies), Australia, New Zealand, China, Canada, Egypt, India and several smaller islands (Luscombe, 2014). The interaction between India and British people began when the East India Company (EIC) was established in 1600. At first, this company was made up by a group of British merchants to trade peacefully with the native of India. However, the development of this company changed the main purpose of trade and began to 1 2 conquer the India’s land. The fallen reign of Mughal Empire and the loss of French in a battle with British pushed the EIC to take control of the government and the trade activities in India. The battle of Plassey in 1757 between British army and Bengal army which allied with French won by British army marked British as the major power in India (Butler, 2007). For almost 200 years (1757-1947) India was under British Empire’s rule specifically EIC. In this period, the company was often raising the tax based on the Parliament’s decision to avoid bankruptcy. The British people were also known to try for converting the native as Christian. The peak of the edgy situation in India was the Great Mutiny India in 1857 which lasted for a year. The main cause of this revolt was the speculation about kind of grease used for the sepoy (the native people worked for British military). The Muslim suspected it was pig grease which they despise. On the other hand, the Hindu people predicted cow grease being used since cow is a holy animal. After the revolt ended in 1858, the British Empire dissolved EIC and ruled India directly for 89 years. India finally gained independence on August 15th 1947. The existence of New Zealand for British people was discovered by Captain James Cook based on his journal from 1769. His attempt to communicate with the native known as Maori failed. It was because he felt intimidated by the hostility of Maori people. After this discovery, the English settlers along the France settlers tried to live peacefully with the Maori as the majority native of New Zealand. In 1840, the British succeeded to buy some land from the local known as Treaty of 3 Waitangi. The rapid population of the settlers made the Maori isolated in their own land and caused war between them. This condition made the British Empire decided to establish the colonial government in 1842 and succeeded in 1845 when Sir George Grey appointed as Governor. He with the help of loyal Maori could overcome the rebel and improve the relationship between the native and settlers (Sinclair, 1980). Based on Royal Proclamation, New Zealand became an independent dominion on 26 September 1907. New Zealand gained full independence on 1931 and ratified in 1947 by New Zealand Parliament. The decision made this country as a sovereign monarchy and part of Commonwealth of Nations until present day. The prospect of slave, gold and ivory was the British people’s interest to trade with the native of Africa. In the beginning, the British did not stay long in Africa since the continent was referred as “the white man’s grave” at the time. However, the Britain government’s interest of Africa changed in 19th century along with the other European countries. The first step taken by the government was seizing Cape Town from Dutch in 1806. They assumed that this area was more comfortable for British people than other areas in Africa. The resistance came from the Boers (Dutch farming community) and the native in north of Cape Town. The government then integrated all colonies in South Africa into the Union of South Africa. (Lucombre, 2014). Later, the interest of Britain government extended to the north of Africa. In 1875, Britain bought Suez Canal from Egyptian government. This act established 4 British Empire’s territory in North Africa. In 1881, Egypt suffered a crisis and tried to expel Britain and French from Egypt. The combined army from British and French was supposed to restore Egypt after crisis but the French government pulled out the army and left British to manage Egypt. This allowed the British people to control completely the trade from Europe to Asia (specifically from Britain to India). To ensure the stability of trade, the British Empire decided to seize Sudan as well. According to McLeod (2007), after the motion “scramble of Africa” in 1880s and 1890s, the Britain occupied some populated territories which were “Egypt, the ‗Central African Federation’ (Northern and Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland), Nigeria and British East Africa” (p. 28). The long story of British invasion to other countries such as India, New Zealand and Africa changed the conditions in both the British Empire and the colonized. The changes can be seen from many aspects such as political, social and psychological in both parties. In literature field, the condition can be tracked down though the literary works from both parties. These literary works contains the representation of the native people and the British people. The most common sample is Joseph Conrad with his Heart of Darkness (1899). In this novella Conrad described the native of Africa with its dark environment. Conrad’s description in Heart of Darkness can be seen as the representation of African native from the British people’s point of view. In other word, Heart of Darkness implied the representation of African native based on Joseph Conrad. According to Cambridge dictionary, representation can be defined as “the way 5 that someone is shown described”. Since British Empire had many colonies in 18th century, many English authors have travelled to those colonies. The result of their observation in the foreign part of British Empire was the literary woks depicted the situation there. Among many English authors who wrote about the other region of British Empire, Rudyard Kipling, Mary Beaumont, and Joseph Conrad present the native in their short stories. Their stories entitled “The Man Who Would Be King”, “The Revenge of Her Race”, and “An Outpost of Progress” have setting in India, New Zealand, and Africa as part of British Empire during colonialism era. Finding out the representation of native people in the short stories is the main purpose of this study. This study uses postcolonial theory because postcolonial theory offers a set of guidelines to find the representation of native people. B. Problem Statement Based on the research background above, the problem statements can be stated as follows: 1. how are the native people in Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King”, Beaumont’s “The Revenge of Her Race”, and Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress” represented? 2. how does the representation of native people in the short stories reflects colonialism? 6 C. Objective of Study 1. To describe the representation of native people in Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King”, Beaumont’s “The Revenge of Her Race”, and Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress”. 2. To describe colonialism in Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King”, Beaumont’s “The Revenge of Her Race”, and Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress”. D. Scope of Study The study is focused on the representation of native people in the three short stories by Rudyard Kipling, Mary Beaumont and Joseph Conrad. This study only examines the native people as represented in each short story. For this reason, this study is limited to the native people character in the short stories. E. Benefit of the Study 1. To give the image on how the English authors present the native people in their works specifically short stories. 2. To give a glimpse of colonialism in India, New Zealand, and Africa as part of British Empire. 3. To serve as a model of postcolonial studies. 7 F. Research Methodology 1. Type of Research This study belongs to qualitative research. The main purpose of qualitative research is “understanding some aspect of social life” and deals with words as the main data rather than number. Qualitative research also inclines to answer questions of ‗what’, ‗why’ and ‗how’ of a phenomenon (Brikci & Green, 2007). In literary studies, the research is done to understand the culture and the humanity aspects implied in literary works. Thus, qualitative research can be applied for literary studies such as in this study. 2. Source of Data and Data The main sources of data of this research are the short stories entitled “The Man Who Would Be King” (TMWWBK) by Rudyard Kipling, “The Revenge of Her Race” (TRHR) by Mary Beaumont, and “An Outpost of Progress” (AOP) by Joseph Conrad. The short stories were written during colonialism era and present the condition in India, New Zealand and Africa as the part of British Empire at the time. The short stories imply the relationship between British colonizer and the native. The first two short stories are taken from an anthology book, Stories by English Authors: Orient (1902). The book used in this study was published by Project Gutenberg which is retrieved from its official website www.gutenberg.org. The third short story is taken from anthology entitled Tale of Unrest (1888) published by Free Classic e-book and retrieved from its official website www.freeclassicbooks.com. 8 The secondary source of data is needed to support the analysis. The data consists of the short stories’ critics, historical facts, the authors’ biography and other references related to the topic. The data are obtained from books, articles in internet, and journals. 3. Method of Interpretation The method used in this study is hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is known as a method to discover the hidden meaning within texts. Originally, hermeneutics was used for sacred text such as Bible. The development of hermeneutics allow this method used in more secular texts which have the same seriousness as sacred text. The aim of this method is to get a better understanding of the world after reading the texts (Simms, 2003). Paul Ricoeur, a philosopher and theorist, gives two important elements in hermeneutics. The first element is known as Distanciation, a condition where the reader detaches any emotion from the reading. Distanciation is needed to ensure the objectivity of the reader and understanding the text in first reading. The second step in hermeneutics method is known as Appropriation. Appropriation allows the reader to interpret the text based on their understanding through reading. This part marks the subjectivity of the reader as part of “self-understanding” (Suazano, 2014). 9 4. Technique of Collecting Data The first step of collecting data is having a close reading to all the sources of data. During the reading, the researcher took notes to all things related to the study. From the notes and deeper reading, I filtered the raw data to have more clues about the authors’ representation of native people. 5. Technique of Analyzing Data There are two steps of analyzing data in this study. The first step is the data analyzed using structuralism to construct the representative of native people by Kipling, Beaumont and Conrad. The finding from first step later is analyzed based on postcolonial theory. The finding is compared with the historical facts during colonialism era in the three different areas as presented in the short stories to find the compatibility with the authors’ depiction of the colonialism era in their short stories. G. Theoretical Approach Postcolonial study is a field of study focused of the Non-Western countries and the Western countries which has history in imperialism. Postcolonial studies generally can be defined as The postcolonial theory deals with cultural contradictions, ambiguities and perhaps, ambivalences. It repudiates anticolonial nationalist theory and implies a movement beyond a specific point in history (i.e. colonialism). (Sawant, 2012) 10 Postcolonial studies are known as part of cultural studies along with Postmodern, Post Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction and other studies. Different from classic studies such as Semiotic or Formalism, postcolonial is rather an interdisciplinary study. Furthermore, Prasad (2003) states that postcolonial theory consists of “a set of productively syncretic theoretical and political positions that creatively employ concepts and epistemological perspective deriving from a range of scholarly field...as well as from multiple approaches to inquiry...” (p. 7) which proves postcolonial as an interdisciplinary study. The application of postcolonial study in this study is relevant since this study focuses on relationship between the native and British author. In this relationship, the view of each party is different as elaborated by Edward Said (1978). He explained that the colonizer or the Occident viewed the native’s (the Orient) place as myth therefore exotic. Said also gives several criteria of the Occident view of the Orient. These criteria become guideline for determining the representation of native people in this study. 11 H. Thesis Organization The research contains four chapters with some sub chapters. The four chapters consist of introduction, literature review, discussion and conclusion. The first chapter is the introduction of the research. It covers research background, research questions, research benefit, methodology, theoretical approach and thesis organization. The second chapter is literature review. This chapter contains the previous researches, postcolonial theory and Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. The third chapter is discussion. In this chapter the analysis of the representation of Native people in short story written by Kipling, Beaumont, and Conrad are explained in details. The reflection of colonialism era based on the authors’ depiction is also elaborated in this chapter. The third chapter also served as the main focus of this research. The last chapter is conclusion and recommendation. This chapter summarizes the previous chapters and gives recommendation to the reader. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW A. Previous Researches There are several essays about representation of native in postcolonial field. Edward Said wrote in his book Culture and Imperialism (1993) about his reading of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. In section “Two Visions in Heart of Darkness” as quoted by Philip and Patricia (1996), he points out 2 arguments or visions from Heart of Darkness. The first argument is the Western imperialism that still controls their old territory in Africa and Asia “mentally and intellectually” although they were no longer ruled them physically (p. 354). His second argument is that Heart of Darkness was a cruel plan to civilize the savage as Said put “to bring light to the dark places”. However, both Marlow and Kurtz did not recognize the impendence of the darkness or the natives. It reflects Conrad as “a creature of his time” where imperialism still in place and he failed to see the possibility of the end of imperialism (p. 358). Aside from his two arguments, Said implies that imperialism dominates the system of representation in which the native were not given their own voices and must rely on Marlow’s description of them in Heart of Darkness. The way Marlow keeps his explanation vague during his narration makes the native’s image not appears as it to be. Marlow’s miss presenting of Africa shows Conrad’s view of Africa and its native people as darkness where it needs light as presented 12 13 by the white people. Thus, to bring light to the dark places is done by civilizing – colonizing them. Like Said, Mirela Karagic analyzes the representation of native in her essay entitled Representation of Other A Postcolonial Study of the Representation of the Natives in Relation to the Colonizers in The Stranger and Disgrace in 2013. In The Stranger (written by Albert Camus) set in Algeria, the male native only referred to “a group of Arabs” and repeatedly called as Arab (p. 9) to show their hostile behavior. On the other hand, the female native are described as exotic instead of savage like the male native since Camus uses term “Moorish” rather than Arab (p. 10). Camus is only giving them the silent gesture to reflect their inferiority in front of white people. Karagic then concluded that the Stranger is a depiction of power hierarchy in Algerian with French people as the center and the native as the background (p. 18). Her next analysis in J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace has similar point with Camus’ such as the representation of the male native as wild and the female native as exotic. This novel has taken place in South Africa postindependence which showed the shift of power unlike Camus’ The Stranger. The proof of the shifting power is Lurie’s (white protagonist character) daughter who had been raped by the native men. She decided to keep her child to maintain the peace. It shows her acknowledgement of the shifting power and the loss of white people’s supremacy to the native people (p.29). Based on her analysis in The Stranger and Disgrace, she concludes that both the native are described as “instances, exotic, strange, hostile and mysterious” (p.28). 14 Another essay was written by Jana Giles entitled The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (2002). This essay examines the tragedy of colonial romance and the self-representation in Wide Sargasso Sea. Giles classified Wide Sargasso Sea as ethnography since Edward tried to assert himself as “Rochester” as a leader in patriarchal system and Antoinette as “Bertha” to show his hegemony. She also categorizes this novella as auto ethnography because the text is “written dialogically by and for Antoinette, Christophine and Rhys herself that heterogeneously engages with and challenges metropolitan idioms” (p. 161). In this essay, the writer mentions that both Rochester and Antoinette are in conflict in their self-representation. Edward Rochester was a naive young Englishman with colonizer education and culture. With his visit to Jamaica, he began to lose his self-representation as an Englishman and had the need to resist it. He did it by erasing Antoinette with Bertha. It is because he wanted what Antoinette had. He was also driven by his jealously of her (p. 174). Antoinette, on the other hand, was conflicted where she did not belong to both white and black people in Jamaica as implied in her nickname “white cockroach” (p. 165). Her hard effort to be more connected with the land and its people in her childhood failed and her self-representation becomes a contradiction. Antoinette’s marriage with Rochester threatened her identity as Rochester tried to call her Bertha. This act was silencing and determining her voice as part of the Creole or the native people. She spoke through Rochester and fell back in silence until Rhys allowed her to talk (p. 178). Giles also finds that the black culture in this book is 15 described as “damnation and danger” although Rhys never uses this continually (p.166). However, Rhys gives Christophine more rational thinking than Rochester and Antoinette since she could see clearly the struggle to maintain selfrepresentation in Jamaica. The essays mentioned above inspired me to conduct this study about the representation of native people in “The Man Who Would Be King”, “The Revenge of Her Race”, and “An Outpost of Progress” from the point of view of the colonizer. Furthermore, this study tries to see the condition of colonialism era from the short stories. B. Postcolonial Studies There are many varieties about the term postcolonialism in this field. The term of “postcolonialism” is often written with hyphen between the words (postcolonialism) and without hyphen (postcolonialism). The same variation is applied with “post-colonial” and “postcolonial”. Both terms are used by many critics with various definitions. It makes the final meaning of both terms are confusing. However, this study follows the term used by John McLeod (2000), that is, “postcolonialism” and “postcolonial” (without hyphen). In the introduction of his book, he states that postcolonial with hyphen (post-colonial) is referring more to the historical period and equals with “after colonialism” or “after independence”. 16 Then he argues that postcolonialism is not merely a historical period but deals also with “representations, reading practices, and value” (p.5). Postcolonialism or postcolonial study is a study of relationship between the once colonizer (West/ First World) with the once colonized countries (non-West/ Third World) as Prasad claims Postcolonial theory and criticism (or postcolonialism, in short)3 represents an attempt to investigate the complex and deeply fraught dynamics of modern Western colonialism and anticolonial resistance, and the ongoing significance of the colonial encounter for people’s lives both in the West and the non-West (2003, 5). Prasad’s statement above implies that postcolonial theory deals with the relationship between the ex-colonized and colonizer’s country both in past and present day. The relationship can be seen from many aspects such as politics, psychology and culture. Because of this, postcolonialism needs other related studies which makes postcolonialism as interdisciplinary field. According to Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (2001), the main concern of postcolonialism is the effects of colonization on cultures and societies (p.186). This term was originally used by the historians to classify the era after colonialism. However, from the late 1970s onward, the literary critics also use this term to discover the culture effects of colonialism. 17 In literary field, literary works become the perfect tools to discover the relationship of West and non-West and its effect. It is because the works are treated as a record of its author who experiences colonialism. From their experiences and their ideology, the authors then construct the other party. Thus, the knowledge and power of the authors create what later known as representation. Since earlier works were written by the colonizer, the author created the representation of the native which becomes a myth for the non-West people. However, after India independence in 1947, many native writers created their works to give another view of colonialism, specifically in the native’s view. In 1970s some critics from various fields began to publish their works regarding the author’s representation of native people. Some of well-known critics who wrote about the representation of native people are Edward Said with Orientalism in 1978, and Homi Bhabha with his collection of essays entitled The Location of Culture (1994). Their works have the same subject, that is, the East or Oriental (Said’s term) is shaped based on the West people experiences in that place which makes the appearance of the native people is miss presented. Their works also shape postcolonial theory in general and representation of native specifically. 18 1. Orientalism by Edward Said Orientalism is one of pioneer works in postcolonial studies. This book is first published at 1978 and still quoted by the most books about postcolonial. Orientalism is reprinted in 1995 (new afterword) and 2003 (updated preface). This book is divided into three long chapters with 12 smaller subchapters. According to Said in his preface (2003), this book is already translated into 36 languages all over the world and discussed by many intellectuals (p. xi). In his introduction, Said informs that his definition of Orientalism is broader than the other academics’ definition. Then he defined Orientalism as “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” (p. 3). His hypothesis of Orientalism is “the Orient is not an inert fact of nature” (p. 4) which means the Orient is constructed by many intellectuals for a long time and by generalizing many Orientalist assumptions and stereotypes (Ashcroft et al., 2001, p. 168). Said adds that “The relationship between Occident and Orient is a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony,…” (p. 5). This relationship then allows the Occident to recreate the Orient because the Occident is the one who discovered the Orient. Additionally, Said mentions that there is no method allowing the scholar or writer to be detached with their surroundings. The same case applies with the link between ideology and writing. He states that Orientalism is not only a political affair or some the Occident’s scheme to control the Orient but 19 it is, rather than expresses, a certain will or intention to understand, in some cases to control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is a manifestly different (or alternative and novel) world; it is, above all, a discourse that is by no means in direct, corresponding relationship with political power… intellectual,… cultural,… moral… (p.12) Then, Said tells his aim to study Orientalism as “a dynamic exchange between individual authors and the large political concerns shaped by the three great empires—British, French, American—in whose intellectual and imaginative territory the writing was produced.” (p. 15). He also states his research questions as “How did philology, lexicography, history, biology, political and economic theory, novel-writing, and lyric poetry come to the service of Orientalism's broadly imperialist view of the world? What changes, modulations, refinements, even revolutions take place within Orientalism?” (p. 15). Said then moves to his methodological focus which about “the history authority” and “the personal authorities of Orientalism”. His methodological devices to investigate authority are strategic location and strategic formation. Said’s limitation in Orientalism is “the Anglo-French-American experience of the Arabs and Islam, which for almost a thousand years together stood for the Orient.” (p. 17) or Near Orient because he can separate the interaction between the white people and Near Orient with the events in Far East (India, Japan and China). The term “Near Orient” refers to the close position of Arabs from Europe geographically. He elaborates that his limitation is not ignoring 20 Orientalism in Far East. It is because many events in Far Orient with the Occident cannot be separated with the condition in Near Orient. Said begins with analyzing the speeches about Egypt by Arthur James Balfour and Lord Cromer. Then he concludes from the speeches into the simplest outline as “There are Westerners, and there are the Orientals. The former must dominate; the latter must be dominated, which usually means having their land occupied, their internal affairs rigidly controlled, their blood and treasure put at disposal of one or another Western power.” (p. 36). The outline also supports the idea that the Occident is superior to the Orient because the British have more knowledge about the Orient than the Orient themselves. This allows them to create the image of Oriental as Said illustrates The Orient was viewed as if framed by the classroom, the criminal court, the prison, the illustrated manual. Orientalism, then, is the knowledge of the Orient that places things Oriental in class, court, prison, or manual for scrutiny, study, judgment, discipline, or governing. (p. 41) The image of Orientalism serves as the display of the Western’s strength and the Orient’s flaw according to the Western (p. 45). Another effect of this image is the polarized position of the Orient to show the differentiation from the Western. People between the Orient and Occident is not encouraged to encounter each other as he expresses “Orientals lived in their world, “we” lived in ours. From this point, the Western scholars at the time had drawn an imaginative geographical line between the West and the Orient. According to 21 Said, this line can be seen from the ancient Greece texts Aeschylus’s The Persians and The Bacchae. The purpose of this line is to draw the distinction between the Orient and Occident which shown Europe as “powerful and articulate” and Asia as “defeated and distant” (p. 57). Again, this shows the West as “a genuine creator” of the Orient’s image. Said then portrays the concept of representation in theatrical way The Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe. (p. 63) Said then explains the various projects done by the Orientalist about Orient and Islam. Islam, according to him, is a challenge to the Western and Christianity since Islam’s territory is geographically and culturally close to Europe. This way, Orientalism can be defined as “the discipline which the Orient was (and is) approached systematically, as a topic of learning, discovery, and practice.” (p. 73). The Orientalist collected the data of the Orient throughout their task such as the text and languages. This data were used to create the Orient as a peculiar place and distant. Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt and the opening of Suez Canal also part of Orientalist project. The failure of Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt did not obliterate his purpose of Orient. On the contrary, this event leads to “the entire modern experience of the Orient as interpreted from within the universe of 22 discourse…” (p. 87). Moreover, the Suez Canal project changes the view of Orientalist. The canal represents the destroyed distance between Orient and Occident and de-polarized world of West and East into “our world”. Because of this, the idea of Orient is moved into “an administrative or executive one, and it subordinate to demographic, economic, and sociological factors.” (p. 92). This marks the shift of Orientalism from an academic study into imperialism practice. Again, Said argues that text influence the construction of Orient, “… such text can create not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe…. Produce tradition, or what Michael Foucault calls a discourse…” (p. 94). Since most of text about Orient is written by Western Orientalist, the knowledge of Orient is known from the Orientalist’s constructed texts about them as he declares “Orientalism overrode the Orient” (p. 96) and makes the Orient appear to be unchanging or static. These texts also make the Orient as a general object to show a part of their eccentricity (p. 102). This shows the West’s authority toward the Orient, as Said illustrates as “The West is the actor, the Orient a passive reactor. The West is the spectator, the judge and jury, of every facet of Oriental behavior.” (p. 109) although many their scholars’ texts are incorrectly describe the Orient. The Orient in nineteenth century is resurrected and modernized by the Orientalist who saw themselves as a hero saving the Orient from its unknown. This puts the Orientalist as a “central authority for the Orient” and the Orient’s 23 being is “spoken for”. At the same time, the Orientalist’s gains of their position to the Orient also mean their loss of originality since the model they used was “reconstruction and repetition” (p. 122). According to Said, there are two important figures of shaping Orientalism, Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan. Sacy’s focus is delivered the Orient to his student by “its most representative parts need be” and reasoned that Orient is “old and distant” and “vastly rich” (p. 125). Sacy’s view to the Orient is that they are needed to be presented by the Orientalist since they cannot gain the similar degree of civilization like the West, even with special training. Since the Orientalist is the finder of Orient, they need to “present the Orient by a series of representative fragments, fragments republished, explicated, annotated, and surrounded with still more fragments.” (p. 128). The other scholar, Ernest Renan, was associating the Orient with philology with recreated the Semitic language. This creation then known as Semitic Orient. He found that compared with the Indo-European language as “the living, organic form,” (p. 143) the Semitic is “inorganic, arrested,… Semitic is not a live language, and for that matter, neither are Semities live creatures.” (p. 145). His statement displays the act of imperial power since he constructs the Orient as non-living creature. Said then criticizes Renan’s statement with inequality comparison in terms of philologist which traced back into linguistics. Said then discussed the Orientalist’s way to get the information of the Orient by first-hand experience without losing their objectivity. His example is Edward William Lane’s observation of Egypt who pretended to be a Moslem 24 to observe Egypt’s culture. To him, Lane’s action is the representation of the Occident’s penetration to the Orient. The result of the East’s observation then filtered and reproduced in and for the West. To put it another way, “the Orient… would be converted from the personal, sometimes garbled testimony of intrepid voyagers and residents into impersonal definition by whole array of scientific workers.” (p. 166). In the end, he concludes that Orientalism in 19th century is that the government and institutions work better as imperial object than the Orientalist’s individual academic object. The changes of the Orient clearly can be seen by Said, “From being place, the Orient became the domain of actual scholarly rule and potential imperial sway.” (p. 197) which continues to the following century. Said then introduces the latent and manifest Orientalism. He defines latent Orientalism as “an almost (and certainly an untouchable) positivity” (p. 206) uses for denying the development and movement of the Orient which creates them as “static, frozen, fixed eternally.” (p. 209). He says that the root of latent Orientalism is in its geography and the way to know the Orient (p. 216). Manifest Orientalism can be described as “the various stated views about Oriental society, languages, literatures, history, sociology, and so forth…” (p. 206). He adds that the change of the Orient’s knowledge is part of manifest Orientalism. Said mentions two methods of delivering the Orient to the Occident in 20th century. The first method is institutionalized knowledge which creates latent Orientalism (p. 221) and “an important convergence” (p. 222) as the second method. Here, the Orientalist gathered the data of the 25 Orient distantly yet the distance is reduced in 19th century. This makes the tension between latent and manifest Orientalism. Kipling’s representation of the European in his works shows the imperialism by British. Said’s analysis of the white men’s pronoun usage “we” shows that the Orient cannot be “independent and rule themselves” (p. 228). The pronounce “we” also indicates the polarized West and East and forces the distinction of the Orient (p. 230) and until the East catch up the rational thinking of the Europe, the pronoun “our” cannot be used. He expresses this polarization the impact of generalization of the Orient. Orientalism begins to enter new era where the Western Orientalist found the Orient more challenging and the West itself has a new cultural crisis. Then, Said shifts his attention to other phenomenon which is Islamic Orientalism and its growth. He examines Louis Massignon and H. A. R. Gibb and concludes that although old Orientalism is separated in many parts but all those parts still serves the traditional Orientalist dogma (p. 284). Orientalism also has influence in United States after World War II. As Said mentions, United States become the center of world politics left by Britain and France. Later, United States continued the tradition from the West of Orientalism as part of their cultural relation policy. Finally, Said concludes the book with the triumph of Orientalism, as the Orientalist cannot ignore and avoid the Orient’s presence because “the answer to Orientalism is not Occidentalism.” (p. 328). 26 2. The Location of Culture by Homi Bhabha Homi Bhabha is known as one of leading figures in postcolonial field. One of his remarkable works is The Location of Culture (1994). This book contains his essays regarding the hybridity of the Orient entitled “The Commitment of Theory”, “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of colonial discourse”, “Sly civility”, “Sign taken for wonders: Questions of ambivalence and authority under a tree outside Delhi, May 1817”, and “DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the margins of modern nation”. In this book he also included his introduction and the conclusion of his previous essays in “Conclusions: ‗Race’, time and the revision of moderenity.” Bhabha introduces his mimicry theory in “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of colonial discourses”. Then he defines mimicry as “a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite” (p.86). He elaborates further that mimicry is used by the colonizer to make the native follows the colonizer’s desire. The colonizer’s purpose of mimicry is to normalize them, in accordance with the Occident’s standard of civilization. Bhabha also states the foundation of mimicry as A desire that, through the repetition of partial presence which is the basis of mimicry, articulates those disturbances of cultural, racial, and historical difference that menace the narcissistic demand of colonial authority (p. 88) 27 The repetition in mimicry can be traced from the colonizer’s writing, as his examples of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo and V. S. Naipul’s The Mimic Men. Furthermore, in cultural aspect, the attempt of mimicry is shown by the native’s repressed tradition, along with other aspects such as political and economic. Bhabha expresses that the effect of mimicry is ‗profound and disturbing’ (p. 86). It is because the native assumes they are a step higher that their fellow native based on the way they dress and speak. This native alienates their own culture to accept the colonizer’s culture. However, this attempt shows the imbalance effect to the person. This imbalance of the partial representation means as ‗incomplete” and “virtual”. There is a possibility that the native does not notice this unbalance and creates the illusion of him or herself as equal with their colonizer. The colonizer’s attempt to instill their culture is not fully succeeded. The clash between two cultures – native and colonizer – makes mimicry is slipping away. The repetition of the colonizer’s knowledge creates a pull between the native which causes them to be a partial presence. Bhabha explains further in his essay “Sly Civility” that mimicry creates ambivalence in both the native and the colonizer. It is because the ambivalence happens as the effect of partial and double repetition in mimicry, as Bhabha writes Both colonizer and colonized are in a process of miscognition where each point of identification is always a partial and 28 double repetition of the otherness of the self – democrat and despot, individual and servant, native and child (p. 97). In his other essay “Sign Taken for Wonder: Questions of ambivalence and authority under a tree outside Delhi, May 1817”, Bhabha explains further about ambivalence and gives example of the presence of English book in India. These books create “ambivalence between the origin and displacement, discipline, mimesis, and repetition” (p. 110). To the colonizer, the English books were sign of authority since the native were going to learn from these texts. The double vision in the text shows the partial presence of the representative of whole. Bhabha mentions his example as “… the Bible translated into Hindi, propagated by Dutch or native catechists, is still the English book…” (p. 108). The double forces in these books then cause a discrimination of the native who is treated as the colonizer’s fantasy in matter of identity. The discrimination also occurs between “the mother and its bastards”, where the repeated party is evolving into something different – “a mutation, a hybrid” (p. 111). This phenomenon is theorized by Bhabha as hybridity. Bhabha then defines what he means of hybridity as Hybridity is the name of this displacement of value from symbol to sign that causes the dominant discourse to split along the axis of its power to be representative, authoritative. Hybridity represents that ambivalent ‗turn’ of the discriminated subject into something terrifying, exorbitant, object of paranoid 29 classification – a disturbing images and presence of authority. (p. 113) From the definition above, it is clear that hybridity makes the colonizer lose its authority. Their manifestation of authority is no longer visible within their English books. They also lose its fantasy identity of the native such as the Arabs with its brutality and the laziness of the Indian. Because of this Bhabha concludes that every English book is read as a product of hybridity, it retains its existence but no longer a whole essence. Hybridity also can be seen as the native’s resistance. Bhabha shows this resistance when he quotes the native’s words Amund Messeh’s tale, “we are willing to be baptized, but we never will take the Sacrament.” (p.103). The native later explains their refusal to Sacrament because they (European) eat cow which is sacred in India. From the tale above, the colonizer through the missionaries are only able to instill half their authority. Finally, Bhabha makes a link between mimicry, ambivalent, and hybridity. He states that mimicry is caused by hybridity which includes ambivalence in it. Hybridity then becomes a mockery for the authority after they lose the power. Then he offers a third choice of Fanon’s “turn white or disappear?” which is a camouflage (p. 120) for the native when facing the colonizer’s force. 30 C. Hermeneutic Phenomenology Hermeneutics is originally a method used for interpreting the sacred texts such as Bible. This method also related closely to semiotic and philosophy. The development of hermeneutics allows the non-sacred text to be analyzed with this method. The recent development of hermeneutics is known as hermeneutic phenomenology. Hermeneutics Phenomenology is first introduced by Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. From the term itself, it is clear that hermeneutic phenomenology is a unification of hermeneutics and phenomenology to achieve deeper understanding of text. Later, Paul Ricoeur improves this method with the influence of structuralism and psychoanalysis. Paul classifies text a discourse (writing text) and dialogue (oral text). According to him, discourse has less limit than dialogue since dialogue is a closed relationship and locked in ‗I-thou relationship’ (1966, p. 90). He also assumes text as an autonomous works which means independent to its author and reader. Ricoeur’s reason to treat text as an object is to achieve better understanding, since text escapes the original writer’s intention. This independence opens new meaning of text based on the reader’s situation (Suazo, 2014:4). Paul next step to achieve an understanding of text is to offer distanciation and appropriation. The main purpose of distanciation is to distance the object from its author’s psychology and ideology. Distanciation also confirms text as an autonomous system since the result of this method is an objective understanding. 31 John B. Thompson provides the summary of Ricoeur’s four principles in distanciation as follows: 1. First principal, the surpassing of the event of saying by the meaning of what is said. Ricoeur explains that the original text is expanded into different pattern of speech act such as “intentional exteriorisation”. This expansion also happens in writing. The various phrasing in writing makes the meaning in writing goes beyond the real event in speech act. 2. Second principal, distanciation concerns the relationship between the inscribed expression and original speaker. This principle contains Ricoeur’s explanation about the relationship between speech and writing. Here, text is a bridge between the writer and the (original) reader. However, the write’s intention is altered from the speech to writing as the reader’s initial understanding. He argues that the altered text now has different reader from a distance of the original reader. 3. Third principal, introducing a similar discrepancy between the inscribed expression and the original audience. This principle deals with the relationship between the writing and the original reader. Text experiences “decotextualise” from its original social culture when produced and read by a non-original reader. 32 Decontextualise of text allows the reader from different period to interpret differently. 4. Forth principal, the emancipation of the text from the limits of ostensive reference. Ricoeur says that the speech is constricted by a closed relationship as explained before. However, text has no limit even after the writer and the original intended reader are passed away. The second element in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics is appropriation. He defines appropriation in “What is a Text?” and cited by McCord as follows By ‗appropriation’, I understand this; that interpretation of a text culminates in the self-interpretation of a subject who thenceforth understand himself differently, or simply begins to understand himself... thus genuinely making one’s own what was initially alien. (p. 13-14) From the definition above, it is clear that the reader is having different interpretation from one to another. In appropriation, the reader’s subjectivity is totally visible. The different socio-culture condition is not complicating the reader to interpret, instead the reader’s subjectivity enriches the text’s meaning. The meaning is clear and familiar as Ricoeur says “making one’s own what was initially alien”. The reader’s interpretation is often far from the text’s original intention but never dominant. It is because “subjectivity is not becoming objectivity since subjectivity is grounded on the ontological participation of 33 being-in-the-world.” (Suazo, p. 9). All things considered, appropriation is a result from distanciation and coupled with the reader’s subjectivity. To Ricoeur, the best way to reach appropriation is through reading. In reading, the transformation from the objectivity of text to the reader’s subjectivity where text is treated as a new knowledge occurs. Through reading, the reader’s horizon is amplified and allows them of “the possibility of seeing thing differently and orienting oneself in other ways in the world.” (Ghasemi, et. al, 1626) Between distanciation and appropriation, there is a moment of interpretation. In interpretation, the reader must find his or her understanding from text. The first (naive) understanding allows the reader to deeper understanding after the re-read process (Ghasemi et.al, 1625). Ricoeur then develops interpretation into a theory of which the aim is This theory seeks to integrate explanation and understanding in a constructive dialectic which is rooted in the properties of text. (Thompson, 2003: 5) From the quotation above, it is stated that theory of interpretation consists of two points, that is, explanation and understanding. Explanation (what the text says) investigates the internal part of the text. Based on Thompson’s explanation, the result of distanciation before is the author’s intention which is treated as an unsolved understanding by the reader. Because of this, the reader must construct a whole meaning from the unsolved understanding before (p. 54). 34 On the other hand, understanding is focused on “grasping the meanings; the text discloses (the whole in relation to its parts)” (p. 1626) as Ghasemi et.al states. In understanding, there are two possible approaches to text where the reader treats text as “worldless and self-entity” which Thompson elaborates as founded by the structuralist. The second possible approach to text is to find the non-apparent reference of text from their reading. These readers are no longer trying to find the hidden meaning within the text but “which is says it about” (p. 54). Ricoeur, in Thompson, claims that from interpretation the reader finds out that understanding is not accomplished by “something felt” but possibility reference from explanation, namely “a possible world disclosed by the text.” (p. 54). From the elements above, Ricoeur creates his heremeneutic circle. This circle is not vicious but rather “a living and stimulating circle” (p. 38) as Sims quotes. Paul Ricoeur’s circle is pictured as below Interpretation (Explanation and Understanding) Text Distanciation Approppriation 35 Based on the diagram above, Ghasemi et. al are able to create the application of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. One important note, distanciation takes place before the interpretation begin, thus the application level only involves interpretation and appropriation element in Ghasemi et.al’s scheme (p. 1627-1628). There are three step which are: 1. level 1 analysis: Explanation (what the text says) with a naive undestanding of text as the result. 2. level 2 analysis : Understanding (what the text talks about) where the reader with basic understanding is able to find deeper understanding slowly. 3. level 3 analysis: Appropriation, the turning point when the understanding of text is applied in life, thus expanding the reader’s horizon. CHAPTER III ANALYSIS A. Representation of Native People in Kipling’s, Beaumont’s and Conrad’s Short Stories 1. The Man Who Would Be King “The Man Who Would Be King” (TMWWBK) is originally published in The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Eerie Tales (1888) and later in Stories by English Author: The Orient (1902). Some critics say that TMWWBK is a mockery of British imperialism in India known as “imperial allegory”. The overlapping between reality and fantasy, through the characters, becomes the main foundation in TMWWBK. The contradiction between Karifistan (fantasy) and India (reality) helps Kipling to consolidate the mockery as Ridout (2014) states “Kipling’s work highlights the power of the imagination – the dislocation from reality and focus on fantasy – and its detrimental consequences to the imperialist mission”. TMWWBK is told by a nameless narrator who is Kipling himself. TMWWBK is focused on the journey of Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan in Karifistan (territory of Afghanistan) to be the native’s king. Generally, TMWWBK can be divided into two parts. The first part of TMWWBK tells about the narrator’s unexpected meeting with Carnehan who asked the narrator to send a message to Dravot. Later, both Dravot and 36 37 Carnehan came to narrator’s office and told their plan to go to Karifistan and became a ruler of Karifistan. They also made a contract to anticipate temptation as Karifistan’s kings with the narrator’s help. At last, Dravot and Carnehan went to Karifistan dressed as mad priest and his servant. The second part happened after two years, when Carnehan came back to the office and told his journey. He told the narrator how he and Dravot as kings and their fall because of Dravot’s desire to marry a local girl. Because of this, both Dravot and Carnehan along with their followers were pursued by the native. During the pursuit, their followers were killed and Dravot was beheaded. Carnehan himself was crucified but escaped to India. He showed Dravot’s head as a proof to the narrator. During his story, Carnehan became less sane and referred himself as third party. In the end, Carnehan died in asylum because of heat stroke. Kipling shows the differentiation between West and East through India and Karifistan’s description. India is depicted with modernity and indicated by railway-train, “The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to Mhow to Ajmir.” (p. 5). Moreover, Kipling mentions the specialized job for people in India such as the nameless author’s job as a journalist. On the other hand, through the nameless narrator Kipling describes Karifistan as “… sketchy and inaccurate as can be… no one knows anything about it really.” (p. 10) and “The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contradictory and the inhibitants was dispersed and solitary” (p. 14) based on Carnehan’s description. 38 This way, it is clear that in TMWWBK, India represents a place touched by modernity and Karifistan represents a nature-oriented place. Kipling’s description of two different places reveals that he is not nature-friendly person. He sees Karifistan as an uncivilized place because the native people in Karifistan are close to nature. Therefore, he expects the native people to be a primitive race. This way, the British people feel superior to the Orient. It is shown where Kipling uses the British characters, Dravot, Carnehan, and the narrator to describe Karifistan and its native people. Before Carnehan told his story, he admitted his limitation as “I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn’t as good as it might be.” (p. 14) which implies some mirage of the place. However, this limitation does not stop the author to use Carnehan’s depiction of Karifistan as the default representation of Karifistan in TMWWBK. This shows that the native people are not given a chance to speak for themselves and forced to accept the European’s image of them. Because of this representation, Karifistan is seen as a primitive place because this place is without Enlightenment unlike Europe. Kipling gives the example of Karifistan as primitive through the native’s belief. The native in Karifistan has a belief that their ruler is a reincarnation of God. This belief can be shown in the part where Dravot and Carnehan performs the native’s ritual Dravot never winked an eye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand Master’s chair--which was to say, the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing the bottom end of it to clear away the black dirt, and presently he shows all the other priests the Master’s Mark, same as was on Dravot’s 39 apron, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra knew it was there. The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot’s feet and kisses them. (p.17) The reaction of the priest shows that they believed Dravot and Carnehan as the avatar of their idol, Imbra and they are able to be kings. Dravot’s comment “Luck again” expresses their view toward the native’s ritual. They do not believe this ritual but need to prove them by tricking it. Because of their ability to prove themselves as the avatar of God, the native follows their command without protest. This belief is reinforced by the priest’s statement “Neither God nor Devil, but a man!” (p.20) when Dravot shows his bleeding neck. Kipling’s description of native’s belief and the character’s comment shows that Karifistan is an undeveloped place, unlike India. The forced representation in TMWWBK by the author also creates a generalization. The generalization of Karifistan can be seen from Dravot’s ignorance “and it won’t help us to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they’ll fight, and the better for us.” (p. 10). Moreover, the most common comment about the native people in Karifistan is “The people are utter brutes.” (p. 10) and likes to fight each other as narrated by Carnehan …and learns that they was fighting one against the other… and when they wasn’t doing that they was fighting with the Mohammedans. (p. 18) 40 The generalization about the native then makes his assumption of the native people as savage based on their fighting habit. This assumption represents the Englishmen’s common belief of the native people as savage and uncivilized. This view also implies the degeneration of the native people in Karifistan and their inferiority to the Englishmen which leads to the white men’s desire to take control of them. In TMWWBK, Kipling shows British’s imperialism through Dravot and Carnehan’s mission to be the king in Karifistan land. The contradictive opinion occurs to Dravon and Carnehan before and after they go to Karifistan as shown in the following quotation. Dan, they’re stinkin’ lot of heathens, but this book here says they think they’re related to us English. (p.10) ... These men aren’t niggers; they’re English! Look at their eyes-look at their mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own houses. They’re the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they’re grown to be English. (p.18) The second statement exposes Dravot and Carnehan to draw the native’s interest by admitting them as relative. It will be easier for them to become king when the native believes them as relative. From this statement, Kipling through Dravot and Carnehan, seem to disagree the native’s way to be a king which is based on the bloodline. Since Kipling favors rationality as a common Englishmen at the time than a local belief, he believes that a capability is the important requirement to be a king than based on their 41 heritage. Again, this view reinforces the belief that the native people are seen as a primitive. It is because they are holding on an old tradition rather than embracing democracy as part of modernity. Hence, Kipling creates an illustration of native people’s primitive side to show the white people’s Enlightenment. In the Carnehan’s narration, he and Dravot try to convert the native as Englishman slowly. In fact, Dravot and Carnehan’s attempt to exert their superiority to the native can be seen when they rename the native. We gave them names according as they was like men we had known back in India—Billy Fish, Holly Dillworth, Pikky Kergan, that was Bazaar-master when I was at Mhow, and so on, and so on. (p. 17) From this point, the significant native is only called by the name from Dravot and Carnehan. This act also signifies the infiltration of European people to the native people. However, the penetration process did not fully succeed. The renamed native people become a mere imitation of the white people. The impact of this step is the ambivalence within the native people. In this case, the native people’s value did not disappear as illustrated by Billy Fish, one of the native in Karifistan. Billy Fish is the only native characters given specific name and role in TMWWBK by Kipling. Billy Fish’s loyalty to Dravot and Carnehan until death shows the impartial presence of the Englishman. Fish’s native part can be seen during his and the Kings’ running “…and he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray to his Gods.” 42 (p. 22). This act can be seen as the Englishmen’s failure in their mission since Billy Fish experiences ambivalence within him. Moreover, this act signifies Billy Fish’s failure to be an Englishmen. For this reason, the ambivalence within Billy Fish leans into negative aspect based on the native’s perspective. All things considered, TMWWBK is a typical text during colonialism era, where the author (Kipling) constructs the image of the native people represented by Karifistan. He creates the representation of native based on limited knowledge as illustrated by Carnehan’s depiction of the place. Through the white people’s characters, he also uses generalization to the native and ignores the possibility of diversity of native people. This representation then encourages the white people (portrayed by Dravot and Carnehan) to bring the native in a better place, in other words to colonize. Through TMWWBK, it is clear that Kipling favors the white men’s superiority to the native people which allows him to create the representation of the native based on his partial knowledge about the native in India. He might be born and spent his childhood in India, but he was raised in European’s way. Therefore, Kipling’s illustration of the native people is not fully accurate. 