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62 churches, flocks, and she began begging her husband to buy a small piece of ground and to build them a cottage on it. Her husband agreed. They bought sixty acres of land, and on the high bank in a field, where in earlier days the cows of Obrutchanovo used to wander, they built a pretty house of two storeys with a terrace and a verandah, with a tower and a flagstaff on which a flag fluttered on Sundays—they built it in about three months, and then all the winter they were planting big trees, and when spring came and everything began to be green there were already avenues to the new house, a gardener and two labourers in white aprons were digging near it, there was a little fountain, and a globe of looking-glass flashed so brilliantly that it was painful to look at. The house had already been named the New Villa.

On a bright, warm morning at the end of May two horses were brought to Obrutchanovo to the village blacksmith, Rodion Petrov. They came from the New Villa. The horses were sleek, graceful beasts, as white as snow, and strikingly alike.

"Perfect swans!" said Rodion, gazing at them with reverent admiration.

His wife Stepanida, his children and grandchildren came out into the street to look at them. By degrees a crowd collected. The Lytchkovs, father and son, both men with swollen faces and entirely beardless, came up bareheaded. Kozov, a tall, thin old man with a long, narrow beard, came up leaning on a stick with a crook handle: he kept winking with his crafty eyes and smiling ironically as though he knew something.


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Rh "It's only that they are white; what is there in them?" he said. "Put mine on oats, and they will be just as sleek. They ought to be in a plough and with a whip, too"

The coachman simply looked at him with disdain, but did not utter a word. And afterwards, while they were blowing up the fire at the forge, the coachman talked while he smoked cigarettes. The peasants learned from him various details: his employers were wealthy people; his mistress, Elena Ivanovna, had till her marriage lived in Moscow in a poor way as a governess; she was kind-hearted, compassionate, and fond of helping the poor. On the new estate, he told them, they were not going to plough or to sow, but simply to live for their pleasure, live only to breathe the fresh air. When he had finished and led the horses back a crowd of boys followed him, the dogs barked, and Kozov, looking after him, winked sarcastically.

"Landowners, too-oo!" he said. "They have built a house and set up horses, but I bet they are nobodies—landowners, too-oo."

Kozov for some reason took a dislike from the first to the new house, to the white horses, and to the handsome, well-fed coachman. Kozov was a solitary man, a widower; he had a dreary life (he was prevented from working by a disease which he sometimes called a rupture and sometimes worms); he was maintained by his son, who worked at a confectioner's in Harkov and sent him money; and from early morning till evening he sauntered at leisure about the river or about the village; if he saw, for

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text: Index:North Macedonia Foreign Assistance Fact Sheet, July 2021.pdf


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64 instance, a peasant carting a log, or fishing, he would say: "That log's dry wood—it is rotten," or, "They won't bite in weather like this." In times of drought he would declare that there would not be a drop of rain till the frost came; and when the rains came he would say that everything would rot in the fields, that everything was ruined. And as he said these things he would wink as though he knew something.

At the New Villa they burned Bengal lights and sent up fireworks in the evenings, and a sailing-boat with red lanterns floated by Obrutchanovo. One morning the engineer's wife, Elena Ivanovna, and her little daughter drove to the village in a carriage with yellow wheels and a pair of dark bay ponies; both mother and daughter were wearing broad-brimmed straw hats, bent down over their ears.

This was exactly at the time when they were carting manure, and the blacksmith Rodion, a tall, gaunt old man, bareheaded and barefooted, was standing near his dirty and repulsive-looking cart and, flustered, looked at the ponies, and it was evident by his face that he had never seen such little horses before.

"The Kutcherov lady has come!" was whispered around. "Look, the Kutcherov lady has come!"

Elena Ivanovna looked at the huts as though she were selecting one, and then stopped at the very poorest, at the windows of which there were so many children's heads—flaxen, red, and dark. Stepanida, Rodion's wife, a stout woman, came running out of the hut; her kerchief slipped off her grey head;


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Rh she looked at the carriage facing the sun, and her face smiled and wrinkled up as though she were blind.

"This is for your children," said Elena Ivanovna, and she gave her three roubles.

Stepanida suddenly burst into tears and bowed down to the ground. Rodion, too, flopped to the ground, displaying his brownish bald head, and as he did so he almost caught his wife in the ribs with the fork. Elena Ivanovna was overcome with confusion and drove back.

The Lytchkovs, father and son, caught in their meadows two cart-horses, a pony, and a broad-faced Aalhaus bull-calf, and with the help of red-headed Volodka, son of the blacksmith Rodion, drove them to the village. They called the village elder, collected witnesses, and went to look at the damage. "All right, let 'em!" said Kozov, winking, "le-et 'em! Let them get out of it if they can, the engineers! Do you think there is no such thing as law? All right! Send for the police inspector, draw up a statement! "

"Draw up a statement," repeated Volodka.

"I don't want to let this pass!" shouted the younger Lytchkov. He shouted louder and louder, and his beardless face seemed to be more and more swollen. "They've set up a nice fashion! Leave them free, and they will ruin all the meadows! You've no sort of right to ill-treat people! We are not serfs now!"


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66 "We are not serfs now!" repeated Volodka.

"We got on all right without a bridge," said the elder Lytchkov gloomily; "we did not ask for it. What do we want a bridge for? We don't want it!"

"Brothers, good Christians, we cannot leave it like this!"

"All right, let 'em!" said Kozov, winking.

"Let them get out of it if they can! Landowners, indeed!"

They went back to the village, and as they walked the younger Lytchkov beat himself on the breast with his fist and shouted all the way, and Volodka shouted, too, repeating his words. And meanwhile quite a crowd had gathered in the village round the thoroughbred bull-calf and the horses. The bull-calf was embarrassed and looked up from under his brows, but suddenly lowered his muzzle to the ground and took to his heels, kicking up his hind legs; Kozov was frightened and waved his stick at him, and they all burst out laughing. Then they locked up the beasts and waited.

In the evening the engineer sent five roubles for the damage, and the two horses, the pony and the bull-calf, without being fed or given water, returned home, their heads hanging with a guilty air as though they were convicted criminals.

On getting the five roubles the Lytchkovs, father and son, the village elder and Volodka, punted over the river in a boat and went to a hamlet on the other side where there was a tavern, and there had a long carousal. Their singing and the shouting of the


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 of our both wandering distractedly up and down Europe, perhaps for years, vainly seeking each other. The touching story of Evangeline recurred to me with terrible vividness.

Something must be done, and that immediately, Somehow or another I must find B. I roused myself, and summoned to my aid every word of Scandinavian that I knew.

It was no good these people pretending that they did not understand their own language, and putting me off that way. They had got to understand it this time. This was no mere question of coffee and rolls; this was a serious business. I would make that waiter understand my Scandinavian, if I had to hammer it into his head with his own coffee-pot!

I seized him by the arm, and, in Scandinavian that must have been quite pathetic in its tragic fervour, I asked him if he had seen my friend—my friend B.

The man only stared.

I grew desperate. I shook him. I said:

"My friend—big, great, tall, large—is he where? Have you him to see where? Here?"

(I had to put it that way because Scandinavian grammar is not a strong point with me, and my knowledge of the verbs is as yet limited to the present tense of


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Rh younger Lytchkov could be heard from the village. Their women were uneasy and did not sleep all night. Rodion did not sleep either.

"It's a bad business," he said, sighing and turning from side to side. "The gentleman will be angry, and then there will be trouble They have insulted the gentleman Oh, they've insulted him. It's a bad business"

It happened that the peasants, Rodion amongst them, went into their forest to divide the clearings for mowing, and as they were returning home they were met by the engineer. He was wearing a red cotton shirt and high boots; a setter dog with its long tongue hanging out, followed behind him.

"Good-day, brothers," he said.

The peasants stopped and took off their hats.