43 2. The Revenge of Her Race “The Revenge of Her Race” (TRHR) is written by Mary Beaumont whose real name is Rosa Oakes (née Mellor, 1849–1910). This short story is first published in an anthology entitled A Ringby Lass and Other Stories (1895) and the most well-known stories in this anthology. Because of its fame, TRHR is included in anthologies known as Stories by English Author: The Orient (1902) and Broadview Anthology of Victorian Short Stories in 2004 (http://www.general-books.net/sw2.cfm?q=Mary_Beaumont_(author)). TRHR took place in New Zealand, where the main characters, Horace Denison and his wife (later revealed as Maritana) lived. TRHR begins with Mrs. Denison’s dying moment and her conversation with Alice, a relative of Mr. Denison. After Mrs. Denison’s funeral, Mrs. Bentley (nurse of Mr. Denison’s children) told Alice about Mrs. Denison’s life. She told her that Maritana was a daughter of the native’s chief. At the time Mr. Denison was a young man who looked for fortune in New Zealand. Eventually, they were married and had children named Benjamin (after Mr. Denison’s father) and Marie (after her mother). According to Mrs. Bentley, they lived happily as family although sometime she saw Mrs. Denison’s sorrow. As Mrs. Bentley’s narrated, the source of Mrs. Denison’s sorrow was her Maori heritage. She told Alice at one time Mrs. Denison saw an old man who lived behind their stable ate some stuff. Mrs. Denison began to feel bad because she was tempted to do the same. This situation began to worsen as it 44 happened when Mr. and Mrs. Denison went to see a race. Mr. Denison was invited to have lunch in a carriage. There were many Maori people in front of the carriage and mostly elders. They were eating shark’s flesh and bad corn. Mrs. Denison finally succumbed into her Maori side and joined the other Maoris to eat the flesh. This was happened without Mr. Denison’s knowledge. Mr. Denison found out and took his wife back to carriage then went home. Beaumont then gives the description of Maori people as a savage tribe. It shows in her depiction of the Maori’s eating habit. She uses phrases such as “bad stuff they eat” (p. 48), “Shark’s flesh” (p. 49) and “Bad corn” to emphasize the savage side of Maori people. The eating habit of Maori people also shows the native as a primitive people. On the contrary, the white people are not eating an uncooked food with hygiene as the reason. The author’s chosen words reflects the white men’s view (through the author) to the native people based on their eating habit. Then, it is clear that the white people feel superior to the Maori people. From this view, the white people allow themselves to create the image of the Maori people based on their own standard. However, the standard itself cannot be fully applied to the native people. As the result, the native people are forced to accept the British people’s image on them. Mrs. Denison’s health began to deteriorate since the incident in the race. She began to wish her children did not have their mother’s characteristics. At the peak of her illness, she said to Mrs. Bentley that she wanted her children to be an English not a Maori, as told in the beginning TRHR. Both Mrs. Bentley 45 and Alice then has concluded that Mrs. Denison is a good person despite of her problem. As mentioned before, TRHR takes place in New Zealand, specifically in Wellington. Beaumont’s description of Wellington is divided into two as depicted in the following part. The low hedge, where the creepers climbed, divided the lawn and its magnificent Wellingtonians from the meadow. There was little grass to be seen, for it was at this time one vast profusion of delicate ixias of every bright and tender shade. (p. 45) The depiction above shows that the European people and Maori live in separate place in Wellington. It means the author draws an imaginary line between the native and the white people’s place. The creepers in the quotation above represent the line. As a result, the author creates two opposite place that represent both parties with the impact is isolating each other. Beaumont uses word “lawn” to symbolize the white people’s place since the lawn is a part of a house. This is proved when she begins to introduce the main character “…where she could see the garden and the meadow, and beyond all, the Mountain Beautiful…” (p. 45). The word “magnificent Welingtonians” also confirms the development of the European civilization in New Zealand. The author wants to show her reader that the white people’s settlement in New Zealand is an indication of modernity. 46 On the other hand, Beaumont romanticizes the description of the Maori’s place. She uses “meadow” to represent the Maori’s land. This caused the meadow appears exotic to the reader. This exoticism can be seen through Alice’s comment about New Zealand. The colonial life was new to her, everything had its charm, and in the colonies there is always a letter to write to those at home… (p. 47) To emphasize her illustration of her meadow, she chooses terms “delicate” and “tender” of Ixias1 flower which creates the Maori people’s exoticism to match the exotic meadow as their living place. Because of this portraying, the Maori people appear to be a feminine and submissive compared with the British people in New Zealand. Indirectly, Beaumont creates the representation of the Maori people and forces them to accept it. The native cannot speak for themselves. It can be seen through TRHR where the story consists of many white people characters and one major native character. She also generalizes the people of Maori through their appearance and practice. Aside from Mrs. Denison, Beaumont also defines the Maori’s appearance generally which is as a group of old people as shown in the following part. She grieved something awful one day when she had been to see old Tim, the Maori who lives behind stables. (p. 48) ... 1 Pronounced Ik-see-uh, the plants are commonly called wand flowers, cornflowers or African corn lily plants. (http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/bulbs/ixia/growing-ixia-bulbs.htm) 47 There were four or five in each lot, and they were mostly old. (p. 48-49) By showing their appearance as old people, the Maori people can be the primitive race before the Enlightenment period. She makes the contradictory appearance between the native and the European people to reinforce the polarization of both the parties. The author, represents the British people, views the native of New Zealand as an abnormal tribe with their strange habit. To the European, the native lives in a secluded place and cut off from the Western progress. The illustration of the native of TRHR is generalizing this tribe since the notable native characters in TRHR is only Maritana who is mentioned as Mrs. Denison throughout the story. Beaumont’s generalization can be seen as showing the flaws of the native people to display the colonizer’s superiority. Equally important in TRHR is Mrs. Denison’s wishes to be a proper English. Her real name only mentioned in passing “…Marie, called after her mother, Maritana…” (p. 46). The statement displays the author’s ignorance to the native people by recreating the personality of the native people. Mrs. Denison’s effort to be English is expected from the European since they feel their value is higher than the native’s value. This means that Mrs. Denison is experiencing mimicry. To be an English people, she is alienating her Maori heritage and imitating the European’s custom such as the way she dresses. 48 Then she told me to help her to unpack her new dress from Paris… Master Horace always chose her dresses, and he was right proud of her in them. (p. 48) Another impact of this condition is the ambivalence in Mrs. Denison’s mind. This reaction can be seen in her wish of the children. Her outburst’s “They must be all English, no Maori!” (p. 46) shows her imbalance between her Maori heritage and her desire to be proper English. She does not want her children to experience the ambivalence in their minds. Mr. and Mrs. Denison’s children in TRHR symbolize the hybridity between the native (Maori) and newcomer (British). This symbolism can be proved based on Alice’s words, “they are such a delicious mixture of England and New Zealand--prettier, sweeter than any mere English child could be. They are enchanting.” (p. 46). The peak of Mrs. Denison’s attempt to mirror the white people’s custom happens during the race horse event. In this event, Beaumont makes Mrs. Denison’s act to follow her fellow Maori to eat the raw meat is an unconscious decision. This accident shows the ambivalence in Mrs. Denison’s mind because she cannot resist her Maori heritage despite her effort to be English. Her failed attempt is shown when “… she ran out and slipped down in her beautiful dress close by the old Maori in his dirty rags,” (p. 49). It is clear that the ambivalence within Mrs. Denison caused a mockery from her intent to imitate the white people. Because of her slip-up, she regrets her Maori heritage and wishes that her children are not to be Maoris. Mrs. Denison’s statement “If only he had blue eyes, and that hair of gold like my husband’s, 49 and not those ugly eyes of mine!” (p. 48) reflects her wish. The ambivalence in Mrs. Denison shows that the white people’s influence cannot successfully reach the native people. There is a resistance within the native people, conscious or not. As shown above, in TRHR the land of Wellington is divided into two. The European part of Wellington illustrates an advanced development of civilization. On the other hand, the native land is represented as a meadow which gives the secluded and timeless sense and considered as exotic part of Wellington. The separation between the native and the British people reflects the isolation between them with a plant as metaphorical divider. This way, she is generalizing the native people in TRHR. She depicts the Maoris as savage (based on their eating habit) and primitive. She also makes the native appear weaker than the European which reinforces the white people’s superiority. It can be seen through Mrs. Denison’s wishes to be proper English. However, her wishes to be an English becomes a mockery since she cannot fully to be an English. The superiority to the Maori people makes the white people feel the right to depict the native people. This description, however, is not precise since the British people only have little knowledge of the native. Despite of this fact, the white people did not stop representing them based on limited knowledge. This happens in TRHR where Beaumont has limited knowledge (never visited New Zealand) yet she can create the image of Maori people. 50 3. An Outpost of Progress “An Outpost of Progress” (AOP) is written by Joseph Conrad in July 1897. This short stories first published in the magazine Cosmopolitan (1897) and later appeared in Conrad’s anthology Tale of Unrest in 1898 (Johnson, 2013). According to Conrad, AOP is “the lightest part of the loot I carried off from the Central Africa…” (p. 5). It is because the atmosphere in AOP is much lighter than his masterpiece Heart of Darkness, with his comical description in AOP. AOP is divided into two chapters. The first part of AOP introduces the characters, Kayerts and Carlier. They were sent to Africa to run the small post in that area with the supplies for six months. They would run the post with an African native from Sierra Leone widely known to others as Makola. It is said in the beginning of AOP that Makola hated the white men because he was the one who took care of the station. Makola and his family lived on a shed-like dwelling. On the contrary, Carlier and Kayerts lived in the biggest building in the station. They began to talk each other and tried to make the house livable. They also shared their reason for coming to the station, Kayerts because of his daughter and Carlier because of his brother-in-law. One day, a tribe of the native came to the station. Instead of the white men, it was Makola who began to negotiate with the chief about the ivory. Makola also the one who did the business with the native’s chief in the future trade. This situation can be seen as Conrad’s reluctant admittance of a native’s ability at least equal with the European people. It is instead of the newcomers’ white men, Makola represents the 51 company to trade with the native people. Carlier and Kayerts only watched from the veranda and commented about the native’s appearance. The other day, another tribe came to the station. Makola did not recognize them and asked his wife to talk to them. Makola said to the European that the tribe came from Loanda, his wife’s origin and wished to trade ivory with Makola. During their stay, Carlier and Kayerts were often sick. They had to take care of each other when one of them was sick. They also got help from Gobila, the chief of the neighboring village. He was friendly to the white men and assumed that the men were immortal, even the previous Chief. Carlier and Kayerts depended on the trade with Gobila’s village about their necessities. However, Carlier and Kayerts’ sickness changed their appearance. They began to look worse from their sickness since the arrival of the different tribe who looked more hostile. Makola cannot understand the new tribe and ordered his wife to entertain them. This happened in fifth months of the white men’s stay. This description shows Conrad’s dislike of nature. Through AOP, he repeatedly illustrates the nature as a dark, gloomy and somehow sentient. Furthermore, he pictured the nature as a negative aspect which infected the white men’s health for its exposure since they often sick. The second part of AOP begins when Carlier and Kayerts saw a smoke. According to Makola, the neighboring village was burned. In midnight, both Carlier and Kayerts heard a shot and went out to check the shot. Makola assured them and told that the ivory from the Loanda’s tribe came. In the 52 following morning, the white men discovered that the men who worked for the station gone. When Carlier went to check the worker’s hut, Makola revealed to Kayerts that the workers were part of the ivory’s trade with the Loanda’s men. Kayerts told the story to Carlier and both of them angry with Makola. Makola ignored the men’s remark and began to show his hatred. In a way, Makola’s act frees his fellow native from the white men’s clutch. His hatred can be understood as his disapproval of his fellow native’s forced slavery by the white people. This scene also indicates Conrad's observation about the native’s slavery and their reaction during his mission to Africa. At the same time, Gobila decided not to visit Carlier and Kayerts anymore because his people were shot near the station. Because of his decision, the white men no longer had help for their daily necessity. Their situation was worse and they no longer tended the station. One day, Carlier and Kayerts decided to make a coffee with sugar. They bickered about the sugar and ended with Carlier’s death. He was accidentally shot by Kayerts after threatening each other with pistols. After Carlier’s death, Kayerts started to hallucinate about the land and thought that he had found enlightenment. Finally, six months was up and the director and the steamer came to the station. They found Carlier’s body still in the house and Kayerts’ body hung in the previous chief’s grave marker. Again, the author reveals his dislike of nature. As he elaborated, he believes that the nature is a dark sentient which corrupted both the body and mind of white people. Carlier and Kayert’s 53 worsening behavior until their death can be seen as the proof of Conrad's belief in this matter. As mentioned before, AOP is set in the depth of Africa, specifically Congo. This correlates with Conrad’s journey to the said country in 1890 (Peters, 2006: 4). He describes the station in AOP as a very secluded place. This can be seen from Carlier’s opinion “… a sulky glance over the river, the forest, the impenetrable bush that seemed to cut off from the station from the rest of the world…” (p. 62). Here, Conrad clearly states that the station is cut off by the forest around them which makes living in the station is static. The illustration “Day passed, silent, exasperating, and slow” (p. 75) reinforces Conrad’s idea of timeless land in the station. Conrad’s description in the beginning of AOP creates two different natures which contradict each other. He also draws a natural geographical border which is a river. Therefore, the native people and the British men in AOP isolate each other both physically and mentally. Because of this, Carlier and Kayerts only have limited knowledge about the native surrounding the station. In another part of AOP, Conrad writes about the nature of the land. The river, the forest, and all the great land throbbing with life, were like a great emptiness. Even the brilliant sunshine disclosed nothing intelligible. Things appeared and disappeared before their eyes in an unconnected and aimless kind of way. The river seemed to come from nowhere and flow nowhither. It flowed through the void. (p. 64) 54 Conrad depicts the land beautifully but full of mystery. In the quotation above, Conrad makes the land as a living being to emphasize the mystery of land. Because of this, the land is able to influence the white men’s mind. The influence is shown where Kayerts thought about his deed. The day had come, and heavy mist had descended upon the land: the mist penetrating, enveloping, and silent; the morning mist of tropical lands; the mist that clings and kills; the mist white and deadly, immaculate and poisonous. (p. 79) The nature’s ability to influence Kayerts is actually implied by the author in the beginning of AOP, “… as dull they were to the subtle influences of surroundings,... a wilderness rendered more strange,…” (p. 62). Conrad’s description of the mystery of the native’s land establishes the strangeness of the native’s land. His description about the land exposes his need to romanticize the land through its exoticism and the supernatural’s presence within the land. There are two tribes of native mentioned in AOP, the tribe from Loanda and the neighboring tribe with Gobila as the chief. However, Conrad mentions an unknown tribe in the beginning with detailed description of their appearance. They were naked, glossy black, ornamented with snowy shells and glistening brass wire, perfect for limb. They made an uncouth babbling noise when they spoke, moved in a stately manner, and sent quick, wild glances out of their startled, never-resting eyes. (p. 64) 55 In the illustration above, the author’s introduction of the native is shown as uncivilized people. It is indicated by words “naked”, “babbling noise”, and “wild glances”. He then stresses the uncivilized side of the native through the Loanda tribe’s arrival. Makola’s remark about his wife tribe’s is “Bad fellows,… They fight with people, and catch women and children. They are bad men, and got guns.” (p. 70). Besides their appearance, the author proves the barbarous part of the native through their language. This can be observed from Carlier’s comment. “What lingo is that?” said the amazed Carlier. “In the first moment I fancied the fellow was going to speak French. Anyway, it is a different kind of gibberish to what we ever heard.” (p. 67) Conrad also depicts the native as uncivilized through Gobila’s appearance, “He was a gray-headed savage, thin and black, with a white cloth round his loins and mangy panther skin hanging over his back.” (p. 66). However, Carlier and Kayerts are complimenting Gobila’s tribe, “they are rather aromatic” (p. 65). Their comment implies that Gobila’s tribe is a little more civilized than the other tribe mentioned before. As can be seen previously, Conrand’s description of the native clearly generalizing them although he mentions three tribes. His description of the native people also points out that Conrad mutes the native’s voice as shown by the native’s unidentified language to Kayerts and Carlier. This way, the native people are forced to accept the white men’s opinion of them. 56 In AOP, Conrad shows the relationship between the native and the white men. Conrad, through Carlier and Kayerts, often calls the native as “savage”, “nigga”, and “nigger”. This term is degenerating the African native since the white people saw them as an uncivilized tribe. They also mocked the appearance of the native as stated in the following quotation. Did you ever such a face? Oh, the funny brute…. Fine animals…. I wouldn’t care to get a punch on the nose from him. Fine arms, but legs no good below the knee. Couldn’t make cavalry men of them… he always concluded: “Pah! Don’t they stink!” (p. 65) From the quotation above, Carlier and Kayerts assumes their superiority to the native by making fun of them. This also happens to the native they like such as Gobila. They describe Gobila as “incomprehensible creature” (p. 86) and call him Father Gobila as a proof of their affection. Their desire to be superior to the native also can be seen in Carlier’s word to Kayerts, “… and then, chaps will read that two good fellows, Kayerts and Carlier, were the first civilized men to live in this very spot!” (p. 86). Carlier’s words implies that both white men are the civilized people unlike their native neighbor. Their stay will start the civilization. Moreover, the white people will be seen as superior to the native people. Additionally, the author mentions about the native’s belief. It is shown in the introduction of Makola, “… he dwelt alone with …the Evil spirit that rules the lands under the equator.” (p. 61). Along with this belief, the native practices human sacrifice. It is narrated after Gobila lost some of his people, 57 “…the mild Gobila offered extra human sacrifice to all Evil spirits…” (p. 73). Human sacrifice in AOP can be seen as a proof that the native’s belief is rather strong. Thus, the belief in spirit and human sacrifices clearly shows the primitive part of the native which looks irrational to the European. Again, the Western people will be more superior to the native in terms of knowledge. From the native characters mentioned by Conrad, Makola is the only native character described in detail. As stated in the introduction, “he is from Sierra Leone, who maintained that his name was Henry Price.” (p. 61). From this statement, Makola does not admit his real name but use a European name. The name Makola itself came from the natives. This proves that Makola denies his heritage. The statement also correlates with Bhabha’s characteristic of mimicry which is alienating their heritage. Another trait of Makola showing his desire to be a European is “He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping…” (p. 61). This shows that he is smarter than his white bosses and the other native people. Although he denies some of his heritage trait, Makola still keeps his heritage’s belief. It can be seen through Conrad’s narration, “… and cherished in innermost heart the worship of evil spirits.” (p. 61). The way Conrad shows Makola’s heritage explains the partial identity in Makola. Makola’s ambivalence within him can be seen in, “He got on very well with his god.” (p. 61). The ambivalence, however, becomes a proof of Makola’s intention to imitate the white men. It is because he does not fully avoid his own culture. 58 The ambivalence also can be seen as the native’s resistance because the native people still maintain their own tradition. Then, the European people’s attempt to colonize the native people is not fully succeeded. To conclude, the land in AOP is described as unusual through the mystery in it. Conrad romanticizes the land of the native through supernatural’s presence and exoticism. He generally depicts the native people as savage and primitive, as proved by their behavior and belief. Conrad’s tone in AOP is very dark and gloomy. His depiction to the native and the nature around them is to the point of extreme. From his illustration about the native it is clear that he is not a nature person. Conrad’s tone in AOP also reveals that he sees the native is beneath them. As mentioned before, Conrad gathers his information of the native in Africa during his mission in the said place. He then constructs the native using the partial knowledge of African people. Because of this, the depiction of the native people is not fully accurate. He ignored the native’s right to present themselves and suppress them under the white men’s image of the native. Conrad's ability to construct the image of the native reflects the superiority of white men to the native people of Africa. Furthermore, the author’s description of Makola also indicates Bhabha’s mimicry and ambivalence within him. Makola’s ambivalence results in his camouflaging between his native heritage and the European’s influence. His act can be seen as a silent resistance to the white people. 59 B. Reflection of Colonialism It is important to understand about imperialism and colonialism before describing the reflection of colonialism within the short stories written by the British authors. According to Said in his book Culture and Imperialism (1993), imperialism is “the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory” while colonialism is defined as “a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on distant territory.” (p. 9). In other words, imperialism is the ideology and colonialism is the manifestation of imperialism. Generally, imperialism and colonialism is only known in terms of military action. In its development, both terms are implied in other aspects such as political and economic aspect. The relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, during and after colonializing must have some effects. The effects can be seen in both the colonizer (in this case is Britain) and the colonized (third countries in Asia and Africa). It is because of the colonial relationship is not equal, as Mcleod writes: To enter into colonial relations, willingly or by force, then, is to be changed irrevocably…. the unequal oppositional power relations required by colonialism unavoidably structured the lives of those who were caught up in the fortunes of empire, regardless of their position or point of view. (2007, 3) From the Mcleod’s statements above, it is clear that the effects of colonialism are inevitable to both parties. The process and effects of colonialism can be seen through several things such as the oral stories, the buildings, and the published 60 writings. The writings, especially literary works written and published in late 19th century, record the colonialism quite in detail from the British authors who had travelled to the colonies. Their works reflect colonialism in the foreign territory of British Empire. This situation also happens in TMWWBK, TRHR, and AOP whose authors are British people. There are similarities between TMWWBK, TRHR and AOP. The short stories were written and published in 1880s. The short stories also focus on the relationship between the white men with the native although with different angles. The economic motive of white men to colonize the overseas territory is also shown in the short stories. The motive is revealed through Carnehan’s words to the narrator in TMWWBK, Horace Denison’s coming to New Zealand in TRHR, and the trading in AOP. This motive is relevant with British’s desire to conquer the land in Asia, Africa and Australia. This economic motive shows the situation in Britain where industrial revolution began to grow. All the short stories also reflect Britain’s modernity at the time. Kipling describes modernity in detail through all the technologies and the specification of jobs in societies. Beaumont displays the modernity aspect through the circulation goods between the countries. The modernity aspect can be seen when Mrs. Denison accepted a dress imported from Paris. The similar situation also happens in AOP in smaller case. The unequal part of colonial relationship is shown by the representation of the native in the short stories. Generally, the European people see the native as 61 savage, irrational, and primitive. They deemed that the native is uncivilized and in need of enlightening. Then the white men felt the need to share their enlightenment to the secluded native by colonializing them. Two methods of colonializing the native are shown in the short stories. The first one is by military conquest represented by Dravot’s usage of gun (p. 15) to fight the native in TMWWBK. In AOP, guns are also used as force as described through the shooting of Gobila’s people by the tribe from Loanda (p. 68). This action reflects Britain’s method of old imperialism in 1450 until 1650. The second method is less visible than military conquest since the colonizer uses the native authorities’ influence. They penetrate the native’s life slowly and become one of the influences aside from the native. Dravot’s rule as king in TMWWBK and the men’s friendship with Gobila in AOP illustrates this method. The marriage between Mr. Denison and Maritana in TRHR also can be seen as the example of the second method. This method allows the white people to blend with the native, to the point of claiming to be sibling. The effect of this method lasts longer than the first method because the native suffer the psychological damage. Whatever the methods used by the European to colonize the Other, the effect is quite visible in the colonized part. The natives mostly have a conflicted identity between his or her heritage and the influence of the Occident. This condition leads to Bhabha’s ambivalence which is already explained in previous chapter. All the short stories (with different authors) show this phenomenon in one of their native characters. This means that the conflicted identity or ambivalence is a common effect for the native. In reality, Bhabha’s ambivalence can be seen in the way the 62 native try to follow the European’s customs voluntarily such as dressing and eating manner. Some even change their name to European names to feel more like the European than their native heritage. The characters in all short stories move from mimicry to ambivalence in various degrees. The visible effect of ambivalence and mimicry is that the native becomes a mockery of the white people. Hence, the native can never be a European people fully, no matter how much their effort to imitate them. It is because the relationship between the white people and the native people is unequal. Ambivalence itself can be seen as the fluctuating relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Hence, ambivalence can be seen as positive like Makola’s ambivalence in AOP or negative such as Billy Fish in TMWWBK. No matter what types of ambivalence suffered by the native, the white people expect them to not struggle against the European’s influence. Another effect of colonialism is the class division. According to Storry and Child (2002), the class divisions in Britain are generally categorized into three classes. They are known as the upper class, the middle class (divided into higher professionals, the salariat professionals, the white-collar workers, and the selfemployed), and the working class (p. 179-191). Britain’s class division also mirrors the territory of British Empire. The short stories written by British authors reflect the class division in the Orient territory. Generally, only the middle and working class are pictured in the short stories. In TMWWBK, the differentiation of class is shown through the narrator’s stories about railway train. He clearly mentions that the native in TMWWBK belongs to the second class as the train 63 class indicated. In TRHR and AOP, the separation of class is reflected through the living arrangement with nature as the divider. All authors place the natives below the European people. This shows that the Orient is beneath the white people in their class division. CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION A. Conclusion Rudyard Kipling, Mary Beaumont, and Joseph Conrad are writers connected by their nationality and interest in British colonies across the sea at the time. These writers took different facets of the native people to expose in their short stories. Their focus in their short stories is respectively in India, New Zealand, and Africa. In “The Man Who Would Be King”, Kipling places the native of Karifistan below the British men which means the native people are inferior to the British people. He shows the native people in its primitive state, where these people are still holding on their tradition and belief. The land of Karifistan is also pictured as an empty spot in the map which supports the idea of the native people trapped in the past. On the contrary, Kipling creates India with its modernity to show the people in India as the opposite of the native people. Similar to Kipling, Beaumont creates two contradictory atmosphere in “The Revenge of Her Race”. However, she clearly separates and isolates the white people and the Maori through the methaphorical divider. She describes the British residence with more advanced development and the native people’s place as an exotic place. She romanticised the depiction of the Maori to make them appear weaker. However, she also illustrates the native people as an uncivilized race based on their tradition. In the same way, Conrad constructs two diffrerent places in “An Outpost of 64 65 Progress". In this short story, Conrad tends to exaggerate the description of the African nature and its people. Like the previous authors, he also creates two opposite places for each party. However, he makes the white people’s place surrounded by the native’s forest. Because of this, the atmosphere in “An Outpost of Progress” is very gloomy which affects the representation of the native people. He clearly describes the native people as savage and primitive, completely degrading these people. As shown above, the British authors produce similarity in the way they present the native people and the nature around the native. They construct two contradictory places for the native and the white people. The native people in the short stories are represented as savage and primitive while the white people are represented as a civilized race. The native people’s land in the short stories is pictured as mysterious and static while the European’s place is illustrated as modern and thriving. From this representation, it is clear that the authors create a generalization of the native people. This representation then becomes the general view of British people toward the native people. However, the representation itself is not accurate since the authors only have partial knowledge of the native people and ignore their right to represent themselves. The partial knowledge in British authors is compatible with Edward Said’s Orientalism. He states that the Western people construct the image of the Orient based on their half assumption (fantasy) and observation of the native people. 