"I have long wanted to have a talk with you, friends," he went on. "This is what it is. Ever since the early spring your cattle have been in my copse and garden every day. Everything is trampled down; the pigs have rooted up the meadow, are ruining everything in the kitchen garden, and all the undergrowth in the copse is destroyed. There is no getting on with your herdsmen; one asks them civilly, and they are rude. Damage is done on my estate every day and I do nothing—I don't fine you or make a complaint; meanwhile you impounded my horses and my bull calf and exacted five roubles. Was that right? Is that neighbourly?" he went on, and his face was so soft and persuasive, and his expression was not forbidding. "Is that the way decent people be-


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RV 55 (Rh)

tınant wədato yohannıs bet hedhunná, abbatınna nnatún ayyəhu. ato yohannís bəTam Tıru abbatınna nnát allut. ınnəssu astəmariwoc naccəw. ıssu bəTam Tıru məkiná alləw. ıñña bəməkinaw wədə tımıhırtbetu hednınná, mıgıbbetun ayyən. tımıhırtbetu bəTam Tırú nəw. ato kəbbədənna ato təsəmma ızzih tımıhırtbet wısT allu. ınnəssu ityoPıyawiyán naccəw. nəgərgın ato yohannís amerikawi̇́ nəw.


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1. seeds of knowledge, of virtue, and of piety are, as we have seen, naturally implanted in us; but the actual knowledge, virtue, and piety are not so given. These must be acquired by prayer, by education, and by action. He gave no bad definition who said that man was a “teachable animal.” And indeed it is only by a proper education that he can become a man.

2. For, if we consider knowledge, we see that it is the peculiar attribute of God to know all things by a single and simple intuition, without beginning, without progress, and without end. For man and for angels this is impossible, because they do not possess infinity and eternity, that is to say, divinity. It is enough for them to have received sufficient keenness of intellect to comprehend the works of God, and to gather a wealth of knowledge from them. As regards angels, it is certain that they also learn by perception (1 Peter i. 12; Ephes. iii. 10; 1 Kings xxii. 20; Job i. 6), and that their knowledge, like our own, is derived from experience.

3. Let none believe, therefore, that any can really be a man, unless he have learned to act like one, that is, have been trained in those elements which constitute a man. This is evident from the example of all things created, which, although destined for man, do not suit his uses until


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RV 56 (Rh)

ato yohannıs mín alləw. ato yohannıs ityopıyawi̇́ nəw ↑ wədato yohannıs abbatınna ınnat bet məcé hedhu. ato yohannıs məkina alləw ↑ bətımıhırtbetu wısT ityoPıyawiyan təmariwócc allu ↑ mıgıbettu yə́t nəw. abbatınnannatu Tırú naccəw ↑ ato kəbbədənna ato təsəmma yə́t allu. ırsıwo məkina alləwo ↑


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 fitted for them by his hands. For example, stones have been given to us as material with which to build houses, towers, walls, pillars, etc.; but they are of no use until they are cut and laid in their place by us. Pearls and precious stones destined to adorn man must be cut, ground, and polished. The metals, which are of vital use in daily life, have to be dug out, melted, refined, and variously cast and hammered. Till this is done they are of less use to us than common earth.

From plants we derive food, drink, and medicines; but first the herbs and grains have to be sown, hoed, gathered, winnowed, and ground; trees have to be planted, pruned, and manured, while their fruits must be plucked off and dried; and if any of these things are required for medicine, or for building purposes, much more preparation is needed. Animals, whose essential characteristics are life and motion, seem to be self-sufficing, but if you wish to use them for the purposes for which they are suitable, some training is necessary. For example, the horse is naturally suited for use in war, the ox for drawing, the ass for carrying burdens, the dog for guarding and hunting, the falcon and hawk for fowling; but they are all of little use until we accustom them to their work by training.

4. Man, as far as his body is concerned, is born to labour; and yet we see that nothing but the bare aptitude is born in him. He needs instruction before he can sit, stand, walk, or use his hands. Why, therefore, should it be claimed for our mind that, of itself, it can exist in its full development, and without any previous preparation; since it is the law of all things created that they take their origin from nothing and develope themselves gradually, in respect both of their material and of the process of development? For it is well known, and we showed in our last chapter, that the angels, whose perfection comes very near to that of the Almighty, are not omniscient, but make gradual advances in their knowledge of the marvellous wisdom of God.

5. It is evident, too, that even before the Fall, a school


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 in which he might make gradual progress was opened for man in Paradise. For, although the first created, as soon as they came into being, lacked neither the power of walking erect, nor speech, nor reason, it is manifest, from the conversation of Eve with the serpent, that the knowledge of things which is derived from experience was entirely wanting. For Eve, had she had more experience, would have known that the serpent is unable to speak, and that there must therefore be some deceit.

Much more, therefore, in this state of corruption must it be necessary to learn by experience, since the understanding which we bring with us is an empty form, like a bare tablet, and since we are unskilled to do, speak, or know anything; for all these faculties do but exist potentially and need development. And indeed this is much more difficult now than it can have been in the state of perfection, since not only are things obscure, but tongues also are confused (so that instead of one, many must now be learned, if a man for the sake of learning wish to hold communion with divers people, living and dead). The vernacular tongues also have become more complex, and no knowledge of them is born with us.

6. Examples show that those who in their infancy have been seized by wild animals, and have been brought up among them, have not risen above the level of brutes in intellect, and would not have been able to make more use of their tongues, their hands, and their feet than beasts can, had they not once more come into the society of men. I will give several instances. About the year 1540, in a village called Hassia, situated in the middle of a forest, a boy three years of age was lost, through the carelessness of his parents. Some years afterwards the country people saw a strange animal running about with the wolves, of a different shape, four-footed, but with a man’s face. Rumour of this spread through the district, and the governor asked the peasants to try to catch it alive and bring it to him. This they did, and finally the creature was conveyed to the Landgrave at Cassel.


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Author:Edith Charlotte Maria Dart

Works

 * Nature Moods. Little verses (1904)
 * Miriam (1908)
 * Rebecca Drew (1910)
 * Likeness (1911)
 * Earth with her Bars, and other poems (1914)
 * The Loom of Life (1916)
 * Sareel (1920)

title: Author:Edith Charlotte Maria Dart


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“ agreed, eh?” Mr. Preserved Higgins asked the stranger. “You're on, wot? Cop the gal, cop the swag, cop the 'ole plurry country—and then a bit o' signed pyper givin' me the right to …”

“Yes, yes.” The stranger, alias The Honorable Tollemache Wade, inclined his head. “As soon as I am—oh—what d'you call it?”

“Ameer of Tamerlanistan,” gently suggested Bansi.

“Thanks, old chap. As soon as I am Ameer, I shall give you the 'concession' you want. That was our agreement.”

“Right-oh!” Mr. Preserved Higgins smiled into his curly, russet-colored beard. “And you won't regret it, nor will Tamerlanistan. I ain't tryin' to deny that I'm goin' to myke a stiff bit o' the ready on my investment. But—live and let live is my motto, and I tells you the country ain't goin' to lose. Them Tamerlanis are goin' to 'ave so much tin, Rolls-Royces are goin' to be as plentiful 'ereabouts as vultures are now. I'm goin' to play fair, sonny, see?”

And Mr. Preserved Higgins meant it. For he was characterized by a peculiar honesty in dishonesty.

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 Money to him was not alone the greatest power—which doubtless it is—but also the greatest aim in life. He had never really moved very far away from the plastic first-times of his infancy in the reeking, gray-blotched London slums where the possession of an extra sixpence had spelled an extra pint of half-and-half and an extra pound of chuck-steak; and, by developing the waste lands and digging into the untouched mineral resources of Tamerlanistan, while primarily interested in his own pocket-book, he fully intended giving to the native Tamerlanis the Oriental equivalent for the extra pint of half-and-half and the extra pound of meat.

Beyond this primitive factor he could not see; and if anybody had told him that in Central Asia, in a land which partly deliberately and partly through a self-protective instinct prefers a simple civilization to the hectic, pinchbeck civilization of the Occident that is nine-tenths mechanical, money is the outer husk, not the inner kernel of life, he would have consigned the speaker to an unmentionable place.

“Bloody cyreful lad, thats wot you are,” he continued. “'Ad to 'ave a look at the gal first, didn't you? Well, there ain't no 'arm done. Seemed to 'ave liked the looks of 'er?”

“I did,” smiled Tollemache.

“Wot else did you find out at the capital?”

“Not much. The army seems to be in good training, but, from all I heard, they can't get ammunition.”

“That's my old pal Rivet-Carnac's fine 'and,” Mr. Preserved Higgins interjected. “'E does a few

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 things besides countersignin' passports. Well—we'll be ready three months from to-d'y, and Al Nakia ain't goin' to 'ave a permit for as much as the importytion of a second-'and machine-gun—not 'e!”

“But he has something else, Higgins,” said Tollemache.

“Wot?”

“The confidence and trust of the people.”

“Blast the people!”

“I tell you the old troublemakers, even Koom Khan and Gulabian, are with him.”

“They won't be after you win jolly bloody victory and make jolly old sizzlin' entrance as the 'Expected One,' saheb,” said the Babu.

“Correct,” the Cockney agreed. “You just give us one victory, as we're sure to 'ave, and then we'll spring the news on them benighted 'eathens that you're the real cheese, and that the other guy ain't nothin' but a smelly bit o' Cheddar rind. You just w'yt. Glad you took my advice and kept aw'y from the palace”—he added—“damned glad.”

He heaved a sigh of relief.

For, shortly after their arrival at Abderrahman Yahiah Khan's headquarters following Bansi's telegram that Al Nakia was on his way to Tamerlanistan, the millionaire had put his cards—most of them—on the table. He had spoken to Tollemache Wade of the ancient prophecy of the swords and had suggested a deal by the terms of which Tamerlanistan should be conquered, Tollemache should marry the princess Aziza Nurmahal and then, to repay his obligations to Mr. Preserved Higgins, grant the Anglo-American

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 corporation of which the latter was the head, certain extensive land development concessions.

But Tollemache had shaken his head.

“I won't marry the girl until I have at least seen her,” he had said.

“Heaven-Born,” the Babu, who had been present at the interview, had exclaimed, “she is like the moon on the fourteenth day! She is a precious casket filled with the arts of coquetry! She is …”

“I don't trust your taste in feminine beauty, dear boy,” Tollemache had smiled; and when Mr. Preserved Higgins had made some sardonic remarks to the effect that, judging from his experiences with Gwendolyn de Vere, Tollemache could do worse than accept somebody else's opinions in affairs of the heart, the younger man had replied that this was just the reason why he was going to be doubly careful in the future.

“I am going to take a look at her,” he had repeated, stubbornly.

“Impossible!” Mr. Higgins had exclaimed, afraid that Tollemache, if he went to Tamerlanistan, might see his brother and recognize him.

“Impossible—rot! I speak Persian like a native. I can easily go to the capital, see the princess—somehow—and incidentally find out a few things about the military situation.”

Finally, after he had raged and threatened for half an hour, but had found Tollemache obdurate, Mr. Preserved Higgins had agreed. But he had made Tollemache promise that, under no conditions, would

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 he go near the palace or in any other way put himself in a position where Al Nakia might see him.

“For,” he had said, mixing truth and lies, “Al Nakia is an Englishman, doubtless an officer—and mebbe 'e knows you and might recognize you—and then the jig'll be bloomin' well up—see?”

And so now Mr. Preserved Higgins felt relieved, and it was with a great deal of zest that he devoted the following days to preparations for the coming at tack against Tamerlanistan. Though not a military man, his advice was sane and constructive. For he had fought many a battle in the shrill arena of finance, and there is a great deal of similarity between the mind which uses the massed battalions of coined gold and the mind which uses bullets and guns and human flesh and blood.

In either case, strategy counts fully as much as brute force. Strategy, patience, ability to wait, to sit tight, to take punishment—and in this respect Mr. Preserved Higgins, in the western marches, was playing practically the same game which Hector Wade was playing in the capital.

“We ain't in no 'urry,” the Cockney said. “We want to win this 'ere war, and we don't want nothin' to miscarry. I'd rather 'ave that Al Nakia blighter attack us 'ere, where we knows the ground, than attack 'im on 'is own ground.”

“I assure you they are short of ammunition,” insisted Tollemache.

“Mebbe. That's just why we should w'yt till we 'ave a surplus of ammunition.”

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And he carried his opinions against that of Tollemache who was anxious to see again the little princess' black, hooded eyes, and against that of Abderrahman Yahiah Khan and “The Basin” whose appetite for the rich loot of Tamerlanistan was increasing with each passing day; and he went ahead with his careful, methodical preparations until, nearly a week later, a great wave of excitement surged through the camp of the rebels.

It began with the Arab gunner, a deserter from the Turkish army who was presiding over the destinies of the machine gun that protected the silken tents of the leaders, suddenly shading his eyes, looking steadily down the Darb-i-Sultani, then bending feverishly to his weapon, working the screw-levers with brown, nimble fingers and sliding the gun so that the ugly, blunt muzzle pointed due east, with a wicked, snapping recoil, like a beast of prey sniffing for blood.

Tollemache Wade happened to be passing.

“What's up, Mehmet?” he asked.

The Arab pointed—and gave a shrill, throaty yell of warning which electrified the camp into instant action.

Arabs and Persians and rebel Tamerlanis and riffraff of all Asia that had joined Abderrahman Yahiah Khan came tumbling out of tents and huts, strapping on carbines and revolvers, swords and daggers as they ran … with a babel of cries, in soft, purring Persian, in limpid Turkish, in virile, guttural Arabic and high-pitched Tartar …

“''Zid! Zid! Yah Ullah!''”—

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 When it was taken into the castle it tore itself away, fled, and hid beneath a bench, where it glared fiercely at its pursuers and howled horribly. The prince had him educated and kept him continually in men’s society, and under this influence his savage habits grew gentler by degrees; he began to raise himself up on his hind-legs and walk like a biped, and at last to speak intelligently and behave like a man. Then he related to the best of his ability how he had been seized and nurtured by the wolves and had been accustomed to go hunting with them. The story is found in M. Dresser’s work on Ancient and Modern Education, and Camerarius, in his Hours, mentions the same case, and another one of a similar nature (bk. i. ch. 75).

Gulartius also (in Marvels of our Age) says that the following occurred in France in 1563. Some nobles went hunting, and, after they had killed twelve wolves, at last caught in their nets something like a naked boy, about seven years old, with a yellow skin and curly hair. His nails were hooked like an eagle’s, he was unable to speak, and could only utter wild shrieks. When he was brought into the castle he struggled so fiercely that fetters could scarce be placed on him; but after a few days of starvation he grew gentler, and within seven months had commenced to speak. He was taken round to various towns and exhibited, and his masters made much money out of him. At length a certain poor woman acknowledged him as her son. So true is Plato’s remark (Laws, i. 6): “Man is the gentlest and most divine being, if he have been made so by true education; but if he have been subjected to none or to a false one he is the most intractable thing in the world.”

7. Education is indeed necessary for all, and this is evident if we consider the different degrees of ability. No one doubts that those who are stupid need instruction, that they may shake off their natural dulness. But in reality those who are clever need it far more, since an active mind, if not occupied with useful things, will busy itself with what is useless, curious, and pernicious; and,


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“Ikhs ya'l khammar—O thou drunkard!” ludicrously to a frenzied, plunging stallion—

“Allahu—Allahu!”—

“Bismillah irrahmân errahmin!”—and, clear above the turmoil, Mr. Preserved Higgins nasal, twangy “I say—wot the 'ell's up?”, then, to a frantic Nubian: “Get off my feet, you bleedin' swine!”, blending fantastically, ridiculously with Abderrahman Yahiah Khan's full-flavored curses as he pushed his way through the crowd with fist and elbow.

“Give way—give way there!”

The governor reached the side of the gunner who, tense, quivering, was still bending over his weapon, drawing a bead straight toward the east, while the soldiers, under Tollemache Wade's sharp commands, were deploying in a half circle, rifles ready for the “Fire!”

By this time Mr. Preserved Higgins, too, had reached the gunner's side.

He looked.