66 The authors display the flaw of the native to manifest the British people’s superiority. Thus, the native people are placed as the second class which reflects the class division in the colonial territory. The class division itself is practiced in British Empire. The consequence of this placement is the native’s desire to mimic the British people. These people then experience mimicry which leads to ambivalence. All short stories portray the ambivalence in the native people in various aspects. The ambivalence in Kipling and Beaumont’s stories lean to negative aspect where in Conrad’s the ambivalence gives positive feeling. Therefore, the ambivalence can be seen as the reflection of colonialism especially in the part of the colonized people. B. Recommendation This research is under postcolonial study and uses hermeneutic as the method. Postcolonial study itself is fairly new in literature studies although the postcolonial situation itself had happened long before this study is founded. Moreover, hermeneutic method is often seen as complicated and difficult method to interpret a literary work. Consequently, not many English Department students of Sebelas Maret University use this theory and approach in their research. This condition challenges the other English Department students to explore more literary works concerning the representation of native people. Many literary works talk about colonialism written by other European authors aside from Britain. On the 67 other hand, many native writers also write about colonialism from the native’s perspective and their representation of white people in English. The literary works itself is not restricted to 1800s until 1900s periods, but newer works about colonialism can also be analyzed further with this theory and approach. REFERENCES Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen. (2001). Key Concept in Postcolonial Studies. [Adobe Reader version]. London: Taylor & Francis Group. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org on August 19th, 2014 Beaumont, Mary. (1902). The Revenge of Her Race. In Scribner (Ed.), Stories by English Author: Orient (pp. 45-50). Retrieved from www.gutenberg.org on June 4th, 2014 Bhabha, Homi K. (1994). The Location of Culture. [Adobe Reader version]. New York: Routledge. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org on October, 21st 2014 Brikci, Nouria & Green, Judith, (2007). A Guide To Using Qualitative Research Methodology. Retrieved from http://fieldresearch.msf.org/msf/bitstream/10144/84230/1/Qualitative%20rese arch%20methodology.pdf on August 16th, 2014 Butler, Chris. (2007). FC123: British Rule in India (c.1600-1947). The Flow of History. Retrieved from http://www.flowofhistory.com/units/eme/18/FC123 on August 18th, 2014 Conrad, Joseph. (1898). An Outpost of Progress. In Tale of Unrest. Retrieved from www.freeclassicbooks.com on January 26th, 2015 Ghasemi, A., Taghinejad, M., Kabiri, A., & Imani, M. (2011). Ricoeur’s Theory of Interpretation: A Method for Understanding Text (Course Text). World Applied Science Journal 15 (11), 1623-1629. Retrieved from www.idosi.org/wasj/wasj15(11)/22.pdf on November 14th, 2014 68 69 Giles, Jana. (2002). The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation, and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea. MaComѐre Vol. 5. Retrieved from www.academia.edu on September 12th, 2014 Johnson, Roy. (2013). An Outpost of Progress: synopsis, characters, commentary, and study resources. Retrieved in from www.mantex.co.uk/2013/10/16/anoutpost-of-progress on February 15th, 2015 Karagic, Mirela. (2013). Representation of Other A Postcolonial Study of the Representation of the Natives in Relation to the Colonizers in The Stranger and Disgrace. Retrieved from http://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:697677/FULLTEXT01.pdf on September, 8th 2014 Kipling, Rudyard. (1902). A Man Who Would Be King. In Scribner (Ed.), Stories by English Author: Orient (pp. 5-24). Retrieved from www.gutenberg.org on June 4th, 2014 Luscombe, Stephen. Timelines for the British Empire. Retrieved from http://www.britishempire.co.uk/timeline/timeline.htm on August 11th, 2014 “Mary Beaumont (author)”. 2014. Retrieved from http://www.generalbooks.net/sw2.cfm?q=Mary_Beaumont_(author) on July 12th, 2014 McCord, Michael. (2000). Distanciation, Appropriation and Assimilation As Hermeneutical Making of Meaning In the Work of Paul Ricoeur and Mikhail Bakhtin. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED438544 on November 14th, 2014 McLeod, John (Ed.). (2007). The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies. [Adobe Reader version]. London: Taylor & Francis e-Library. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org on August 19th, 2014 McLeod, John. (2000). Beginning Postcolonialism. United Kingdom: Manchester University Press. 70 Phenomenology and Theory of Literature: An Interview with Paul Ricoeur. (1981). In Rice, Philip & Waugh, Patricia (Eds.) Modern Literature Theory: A Reader (3rd edition), 1966. London: Arnold Prasad, Anshuman. (2003). The Gaze of the Other: Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis. In Anshuman Prasad (Ed.), Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement (pp. 3-43). [Adobe Reader version]. New York: Palgrave Macmillan™. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org on November 6th, 2012 Ridout, George. (2014). The Failure of Fantasy in Kipling’s Empire: “The Man Who Would Be King”. Retrieved from http://ridout.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/thefailure-of-fantasy-in-kiplings-empire-an-analysis-of-the-man-who-would-beking/ on January 12th, 2015 Said, Edward W. (1993). Two Vision in Heart of Darkness. In Rice, Philip and Waugh, Patricia (Eds.) Modern Literary Theory: A Reader (p. 348-360). New York: Arnold. Said, Edward W. (1994). Culture and Imperialism. [Adobe Reader version]. New York: Vintage Books. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org on October 31st, 2014 Said, Edward W. (2003). Orientalism (3rd ed.). [Adobe Reader version]. England: Penguin Books. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org (Original work published in 1978) on October 31st, 2014 Sawant, B. Shrikant. (2012). Postcolonial Theory: Meaning and Significance. National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature, 120-126. Retrieved from http://igcollege.org/files/pdf/3%20Post-Colonialism.pdf on August, 18th 2014 71 Simms, Karl. (2003). Paul Ricoeur (Routledge Critical Thinker Series). [Adobe Reader version]. London: Taylor & Francis e-Library. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org on October 31st, 2014 Sinclair, Keith. (1980). The Maoris in New Zealand History. History Today, 30(7). Retrieved from http://www.historytoday.com/keith-sinclair/maoris-newzealand-history on August 18th, 2014. Storry, Mike & Child, Peter. (2002). British Cultural Identities (2nd Edition). London: Routledge. [Adobe Reader version]. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org on September 23rd, 2012 Suazano, Ruby S. (2014). Ricoeur’s Hermeneutic as Appropriation: A Way of Understanding Oneself In Front of the Text. Retrieved from http://sphynxrhuzzhz.webs.com/OPUS/RICOEUR'S%20HERMENEUTIC%2 0AS%20APPROPRIATION.pdf on August 25th, 2014 Thompson, John B., (2003). Paul Ricoeur and Hermeneutic Phenomenology. In Critical Hermeneutics: A Study in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habernas (p. 36-70). [Adobe reader version]. Australia: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from en.bookfi.org on September 29th, 2014 APPENDIXES THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy BY RUDYARD KIPLING The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom--army, lawcourts, revenue, and policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a crown I must go hunt it for myself. The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to Mhow from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy from refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside water. This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon. My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached Nasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste for whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food. "If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred millions," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed to agree with him. We talked politics,--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from the under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,--and we talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram back from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money beyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to help him in any way. "We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick," said my friend, "but that'd mean inquiries for you and for me, and /I/'ve got my hands full these days. Did you say you were travelling back along this line within any days?" "Within ten," I said. "Can't you make it eight?" said he. "Mine is rather urgent business." "I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you," I said. "I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him, now I think of it. It's this way. He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he'll be running through Ajmir about the night of the 23rd." "But I'm going into the Indian Desert," I explained. "Well /and/ good," said he. "You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to get into Jodhpore territory,--you must do that,--and he'll be coming through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'T won't be inconveniencing you, because I know that there's precious few pickings to be got out of these Central India States--even though you pretend to be correspondent of the Backwoodsman.' " "Have you ever tried that trick?" I asked. "Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get escorted to the Border before you've time to get your knife into them. But about my friend here. I /must/ give him a word o' mouth to tell him what's come to me, or else he won't know where to go. I would take it more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him, 'He has gone South for the week.' He'll know what that means. He's a big man with a red beard, and a great swell he is. You'll find him sleeping like a gentleman with all his luggage round him in a Second-class apartment. But don't you be afraid. Slip down the window and say, 'He has gone South for the week,' and he'll tumble. It's only cutting your time of stay in those parts by two days. I ask you as a stranger--going to the West," he said, with emphasis. "Where have /you/ come from?" said I. "From the East," said he, "and I am hoping that you will give him the message on the Square--for the sake of my Mother as well as your own." Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their mothers; but for certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, I saw fit to agree. "It's more than a little matter," said he, "and that's why I asked you to do it--and now I know that I can depend on you doing it. A Second- class carriage at Marwar Junction, and a red-haired man asleep in it. You'll be sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and I must hold on there till he comes or sends me what I want." "I'll give the message if I catch him," I said, "and for the sake of your Mother as well as mine I'll give you a word of advice. Don't try to run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the 'Backwoodsman.' There's a real one knocking about here, and it might lead to trouble." "Thank you," said he, simply; "and when will the swine be gone? I can't starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow, and give him a jump." "What did he do to his father's widow, then?" "Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she hung from a beam. I found that out myself, and I'm the only man that would dare going into the State to get hush-money for it. They'll try to poison me, same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there. But you'll give the man at Marwar Junction my message?" He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had heard, more than once, of men personating correspondents of newspapers and bleeding small Native States with threats of exposure, but I had never met any of the caste before. They lead a hard life, and generally die with great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror of English newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods of government, and do their best to choke correspondents with champagne, or drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do not understand that nobody cares a straw for the internal administration of Native States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one end of the year to the other. They are the dark places of the earth, full of unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left the train I did business with divers Kings, and in eight days passed through many changes of life. Sometimes I wore dress-clothes and consorted with Princes and Politicals, drinking from crystal and eating from silver. Sometimes I lay out upon the ground and devoured what I could get, from a plate made of leaves, and drank the running water, and slept under the same rug as my servant. It was all in the day's work. Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date, as I had promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, where a funny little, happygo-lucky, native-managed railway runs to Jodhpore. The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar. She arrived just as I got in, and I had just time to hurry to her platform and go down the carriages. There was only one Secondclass on the train. I slipped the window and looked down upon a flaming-red beard, half covered by a railway-rug. That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug him gently in the ribs. He woke with a grunt, and I saw his face in the light of the lamps. It was a great and shining face. "Tickets again?" said he. "No," said I. "I am to tell you that he is gone South for the week. He has gone South for the week!" The train had begun to move out. The red man rubbed his eyes. "He has gone South for the week," he repeated. "Now that's just like his impidence. Did he say that I was to give you anything? 'Cause I won't." "He didn't," I said, and dropped away, and watched the red lights die out in the dark. It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing off the sands. I climbed into my own train--not an Intermediate carriage this time--and went to sleep. If the man with the beard had given me a rupee I should have kept it as a memento of a rather curious affair. But the consciousness of having done my duty was my only reward. Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my friends could not do any good if they foregathered and personated correspondents of newspapers, and might, if they blackmailed one of the little rat-trap States of Central India or Southern Rajputana, get themselves into serious difficulties. I therefore took some trouble to describe them as accurately as I could remember to people who would be interested in deporting them; and succeeded, so I was later informed, in having them headed back from the Degumber borders. Then I became respectable, and returned to an office where there were no Kings and no incidents outside the daily manufacture of a newspaper. A newspaper office seems to attract every conceivable sort of person, to the prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission ladies arrive, and beg that the Editor will instantly abandon all his duties to describe a Christian prize-giving in a back slum of a perfectly inaccessible village; Colonels who have been overpassed for command sit down and sketch the outline of a series of ten, twelve, or twenty- four leading articles on Seniority /versus/ Selection; missionaries wish to know why they have not been permitted to escape from their regular vehicles of abuse, and swear at a brother missionary under special patronage of the editorial We; stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain that they cannot pay for their advertisements, but on their return from New Zealand or Tahiti will do so with interest; inventors of patent punka-pulling machines, marriage couplings, and unbreakable swords and axletrees call with specifications in their pockets and hours at their disposal; tea companies enter and elaborate their prospectuses with the office pens; secretaries of ball committees clamour to have the glories of their last dance more fully described; strange ladies rustle in and say, "I want a hundred lady's cards printed /at once/, please," which is manifestly part of an Editor's duty; and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business to ask for employment as a proof- reader. And, all the time, the telephone-bell is ringing madly, and Kings are being killed on the Continent, and Empires are saying, "You're another," and Mister Gladstone is calling down brimstone upon the British Dominions, and the little black copyboys are whining, “/kaa-pi chay-hayeh/" ("Copy wanted"), like tired bees, and most of the paper is as blank as Modred's shield. But that is the amusing part of the year. There are six other months when none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inch up to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just above reading-light, and the pressmachines are red-hot to touch, and nobody writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because it tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knew intimately, and the prickly heat covers you with a garment, and you sit down and write: "A slight increase of sickness is reported from the Khuda Janta Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic in its nature, and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the District authorities, is now almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regret we record the death," etc. Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and the Foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hillstations in the middle of their amusements say, "Good gracious! why can't the paper be sparkling? I'm sure there's plenty going on up here." That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say, "must be experienced to be appreciated." It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paper began running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to say Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This was a great convenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed the dawn would lower the thermometer from 96 degrees to almost 84 degrees for half an hour, and in that chill--you have no idea how cold is 84 degrees on the grass until you begin to pray for it--a very tired man could get off to sleep ere the heat roused him. One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was going to die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the latest possible minute in order to catch the telegram. It was a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the /loo/, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and called for water. The thing that was keeping us back, whatever it was, would not come off, though the loo dropped and the last type was set, and the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat, with its finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and wondered whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying man, or struggling people, might be aware of the inconvenience the delay was causing. There was no special reason beyond the heat and worry to make tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to three o-clock and the machines spun their fly-wheels two and three times to see that all was in order, before I said the word that would set them off, I could have shrieked aloud. Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front of me. The first one said, "It's him!" The second said, "So it is!" And they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped their foreheads. "We seed there was a light burning across the road, and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my friend here, 'The office is open. Let's come along and speak to him as turned us back from Degumber State,' " said the smaller of the two. He was the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red-bearded man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard of the other. I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with loafers. "What do you want?" I asked. "Half an hour's talk with you, cool and comfortable, in the office," said the red-bearded man. "We'd /like/ some drink,--the Contrack doesn't begin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look,--but what we really want is advice. We don't want money. We ask you as a favour, because we found out you did us a bad turn about Degumber State." I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's something like," said he. "This was the proper shop to come to. Now, Sir, let me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's him, and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is /me/, and the less said about our professions the better, for we have been most things in our time-- soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and correspondents of the 'Backwoodsman' when we thought the paper wanted one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us first, and see that's sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We'll take one of your cigars apiece, and you shall see us light up." I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them each a tepid whisky-and-soda. "Well /and/ good," said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth from his moustache. "Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India, mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn't big enough for such as us." They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot's beard seemed to fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half, as they sat on the big table. Carnehan continued: "The country isn't half worked out because they that governs it won't let you touch it. They spend all their blessed time in governing it, and you can't lift a spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that, without all the Government saying, 'Leave it alone, and let us govern.' Therefore, such /as/ it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where a man isn't crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, and there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a Contrack on that. /Therefore/ we are going away to be Kings." "Kings in our own right," muttered Dravot. "Yes, of course," I said. "You've been tramping in the sun, and it's a very warm night, and hadn't you better sleep over the notion? Come to-morrow." "Neither drunk nor sunstruck," said Dravot. "We have slept over the notion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we have decided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong men can Sar-a-/whack/. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it's the top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles from Peshawar. They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we'll be the thirty-third and fourth. It's a mountaineous country, the women of those parts are very beautiful." "But that is provided against in the Contrack," said Carnehan. "Neither Women nor Liqu-or, Daniel." "And that's all we know, except that no one has gone there, and they fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find, 'D' you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will how him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty." "You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the Border," I said. "You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country. It's one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has been through it. The people are utter brutes, and even if you reached them you couldn't do anything." "That's more like," said Carnehan. "If you could think us a little more mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about this country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you to tell us that we are fools and to show us your books." He turned to the bookcases. "Are you at all in earnest?" I said. "A little," said Dravot, sweetly. "As big a map as you have got, even if it's all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you've got. We can read, though we aren't very educated." I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India and two smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and the men consulted them. "See here!" said Dravot, his thumb on the map. "Up to Jagdallak, Peachey and me know the road. We was there with Robert's Army. We'll have to turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then we get among the hills-fourteen thousand feet--fifteen thousand --it will be cold work there, but it don't look very far on the map." I handed him Wood on the "Sources of the Oxus." Carnehan was deep in the "Encyclopaedia." "They're a mixed lot," said Dravot, reflectively; "and it won't help us to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they'll fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H'mm!" "But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate as can be," I protested. "No one knows anything about it really. Here's the file of the 'United Services' Institute.' Read what Bellew says." "Blow Bellew!" said Carnehan. "Dan, they're a stinkin' lot of heathens, but this book here says they think they're related to us English." I smoked while the men poured over Raverty, Wood, the maps, and the "Encyclopaedia." "There is no use your waiting," said Dravot, politely. "It's about four o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and we won't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two harmless lunatics, and if you come to-morrow evening down to the Serai we'll say good-bye to you." "You /are/ two fools," I answered. "You'll be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any money or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance of work next week." "Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you," said Dravot. "It isn't so easy being a King as it looks. When we've got our Kingdom in going order we'll let you know, and you can come up and help us govern it." "Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?" said Carnehan, with subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper on which was written the following. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity. This Contracx between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of God-Amen and so forth. (One) That me and you will settle this matter together; i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan. (Two) That you and me will not, while this matter is being settled, look at any Liquor, nor any Woman, black, white, or brown, so as to get mixed up with one or the other harmful. (Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and Discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him. Signed by you and me this day. Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan. Daniel Dravot. Both Gentlemen at Large. "There was no need for the last article," said Carnehan, blushing modestly; "but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that loafers are,--we /are/ loafers, Dan, until we get out of India,--and /do/ you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worth having." "You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this idiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire," I said, "and go away before nine o'clock." I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of the "Contrack." "Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow," were their parting words. The Kumharsen Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity where the strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy- cats, saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to see whether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying there drunk. A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks of laughter. "The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to Kabul to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have his head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly ever since." "The witless are under the protection of God," stammered a flat- cheeked Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events." "Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!" grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes were the laughing-stock of the bazaar. "Ohe, priest, whence come you and whither do you go?" "From Roum have I come," shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; "from Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves, robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers! Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away, of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel? The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labours!" He spread out the skirts of his gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered horses. "There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, /Huzrut/," said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and bring us good luck." "I will go even now!" shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my winged camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan," he yelled to his servant, "drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own." He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to me, cried, "Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan." Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted. "What d' you think o' that?" said he in English. "Carnehan can't talk their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant. 'T isn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the country for fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see if we can get donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the Amir, O Lor'! Put your hand under the camelbags and tell me what you feel." I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another. "Twenty of 'em," said Dravot, placidly. "Twenty of 'em and ammunition to correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls." "Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!" I said. "A Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans." "Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg, borrow, or steal-are invested on these two camels," said Dravot. "We won't get caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who'd touch a poor mad priest?" "Have you got everything you want?" I asked, overcome with astonishment. "Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a momento of your kindness, /Brother/. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is." I slipped a small charm compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest. "Good-bye," said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. "It's the last time we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with him, Carnehan," he cried, as the second camel passed me. Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai proved that they were complete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, that Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without detection. But, beyond, they would find death-- certain and awful death. Ten days later a native correspondent, giving me the news of the day from Peshawar, wound up his letter with: "There has been much laughter here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as great charms to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawar and associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. The merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine that such mad fellows bring good fortune." The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them, but that night a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary notice. The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again. Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there fell a hot night, a night issue, and a strained waiting for something to be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office garden were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference. I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as I have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it had been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three o'clock I cried, "Print off," and turned to go, when there crept to my chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled--this rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come back. "Can you give me a drink?" he whimpered. "For the Lord's sake, give me a drink!" I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I turned up the lamp. "Don't you know me?" he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light. I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not tell where. "I don't know you," I said, handing him the whisky. "What can I do for you?" He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the suffocating heat. "I've come back," he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan--me and Dravot-crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it--you setting there and giving us the books. I am Peachey,--Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan,--and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord!" I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings accordingly. "It's true," said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which were wrapped in rags--"true as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon our heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never take advice, not though I begged of him!" "Take the whisky," I said, "and take your own time. Tell me all you can recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the Border on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do you remember that?" "I ain't mad--yet, but I shall be that way soon. Of course I remember. Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep looking at me in my eyes and don't say anything." I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was twisted like a bird's claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red, diamond-shaped scar. "No, don't look there. Look at /me/," said Carnehan. "That comes afterward, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We left with that caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the people was cooking their dinners—cooking their dinners, and . . . what did they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot's beard, and we all laughed--fit to die. Little red fires they was, going into Dravot's big red beard--so funny." His eyes left mine and he smiled foolishly. "You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan," I said, at a venture, "after you had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to try to get into Kafiristan." "No, we didn't, neither. What are you talking about? We turned off before Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they wasn't good enough for our two camels--mine and Dravot's. When we left the caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would be heathen, because the Kafirs didn't allow Mohammedans to talk to them. So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel Dravot I never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his beard, and slung a sheepskin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns. He shaved mine too, and made me wear outrageous things to look like a heathen. That was in a most mountaineous country, and our camels couldn't go along any more because of the mountains. They were tall and black, and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats --there are lots of goats in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they never keep still, no more than the goats. Always fighting they are, and don't let you sleep at night." "Take some more whisky," I said, very slowly. "What did you and Daniel Dravot do when the camels could go no farther because of the rough roads that led into Kafiristan?" "What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there in the cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and twisting in the air like a penny whirligig that you can sell to the Amir. No; they was two for three ha'pence, those whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and woful sore. . . . And then these camels were no use, and Peachey said to Dravot, 'For the Lord's sake let's get out of this before our heads are chopped off,' and with that they killed the camels all among the mountains, not having anything in particular to eat, but first they took off the boxes with the guns and the ammunition, till two men came along driving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them, singing, 'Sell me four mules.' Says the first man, 'If you are rich enough to buy, you are rich enough to rob;' but before ever he could put his hand to his knife, Dravot breaks his neck over his knee, and the other party runs away. So Carnehan loaded the mules with the rifles that was taken off the camels, and together we starts forward into those bitter-cold mountaineous parts, and never a road broader than the back of your hand." He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember the nature of the country through which he had journeyed. "I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn't as good as it might be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how Dravot died. The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contrary, and the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They went up and up, and down and down, and that other party, Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot not to sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the tremenjus avalanches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn't sing it wasn't worth being King, and whacked the mules over the rump, and never took no heed for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all among the mountains, and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not having anything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, and played odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out. "Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twenty men with bows and arrows, and the row was tremenjus. They was fair men--fairer than you or me--with yellow hair and remarkable well built. Says Dravot, unpacking the guns, 'This is the beginning of the business. We'll fight for the ten men,' and with that he fires two rifles at the twenty men, and drops one of them at two hundred yards from the rock where he was sitting. The other men began to run, but Carnehan and Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up and down the valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that had run across the snow too, and they fires a footy little arrow at us. Dravot he shoots above their heads, and they all falls down flat. Then he walks over them and kicks them, and then he lifts them up and shakes hands all round to make them friendly like. He calls them and gives them the boxes to carry, and waves his hand for all the world as though he was King already. They takes the boxes and him across the valley and up the hill into a pine wood on the top, where there was half a dozen big stone idols. Dravot he goes to the biggest--a fellow they call Imbra--and lays a rifle and a cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose respectfuly with his own nose, patting him on the head, and nods his head, and says, 'That's all right. I'm in the know too, and these old jimjams are my friends.' Then he opens his mouth and points down it, and when the first man brings him food, he says, 'No;' and when the second man brings him food, he says 'no;' but when one of the old priests and the boss of the village brings him food, he says, 'Yes;' very haughty, and eats it slow. That was how he came to our first village without any trouble, just as though we had tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled from one of those damned rope-bridges, you see, and--you couldn't expect a man to laugh much after that?" "Take some more whisky and go on," I said. "That was the first village you came into. How did you get to be King?" "I wasn't King," said Carnehan. "Dravot he was the King, and a handsome man he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the other party stayed in that village, and every morning Dravot sat by the side of old Imbra, and the people came and worshipped. That was Dravot's order. Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan Dravot picks them off with the rifles before they knew where they was, and runs down into the valley and up again the other side, and finds another village, same as the first one, and the people all falls down flat on their faces, and Dravot says, 'Now what is the trouble between you two villages?' and the people points to a woman, as fair as you or me, that was carried off, and Dravot takes her back to the first village and counts up the dead--eight there was. For each dead man Dravot pours a little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirligig, and 'That's all right,' says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of each village by the arm, and walks them down the valley, and shows them how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each a sod of turf from both sides of the line. Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says, 'Go and dig the land, and be fruitful and multiply,' which they did, though they didn't understand. Then we asks the names of things in their lingo--bread and water and fire and idols and such; and Dravot leads the priest of each village up to the idol, and says he must sit there and judge the people, and if anything goes wrong he is to be shot. "Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley as quiet as bees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints and told Dravot in dumbshow what it was about. 'That's just the beginning,' says Dravot. 'They think we're Gods.' He and Carnehan picks out twenty good men and shows them how to click off a rifle and form fours and advance in line; and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to see the hang of it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch, and leaves one at one village and one at the other, and off we two goes to see what was to be done in the next valley. That was all rock, and there was a little village there, and Carnehan says, 'Send 'em to the old valley to plant,' and takes 'em there and gives 'em some land that wasn't took before. They were a poor lot, and we blooded 'em with a kid before letting 'em into the new Kingdom. That was to impress the people, and then they settled down quiet, and Carnehan went back to Dravot, who had got into another valley, all snow and ice and most mountaineous. There was no people there, and the Army got afraid; so Dravot shoots one of them, and goes on till he finds some people in a village, and the Army explains that unless the people wants to be killed they had better not shoot their little matchlocks, for they had matchlocks. We makes friends with the priest, and I stays there alone with two of the Army, teaching the men how to drill; and a thundering big Chief comes across the snow with kettledrums and horns twanging, because he heard there was a new God kicking about. Carnehan sights for the brown of the men half a mile across the snow and wings one of them. Then he sends a message to the Chief that, unless he wished to be killed, he must come and shake hands with me and leave his arms behind. The Chief comes alone first, and Carnehan shakes hands with him and whirls his arms about, same as Dravot used, and very much surprised that Chief was, and strokes my eyebrows. Then Carnehan goes alone to the Chief, and asks him in dumb- show if he had an enemy he hated. 'I have,' says the chief. So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill, and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chief's men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy. So we took that village too, and I gives the Chief a rag from my coat, and says, 'Occupy till I come;' which was scriptural. By way of a reminder, when me and the Army was eighteen hundred yards away, I drops a bullet near him standing on the snow, and all the people falls flat on their faces. Then I sends a letter to Dravot wherever he be by land or by sea." At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted: "How could you write a letter up yonder?" "The letter?--oh!--the letter! Keep looking at me between the eyes, please. It was a string-talk letter, that we'd learned the way of it from a blind beggar in the Punjab." I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man with a knotted twig, and a piece of string which he wound round the twig according to some cipher of his own. He could, after the lapse of days or hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up. He had reduced the alphabet to eleven primitive sounds, and tried to teach me his method, but I could not understand. "I sent that letter to Dravot," said Carnehan, "and told him to come back because this Kingdom was growing too big for me to handle; and then I struck for the first valley, to see how the priests were working. They called the village we took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the first village we took, Er-Heb. The priests at ErHeb was doing all right, but they had a lot of pending cases about land to show me, and some men from another village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and looked for that village, and fired four rounds at it from a thousand yards. That used all the cartridges I cared to spend, and I waited for Dravot, who had been away two or three months, and I kept my people quiet. "One morning I heard the devil's own noise of drums and horns, and Dan Dravot marches down the hill with his Army and a tail of hundreds of men, and, which was the most amazing, a great gold crown on his head. 'My Gord, Carnehan,' says Daniel, 'this is a tremenjus business, and we've got the whole country as far as it's worth having. I am the son of Alexander by Queen Semiramis, and you're my younger brother and a God too! It's the biggest thing we've ever seen. I've been marching and fighting for six weeks with the Army, and every footy little village for fifty miles has come in rejoiceful; and more than that, I've got the key of the whole show, as you'll see, and I've got a crown for you! I told 'em to make two of 'em at a place called Shu, where the gold lies in the rock like suet in mutton. Gold I've seen, and turquoise I've kicked out of the cliffs, and there's garnets in the sands of the river, and here's a chunk of amber that a man brought me. Call up all the priests and, here, take your crown.' "One of the men opens a black hair bag, and I slips the crown on. It was too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it was--five pounds weight, like a hoop of a barrel. " 'Peachey,' says Dravot, 'we don't want to fight no more. The Craft's the trick, so help me!' and he brings forward that same Chief that I left at Bashkai--Billy Fish we called him afterward, because he was so like Billy Fish that drove the big tankengine at Mach on the Bolan in the old days. 'Shake hands with him,' says Dravot; and I shook hands and nearly dropped, for Billy Fish gave me the Grip. I said nothing, but tried him with the Fellow-craft Grip. He answers all right, and I tried the Master's Grip, but that was a slip. 'A Fellow-craft he is!' I says to Dan. 'Does he know the word?' 'He does,' says Dan, 'and all the priests know. It's a miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work a Fellow-craft Lodge in a way that's very like ours, and they've cut the marks on the rocks, but they don't know the Third Degree, and they've come to find out. It's Gord's Truth. I've known these long years that the Afghans knew up to the Fellow-craft Degree, but this is a miracle. A God and a Grand Master of the Craft am I, and a Lodge in the Third Degree I will open, and we'll raise the head priests and the Chiefs of the villages.' " 'It's against all the law,' I says, 'holding a Lodge without warrant from any one; and you know we never held office in any Lodge.' " 'It's a master stroke o' policy,' says Dravot. 'It means running the country as easy as a four-wheeled bogie on a down grade. We can't stop to inquire now, or they'll turn against us. I've forty Chiefs at my heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be. Billet these men on the villages, and see that we run up a Lodge of some kind. The temple of Imbra will do for a Lodge-room. The women must make aprons as you show them. I'll hold a levee of Chiefs to-night and Lodge to-morrow.' "I was fair run off my legs, but I wasn't such a fool as not to see what a pull this Craft business gave us. I showed the priests' families how to make aprons of the degrees, but for Dravot's apron the blue border and marks was made of turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We took a great square stone in the temple for the Master's chair, and little stones for the officer's chairs, and painted the black pavement with white squares, and did what we could to make things regular. "At the levee which was held that night on the hillside with big bonfires, Dravot gives out that him and me were Gods and sons of Alexander, and Passed Grand Masters in the Craft, and was come to make Kafiristan a country where every man should eat in peace and drink in quiet, and specially obey us. Then the Chiefs come round to shake hands, and they were so hairy and white and fair it was just shaking hands with old friends. We gave them names according as they was like men we had known in India--Billy Fish, Holly Dilworth, Pikky Kergan, that was Bazaar-master when I was at Mhow, and so on, and so on. "/The/ most amazing miracles was at Lodge next night. One of the old priests was watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy, for I knew we'd have to fudge the Ritual, and I didn't know what the men knew. The old priest was a stranger come in from beyond the village of Bashkai. The minute Dravot puts on the Master's apron that the girls had made for him, the priest fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the stone that Dravot was sitting on. 'It's all up now,' I says. 'That comes of meddling with the Craft without warrant!' Dravot never winked an eye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand Master's chair--which was to say, the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing the bottom end of it to clear away the black dirt, and presently he shows all the other priests the Master's Mark, same as was on Dravot's apron, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra knew it was there. The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot's feet and kisses 'em. 'Luck again,' says Dravot, across the Lodge, to me; 'they say it's the missing Mark that no one could understand the why of. We're more than safe now.' Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a gavel and says, 'By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right hand and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of all Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o' the country, and King of Kafiristan equally with Peachey!' At that he puts on his crown and I puts on mine,--I was doing Senior Warden,--and we opens the Lodge in most ample form. It was an amazing miracle! The priests moved in Lodge through the first two degrees almost without telling, as if the memory was coming back to them. After that Peachey and Dravot raised such as was worthy--high priests and Chiefs of far- off villages. Billy Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. It was not in any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We didn't raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want to make the Degree common. And they was clamouring to be raised. " 'In another six months,' says Dravot, 'we'll hold another Communication and see how you are working.' Then he asks them about their villages, and learns that they was fighting one against the other, and were sick and tired of it. And when they wasn't doing that they was fighting with the Mohammedans. 'You can fight those when they come into our country,' says Dravot. 'Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a Frontier guard, and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled. Nobody is going to be shot or speared any more so long as he does well, and I know that you won't cheat me, because you're white people--sons of Alexander--and not like common black Mohammedans. You are /my/ people, and, by God,' says he, running off into English at the end, 'I'll make a damned fine Nation of you, or I'll die in the making!' "I can't tell all we did for the next six months, because Dravot did a lot I couldn't see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way I never could. My work was to help the people plough, and now and again go out with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing, and make 'em throw rope bridges across the ravines which cut up the country horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about, and I just waited for orders. "But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were afraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of friends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could come across the hills with a complaint, and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call four priests together and say what was to be done. He used to call in Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan from Shu, and an old Chief we called Kafuzelum,--it was like enough to his real name,--and hold councils with 'em when there was any fighting to be done in small villages. That was his Council of War, and the four priests of Bashkai, Shu, Khawak, and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot of 'em they sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men carrying turquoises, into the Ghorband country to buy those hand- made Martini rifles, that come out of the Amir's workshops at Kabul, from one of the Amir's Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out of their mouths for turquoises. "I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick of my baskets for hush-money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment some more, and, between the two and the tribes-people, we got more than a hundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throw to six hundred yards, and forty man-loads of very bad ammunition for the rifles. I came back with what I had, and distributed 'em among the men that the Chiefs sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to attend to those things, but the old Army that we first made helped me, and we turned out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred that knew how to hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed, hand-made guns was a miracle to them. Dravot talked big about powder- shops and factories, walking up and down in the pine wood when the winter was coming on. " 'I won't make a Nation,' says he. 'I'll make an Empire! These men aren't niggers; they're English! Look at their eyes--look at their mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own houses. They're the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they've grown to be English. I'll take a census in the spring if the priests don't get frightened. There must be a fair two million of 'em in these hills. The villages are full o' little children. Two million people-- two hundred and fifty thousand fighting men--and all English! They only want the rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand men, ready to cut in on Russia's right flank when she tries for India! Peachey, man,' he says, chewing his beard in great hunks, 'we shall be Emperors--Emperors of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to us. I'll treat with the Viceroy on equal terms. I'll ask him to send me twelve picked English--twelve that I know of--to help us govern a bit. There's Mackray, Serjeant Pensioner at Segowli-- many's the good dinner he's given me, and his wife a pair of trousers. There's Donkin, the Warder of Tounghoo Jail; there's hundreds that I could lay my hand on if I was in India. The Viceroy shall do it for me; I'll send a man through in the spring for those men, and I'll write for a dispensation from the Grand Lodge for what I've done as Grand Master. That--and all the Sniders that'll be thrown out when the native troops in India take up the Martini. They'll be worn smooth, but they'll do for fighting in these hills. Twelve English, a hundred thousand Sniders run through the Amir's country in driblets,-I'd be content with twenty thousand in one year,--and we'd be an Empire. When everything was shipshape I'd hand over the crown--this crown I'm wearing now-to Queen Victoria on my knees, and she'd say, "Rise up, Sir Daniel Dravot." Oh, it's big! It's big, I tell you! But there's so much to be done in every place--Bashkai, Khawak, Shu, and everywhere else.' " 'What is it?' I says. 