Far in the east, a blast of sirocco wind filled with stabbing, biting particles of desert sand had whirled up on the feathery sky line. A mass of violet-red nimbus, furrowed horizontally by a thin, wavery gray line of mist cloud, and nicked with gold and yellow, as of the sun mirroring on polished weapons, rolled down, steadily gathering momentum.

There was a savage humming and zumming and roaring. Too, sudden, grimly staccato noises—like steel clanking against steel—swords—lance butts—

“War!” Musa Al-Mutasim came running up with great speed, in spite of his huge, amorphous bulk,

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 rifle in hand. “Al Nakia's men—they're attacking us!”

“Yes!” Mr. Preserved Higgins turned on Tollemache. “You are a silly plurry ass, aren't you? Told me, didn't you, they was unprepared? My word—of all the …”

“Keep your hair on!” advised Tollemache. “If these are Al Nakia's soldiers, our spies and scouts would have brought us warning.”

“They may have been overpowered, saheb,” suggested “The Basin.” “Look—look!”

For the cloud grew. Rolling on as mercilessly as Fate, it seemed to spread, to jump into a pattern, brown and black, blotched with white and vivid scarlet. The roaring and zumming increased—

A faint neighing of horses. A tinkling of camels' bells. A thumping of kettle-drums.

Then a flash of lance points and sword blades and metal-bossed arm shields. Shrill cries. The portentous thunder of galloping horses. The soft, rhythmic thud of the dromedaries' padded feet.

Tollemache jerked aside the arm of the Arab gunner who was just about to swing the machine-gun on its swivel and rake the oncoming horde with shot. “Stop it!” he cried; and, to his captains who shouted the order down the deployed lines:

“Hold your fire—hold your fire!”—and he despatched a messenger to a camp beyond the main camp where the few pieces of artillery which Mr. Preserved Higgins had shipped through from the Persian Gulf were served by specially trained men.

“Wot the 'ell are you w'ytin' for?” cried the

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 Cockney, who was nearly hysterical by this time. “Go on—give the order to fire—or …”

“Shut up, you little fool!” Tollemache took him by the collar and shook him. “If they are enemies, I am going to hold my fire until the very last moment. And if they are not enemies …”

“I tell you they are!”

“I am not sure. They wouldn't be such fools as to attack us in mass formation—not if, as you say, Al Nakia used to be in the service …”

And then, quite suddenly, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan raised a hairy, brown hand.

“Listen!” he said. “The saheb is right. These are not enemies. They are friends!”

And, through the sudden, dense silence, out of the mass of people on horse and camel back into which the oncoming cloud had steadily crystallized, a voice drifted forth:

“''Marhaba Bik! Yah—Marhaba Bik!''—Greetings! Greetings!”

The throaty shout tore clear from the gathering rush. A lonely rider detached himself. At full speed he galloped up, a white flag jerking crazily from the point of his long, tufted bamboo lance; and, a moment later, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan recognized him:

“Koom Khan! Koom Khan!”

“Salaam! A thousand salaams—and one—and yet another one!” replied the other, wheeling his horse so suddenly that it fell on its haunches and slid, squatting, through the soft sand. The next moment he was on his feet and ran the rest of the distance, his dyed beard

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 waving across his shoulder like a crimson flag, and he knelt down in front of the astonished governor of the western marches, hands outspread, forehead touching the dust in sign of supplication.

“I demand protection, my lord!” he implored. “Protection for myself, for the Sheik-ul-Islam”—indicating the priest who had ridden up—“and for my people—my women and children and slaves!”

“Protection against whom?” demanded the other.

“Against Al Nakia.”

And the next moment, according to the ancient Moslem ceremonial, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan pressed Koom Khan to his stout breast, murmuring piously:

“Nahnu malihin—we shall eat salt together!” while “The Basin,” in answer to Mr. Preserved Higgins' whispered suspicion that he did not trust Koom Khan, that perhaps treachery was in the wind, replied that No!—if Koom Khan intended treachery, he would not have been such a fool as to bring his women and slaves and servants and children with him.

And he had.

For, by this time, the rest of the cavalcade had come up and it turned out to be composed of several hundred people, on foot, on horseback, on dromedaries, the servants armed with lances and rifles and metal-bossed shields. But there were many women and children, some mounted behind slaves or astride the large, green painted boxes of the pack animals; a few, doubtless women of high degree, in gaudy, tinsely takht-rawan litters carried by slaves.

Yes—Mr. Preserved Higgins admitted—here was a

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 sure sign that Koom Khan and the Sheik-ul-Islam had come as friends, bringing peace.

Too, there was no doubt whatsoever about the priest's sincerity as, late that night, with the Babu Bansi playing as dragoman, he poured the tale of his grievances into the, if not sympathetic, then at least interested, ears of the eccentric millionaire, telling him how Hector Wade had treated him with contumely and ridicule, making him, a priest, a holy man, a Sheik of the Faith, a doctor of Koranic law, a famous compiler of many learned commentaries on Moslem theology, a laughing-stock before the courtiers and palace slaves.

“Al Nakia is a pig,” he wound up, “with a pig's heart. So was his father a pig before him, and his grandfather before his father.”

A statement in which, after the Babu had translated it, Mr. Preserved Higgins concurred heartily.

“Right-oh!” he replied. “Can't myke it too strong for me, cocky. I was born orf Soho, and I don't like that there Al Nakia bird any more than you do!”—and he clapped the Sheik-ul-Islam familiarly on the shoulder.

The latter could not understand a word of English, but he read in the Cockney's small, blinking eyes that there was no difference of opinion here about the physical and spiritual characteristics of the de facto ruler of Tamerlanistan, and so he added, as a happy afterthought, that he personally—and Allah was his witness that he was a decent and mild man, not given to vituperation-considered Al Nakia hyena spawn

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 without faith or morals or manners—except bad manners!

“Go right ahead, sonny!” encouraged the Cockney. “Shoot off that ugly mouth o' yours. Call 'im bad nymes, if it 'elps your liver any. But”—turning to the Babu—“tell 'is nibs when 'e's through with 'is nytive Billingsgyte about that Al Nakia blighter, that I'd like to talk business to 'im.”

“Business—see?” he addressed the Sheik-ul-Islam direct, making that gesture with thumb and index finger which stands for money the world over, and the other smiled and wagged his carefully curled beard.

And so they did talk business, very much to both gentlemen's satisfaction, while, in a neighboring tent, Koom Khan was entertaining the governor of the western marches with a similar tale of Hector's short comings, winding up softly, ingenuously, with:

“Al Nakia is a saheb, and thou knowest what the sahebs are—all sahebs”—dwelling slightly on the word, and winking rapidly in the direction of the neighboring tent whence drifted the sound of Mr. Preserved Higgins' raucous voice.

Of old, the governor was familiar with his countryman's methods of innuendo.

“Didst thou say—all sahebs, heart of my heart?” he inquired, casually, duplicating the other's wink.

“Yes.” Koom Khan sighed. “Thou knowest the saheb-log. They either give thee three times what thou deservest, or they give thee nothing at all. Strange cattle—I do not trust them.”

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And after a pause, a silence broken only by the gurgling sounds of the hubble-bubbles, he went on, with sudden, frank, naïve simplicity:

“Abderrahman—I do not trust thy saheb!”

“Higgins saheb?”

“No. The other saheb—-who looks like a lance at rest.”

“Ah?” breathed the governor, without looking up.

“Indeed. There is about him a lean and nasty wolfishness of expression that, if I had a herd of sheep to protect, would cause me to double my sticks and treble my swords and quadruple my camp fires—that would induce me to surround myself with nine teen times nineteen traps. Good, sound traps that snap the wolf's legs and keep him—where he belongs!”

And when Abderrahman Yahiah Khan raised his eyebrows, questioningly, he stabbed a finger through the half-open tent flap toward the purpling night sky where a big, detached cloud was floating across the face of the moon.

“The moon careth not for the cloud,” he said, “and the saheb-log careth not for me—or thee—unless it be to use us for personal benefit.”

He was silent.

From the outside came a soft, throaty gurgle of camels jerking at their headstalls, and a feeble, dry sound of a sentinel's rifle dragging against the withered, tufted desert grass; and, presently, the tail end of an English song flung to the night in Tollemache Wade's frank, untrained voice:

“

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 Decidedly,” went on Koom Khan, “if I were thou, I would cut the saheb's throat.”

He said it with simple, sincere ruthlessness, undisguised, but neither vindictive nor cruel; rather with something which proved beyond all doubt that he was of the Orient, which showed, in a way, how an Asian can hold to the blind belief of his personal will, conviction, or even whim against the opinions, the customs, the saving prejudices, and the codified laws of the rest of the world; something of that profoundly sincere and honest stubbornness, that trust in himself against all odds, which, on the one hand, can turn the leader of a band of nomad cut-throats—an Attila or a Genghiz Khan, a Nadir Shah or a Peshwah Saheb—into a scourge of mankind, and, on the other hand, can change an ordinary peasant or fisherman into a prophet of the faith.

Both ruthlessness, lawlessness, serene contempt and negligence of existing conditions—working for the good or for the bad, as the case may be.

“Kill him, soul of my soul,” Koom Khan repeated, “and let the rest be as Allah willeth.”

The other puffed at his pipe. Of old, he knew Koom Khan; knew, thus, that he was chary of speech and that the blood-thirsty advice was not the result of a sudden racial or cultural animosity against the saheb-log. There must be another, more direct cause.

Finally he decided to ask a frank question—frank, that is, according to the limitations of the Oriental mind.

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“Koom Khan,” he said, “I do not love the sahebs any more than thou. Yet am I a reasonable man, washed in thirty-seven buckets of patient wisdom. Tell me,” he went on, dreamily, “if a scorpion could spin a silk cocoon, would I crush it under foot—or would I feed it choice mulberry leaves?”

“But”—came the counter question, “suppose the scorpion weaves a silken net with which to strangle—thee?”

The governor shook his head.

“No, no,” he said. “The saheb intends no treachery. He is my ally. He needs my armed men, my knowledge of the land, as I need his wisdom in war, and the other saheb's money-bags. We made a bargain.”

“And yet,” Koom Khan breathed, softly, “I have heard in the bazaars that the young saheb dreams of mating with the princess Aziza Nurmahal.”

Abderrahman Yahiah Khan looked puzzled.

“Why—of course!” he rejoined. “Such is the understanding. The saheb is the 'Expected One'!”

“Is he?”

Koom Khan laughed long and riotously, his whole body shaken jerkily by the panting, gurgling catches of his breath.

But it was not a merry laughter—bitter it was, grim, sardonic. And grim, too, was his exclamation, as he rose and stretched his stout arms to heaven:

“By the teeth of God—I was a fool, then, to leave the silken security of Tamerlanistan, to brave the dangers of the open road with my women and servants

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 and children, to come to thee and ask thee for the hand of protection and the sweet salt of hospitality! I was a fool—a fool!”

“But—I thought that thou hadst a quarrel with Al Nakia.”

“I did—because of thee, soul of my soul!”

“Because of—me?”

“Yes—because of thee and of thy twin brother, the governor of the eastern marches …”

“May his soul pass quickly into the dark!” the other interjected with brotherly affection. And he asked: “What has that brother of mine, that son of a dog, to do with …”

“Everything. He came to court, speaking slurring words about thee—at least I thought then that they were slurring. He said how first thou hadst sent brave messages that thou wouldst conquer Tamerlanistan and wed the princess, and how afterwards thou didst show thyself a most base-born dog by giving up thy claims to the princess' hand for a turbanful of gold. I called thy brother a liar. There were words. Swords were drawn. Al Nakia took thy brother's part, and I defied him and came here—and now thou dost tell me—that indeed … Bismillah! I was a fool!”

And again he broke into raucous laughter, while the governor looked down, silent, meditative.

“Abderrahman,” said Koom Khan, rising, “it is against the blessed laws of decency for a Moslem to discuss a woman, to speak of her soul and heart and desires. To do so are the manners of infidel pigs. But—thou art my friend. Thou hast opened wide to

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 me the tent of thy hospitality. We have eaten salt and bread together. Thus I shall tell thee!”

“What?”

“About Aziza Nurmahal. She heard of thy one-time boast, that thou wouldst make her a captive to thy bow and spear and marry her, with or against her will. And she said to a slave who is a friend of a dancing girl whom I know well—alas! too well!”—he sighed—“she said that she loves a bold man, a careless man, a free man who takes by force what his passion and love desires. And—thou …” He slurred, stopped, and went on; “If I were thou, I would cut the saheb's throat. But then I am an impulsive man, a man who plunges into the pool of life negligent of its black, frowning depths, a foolish man who always plays the game of his undoing—and not, as thou art, a wise man, a careful counter of gold and silver and other loot!”

And, late that night, he sent a trusted slave up the Darb-i-Sultani, who arrived at the palace of Tamerlanistan three days later, with the metaphorical message to Al Nakia:

“Good!” cried Gulabian, after Hector had told him the message.

“Good!” croaked the old nurse.

“Good indeed!” echoed Aziza Nurmahal.

But Hector shook his head. It was the latter part

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 of the message which disturbed him. For, while he himself had sent Koom Khan to the rebel camp to spread there the seeds of mistrust and dissension, he had never imagined that the man would elaborate his instructions so as to cause Abderrahman Yahiah Khan to commit murder.

Murder! Deliberate, cold-blooded murder!

No, no! It went against his grain, and he said so to the others:

“I won't have it. It can't be done.”

“Thou art a saheb!” grumbled the old nurse. “Thou art a soft man …”

“And it is the sahebs' softness,” smilingly cut in Hector, “which is their strength. Their softness is the rope by which they dangle the world to their fancy.”

And he sent the messenger back to Koom Khan with the words:

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 just as the more fertile a field is, the richer the crop of thorns and of thistles that it can produce, so an excellent intelligence becomes filled with fanciful notions, if it be not sown with the seeds of wisdom and of virtue; and, just as a mill-stone grinds itself away with noise and grating, and often cracks and breaks, if wheat, the raw material of flour, be not supplied to it, so an active mind, if void of serious things, entangles itself utterly with vain, curious, and noxious thoughts, and becomes the cause of its own destruction.

8. What are the rich without wisdom but pigs stuffed with bran? What are the poor who have no understanding of affairs but asses laden with burdens? What is a handsome though ignorant man but a parrot adorned with feathers, or, as has been said, a golden sheath in which there is a leaden dagger?

9. For those who are in any position of authority, for kings, princes, magistrates, pastors of churches, and doctors, it is as necessary to be imbued with wisdom as it is for a guide to have eyes, an interpreter to have speech, a trumpet to be filled with sound, or a sword to have an edge. Similarly, those in subordinate positions should be educated that they may know how to obey their superiors wisely and prudently, not under compulsion, with the obedience of an ass, but of their own free will and from love of order. For a rational creature should be led, not by shouts, imprisonment, and blows, but by reason. Any other method is an insult to God, in whose image all men are made, and fills human affairs with violence and unrest.

10. We see then that all who are born to man’s estate have need of instruction, since it is necessary that, being men, they should not be wild beasts, savage brutes, or inert logs. It follows also that one man excels another in exact proportion as he has received more instruction. We may conclude this chapter with the words of the “Wise Man.” “He who deems wisdom and discipline of no avail is wretched; his hopes (of attaining his desire) are vain, his labour is fruitless, and his work idle” (Wisdom iii. 11).


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the confidential messenger returned to the rebel camp and delivered Hector's instructions to Koom Khan, the latter shrugged his massive shoulders resignedly and observed, with a painful effect after casualness, that Al Nakia might have saved himself the trouble since an elephant was an elephant on low ground as well as on high, while a coward was a coward with or without a weapon.