'There are no more men coming in to be drilled this autumn. Look at those fat black clouds. They're bringing the snow.' " 'It isn't that,' says Daniel, putting his hand very hard on my shoulder; 'and I don't wish to say anything that's against you, for no other living man would have followed me and made me what I am as you have done. You're a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people know you; but--it's a big country, and somehow you can't help me, Peachey, in the way I want to be helped.' " 'Go to your blasted priests, then!' I said, and I was sorry when I made that remark, but it did hurt me sore to find Daniel talking so superior, when I'd drilled all the men and done all he told me. " 'Don't let's quarrel, Peachey,' says Daniel, without cursing. 'You're a King too, and the half of this Kingdom is yours; but can't you see, Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now--three or four of 'em, that we can scatter about for our Deputies. It's a hugeous great State, and I can't always tell the right thing to do, and I haven't time for all I want to do, and here's the winter coming on and all.' He put half his beard into his mouth, all red like the gold of his crown. " 'I'm sorry, Daniel,' says I. 'I've done all I could. I've drilled the men and shown the people how to stack their oats better; and I've brought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband--but I know what you're driving at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way.' " 'There's another thing too,' says Dravot, walking up and down. 'The winter's coming, and these people won't be giving much trouble, and if they do we can't move about. I want a wife.' " 'For Gord's sake leave the women alone!' I says. 'We've both got all the work we can, though I /am/ a fool. Remember the Contrack, and keep clear o' women.' " 'The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings; and Kings we have been these months past,' says Dravot, weighing his crown in his hand. 'You go get a wife too, Peachey--a nice, strappin', plump girl that'll keep you warm in the winter. They're prettier than English girls, and we can take the pick of 'em. Boil 'em once or twice in hot water, and they'll come out like chicken and ham.' " 'Don't tempt me!' I says. 'I will not have any dealings with a woman, not till we are a dam' side more settled than we are now. I've been doing the work o' two men, and you've been doing the work of three. Let's lie off a bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco from Afghan country and run in some good liquor; and no women.' " 'Who's talking o' /women/?' says Dravot. 'I said /wife/--a Queen to breed a King's son for the King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe, that'll make them your blood-brothers, and that'll lie by your side and tell you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. That's what I want.' " 'Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I was a plate-layer?' says I. 'A fat lot o' good she was to me. She taught me the lingo and one or two other things; but what happened? She ran away with the Stationmaster's servant and half my month's pay. Then she turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste, and had the impidence to say I was her husband--all among the drivers in the running-shed too!' " 'We've done with that,' says Dravot; 'these women are whiter than you or me, and a Queen I will have for the winter months.' " 'For the last time o' asking, Dan, do /not/,' I says. 'It'll only bring us harm. The Bible says that Kings ain't to waste their strength on women, 'specially when they've got a new raw Kingdom to work over.' " 'For the last time of answering, I will,' said Dravot, and he went away through the pine-trees looking like a big red devil, the sun being on his crown and beard and all. "But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put it before the Council, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he'd better ask the girls. Dravot damned them all round. 'What's wrong with me?' he shouts, standing by the idol Imbra. 'Am I a dog, or am I not enough of a man for your wenches? Haven't I put the shadow of my hand over this country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?' It was me really, but Dravot was too angry to remember. 'Who bought your guns? Who repaired the bridges? Who's the Grand Master of the sign cut in the stone?' says he, and he thumped his hand on the block that he used to sit on in Lodge, and at Council, which opened like Lodge always. Billy Fish said nothing, and no more did the others. 'Keep your hair on, Dan,' said I, 'and ask the girls. That's how it's done at Home, and these people are quite English.' " 'The marriage of the King is a matter of State,' says Dan, in a white-hot rage, for he could feel, I hope, that he was going against his better mind. He walked out of the Council-room, and the others sat still, looking at the ground. " 'Billy Fish,' says I to the Chief of Bashkai, 'what's the difficulty here? A straight answer to a true friend.' " 'You know,' says Billy Fish. 'How should a man tell you who knows everything? How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It's not proper.' "I remembered something like that in the Bible; but, if after seeing us as long as they had, they still believed we were Gods, it wasn't for me to undeceive them. " 'A God can do anything,' says I. 'If the King is fond of a girl he'll not let her die.' 'She'll have to,' said Billy Fish. 'There are all sorts of Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now and again a girl marries one of them and isn't seen any more. Besides, you two know the Mark cut in the stone. Only the Gods know that. We thought you were men till you showed the sign of the Master.' "I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuine secrets of a Master Mason at the first go-off; but I said nothing. All that night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple half- way down the hill, and I heard the girl crying fit to die. One of the priests told us that she was being prepared to marry the King. " 'I'll have no nonsense of that kind,' says Dan. 'I don't want to interfere with your customs, but I'll take my own wife.' 'The girl's a little bit afraid,' says the priest. 'She thinks she's going to die, and they are a-heartening of her up down in the temple.' " 'Hearten her very tender, then,' says Dravot, 'or I'll hearten you with the butt of a gun so you'll never want to be heartened again.' He licked his lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking about more than half the night, thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the morning. I wasn't any means comfortable, for I knew that dealings with a woman in foreign parts, though you was a crowned King twenty times over, could not but be risky. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was asleep, and I saw the priests talking together in whispers, and the Chiefs talking together too, and they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes. " 'What is up, Fish?' I say to the Bashkai man, who was wrapped up in his furs and looking splendid to behold. " 'I can't rightly say,' says he; 'but if you can make the King drop all this nonsense about marriage, you'll be doing him and me and yourself a great service.' " 'That I do believe,' says I. 'But sure, you know, Billy, as well as me, having fought against and for us, that the King and me are nothing more than two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, I do assure you.' " 'That may be,' says Billy Fish, 'and yet I should be sorry if it was.' He sinks his head upon his great fur cloak for a minute and thinks. 'King,' says he, 'be you man or God or Devil, I'll stick by you to-day. I have twenty of my men with me, and they will follow me. We'll go to Bashkai until the storm blows over.' " A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was white except the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north. Dravot came out with his crown on his head, swinging his arms and stamping his feet, and looking more pleased than Punch. " 'For the last time, drop it, Dan,' says I, in a whisper; 'Billy Fish here says that there will be a row.' " 'A row among my people!' says Dravot. 'Not much. Peachey, you're a fool not to get a wife too. Where's the girl?' says he, with a voice as loud as the braying of a jackass. 'Call up all the Chiefs and priests, and let the Emperor see if his wife suits him.' "There was no need to call any one. They were all there leaning on their guns and spears round the clearing in the centre of the pine wood. A lot of priests went down to the little temple to bring up the girl, and the horns blew fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as close to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men with matchlocks--not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, and behind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a strapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises, but white as death, and looking back every minute at the priests. " 'She'll do,' said Dan, looking her over. 'What's to be afraid of, lass? Come and kiss me.' He puts his arm round her. She shuts her eyes, gives a bit of a squeak, and down goes her face in the side of Dan's flaming-red beard. " 'The slut's bitten me!' says he, clapping his hand to his neck, and, sure enough, his hand was red with blood. Billy Fish and two of his matchlock men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders and drags him into the Bashkai lot, while the priests howls in their lingo, 'Neither God nor Devil, but a man!' I was all taken aback, for a priest cut at me in front, and the Army behind began firing into the Bashkai men. " 'God A'mighty!' says Dan, 'what is the meaning o' this?' " 'Come back! Come away!' says Billy Fish. 'Ruin and Mutiny is the matter. We'll break for Bashkai if we can.' "I tried to give some sort of orders to my men,--the men o' the regular Army,--but it was no use, so I fired into the brown of 'em with an English Martini and drilled three beggars in a line. The valley was full of shouting, howling creatures, and every soul was shrieking, 'Not a God nor a Devil, but only a man!' The Bashkai troops stuck to Billy Fish all they were worth, but their matchlocks wasn't half as good as the Kabul breech-loaders, and four of them dropped. Dan was bellowing like a bull, for he was very wrathy; and Billy Fish had a hard job to prevent him running out at the crowd. " 'We can't stand,' says Billy Fish. 'Make a run for it down the valley! The whole place is against us.' The matchlock-men ran, and we went down the valley in spite of Dravot. He was swearing horrible and crying out that he was a King. The priests rolled great stones on us, and the regular Army fired hard, and there wasn't more than six men, not counting Dan, Billy Fish, and Me, that came down to the bottom of the valley alive. "Then they stopped firing, and the horns in the temple blew again. 'Come away-for Gord's sake come away!' says Billy Fish. 'They'll send runners out to all the villages before ever we get to Bashkai. I can protect you there, but I can't do anything now." "My own notion is that Dan began to go mad in his head from that hour. He stared up and down like a stuck pig. Then he was all for walking back alone and killing the priests with his bare hands; which he could have done. 'An Emperor am I,' says Daniel, 'and next year I shall be a Knight of the Queen.' " 'All right, Dan,' says I; 'but come along now while there's time.' " 'It's your fault,' says he, 'for not looking after your Army better. There was mutiny in the midst, and you didn't know--you damned engine- driving, platelaying, missionary's-pass-hunting hound!' He sat upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought the smash. " 'I'm sorry, Dan,' says I, 'but there's no accounting for natives. This business is our Fifty-seven. Maybe we'll make something out of it yet, when we've got to Bashkai.' " 'Let's get to Bashkai, then,' says Dan, 'and, by God, when I come back here again I'll sweep the valley so there isn't a bug in a blanket left!' "We walked all that day, and all that night Dan was stumping up and down on the snow, chewing his beard and muttering to himself. " 'There's no hope o' getting clear,' said Billy Fish. 'The priests have sent runners to the villages to say that you are only men. Why didn't you stick on as Gods till things was more settled? I'm a dead man,' says Billy Fish, and he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray to his Gods. "Next morning we was in a cruel bad country--all up and down, no level ground at all, and no food, either. The six Bashkai men looked at Billy Fish hungry-way as if they wanted to ask something, but they never said a word. At noon we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered with snow, and when we climbed up into it, behold, there was an Army in position waiting in the middle! " 'The runners have been very quick,' says Billy Fish, with a little bit of a laugh. 'They are waiting for us.' "Three or four men began to fire from the enemy's side, and a chance shot took Daniel in the calf of the leg. That brought him to his senses. He looks across the snow at the Army, and sees the rifles that we had brought into the country. " 'We're done for,' says he. 'They are Englishmen, these people,--and it's my blasted nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, Billy Fish, and take your men away; you've done what you could, and now cut for it. Carnehan,' says he, 'shake hands with me and go along with Billy, Maybe they won't kill you. I'll go and meet 'em alone. It's me that did it! Me, the King!' " 'Go!' says I. 'Go to Hell, Dan! I'm with you here. Billy Fish, you clear out, and we two will meet those folk.' " 'I'm a Chief,' says Billy Fish, quite quiet. 'I stay with you. My men can go.' "The Bashkai fellows didn't wait for a second word, but ran off, and Dan and Me and Billy Fish walked across to where the drums were drumming and the horns were horning. It was cold--awful cold. I've got that cold in the back of my head now. There's a lump of it there." The punka-coolies had gone to sleep. Two kerosene lamps were blazing in the office, and the perspiration poured down my face and splashed on the blotter as I leaned forward. Carnehan was shivering, and I feared that his mind might go. I wiped my face, took a fresh grip of the piteously mangled hands, and said, "What happened after that?" The momentary shift of my eyes had broken the clear current. "What was you pleased to say?" whined Carnehan. "They took them without any sound. Not a little whisper all along the snow, not though the King knocked down the first man that set hand on him--not though old Peachey fired his last cartridge into the brown of 'em. Not a single solitary sound did those swines make. They just closed up tight, and I tell you their furs stunk. There was a man called Billy Fish, a good friend of us all, and they cut his throat, Sir, then and there, like a pig; and the King kicks up the bloody snow and says, 'We've had a dashed fine run for our money. What's coming next?' But Peachey, Peachey Taliaferro, I tell you, Sir, in confidence as betwixt two friends, he lost his head, Sir. No, he didn't, neither. The King lost his head, so he did, all along o' one of those cunning rope bridges. Kindly let me have the paper-cutter, Sir. It tilted this way. They marched him a mile across that snow to a rope bridge over a ravine with a river at the bottom. You may have seen such. They prodded him behind like an ox. 'Damn your eyes!' says the King. 'D' you suppose I can't die like a gentleman?' He turns to Peachey-Peachey that was crying like a child. 'I've brought you to this, Peachey,' says he. 'Brought you out of your happy life to be killed in Kafiristan, where you was late Commander-in-Chief of the Emperor's forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey.' 'I do,' says Peachey. 'Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan.' 'Shake hands, Peachey,' says he. 'I'm going now.' Out he goes, looking neither right nor left, and when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes, 'Cut you beggars,' he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning round and round and round, twenty thousand miles, for he took half an hour to fall till he struck the water, and I could see his body caught on a rock with the gold crown close beside. "But do you know what they did to Peachey between two pine-trees? They crucified him, Sir, as Peachey's hand will show. They used wooden pegs for his hands and feet; but he didn't die. He hung there and screamed, and they took him down next day, and said it was a miracle that he wasn't dead. They took him down—poor old Peachey that hadn't done them any harm--that hadn't done them any--" He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping his eyes with the back of his scarred hands and moaning like a child for some ten minutes. "They was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple, because they said he was more of a God than old Daniel that was a man. Then they turned him out on the snow, and told him to go home, and Peachey came home in about a year, begging along the roads quite safe; for Daniel Dravot he walked before and said, 'Come along, Peachey. It's a big thing we're doing.' The mountains they danced at night, and the mountains they tried to fall on Peachey's head, but Dan he held up his hand, and Peachey came along bent double. He never let go of Dan's hand, and he never let go of Dan's head. They gave it to him as a present in the temple, to remind him not to come again; and though the crown was pure gold and Peachey was starving, never would Peachey sell the same. You know Dravot, Sir! You knew Right Worshipful Brother Dravot! Look at him now!" He fumbled in the mass of rags round his bent waist; brought out a black horsehair bag embroidered with silver thread; and shook therefrom on to my table--the dried, withered head of Daniel Dravot! The morning sun, that had long been paling the lamps, struck the red beard and blind sunken eyes; struck, too, a heavy circlet of gold studded with raw turquoises, that Carnehan placed tenderly on the battered temples. "You be'old now," said Carnehan, "the Emperor in his 'abit as he lived --the King of Kafiristan with his crown upon his head. Poor old Daniel that was a monarch once!" I shuddered, for, in spite of defacements manifold, I recognised the head of the man of Marwar Junction. Carnehan rose to go. I attempted to stop him. He was not fit to walk abroad. "Let me take away the whisky, and give me a little money," he gasped. "I was a King once. I'll go to the Deputy Commissioner and ask to set in the Poorhouse till I get my health. No, thank you, I can't wait till you get a carriage for me. I've urgent private affairs--in the south--at Marwar." He shambled out of the office and departed in the direction of the Deputy Commissioner's house. That day at noon I had occasion to go down the blindinghot Mall, and I saw a crooked man crawling along the white dust of the roadside, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously after the fashion of street-singers at Home. There was not a soul in sight, and he was out of all possible earshot of the houses. And he sang through his nose, turning his head from right to left: "The Son of Man goes forth to war, A golden crown to gain; His blood-red banner streams afar-- Who follows in His train?" I waited to hear no more, but put the poor wretch into my carriage and drove him off to the nearest missionary for eventual transfer to the Asylum. He repeated the hymn twice while he was with me, whom he did not in the least recognise, and I left him singing it to the missionary. Two days later I inquired after his welfare of the Superintendent of the Asylum. "He was admitted suffering from sunstroke. He died early yesterday morning," said the Superintendent. "Is it true that he was half an hour bareheaded in the sun at midday?" "Yes," said I; "but do you happen to know if he had anything upon him by any chance when he died?" "Not to my knowledge," said the Superintendent. And there the matter rests. Taken from Stories by English Authors: Orient page 5-24 THE REVENGE OF HER RACE BY MARY BEAUMONT The low hedge, where the creepers climbed, divided the lawn and its magnificent Wellingtonias from the meadow. There was little grass to be seen, for it was at this time one vast profusion of delicate ixias of every bright and tender shade. The evening was still, and the air heavy with scent. In a room opening upon the veranda wreathed with white-and-scarlet passion-flowers, where she could see the garden and the meadow, and, beyond all, the Mountain Beautiful, lay a sick woman. Her dark face was lovely as an autumn leaf is lovely--hectic with the passing life. Her eyes wandered to the upper snows of the mountain, from time to time resting upon the brown-haired English girl who sat on a low stool by her side, holding the frail hand in her cool, firm clasp. The invalid was speaking; her voice was curiously sweet, and there was a peculiarity about the "s," and an occasional turn of the sentence, which told the listener that her English was an acquired language. "I am glad he is not here," she said slowly. "I do not want him to have pain." "But perhaps, Mrs. Denison, you will be much better in a day or two, and able to welcome him when he comes back." "No, I shall not be here when he comes back, and it is just as it should be. I asked him to turn round as he left the garden, and I could see him, oh, so well! He looked kind and so beautiful, and he waved to me his hand. Now he will come back, and he will be sad. He did not want to leave me, but the governor sent for him. He will be sad, and he will remember that I loved him, and some day he will be glad again." She smiled into the troubled face near her. The girl stroked the thick dark hair lovingly. "Don't," she implored; "it hurts me. You are better to-night, and the children are coming in." Mrs. Denison closed her eyes, and with her left hand she covered her face. "No, not the children," she whispered, "not my darlings. I cannot bear it. I must see them no more." She pressed her companion's hand with a sudden close pressure. "But you will help them, Alice; you will make them English like you-like him. We will not pretend to-night; it is not long that I shall speak to you. I ask you to promise me to help them to be English." "Dear," the girl urged, "they are such a delicious mixture of England and New Zealand--prettier, sweeter than any mere English child could ever be. They are enchanting." But into the dying woman's eyes leaped an eager flame. "They must all be English, no Maori!" she cried. A violent fit of coughing interrupted her, and when the paroxysm was over she was too exhausted to speak. The English nurse, Mrs. Bentley, an elderly Yorkshire woman, who had been with Mrs. Denison since her first baby came six years ago, and who had, in fact, been Horace Denison's own nurse-maid, came in and sent the agitated girl into the garden. "For you haven't had a breath of fresh air to-day," she said. At the door Alice turned. The large eyes were resting upon her with an intent and solemn regard, in which lay a message. "What was it?" she thought, as she passed through the wide hall sweet with flowers. "She wanted to say something; I am sure she did. To-morrow I will ask her." But before the morrow came she knew. Mrs. Dennison had said /good- bye/. The funeral was over. Mr. Denison, who had looked unaccountably ill and weary for months, had been sent home by Mr. Danby for at least a year's change and rest, and the doctor's young sister had yielded to various pressure, and promised to stay with the children until he returned. There was every reason for it. She had loved and been loved by the gentle Maori mother; she delighted in the dark beauty and sweetness of the children. And they, on their side, clung to her as to an adorable fairy relative, dowered with love and the fruits of love-- tales and new games and tender ways. Best reason of all, in a sense, Mrs. Bentley, that kind autocrat, entreated her to stay, "as the happiest thing for the children, and to please that poor lamb we laid yonder, who fair longed that you should! She was mightily taken up with you, Miss Danby, and you've your brother and his wife near, so that you won't be lonesome, and if there's aught I can do to make you comfortable, you've only to speak, miss." As for Mr. Denison, he was pathetically grateful and relieved when Alice promised to remain. After the evening romp and the last good-night, when the two elder children, Ben and Marie, called after her mother, Maritana, had given her their last injunctions to be sure and come for them "her very own self" on her way down to breakfast in the morning, she usually rode down between the cabbage-trees, down by the old rata, fired last autumn, away through the grasslands to the doctor's house, a few miles nearer Rochester; or he and his wife would ride out to chat with her. But there were many evenings when she preferred the quiet of the airy house and the garden. The colonial life was new to her, everything had its charm, and in the colonies there is always a letter to write to those at home--the mail-bag is never satisfied. On such evenings it was her custom to cross the meadow to the copse of feathery trees beyond, where, sung to by the brook and the Tui, the children's mother slept. And from the high presence of the Mountain Beautiful there fell a dew of peace. She would often ask Mrs. Bentley to sit with her until bedtime, and revel in the shrewd north-country woman's experiences, and her impressions of the new land to which love had brought her. Both women grew to have a sincere and trustful affection for each other, and one night, seven or eight months after Mrs. Denison's death, Mrs. Bentley told a story which explained what had frequently puzzled Alice--the patient sorrow in Mrs. Denison's eyes, and Mr. Denison's harassed and dejected manner. "But for your goodness to the children," said the old woman, "and the way that precious baby takes to you, I don't think I should be willing to say what I am going to do, miss. Though my dear mistress wished it, and said, the very last night, 'You must tell her all about it, some day, Nana,'--and I promised, to quiet her,--I don't think I could bring myself to it if I hadn't lived with you and known you." And then the good nurse told her strange and moving tale. She described how her master had come out young and careless-hearted to New Zealand in the service of the government, and how scandalised and angry his father and mother, the old Tory squire and his wife, had been to receive from him, after a year or two, letters brimming with a boyish love for his "beautiful Maori princess," whom he described as having "the sweetest heart and the loveliest eyes in the world." It gave them little comfort to hear that her father was one of the wealthiest Maoris in the island, and that, though but half civilised himself, he had had his daughter well educated in the "bishop's" and other English schools. To them she was a savage. There was no threat of disinheritance, for there was nothing for him to inherit. There was little money, and the estate was entailed on the elder brother. But all that could be done to intimidate him was done, and in vain. Then silence fell between the parents and the son. But one spring day came the news of a grandson, called Benjamin after his grandfather, and an urgent letter from their boy himself, enclosing a prettily and humbly worded note from the new strange daughter, begging for an English nurse. She told them that she had now no father and no mother, for they had died before the baby came, and if she might love her husband's parents a little she would be glad. "My lady read the letters to me herself," Mrs. Bentley said; "I'd taken the housekeeper's place a bit before, and she asked me to find her a sensible young woman. Well, I tried, but there wasn't a girl in the place that was fit to nurse Master Horace's child. And the end of it was, I came myself, for Master Horace had been like my own when he was a little lad. My lady pretended to be vexed with me, but the day I sailed she thanked me in words I never thought to hear from her, for she was a bit proud always." The faithful servant's voice trembled. She leaned back in her chair, and forgot for the moment the new house and the new duties. She was back again in the old nursery with the fair-haired child playing about her knees. But Alice's face recalled her, and she continued the story. She had, she said, dreaded the meeting with her new mistress, and was prepared to find her "a sort of a heathen woman, who'd pull down Master Horace till he couldn't call himself a gentleman." But when she saw the graceful creature who received her with gentle words and gestures of kindliness, and when she found her young master not only content, but happy, and when she took in her arms the laughing healthy baby, she felt--though she regretted its dark eyes and hair--more at home than she could have believed possible. The nurseries were so large and comfortable, and so much consideration was shown to her, that she confessed, "I should have been more ungrateful than a cat if I hadn't settled comfortable." Then came nearly five happy years, during which time her young mistress had found a warm and secure place in the good Yorkshire heart. "She was that loving and that kind that Dick Burdas, the groom, used to say that he believed she was an angel as had took up with them dark folks, to show 'em what an angel was like." Mrs. Bentley went on: "She wasn't always quite happy, and I wondered what brought the shadow into her face, and why she would at times sigh that deep that I could have cried. After a bit I knew what it was. It was the Maori in her. She told me one night that she was a wicked woman, and ought never to have married Master Horace, for she got tired sometimes of the English house and its ways, and longed for her father's /whare/; (that's a native hut, miss). She grieved something awful one day when she had been to see old Tim, the Maori who lives behind the stables. She called herself a bad and ungrateful woman, and thought there must be some evil spirit in her tempting her into the old ways, because, when she saw Tim eating, and you know what bad stuff they eat, she had fair longed to join him. She gave me a fright I didn't get over for nigh a week. She leaned her bonny head against my knee, and I stroked her cheek and hummed some silly nursery tune,--for she was all of a tremble and like a child,--and she fell asleep just where she was." "Poor thing!" said Alice, softly. "Eh, but it's what's coming that upsets me, ma'am. Eh, what suffering for my pretty lamb, and her that wouldn't have hurt a worm! Baby would be about six months old when she came in one day with him in her arms, and they /were/ a picture. His little hand was fast in her hair. She always walked as if she'd wheels on her feet, that gliding and graceful. She had on a sort of sheeny yellow silk, and her cheeks were like them damask roses at home, and her eyes fair shone like stars. 