A cryptic saying which the messenger was presently able to decipher by listening to the rumors, the babble and gossip and laughter, that swept through the camp, causing the Arabs to scream with amusement after the manner of their kind, causing the Persians to make impromptu and mostly indecent puns, causing the renegade Tamerlanis to slap their stout thighs in an abandonment of mirth—causing, furthermore, Mr. Preserved Higgins to curse fantastically and the Sheik-ul-Islam to declare, with hypocritical, pontifical unction, that Allah was indeed most great, and that there was shining truth in the sura of the Koran where it said that 'Verily repentance will be accepted

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1. what has been said it is evident that the circumstances of men and of trees are similar. For, as a fruit tree (an apple, a pear, a fig, or a vine) is able to grow from its own stock and of its own accord, while a wild tree will not bring forth sweet fruits until it be planted, watered, and pruned by a skilled gardener, so does a man grow of his own accord into a human semblance (just as any brute resembles others of his own class), but is unable to develope into a rational, wise, virtuous, and pious creature, unless virtue and piety are first engrafted in him. We will now show that this must take place while the plants are young.

2. From the human point of view there are six reasons for this. First, the uncertainty of our present life. For that we must leave it is certain, but when and how is uncertain. And that any should be snatched away unprepared is a danger greatly to be dreaded, since a man is thus doomed eternally. For, just as a man must go through life without a limb if he leave his mother’s womb bereft of it, so, if, when we leave this world, our minds have not been moulded to the knowledge of and participation in God, there will be no further opportunity given us. And therefore, as the matter is of such importance, the greatest haste is necessary, lest any man be lost.


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 by Allah from those who do evil ignorantly, and then repent speedily; unto them Allah will turn with forgiveness; for He is knowing and wise and merciful!”

For it appeared that, suddenly, without any known reason, both Abderrahman Yahiah Khan and his friend and ally, “The Basin,” had—to put it vulgarly—“got religion.”

At first, when early that morning the governor of the western marches mentioned that he and Musa Al-Mutasim were going toward the Afghan border on a pious pilgrimage to the shrine of a certain canonized doctor of Koranic theology, called Syyed Ahmet el-Tachfin the Clarified-Butter Seller, and to go there through many intricate religious rites and ceremonies, Mr. Preserved Higgins and Tollemache Wade treated it in the light of a rather crude jest. For it was a notorious fact that, of all the bad Moslems in Central Asia, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan was the worst, with Musa Al-Mutasim running him a close second. From gambling to drinking fermented spirits, from refusing alms to the poor to robbing the orphans of their portion, from practicing usury to neglecting their prayers, there were few Koranic laws which they did not break, almost daily, and with a sort of sneering bravado.

“Right-oh!” said Mr. Higgins, the Babu interpreting. “That's wot you need—religion—bloomin' fine joke!”

But the other turned on him a stony and reproachful eye.

“Saheb,” he said, “it is not fitting to make a mock of a man's honest repentance. I have been a sinner of sins. So has Musa Al-Mutasim. And now we go

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 to the shrine of the Clarified-Butter Seller to cleanse our souls and to make our peace with Allah and his blessed Prophet!”

Then, suddenly, it dawned upon Tollemache Wade that the man was in earnest, and so he tried to argue with him, told him to defer his sacred pilgrimage until after the coming campaign against Tamerlanistan.

The governor shook his head.

“No, no,” he said. “For too many years have I broken the blessed laws of the Prophet Mohammed—”

“On whom Peace!” chimed in “The Basin” sonorously and mendaciously.

“And last night, in my dreams, the Prophet spoke to me and told me that ill luck would follow my enterprise unless I repent my sins and follies and evil deeds.”

“But—look here—what about …?”

“Do not worry, saheb. It will be months yet before we will be ready to attack Tamerlanistan and put thee on the throne as the 'Expected One.' Do thou continue drilling the troops, while I and Musa Al-Mutasim prostrate our ignoble bodies before the sainted spirit of the Clarified-Butter Seller!”

Practically the same thing he said to Koom Khan, who fumed and raged.

“Thou art a fool, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan! First thou shouldst cut the saheb's throat—then thy prayers will rise the more sweetly to Allah's nostrils!”

Abderrahman Yahiah Khan heaved a sigh of hypocritical resignation.

“Heart of my heart,” he said, gently, “thou, too, art a sinner of sins, a deceiver of deceits, a curser of

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 curses. Come with me and Musa Al-Mutasim. Prostrate thy unworthy self before … ”

“Coward!” screamed Koom Khan, who saw that his pet scheme, the murder of Tollemache Wade by the governor's hands, was slipping away. “Fool! Drunkard! Jew! Christian! O thou abuser of the salt! O thou cold of countenance! O thou son of a burnt father! O thou spawn of exceeding filth! O thou whose back should be slippered with many slipperings! O thou …”

“I am all that,” said the governor, inclining his head with a fine show of humility, “and a great and wicked sinner. Thus, too, is Musa Al-Mutasim,” pointing at “The Basin,” who stood motionless, though he was choking with inward laughter. “And that is just why we go on pilgrimage to cleanse our souls …”

“Curse your filthy souls!”

“Peace, brother Moslem! Peace and patience!” said the governor, making a mental note of the insults the other had heaped on his head and promising to repay them later on with interest. There was no hurry.

And, half an hour later, he and the renegade Arab were off, astride swift sowarri racing dromedaries, toward the southeast, away from the Darh-i-Sultani, skirting Tamerlanistan's southern frontier, in the direction of the Persian Gulf.

They drove their grunting, protesting animals mercilessly, at top speed, through an arid land spotted with sweet-scented shih grass and dwarf acacia, and torn

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 by dry, rock-strewn watercourses that had once been used for irrigation purposes—watercourses on which both Mr. Preserved Higgins and Mr. Warburton were figuring in their hunt after “concessions”—water courses the eastern end of which an Afghan guide was just then pointing out to the American as the caravan which had brought him and his daughter from India, was reaching the eastern plains of Tamerlanistan.

On they rode, the robber chief's immense bulk bobbing up and down like a meal sack, the governor perched on his peaked saddle like a lean, ironic monkey, and as they rode, they talked, and as they talked they laughed—riotously, exaggeratedly.

Yet, had Koom Khan or the Cockney millionaire taken the precaution of having them followed, they would have noticed that, a few days later, the two repentant sinners seemed suddenly to forget all about their pilgrimage to the shrine of the canonized Clarified-Butter Seller.

For, a day's journey from the Afghan border where it dips toward the Persian Gulf, they turned due north, through an alluvial plain studded with basalt rocks and jagged green stone; above, a sky like polished, blue steel, with a tremendous blaze of orange sunlight that glared down without the thinnest veil of mist cloud.

There were few signs of life, and they were glad of it, as their plan depended as much on secrecy as on speed; only once in a while a carrion kite poised high in the parched heavens, or, silently, sulkily jogging

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 along, an Afghan or Baluchi camel rider, whose jaws and brows were bound mummy fashion against the stinging sand of the desert; and late one afternoon they overtook a gigantic cotton wain that was drawn by twenty bullocks about the size of Newfoundland dogs—a sign that they were drawing nearer to the capital.

A few words with the driver of the wain elicited the information that the weekly caravan from India was due in twenty-four hours, and so, having decided, for reasons of their own, to go to the capital; having furthermore decided, for reasons connected with the safety of their heads, that it would be unwise to do so in their characters of rebel leader and robber chief, they kept on to the north, and, the following day, reached the Darb-al-Sharki, the highway that enters Tamerlanistan from the east, having made a sweeping detour around the city and debouched on a spot far removed from the direction of the western marches.

There they dismounted, took off their clothes, opened their saddle-bags, and, inside of half an hour, faced each other looking for all the world like a couple of ruffianly Afghan charpadars, drovers, with their beards shaved off, their mustaches well trimmed, their heads crowned with immense fur caps that came down over their brows, their bodies in tattered shirts, indigo-dyed, and girt with twisted camel-hair ropes, their legs sheathed in loose muslin trousers, their feet protected from the stones of the road by sandals of thick leather kept in place by narrow thongs tied to the ankles, great iron spurs strapped to their naked

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 heels, and appropriately armed with cheray daggers and pistols.

Then, having hobbled their dromedaries, they sat down by the side of the road, filled their mouths with finely cut pan, chewed and spat contentedly, and smiled at one another as Greek is said to smile at Greek.

“They”—said Musa Al-Mutasim, pointing in the general direction of Tamerlanistan and giving the Arab equivalent for swallowing the bait, hook, line, and sinker—“will climb the thorn tree and wish they had not forgotten their loin-cloths.”

“Yes. For who would recognize the great brigand chief, Musa Al-Mutasim, in a lousy Afghan charpadar?” inquired Abderrahman Yahiah Khan.

“And who,” countered “The Basin,” “would recognize in even such a one the haughty and renowned governor of the western marches?”

“Not Al Nakia, I hope!”

“Nor that Armenian son of a pig!”

“Nor Ayesha Zemzem!”

“Nor Wahab al-Shaitan!”

“Nor,” said the governor with a wink and a leer, “the little, little princess until …”

“Yes,” smiled the Arab as the other paused, “until thy strong arms crush her against thy breast!”

And they talked for a long time, with frequent allusions to Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad el-Dowleh, the old prime minister who had gone to the far places shortly before the Ameer's death, and to a certain ancient Tartar castle which, judging from the Arab's gestures, was situated somewhere, vaguely, in the southwest and was named Jabul-i-Shuhada, “The

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 Place of the Martyrs,” after a handful of Moslem braves who had once defended it, for over two years, against an army of savage, heathen Turkis.

“It is a stout place, easy to defend,” said the Arab, “and it is always in readiness. Often have I found there asylum and safety.”

“Good!”

And then they smiled and were silent again, and waited patiently, until, late in the afternoon, when a faint, silvery tinkle of camels' bells and a neighing of horses warned them that the caravan which they were expecting was approaching.

Not long afterwards it came into view, the camels jogging along Indian file, tied head to tail, looming up on the sky line like a grotesque scrawl of Arab hand writing. At the head of the caravan, followed by half-a-dozen mounted, armed tofanghees, irregular soldiers, rode the leader, a gigantic Baluchi. At the very end a shugduf litter was carried between two swaying, pacing dromedaries.

It was made of wicker and carved and painted deodar wood, elaborately ornamented with silk cord age and covered with a splendid Daghestan rug in heliotrope and rose. The curtains were open, giving a glimpse of the occupant, a young girl, fair haired, brown eyed; and by its side rode a man on a fiery Kabuli stallion that he found difficulty in controlling.

It may have been the fault of the saddle—an American McClellan, and not the huge, peaked affair to which Central Asian horses are used—and it was this saddle

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68 have? A week ago one of your people cut down two oak saplings in my copse. You have dug up the road to Eresnevo, and now I have to go two miles round. Why do you injure me at every step? What harm have I done you? For God's sake, tell me! My wife and I do our utmost to live with you in peace and harmony; we help the peasants as we can. My wife is a kind, warm-hearted woman; she never refuses you help. That is her dream—to be of use to you and your children. You reward us with evil for our good. You are unjust, my friends. Think of that. I ask you earnestly to think it over. We treat you humanely; repay us in the same coin."

He turned and went away. The peasants stood a little longer, put on their caps and walked away. Rodion, who always understood everything that was said to him in some peculiar way of his own, heaved a sigh and said:

"We must pay. Repay in coin, my friends' he said."

They walked to the village in silence. On reaching home Rodion said his prayer, took off his boots, and sat down on the bench beside his wife. Stepanida and he always sat side by side when they were at home, and always walked side by side in the street; they ate and they drank and they slept always together, and the older they grew the more they loved one another. It was hot and crowded in their hut, and there were children everywhere—on the floors, in the windows, on the stove In spite of her advanced years Stepanida was still bearing children, and now, looking at the crowd of children, it was


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 which first attracted Musa Al-Mutasim's special attention.

“A foreigner,” he said. “A saheb—yes!” His gray eyes lit up as they roamed to the glimpse of golden hair and milky skin between the curtains of the litter. “And a foreign woman—a mem-saheb!”

“We are in luck!” laughed Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, “for it is easy to lie to a saheb. Too easy!" he added, almost regretfully, like a man who is wasting his God-given talent on an unappreciative audience.

And, a few minutes later, he and “The Basin” salaamed before the foreigner, their arms folded across their breasts in sign of fealty and humility, and imploring the saheb for permission to join his caravan as far as the capital. For, to quote Abderrahman Yahiah Khan's words, a wise man “muddies his trail.”

The Baluchi, who was the leader of the caravan and who had a fair knowledge of English, acted as dragoman, and it is a moot question whether it was through intention or accident that Musa Al-Mutasim let him see the bulging middle of a well-filled purse.

At all events, the Baluchi, whose name was Nureddin Zaid, seconded the prayers of the two men.

“They are poor, Warburton saheb,” he said. “They ask you for your protection. They say that you are their father and their mother …”

“How gorgeously thrilling, dad!” came a soft voice from the litter, and Jane looked down. “Why, I always thought that I was all the family you had—and here you are father and mother to …”

Mr. Warburton made an impatient gesture.

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“No, Nureddin,” he said to the Baluchi. “Tell them I'm sorry, but …”

“Why not, dad?” asked the girl. “Do let them come with us. They are such picturesque ruffians—and I simply dote on local color!”

Mr. Warburton grumbled.

“I can't do it, Jane,” he said. “Sir James Rivet-Carnac was very particular about strangers not joining our caravan.”

For Sir James, the day before the Warburtons had left Calcutta, had had a confidential message from Mr. Preserved Higgins.

The latter had received cabled advice from a certain sandy-haired gentleman who had an office in Upper Thames Street, London, that the mysterious old Oriental in Coal Yard Street, off Drury Lane, had left England; and Mr. Higgins, thinking that the Oriental, if he came to Tamerlanistan, might, for certain reasons which he talked over with the Babu, seriously interfere with his plan of proclaiming Tollemache Wade as the “Expected One”; knowing that it would be very difficult to shadow the old man once he had disappeared in India's brown swirl; and believing, finally, in sweeping and ruthless methods when big things were at stake, had requested Sir James that, temporarily, all caravans from India to Tamerlanistan be stopped.

Sir James had tried to obey. But Mr. Warburton had been obdurate, had used counter-influences with the India Office, and had received his passports. Finally Sir James had compromised by endeavoring

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 to make sure that nobody except the Warburtons and their guide and servants should leave India for Tamerlanistan; and so, with the help of mendacious warnings about some mysterious Russian political intrigue, he had asked the American to let no stranger attach himself to his caravan at any time of the journey.

“I cant do it, Jane,” repeated Mr. Warburton. “It wouldn't be fair to Sir James.”

“I don't care!” the girl exclaimed. “Fair to Sir James—indeed! Why, he's a dreadful person. Remember how he boasted about refusing a passport to Hector—and yet I wager Hector got away all right, otherwise I would have heard from him or seen him … Dad!” she went on, “haven't I been nice about Hector?”

“Nice? What do you mean?”

“Well—I didn't nag you about him, did I? I've hardly ever mentioned him these last weeks.”

“That's true,” admitted her father, rather grudgingly.

“Well—then you really might be a dear and do that little thing for me!”

“What little thing?”

“To let these two men join our caravan.”

“But why, child?”

“Oh—they are so funny—the thin one who looks like an Asiatic Don Quixote, and the fat one who looks like a wicked Pickwick! They'll lend such a bully spice of romance to our trip!”

“Oh … romance! This is a business trip, daughter.”

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“Don't rub it in, dad—and don't you dare play the tired business man 'steen thousand miles away from Wall Street!”

And, seeing her father smile in spite of himself and interpreting it as his permission for her to do as she pleased, she turned to the Baluchi and told him the two strangers were welcome to join them.

Whence many salaams, flowery thanks, and Musa Al-Mutasim's gray, piercing eyes resting admiringly on this strong-willed mem-saheb who—as he whispered into his friend's ear—“drives the passion of a man as the east wind drives a sheet of flame!”