'Isn't he a beauty, Nana?' she asked me. 'If only he had blue eyes, and that hair of gold like my husband's, and not these ugly eyes of mine!' And as she spoke she sighed as I dreaded to hear. Then she told me to help her to unpack her new dress from Paris, which she was to wear at the Rochester races the next day. Master Horace always chose her dresses, and he was right proud of her in them. And next morning he came into the nursery with her, and she was all in pale red, and that beautiful! 'Isn't she scrumptious, Nana?' he said, in his boyish way. 'Don't spoil her dress, children. How like her Marie grows!' Those two little ones they had got her on her knees on the ground, and were hugging her as if they couldn't let her go. But when he said that, she got up very still and white. " 'I am sorry,' she said; 'they must never be like me.' " 'They can't be any one better, can they, baby?' he answered her, and he tossed the child nearly up to the ceiling. But he looked worried as he went out. I saw them drive away, and they looked happy enough. And oh, miss, I saw them come back. We were in the porch, me and the children. Master Horace lifted her down, and I heard him say, 'Never mind, Marie.' But she never looked his way nor ours; she walked straight in and upstairs to her room, past my bonny darling with his arm stretched out to her, and past Miss Marie, who was jumping up and down, and shouting 'Muvver'; and I heard her door shut. Then Master Horace took baby from me. " 'Go up to her,' he said, and I could scarce hear him. His face was all drawn like, but I felt that silly and stupid that I could say nothing, and just went upstairs." Mrs. Bentley put her knitting down, and throwing her apron over her head sobbed aloud. "O nurse, what was it?" cried Alice, and the colour left her cheeks. "Do tell me. I am so sorry for them. What was it?" It was several minutes before the good woman could recover herself; then she began: "She told me, and Dick Burdas he told me, and it was like this. When they got to the race-course,--it was the first races they'd had in Rochester,--all the gentry was there, and those that knew her always made a deal of her, she had such half-shy, winning ways. And she seemed very bright, Dick said, talking with the governor's lady, who is full of fun and sparkle. The carriages were all together, and Major Beaumont, a kind old gentleman who's always been a good friend to Master Horace, would have them in his carriage for luncheon, or whatever it was. Dick says he was thinking that she was the prettiest lady there, when his eye was caught by two or three parties of Maoris setting themselves right in front of the carriages. There were four or five in each lot, and they were mostly old. They got out their sharks' flesh and that bad corn they eat, and began to make their meal of them. Near Mrs. Denison there was one old man with a better sort of face, and Dick heard her say to master, 'Isn't he like my father?' What Master Horace answered he didn't hear; he says he never saw anything like her face, so sad and wild, and working for all the world as if something were fighting her within. Then all in a minute she ran out and slipped down in her beautiful dress close by the old Maori in his dirty rags, and was rubbing her face against his, as them folks do when they meet. She had just taken a mouthful of the raw fish when Master Horace missed her. He hadn't noticed her slip away. But in a moment he seemed to understand what it meant. He saw the Maori come out strong in her face, and he knew the Maori had got the better of everything, husband and friends and all. He gave a little cry, and in a minute he had her on her feet and was bringing her back to the carriage. Some folks thought Dick Burdas a rough hard man, and I know he was a shocker of a lad (he was fra Whitby), but that night he cried like a baby when he tell 't me," and Mrs. Bentley fell for a moment into the dialect of her youth. "He said," she continued, "that she looked like a poor stricken thing condemned, and let herself be led back as submissive as a child, and Master Horace's face was like the dead. He didn't think any one but the major and Dr. Danby saw her go, all was done in a minute. But it was done, and some few had seen, and it got out, and things were said that wasn't true. Not the doctor! No, miss, you needn't tell me that; he's told none, that I'll warrant. He's faithful and he's close." "O Mrs. Bentley, how dreadful for her, how dreadful!" and the girl went down on her knees by the old woman, her tears flowing fast. "That's it, miss, you understand. I feel like that. It was bad enough for Master Horace with the future before him, and his children to think of, but for her it was desperate cruel. Eh, ma'am, what she went through! She loved more than you'd have thought us poor human beings could. And, after all, the nature was in her; she didn't put it there. I've had a deal to do to keep down sinful thoughts since then; there's a lot of things that's wrong in this world, ma'am." "What did she do?" Alice whispered. "She! She was for going away and leaving everything; she felt herself the worst woman in the world. It was only by begging and praying of her on my knees that I got her to stay in the house that night, for she was so far English, and had such a fancy, that she saw everything blacker than any Englishwoman would, even the partick'lerest. Afterward Master Horace was that good and gentle, and she loved him so much, that he persuaded her to say nothing more about it, and to try to live as if it hadn't been. And so she seemed to do, outward like, to other people. But it wasn't ever the same again. Something had broken in them both; with him it was his trust and his pride, but in her it was her heart." "But the children--surely they comforted her." "Eh, miss, that was the worst. Poor lamb, poor lamb! Never after that day, though they were more to her nor children ever were to a mother before, would she have them with her. Just a morning and a good-night kiss, and a quarter of an hour at most, and I must take them away. She watched them play in the garden from her window or the little hill there, and when they were asleep she would sit by them for hours, saying how bonny they were and how good they were growing. And she looked after their clothes and their food and every little toy and pleasure, but never came in for a romp and a chat any more." "Dear, brave heart!" murmured the girl. "Yes, ma'am, you feel for her, I know. She was fair terrified of them turning Maori and shaming their father. That was it. You didn't notice? No; after you came she was too ill to bear them about, and it seemed natural, I dare say. The Maoris are a fearful delicate set of folks. A bad cold takes them off into consumption directly. And with her there was the sorrow as well as the cold. It was wonderful that she lived so long." Alice threw her arms round Mrs. Bentley's neck. "O nurse, it is all so dreadful and sad. Couldn't we have somehow kept her with us and made her happy?" The old woman held her close. "Nay, my dear bairn, never after that happened. It, or worse, might have come again. It's something stronger in them than we know; it's the very blood, I'm thinking. But she's gone to be the angel that Dick always said she was." Alice looked away over the starlit garden to where the plumy trees stirred in the night wind. "No," she said, fervently, "not 'gone to be,' nurse dear; she was an angel always. Dick was right." Taken from Stories by English Authors: Orient page 45-50 AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS I There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs. The third man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who maintained that his name was Henry Price. However, for some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola, and it stuck to him through all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship of evil spirits. His wife was a negress from Loanda, very large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before the door of his low, shed-like dwelling. Makola, taciturn and impenetrable, despised the two white men. He had charge of a small clay storehouse with a dried-grass roof, and pretended to keep a correct account of beads, cotton cloth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and other trade goods it contained. Besides the storehouse and Makola's hut, there was only one large building in the cleared ground of the station. It was built neatly of reeds, with a verandah on all the four sides. There were three rooms in it. The one in the middle was the living-room, and had two rough tables and a few stools in it. The other two were the bedrooms for the white men. Each had a bedstead and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered with the belongings of the white men; open half-empty boxes, torn wearing apparel, old boots; all the things dirty, and all the things broken, that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men. There was also another dwelling-place some distance away from the buildings. In it, under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man who had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched the construction of this outpost of progress. He had been, at home, an unsuccessful painter who, weary of pursuing fame on an empty stomach, had gone out there through high protections. He had been the first chief of that station. Makola had watched the energetic artist die of fever in the just finished house with his usual kind of "I told you so" indifference. Then, for a time, he dwelt alone with his family, his account books, and the Evil Spirit that rules the lands under the equator. He got on very well with his god. Perhaps he had propitiated him by a promise of more white men to play with, by and by. At any rate the director of the Great Trading Company, coming up in a steamer that resembled an enormous sardine box with a flat-roofed shed erected on it, found the station in good order, and Makola as usual quietly diligent. The director had the cross put up over the first agent's grave, and appointed Kayerts to the post. Carlier was told off as second in charge. The director was a man ruthless and efficient, who at times, but very imperceptibly, indulged in grim humour. He made a speech to Kayerts and Carlier, pointing out to them the promising aspect of their station. The nearest trading-post was about three hundred miles away. It was an exceptional opportunity for them to distinguish themselves and to earn percentages on the trade. This appointment was a favour done to beginners. Kayerts was moved almost to tears by his director's kindness. He would, he said, by doing his best, try to justify the flattering confidence, &c., &c. Kayerts had been in the Administration of the Telegraphs, and knew how to express himself correctly. Carlier, an ex-non-commissioned officer of cavalry in an army guaranteed from harm by several European Powers, was less impressed. If there were commissions to get, so much the better; and, trailing a sulky glance over the river, the forests, the impenetrable bush that seemed to cut off the station from the rest of the world, he muttered between his teeth, "We shall see, very soon." Next day, some bales of cotton goods and a few cases of provisions having been thrown on shore, the sardine-box steamer went off, not to return for another six months. On the deck the director touched his cap to the two agents, who stood on the bank waving their hats, and turning to an old servant of the Company on his passage to headquarters, said, "Look at those two imbeciles. They must be mad at home to send me such specimens. I told those fellows to plant a vegetable garden, build new storehouses and fences, and construct a landing-stage. I bet nothing will be done! They won't know how to begin. I always thought the station on this river useless, and they just fit the station!" "They will form themselves there," said the old stager with a quiet smile. "At any rate, I am rid of them for six months," retorted the director. The two men watched the steamer round the bend, then, ascending arm in arm the slope of the bank, returned to the station. They had been in this vast and dark country only a very short time, and as yet always in the midst of other white men, under the eye and guidance of their superiors. And now, dull as they were to the subtle influences of surroundings, they felt themselves very much alone, when suddenly left unassisted to face the wilderness; a wilderness rendered more strange, more incomprehensible by the mysterious glimpses of the vigorous life it contained. They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To the sentiment of being alone of one's kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one's thoughts, of one's sensations--to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike. Kayerts and Carlier walked arm in arm, drawing close to one another as children do in the dark; and they had the same, not altogether unpleasant, sense of danger which one half suspects to be imaginary. They chatted persistently in familiar tones. "Our station is prettily situated," said one. The other assented with enthusiasm, enlarging volubly on the beauties of the situation. Then they passed near the grave. "Poor devil!" said Kayerts. "He died of fever, didn't he?" muttered Carlier, stopping short. "Why," retorted Kayerts, with indignation, "I've been told that the fellow exposed himself recklessly to the sun. The climate here, everybody says, is not at all worse than at home, as long as you keep out of the sun. Do you hear that, Carlier? I am chief here, and my orders are that you should not expose yourself to the sun!" He assumed his superiority jocularly, but his meaning was serious. The idea that he would, perhaps, have to bury Carlier and remain alone, gave him an inward shiver. He felt suddenly that this Carlier was more precious to him here, in the centre of Africa, than a brother could be anywhere else. Carlier, entering into the spirit of the thing, made a military salute and answered in a brisk tone, "Your orders shall be attended to, chief!" Then he burst out laughing, slapped Kayerts on the back and shouted, "We shall let life run easily here! Just sit still and gather in the ivory those savages will bring. This country has its good points, after all!" They both laughed loudly while Carlier thought: "That poor Kayerts; he is so fat and unhealthy. It would be awful if I had to bury him here. He is a man I respect." . . . Before they reached the verandah of their house they called one another "my dear fellow." The first day they were very active, pottering about with hammers and nails and red calico, to put up curtains, make their house habitable and pretty; resolved to settle down comfortably to their new life. For them an impossible task. To grapple effectually with even purely material problems requires more serenity of mind and more lofty courage than people generally imagine. No two beings could have been more unfitted for such a struggle. Society, not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs, had taken care of those two men, forbidding them all independent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; and forbidding it under pain of death. They could only live on condition of being machines. And now, released from the fostering care of men with pens behind the ears, or of men with gold lace on the sleeves, they were like those lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years, do not know what use to make of their freedom. They did not know what use to make of their faculties, being both, through want of practice, incapable of independent thought. At the end of two months Kayerts often would say, "If it was not for my Melie, you wouldn't catch me here." Melie was his daughter. He had thrown up his post in the Administration of the Telegraphs, though he had been for seventeen years perfectly happy there, to earn a dowry for his girl. His wife was dead, and the child was being brought up by his sisters. He regretted the streets, the pavements, the cafes, his friends of many years; all the things he used to see, day after day; all the thoughts suggested by familiar things--the thoughts effortless, monotonous, and soothing of a Government clerk; he regretted all the gossip, the small enmities, the mild venom, and the little jokes of Government offices. "If I had had a decent brother-in-law," Carlier would remark, "a fellow with a heart, I would not be here." He had left the army and had made himself so obnoxious to his family by his laziness and impudence, that an exasperated brother-in-law had made superhuman efforts to procure him an appointment in the Company as a second-class agent. Having not a penny in the world he was compelled to accept this means of livelihood as soon as it became quite clear to him that there was nothing more to squeeze out of his relations. He, like Kayerts, regretted his old life. He regretted the clink of sabre and spurs on a fine afternoon, the barrackroom witticisms, the girls of garrison towns; but, besides, he had also a sense of grievance. He was evidently a much ill-used man. This made him moody, at times. But the two men got on well together in the fellowship of their stupidity and laziness. Together they did nothing, absolutely nothing, and enjoyed the sense of the idleness for which they were paid. And in time they came to feel something resembling affection for one another. They lived like blind men in a large room, aware only of what came in contact with them (and of that only imperfectly), but unable to see the general aspect of things. The river, the forest, all the great land throbbing with life, were like a great emptiness. Even the brilliant sunshine disclosed nothing intelligible. Things appeared and disappeared before their eyes in an unconnected and aimless kind of way. The river seemed to come from nowhere and flow nowhither. It flowed through a void. Out of that void, at times, came canoes, and men with spears in their hands would suddenly crowd the yard of the station. They were naked, glossy black, ornamented with snowy shells and glistening brass wire, perfect of limb. They made an uncouth babbling noise when they spoke, moved in a stately manner, and sent quick, wild glances out of their startled, never-resting eyes. Those warriors would squat in long rows, four or more deep, before the verandah, while their chiefs bargained for hours with Makola over an elephant tusk. Kayerts sat on his chair and looked down on the proceedings, understanding nothing. He stared at them with his round blue eyes, called out to Carlier, "Here, look! look at that fellow there--and that other one, to the left. Did you ever such a face? Oh, the funny brute!" Carlier, smoking native tobacco in a short wooden pipe, would swagger up twirling his moustaches, and surveying the warriors with haughty indulgence, would say— "Fine animals. Brought any bone? Yes? It's not any too soon. Look at the muscles of that fellow third from the end. I wouldn't care to get a punch on the nose from him. Fine arms, but legs no good below the knee. Couldn't make cavalry men of them." And after glancing down complacently at his own shanks, he always concluded: "Pah! Don't they stink! You, Makola! Take that herd over to the fetish" (the storehouse was in every station called the fetish, perhaps because of the spirit of civilization it contained) "and give them up some of the rubbish you keep there. I'd rather see it full of bone than full of rags." Kayerts approved. "Yes, yes! Go and finish that palaver over there, Mr. Makola. I will come round when you are ready, to weigh the tusk. We must be careful." Then turning to his companion: "This is the tribe that lives down the river; they are rather aromatic. I remember, they had been once before here. D'ye hear that row? What a fellow has got to put up with in this dog of a country! My head is split." Such profitable visits were rare. For days the two pioneers of trade and progress would look on their empty courtyard in the vibrating brilliance of vertical sunshine. Below the high bank, the silent river flowed on glittering and steady. On the sands in the middle of the stream, hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. And stretching away in all directions, surrounding the insignificant cleared spot of the trading post, immense forests, hiding fateful complications of fantastic life, lay in the eloquent silence of mute greatness. The two men understood nothing, cared for nothing but for the passage of days that separated them from the steamer's return. Their predecessor had left some torn books. They took up these wrecks of novels, and, as they had never read anything of the kind before, they were surprised and amused. Then during long days there were interminable and silly discussions about plots and personages. In the centre of Africa they made acquaintance of Richelieu and of d'Artagnan, of Hawk's Eye and of Father Goriot, and of many other people. All these imaginary personages became subjects for gossip as if they had been living friends. They discounted their virtues, suspected their motives, decried their successes; were scandalized at their duplicity or were doubtful about their courage. The accounts of crimes filled them with indignation, while tender or pathetic passages moved them deeply. Carlier cleared his throat and said in a soldierly voice, "What nonsense!" Kayerts, his round eyes suffused with tears, his fat cheeks quivering, rubbed his bald head, and declared. "This is a splendid book. I had no idea there were such clever fellows in the world." They also found some old copies of a home paper. That print discussed what it was pleased to call "Our Colonial Expansion" in high-flown language. It spoke much of the rights and duties of civilization, of the sacredness of the civilizing work, and extolled the merits of those who went about bringing light, and faith and commerce to the dark places of the earth. Carlier and Kayerts read, wondered, and began to think better of themselves. Carlier said one evening, waving his hand about, "In a hundred years, there will be perhaps a town here. Quays, and warehouses, and barracks, and--and--billiard-rooms. Civilization, my boy, and virtue--and all. And then, chaps will read that two good fellows, Kayerts and Carlier, were the first civilized men to live in this very spot!" Kayerts nodded, "Yes, it is a consolation to think of that." They seemed to forget their dead predecessor; but, early one day, Carlier went out and replanted the cross firmly. "It used to make me squint whenever I walked that way," he explained to Kayerts over the morning coffee. "It made me squint, leaning over so much. So I just planted it upright. And solid, I promise you! I suspended myself with both hands to the cross-piece. Not a move. Oh, I did that properly." At times Gobila came to see them. Gobila was the chief of the neighbouring villages. He was a gray-headed savage, thin and black, with a white cloth round his loins and a mangy panther skin hanging over his back. He came up with long strides of his skeleton legs, swinging a staff as tall as himself, and, entering the common room of the station, would squat on his heels to the left of the door. There he sat, watching Kayerts, and now and then making a speech which the other did not understand. Kayerts, without interrupting his occupation, would from time to time say in a friendly manner: "How goes it, you old image?" and they would smile at one another. The two whites had a liking for that old and incomprehensible creature, and called him Father Gobila. Gobila's manner was paternal, and he seemed really to love all white men. They all appeared to him very young, indistinguishably alike (except for stature), and he knew that they were all brothers, and also immortal. The death of the artist, who was the first white man whom he knew intimately, did not disturb this belief, because he was firmly convinced that the white stranger had pretended to die and got himself buried for some mysterious purpose of his own, into which it was useless to inquire. Perhaps it was his way of going home to his own country? At any rate, these were his brothers, and he transferred his absurd affection to them. They returned it in a way. Carlier slapped him on the back, and recklessly struck off matches for his amusement. Kayerts was always ready to let him have a sniff at the ammonia bottle. In short, they behaved just like that other white creature that had hidden itself in a hole in the ground. Gobila considered them attentively. Perhaps they were the same being with the other--or one of them was. He couldn't decide--clear up that mystery; but he remained always very friendly. In consequence of that friendship the women of Gobila's village walked in single file through the reedy grass, bringing every morning to the station, fowls, and sweet potatoes, and palm wine, and sometimes a goat. The Company never provisions the stations fully, and the agents required those local supplies to live. They had them through the good-will of Gobila, and lived well. Now and then one of them had a bout of fever, and the other nursed him with gentle devotion. They did not think much of it. It left them weaker, and their appearance changed for the worse. Carlier was hollow-eyed and irritable. Kayerts showed a drawn, flabby face above the rotundity of his stomach, which gave him a weird aspect. But being constantly together, they did not notice the change that took place gradually in their appearance, and also in their dispositions. Five months passed in that way. Then, one morning, as Kayerts and Carlier, lounging in their chairs under the verandah, talked about the approaching visit of the steamer, a knot of armed men came out of the forest and advanced towards the station. They were strangers to that part of the country. They were tall, slight, draped classically from neck to heel in blue fringed cloths, and carried percussion muskets over their bare right shoulders. Makola showed signs of excitement, and ran out of the storehouse (where he spent all his days) to meet these visitors. They came into the courtyard and looked about them with steady, scornful glances. Their leader, a powerful and determined-looking negro with bloodshot eyes, stood in front of the verandah and made a long speech. He gesticulated much, and ceased very suddenly. There was something in his intonation, in the sounds of the long sentences he used, that startled the two whites. It was like a reminiscence of something not exactly familiar, and yet resembling the speech of civilized men. It sounded like one of those impossible languages which sometimes we hear in our dreams. "What lingo is that?" said the amazed Carlier. "In the first moment I fancied the fellow was going to speak French. Anyway, it is a different kind of gibberish to what we ever heard." "Yes," replied Kayerts. "Hey, Makola, what does he say? Where do they come from? Who are they?" But Makola, who seemed to be standing on hot bricks, answered hurriedly, "I don't know. They come from very far. Perhaps Mrs. Price will understand. They are perhaps bad men." The leader, after waiting for a while, said something sharply to Makola, who shook his head. Then the man, after looking round, noticed Makola's hut and walked over there. The next moment Mrs. Makola was heard speaking with great volubility. The other strangers--they were six in all--strolled about with an air of ease, put their heads through the door of the storeroom, congregated round the grave, pointed understandingly at the cross, and generally made themselves at home. "I don't like those chaps--and, I say, Kayerts, they must be from the coast; they've got firearms," observed the sagacious Carlier. Kayerts also did not like those chaps. They both, for the first time, became aware that they lived in conditions where the unusual may be dangerous, and that there was no power on earth outside of themselves to stand between them and the unusual. They became uneasy, went in and loaded their revolvers. Kayerts said, "We must order Makola to tell them to go away before dark." The strangers left in the afternoon, after eating a meal prepared for them by Mrs. Makola. The immense woman was excited, and talked much with the visitors. She rattled away shrilly, pointing here and there at the forests and at the river. Makola sat apart and watched. At times he got up and whispered to his wife. He accompanied the strangers across the ravine at the back of the station-ground, and returned slowly looking very thoughtful. When questioned by the white men he was very strange, seemed not to understand, seemed to have forgotten French-seemed to have forgotten how to speak altogether. Kayerts and Carlier agreed that the nigger had had too much palm wine. There was some talk about keeping a watch in turn, but in the evening everything seemed so quiet and peaceful that they retired as usual. All night they were disturbed by a lot of drumming in the villages. A deep, rapid roll near by would be followed by another far off--then all ceased. Soon short appeals would rattle out here and there, then all mingle together, increase, become vigorous and sustained, would spread out over the forest, roll through the night, unbroken and ceaseless, near and far, as if the whole land had been one immense drum booming out steadily an appeal to heaven. And through the deep and tremendous noise sudden yells that resembled snatches of songs from a madhouse darted shrill and high in discordant jets of sound which seemed to rush far above the earth and drive all peace from under the stars. Carlier and Kayerts slept badly. They both thought they had heard shots fired during the night--but they could not agree as to the direction. In the morning Makola was gone somewhere. He returned about noon with one of yesterday's strangers, and eluded all Kayerts' attempts to close with him: had become deaf apparently. Kayerts wondered. Carlier, who had been fishing off the bank, came back and remarked while he showed his catch, "The niggers seem to be in a deuce of a stir; I wonder what's up. I saw about fifteen canoes cross the river during the two hours I was there fishing." Kayerts, worried, said, "Isn't this Makola very queer to-day?" Carlier advised, "Keep all our men together in case of some trouble." II There were ten station men who had been left by the Director. Those fellows, having engaged themselves to the Company for six months (without having any idea of a month in particular and only a very faint notion of time in general), had been serving the cause of progress for upwards of two years. Belonging to a tribe from a very distant part of the land of darkness and sorrow, they did not run away, naturally supposing that as wandering strangers they would be killed by the inhabitants of the country; in which they were right. They lived in straw huts on the slope of a ravine overgrown with reedy grass, just behind the station buildings. They were not happy, regretting the festive incantations, the sorceries, the human sacrifices of their own land; where they also had parents, brothers, sisters, admired chiefs, respected magicians, loved friends, and other ties supposed generally to be human. Besides, the rice rations served out by the Company did not agree with them, being a food unknown to their land, and to which they could not get used. Consequently they were unhealthy and miserable. Had they been of any other tribe they would have made up their minds to die--for nothing is easier to certain savages than suicide--and so have escaped from the puzzling difficulties of existence. But belonging, as they did, to a warlike tribe with filed teeth, they had more grit, and went on stupidly living through disease and sorrow. They did very little work, and had lost their splendid physique. Carlier and Kayerts doctored them assiduously without being able to bring them back into condition again. They were mustered every morning and told off to different tasks--grass-cutting, fence-building, tree-felling, &c., &c., which no power on earth could induce them to execute efficiently. The two whites had practically very little control over them. In the afternoon Makola came over to the big house and found Kayerts watching three heavy columns of smoke rising above the forests. "What is that?" asked Kayerts. "Some villages burn," answered Makola, who seemed to have regained his wits. Then he said abruptly: "We have got very little ivory; bad six months' trading. Do you like get a little more ivory?" "Yes," said Kayerts, eagerly. He thought of percentages which were low. "Those men who came yesterday are traders from Loanda who have got more ivory than they can carry home. Shall I buy? I know their camp." "Certainly," said Kayerts. "What are those traders?" "Bad fellows," said Makola, indifferently. "They fight with people, and catch women and children. They are bad men, and got guns. There is a great disturbance in the country. Do you want ivory?" "Yes," said Kayerts. Makola said nothing for a while. Then: "Those workmen of ours are no good at all," he muttered, looking round. "Station in very bad order, sir. Director will growl. Better get a fine lot of ivory, then he say nothing." "I can't help it; the men won't work," said Kayerts. "When will you get that ivory?" "Very soon," said Makola. "Perhaps to-night. You leave it to me, and keep indoors, sir. I think you had better give some palm wine to our men to make a dance this evening. Enjoy themselves. Work better to-morrow. There's plenty palm wine--gone a little sour." Kayerts said "yes," and Makola, with his own hands carried big calabashes to the door of his hut. They stood there till the evening, and Mrs. Makola looked into every one. The men got them at sunset. When Kayerts and Carlier retired, a big bonfire was flaring before the men's huts. They could hear their shouts and drumming. Some men from Gobila's village had joined the station hands, and the entertainment was a great success. In the middle of the night, Carlier waking suddenly, heard a man shout loudly; then a shot was fired. Only one. Carlier ran out and met Kayerts on the verandah. They were both startled. As they went across the yard to call Makola, they saw shadows moving in the night. One of them cried, "Don't shoot! It's me, Price." Then Makola appeared close to them. "Go back, go back, please," he urged, "you spoil all." "There are strange men about," said Carlier. "Never mind; I know," said Makola. Then he whispered, "All right. Bring ivory. Say nothing! I know my business." The two white men reluctantly went back to the house, but did not sleep. They heard footsteps, whispers, some groans. It seemed as if a lot of men came in, dumped heavy things on the ground, squabbled a long time, then went away. They lay on their hard beds and thought: "This Makola is invaluable." In the morning Carlier came out, very sleepy, and pulled at the cord of the big bell. The station hands mustered every morning to the sound of the bell. That morning nobody came. Kayerts turned out also, yawning. Across the yard they saw Makola come out of his hut, a tin basin of soapy water in his hand. Makola, a civilized nigger, was very neat in his person. He threw the soapsuds skilfully over a wretched little yellow cur he had, then turning his face to the agent's house, he shouted from the distance, "All the men gone last night!" They heard him plainly, but in their surprise they both yelled out together: "What!" Then they stared at one another. "We are in a proper fix now," growled Carlier. "It's incredible!" muttered Kayerts. "I will go to the huts and see," said Carlier, striding off. Makola coming up found Kayerts standing alone. "I can hardly believe it," said Kayerts, tearfully. "We took care of them as if they had been our children." "They went with the coast people," said Makola after a moment of hesitation. "What do I care with whom they went--the ungrateful brutes!" exclaimed the other. Then with sudden suspicion, and looking hard at Makola, he added: "What do you know about it?" Makola moved his shoulders, looking down on the ground. "What do I know? I think only. Will you come and look at the ivory I've got there? It is a fine lot. You never saw such." He moved towards the store. Kayerts followed him mechanically, thinking about the incredible desertion of the men. On the ground before the door of the fetish lay six splendid tusks. "What did you give for it?" asked Kayerts, after surveying the lot with satisfaction. "No regular trade," said Makola. "They brought the ivory and gave it to me. I told them to take what they most wanted in the station. It is a beautiful lot. No station can show such tusks. Those traders wanted carriers badly, and our men were no good here. No trade, no entry in books: all correct." Kayerts nearly burst with indignation. "Why!" he shouted, "I believe you have sold our men for these tusks!" Makola stood impassive and silent. "I--I--will--I," stuttered Kayerts. "You fiend!" he yelled out. "I did the best for you and the Company," said Makola, imperturbably. "Why you shout so much? Look at this tusk." "I dismiss you! I will report you--I won't look at the tusk. I forbid you to touch them. I order you to throw them into the river. You--you!" "You very red, Mr. Kayerts. If you are so irritable in the sun, you will get fever and die--like the first chief!" pronounced Makola impressively. They stood still, contemplating one another with intense eyes, as if they had been looking with effort across immense distances. Kayerts shivered. Makola had meant no more than he said, but his words seemed to Kayerts full of ominous menace! He turned sharply and went away to the house. Makola retired into the bosom of his family; and the tusks, left lying before the store, looked very large and valuable in the sunshine. Carlier came back on the verandah. "They're all gone, hey?" asked Kayerts from the far end of the common room in a muffled voice. "You did not find anybody?" "Oh, yes," said Carlier, "I found one of Gobila's people lying dead before the huts-shot through the body. We heard that shot last night." Kayerts came out quickly. He found his companion staring grimly over the yard at the tusks, away by the store. They both sat in silence for a while. Then Kayerts related his conversation with Makola. Carlier said nothing. At the midday meal they ate very little. They hardly exchanged a word that day. A great silence seemed to lie heavily over the station and press on their lips. Makola did not open the store; he spent the day playing with his children. He lay full-length on a mat outside his door, and the youngsters sat on his chest and clambered all over him. It was a touching picture. Mrs. Makola was busy cooking all day, as usual. The white men made a somewhat better meal in the evening. Afterwards, Carlier smoking his pipe strolled over to the store; he stood for a long time over the tusks, touched one or two with his foot, even tried to lift the largest one by its small end. He came back to his chief, who had not stirred from the verandah, threw himself in the chair and said-"I can see it! They were pounced upon while they slept heavily after drinking all that palm wine you've allowed Makola to give them. A put-up job! See? The worst is, some of Gobila's people were there, and got carried off too, no doubt. The least drunk woke up, and got shot for his sobriety. This is a funny country. What will you do now?" "We can't touch it, of course," said Kayerts. "Of course not," assented Carlier. "Slavery is an awful thing," stammered out Kayerts in an unsteady voice. "Frightful--the sufferings," grunted Carlier with conviction. They believed their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice mean--except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions. Next morning they saw Makola very busy setting up in the yard the big scales used for weighing ivory. By and by Carlier said: "What's that filthy scoundrel up to?" and lounged out into the yard. Kayerts followed. They stood watching. Makola took no notice. When the balance was swung true, he tried to lift a tusk into the scale. It was too heavy. He looked up helplessly without a word, and for a minute they stood round that balance as mute and still as three statues. Suddenly Carlier said: "Catch hold of the other end, Makola--you beast!" and together they swung the tusk up. Kayerts trembled in every limb. He muttered, "I say! O! I say!" and putting his hand in his pocket found there a dirty bit of paper and the stump of a pencil. He turned his back on the others, as if about to do something tricky, and noted stealthily the weights which Carlier shouted out to him with unnecessary loudness. When all was over Makola whispered to himself: "The sun's very strong here for the tusks." Carlier said to Kayerts in a careless tone: "I say, chief, I might just as well give him a lift with this lot into the store." As they were going back to the house Kayerts observed with a sigh: "It had to be done." And Carlier said: "It's deplorable, but, the men being Company's men the ivory is Company's ivory. We must look after it." "I will report to the Director, of course," said Kayerts. "Of course; let him decide," approved Carlier. At midday they made a hearty meal. Kayerts sighed from time to time. Whenever they mentioned Makola's name they always added to it an opprobrious epithet. It eased their conscience. Makola gave himself a half-holiday, and bathed his children in the river. No one from Gobila's villages came near the station that day. No one came the next day, and the next, nor for a whole week. Gobila's people might have been dead and buried for any sign of life they gave. But they were only mourning for those they had lost by the witchcraft of white men, who had brought wicked people into their country. The wicked people were gone, but fear remained. Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips the struggle of his last breath. In his fear, the mild old Gobila offered extra human sacrifices to all the Evil Spirits that had taken possession of his white friends. His heart was heavy. Some warriors spoke about burning and killing, but the cautious old savage dissuaded them. Who could foresee the woe those mysterious creatures, if irritated, might bring? They should be left alone. Perhaps in time they would disappear into the earth as the first one had disappeared. His people must keep away from them, and hope for the best. Kayerts and Carlier did not disappear, but remained above on this earth, that, somehow, they fancied had become bigger and very empty. It was not the absolute and dumb solitude of the post that impressed them so much as an inarticulate feeling that something from within them was gone, something that worked for their safety, and had kept the wilderness from interfering with their hearts. The images of home; the memory of people like them, of men that thought and felt as they used to think and feel, receded into distances made indistinct by the glare of unclouded sunshine. And out of the great silence of the surrounding wilderness, its very hopelessness and savagery seemed to approach them nearer, to draw them gently, to look upon them, to envelop them with a solicitude irresistible, familiar, and disgusting. Days lengthened into weeks, then into months. Gobila's people drummed and yelled to every new moon, as of yore, but kept away from the station. Makola and Carlier tried once in a canoe to open communications, but were received with a shower of arrows, and had to fly back to the station for dear life. That attempt set the country up and down the river into an uproar that could be very distinctly heard for days. The steamer was late. At first they spoke of delay jauntily, then anxiously, then gloomily. The matter was becoming serious. Stores were running short. Carlier cast his lines off the bank, but the river was low, and the fish kept out in the stream. They dared not stroll far away from the station to shoot. Moreover, there was no game in the impenetrable forest. Once Carlier shot a hippo in the river. They had no boat to secure it, and it sank. When it floated up it drifted away, and Gobila's people secured the carcase. It was the occasion for a national holiday, but Carlier had a fit of rage over it and talked about the necessity of exterminating all the niggers before the country could be made habitable. Kayerts mooned about silently; spent hours looking at the portrait of his Melie. It represented a little girl with long bleached tresses and a rather sour face. His legs were much swollen, and he could hardly walk. Carlier, undermined by fever, could not swagger any more, but kept tottering about, still with a devilmay- care air, as became a man who remembered his crack regiment. He had become hoarse, sarcastic, and inclined to say unpleasant things. He called it "being frank with you." They had long ago reckoned their percentages on trade, including in them that last deal of "this infamous Makola." They had also concluded not to say anything about it. Kayerts hesitated at first--was afraid of the Director. "He has seen worse things done on the quiet," maintained Carlier, with a hoarse laugh. "Trust him! He won't thank you if you blab. He is no better than you or me. Who will talk if we hold our tongues? There is nobody here." That was the root of the trouble! There was nobody there; and being left there alone with their weakness, they became daily more like a pair of accomplices than like a couple of devoted friends. They had heard nothing from home for eight months. Every evening they said, "To-morrow we shall see the steamer." But one of the Company's steamers had been wrecked, and the Director was busy with the other, relieving very distant and important stations on the main river. He thought that the useless station, and the useless men, could wait. Meantime Kayerts and Carlier lived on rice boiled without salt, and cursed the Company, all Africa, and the day they were born. One must have lived on such diet to discover what ghastly trouble the necessity of swallowing one's food may become. There was literally nothing else in the station but rice and coffee; they drank the coffee without sugar. The last fifteen lumps Kayerts had solemnly locked away in his box, together with a half-bottle of Cognac, "in case of sickness," he explained. Carlier approved. "When one is sick," he said, "any little extra like that is cheering." They waited. Rank grass began to sprout over the courtyard. The bell never rang now. Days passed, silent, exasperating, and slow. When the two men spoke, they snarled; and their silences were bitter, as if tinged by the bitterness of their thoughts. One day after a lunch of boiled rice, Carlier put down his cup untasted, and said: "Hang it all! Let's have a decent cup of coffee for once. Bring out that sugar, Kayerts!" "For the sick," muttered Kayerts, without looking up. "For the sick," mocked Carlier. "Bosh! . . . Well! I am sick." "You are no more sick than I am, and I go without," said Kayerts in a peaceful tone. "Come! out with that sugar, you stingy old slave-dealer." Kayerts looked up quickly. Carlier was smiling with marked insolence. And suddenly it seemed to Kayerts that he had never seen that man before. Who was he? He knew nothing about him. What was he capable of? There was a surprising flash of violent emotion within him, as if in the presence of something undreamtof,dangerous, and final. But he managed to pronounce with composure-"That joke is in very bad taste. Don't repeat it." "Joke!" said Carlier, hitching himself forward on his seat. "I am hungry--I am sick--I don't joke! I hate hypocrites. You are a hypocrite. You are a slave-dealer. I am a slave-dealer. There's nothing but slave-dealers in this cursed country. I mean to have sugar in my coffee to-day, anyhow!" "I forbid you to speak to me in that way," said Kayerts with a fair show of resolution. "You!--What?" shouted Carlier, jumping up. Kayerts stood up also. "I am your chief," he began, trying to master the shakiness of his voice. "What?" yelled the other. "Who's chief? There's no chief here. There's nothing here: there's nothing but you and I. Fetch the sugar--you pot-bellied ass." "Hold your tongue. Go out of this room," screamed Kayerts. "I dismiss you--you scoundrel!" Carlier swung a stool. All at once he looked dangerously in earnest. "You flabby, good-for-nothing civilian--take that!" he howled. Kayerts dropped under the table, and the stool struck the grass inner wall of the room. Then, as Carlier was trying to upset the table, Kayerts in desperation made a blind rush, head low, like a cornered pig would do, and over-turning his friend, bolted along the verandah, and into his room. He locked the door, snatched his revolver, and stood panting. In less than a minute Carlier was kicking at the door furiously, howling, "If you don't bring out that sugar, I will shoot you at sight, like a dog. Now then--one--two--three. You won't? I will show you who's the master." Kayerts thought the door would fall in, and scrambled through the square hole that served for a window in his room. There was then the whole breadth of the house between them. But the other was apparently not strong enough to break in the door, and Kayerts heard him running round. Then he also began to run laboriously on his swollen legs. He ran as quickly as he could, grasping the revolver, and unable yet to understand what was happening to him. He saw in succession Makola's house, the store, the river, the ravine, and the low bushes; and he saw all those things again as he ran for the second time round the house. Then again they flashed past him. That morning he could not have walked a yard without a groan. And now he ran. He ran fast enough to keep out of sight of the other man. Then as, weak and desperate, he thought, "Before I finish the next round I shall die," he heard the other man stumble heavily, then stop. He stopped also. He had the back and Carlier the front of the house, as before. He heard him drop into a chair cursing, and suddenly his own legs gave way, and he slid down into a sitting posture with his back to the wall. His mouth was as dry as a cinder, and his face was wet with perspiration--and tears. What was it all about? He thought it must be a horrible illusion; he thought he was dreaming; he thought he was going mad! After a while he collected his senses. What did they quarrel about? That sugar! How absurd! He would give it to him--didn't want it himself. And he began scrambling to his feet with a sudden feeling of security. But before he had fairly stood upright, a commonsense reflection occurred to him and drove him back into despair. He thought: "If I give way now to that brute of a soldier, he will begin this horror again to-morrow--and the day after--every day--raise other pretensions, trample on me, torture me, make me his slave--and I will be lost! Lost! The steamer may not come for days--may never come." He shook so that he had to sit down on the floor again. He shivered forlornly. He felt he could not, would not move any more. He was completely distracted by the sudden perception that the position was without issue--that death and life had in a moment become equally difficult and terrible. All at once he heard the other push his chair back; and he leaped to his feet with extreme facility. He listened and got confused. Must run again! Right or left? He heard footsteps. He darted to the left, grasping his revolver, and at the very same instant, as it seemed to him, they came into violent collision. Both shouted with surprise. A loud explosion took place between them; a roar of red fire, thick smoke; and Kayerts, deafened and blinded, rushed back thinking: "I am hit--it's all over." He expected the other to come round--to gloat over his agony. He caught hold of an upright of the roof--"All over!" Then he heard a crashing fall on the other side of the house, as if somebody had tumbled headlong over a chair--then silence. Nothing more happened. He did not die. Only his shoulder felt as if it had been badly wrenched, and he had lost his revolver. He was disarmed and helpless! He waited for his fate. The other man made no sound. It was a stratagem. He was stalking him now! Along what side? Perhaps he was taking aim this very minute! After a few moments of an agony frightful and absurd, he decided to go and meet his doom. He was prepared for every surrender. He turned the corner, steadying himself with one hand on the wall; made a few paces, and nearly swooned. He had seen on the floor, protruding past the other corner, a pair of turned-up feet. A pair of white naked feet in red slippers. He felt deadly sick, and stood for a time in profound darkness. Then Makola appeared before him, saying quietly: "Come along, Mr. Kayerts. He is dead." He burst into tears of gratitude; a loud, sobbing fit of crying. After a time he found himself sitting in a chair and looking at Carlier, who lay stretched on his back. Makola was kneeling over the body. "Is this your revolver?" asked Makola, getting up. "Yes," said Kayerts; then he added very quickly, "He ran after me to shoot me-you saw!" "Yes, I saw," said Makola. "There is only one revolver; where's his?" "Don't know," whispered Kayerts in a voice that had become suddenly very faint. "I will go and look for it," said the other, gently. He made the round along the verandah, while Kayerts sat still and looked at the corpse. Makola came back empty-handed, stood in deep thought, then stepped quietly into the dead man's room, and came out directly with a revolver, which he held up before Kayerts. Kayerts shut his eyes. Everything was going round. He found life more terrible and difficult than death. He had shot an unarmed man. After meditating for a while, Makola said softly, pointing at the dead man who lay there with his right eye blown out-"He died of fever." Kayerts looked at him with a stony stare. "Yes," repeated Makola, thoughtfully, stepping over the corpse, "I think he died of fever. Bury him to-morrow." And he went away slowly to his expectant wife, leaving the two white men alone on the verandah. Night came, and Kayerts sat unmoving on his chair. He sat quiet as if he had taken a dose of opium. The violence of the emotions he had passed through produced a feeling of exhausted serenity. He had plumbed in one short afternoon the depths of horror and despair, and now found repose in the conviction that life had no more secrets for him: neither had death! He sat by the corpse thinking; thinking very actively, thinking very new thoughts. He seemed to have broken loose from himself altogether. His old thoughts, convictions, likes and dislikes, things he respected and things he abhorred, appeared in their true light at last! Appeared contemptible and childish, false and ridiculous. He revelled in his new wisdom while he sat by the man he had killed. He argued with himself about all things under heaven with that kind of wrong-headed lucidity which may be observed in some lunatics. Incidentally he reflected that the fellow dead there had been a noxious beast anyway; that men died every day in thousands; perhaps in hundreds of thousands--who could tell?--and that in the number, that one death could not possibly make any difference; couldn't have any importance, at least to a thinking creature. He, Kayerts, was a thinking creature. He had been all his life, till that moment, a believer in a lot of nonsense like the rest of mankind--who are fools; but now he thought! He knew! He was at peace; he was familiar with the highest wisdom! Then he tried to imagine himself dead, and Carlier sitting in his chair watching him; and his attempt met with such unexpected success, that in a very few moments he became not at all sure who was dead and who was alive. This extraordinary achievement of his fancy startled him, however, and by a clever and timely effort of mind he saved himself just in time from becoming Carlier. His heart thumped, and he felt hot all over at the thought of that danger. Carlier! What a beastly thing! To compose his now disturbed nerves--and no wonder!--he tried to whistle a little. Then, suddenly, he fell asleep, or thought he had slept; but at any rate there was a fog, and somebody had whistled in the fog. He stood up. The day had come, and a heavy mist had descended upon the land: the mist penetrating, enveloping, and silent; the morning mist of tropical lands; the mist that clings and kills; the mist white and deadly, immaculate and poisonous. He stood up, saw the body, and threw his arms above his head with a cry like that of a man who, waking from a trance, finds himself immured forever in a tomb. "Help! . . . . My God!" A shriek inhuman, vibrating and sudden, pierced like a sharp dart the white shroud of that land of sorrow. Three short, impatient screeches followed, and then, for a time, the fog-wreaths rolled on, undisturbed, through a formidable silence. Then many more shrieks, rapid and piercing, like the yells of some exasperated and ruthless creature, rent the air. Progress was calling to Kayerts from the river. Progress and civilization and all the virtues. Society was calling to its accomplished child to come, to be taken care of, to be instructed, to be judged, to be condemned; it called him to return to that rubbish heap from which he had wandered away, so that justice could be done. Kayerts heard and understood. He stumbled out of the verandah, leaving the other man quite alone for the first time since they had been thrown there together. He groped his way through the fog, calling in his ignorance upon the invisible heaven to undo its work. Makola flitted by in the mist, shouting as he ran-"Steamer! Steamer! They can't see. They whistle for the station. I go ring the bell. Go down to the landing, sir. I ring." He disappeared. Kayerts stood still. He looked upwards; the fog rolled low over his head. He looked round like a man who has lost his way; and he saw a dark smudge, a cross-shaped stain, upon the shifting purity of the mist. As he began to stumble towards it, the station bell rang in a tumultuous peal its answer to the impatient clamour of the steamer. The Managing Director of the Great Civilizing Company (since we know that civilization follows trade) landed first, and incontinently lost sight of the steamer. The fog down by the river was exceedingly dense; above, at the station, the bell rang unceasing and brazen. The Director shouted loudly to the steamer: "There is nobody down to meet us; there may be something wrong, though they are ringing. You had better come, too!" And he began to toil up the steep bank. The captain and the engine-driver of the boat followed behind. As they scrambled up the fog thinned, and they could see their Director a good way ahead. Suddenly they saw him start forward, calling to them over his shoulder:--"Run! Run to the house! I've found one of them. Run, look for the other!" He had found one of them! And even he, the man of varied and startling experience, was somewhat discomposed by the manner of this finding. He stood and fumbled in his pockets (for a knife) while he faced Kayerts, who was hanging by a leather strap from the cross. He had evidently climbed the grave, which was high and narrow, and after tying the end of the strap to the arm, had swung himself off. His toes were only a couple of inches above the ground; his arms hung stiffly down; he seemed to be standing rigidly at attention, but with one purple cheek playfully posed on the shoulder. And, irreverently, he was putting out a swollen tongue at his Managing Director. Taken from Tale of Unrest page 61-80

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