Thus rebel governor and robber chief accompanied the Warburton party in their rôles of simple Afghan charpadars, speaking little, but listening attentively to the gossip of the servants and soldiers; they traveled at a good speed; and they had already drawn within sight of the capital, with its terrace roofs stretching white, the palm gardens that bordered the suburbs lifting their feathery fronds coquettishly, and the elaborate dome of the Gengizkhani palace arrogantly rising to the tight, sapphire-blue heaven, when Musa Al-Mutasim, seeing that his friend, the governor, was deeply in conversation with a village girl who had approached the caravan offering fruit and milk for sale, slipped over to the side of the Baluchi guide and, as before, showed him his bulging purse.

Came a whispered conversation, the Arab's hand bending to the other's with a pleasant tinkle of gold, and, not long afterwards, the Baluchi approaching Mr. Warburton and remarking humbly that he was the

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 saheb's slave, and that the saheb was the light of his countenance and the stone of his everlasting contentment.

Mr. Warburton was familiar with certain phases of the Orient.

“Let's take all that for granted,” he replied, brutally. “How much are you going to overcharge me?”

Nureddin Zaid, the Baluchi, looked at the American reproachfully.

“Saheb,” he said, “this is not a question of money. It is a question of my affection and loyalty to you.”

“Yes?” Mr. Warburton looked up, surprised, a little suspicious.

“Yes. You have been kind and generous. So has the little mem-saheb”—pointing at Jane who, well out of hearing, was amusedly watching Abderrahman Yahiah Khan's flirtatious conversation with the village girl. “And thus I would like to repay you, saheb!”

And he talked long and earnestly to Mr. Warburton, with the result that the latter, a few minutes afterwards, told his daughter that she would stay here, at the village outside the city walls, under the protection of half-a-dozen soldiers, until he sent for her.

“I want to go with you, dad.”

“No, Jane. It isn't safe. Nureddin Zaid told me that the prime minister of Tamerlanistan, the chap they call Al Nakia is … oh …” he coughed.

“A Don Juan?” she laughed. “Why, dad, I can take care of myself. I've played around New York and Paris and London, you know.”

“But this is the Orient, my dear, and things are

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 different. Nureddin Zaid told me you'd be perfectly safe the moment Al Nakia gives me his solemn oath—but not before. So, my dear, I'd much rather you stay here—won't you please?”

Thus the mild and meek American parent whose words, when he talked to men of millions on Wall Street or on the Stock Exchange, popped sharp and dry like machine-gun bullets; and Jane smiled.

“Certainly, dad,” she said. “I don't want to worry you.”

“Thanks, my dear. I'll send for you just as soon as Al Nakia promises me.”

A few hours later, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan and “The Basin,” whom the Tamerlani officials at the eastern gate had passed in without question as evidently belonging to the saheb's retinue, had disappeared in the packed, greasy wilderness of houses that ran from the Bazaar of the Mutton Butchers to the Ghulan River where stood the dead Ameer's mausoleum, while Mr. Warburton whose Baluchi guide had left the moment he had been paid his wages and a handsome bakshish in appreciation of his loyal warning about Al Nakia, was sitting on a rickety, three-legged chair in the chapar-khanah, the official rest house for distinguished travelers, trying to convince a bored, bearded major-domo by sign language that goat stewed in honey and spiced with asafoetida, badly cooked brinjal, unripe melons, underdone bread, and luke-warm licorice water were not the right sort of diet for a dyspeptic stomach.

Finally he gave up in despair, and contented himself

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 with a simple repast consisting of a glass of milk and a fat, black cigar, and sat down on the open veranda, watching the scene outside on the market place: the low line of shops overflowing with vegetables, grains, cloths, slippers, ropes, household utensils, brasses, and whatever else measured the scale of the natives modest wants; a dozen or so desert men squatting around little fagots of brush wood spread on the ground, and beyond them the gaunt, sneering, huddled shapes of their dromedaries; a butcher's shop, his fly-blown stock-in-trade of beef and mutton quarters hanging from the limbs of a dead tree; turbaned and fur-capped people of every tint and costume, picturesque and swaggering alike in their bright silks and their worn, tattered rags, all haggling, laughing, babbling, shouting, all typical of Asia, that most disconcerting continent—disconcerting, that is, to professional Occidental psychologists—which, somehow, blends an ancient wisdom with an eternal, perversely childlike simplicity of soul.

There he sat and watched, slightly homesick, slightly discouraged, not with the eventual success of his enterprise, but with the brooding thought that success in Asia meant nothing after all; for, even suppose he was granted his “concession,” developed the western province, reaped a benefit for himself and his backers, and increased the standard of living of the natives … what then? Asia was too big, too big to grasp even mentally, and a local success … why, it was like shooting at an elephant with a pea-shooter!

And so he thought, while he waited for the return of the messenger whom he had sent to the Babu

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Rh hard to distinguish which were Rodion's and which were Volodka's. Volodka's wife, Lukerya, a plain young woman with prominent eyes and a nose like the beak of a bird, was kneading dough in a tub; Volodka was sitting on the stove with his legs hanging.

"On the road near Nikita's buckwheat the engineer with his dog " Rodion began, after a rest, scratching his ribs and his elbow. "'You must pay,' says he 'coin,' says he Coin or no coin, we shall have to collect ten kopecks from every hut. We've offended the gentleman very much. I am sorry for him"

"We've lived without a bridge," said Volodka, not looking at anyone, "and we don't want one."

"What next; the bridge is a government business."

"We don't want it."

"Your opinion is not asked. What is it to you?"

"'Your opinion is not asked,'" Volodka mimicked him. "We don't want to drive anywhere; what do we want with a bridge? If we have to, we can cross by the boat."

Someone from the yard outside knocked at the window so violently that it seemed to shake the whole hut.

"Is Volodka at home?" he heard the voice of the younger Lytchkov. "Volodka, come out, come along."

Volodka jumped down off the stove and began looking for his cap.


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 Chandra, local agent of the Cable Company and his own more or less trusted representative, with word that he was in town and wished to see him at once.

The Babu came not long afterwards, coquettish as to attire, with his patent leather pumps and open-work silk socks, his gaudy umbrella and the freshly varnished, crimson caste mark on his low forehead, his sagging lips bubbling florid, frothy greetings, protestations of undying loyalty, mendacious statements that he, his wife, his mother, and his cow were dying of starvation, and complaints against the Babu Bansi and Mr. Preserved Higgins, whose ancestors, it appeared, had been born noseless and devoid of shame for untold generations … a stream of words cut short by Mr. Ezra Warburton's “All right. Let's take all that for granted.”

“But—Higgins saheb is making mischief in the West. He is …”

“That's why I am here. I want an audience as soon as possible with that—what's his name—the fellow who seems to be ace high here …”

“Al Nakia?”

“Yes. I want to see him, right away. Can you fix it up?”

“Yes, Heaven-Born.”

“When?”

“At once. At least—this afternoon. About two hours from now he receives in open durbar, saheb.”

“Good. You'd better come along and play interpreter, Bansi.”

At which the Babu smiled.

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“Heaven-Born,” he said, “Al Nakia speaks English.”

“Educated abroad, I guess?”

“No. He is a saheb, like yourself!”

Even so two hours later—two hours pregnant with motley happenings, with the clash of swords, the cries of dying men, the lust of a Tamerlani, and the greed of an Arab—Mr. Ezra Warburton was utterly surprised when, ushered into the presence of Al Nakia, he discovered that the latter was Hector Wade.

And the surprise was mutual. Too, it was typical of American and Briton.

“I'll be jiggered!” exclaimed the former.

“How d'ye do?” said the latter, extending a limp and gawkish hand.

Came an embarrassed silence, until finally the financier, with the abrupt directness of his nation, decided that the past was the past and, as such, must be left to take care of itself; that, whatever the truth or untruth as to the disgraceful card scandal which had banished Hector Wade from the society of decent people, and whatever the methods through which he had reached his present eminent position, that position itself was a fact—and he was here on business.

Business! The sacred Grail of his life!

And business he would talk, and did talk.

“About those land development concessions,” he began. “I guess I can make you a pretty fair offer—an offer you won't be able to refuse.”

He went on to say that he knew about the rebellion which had broken out in the western marches and

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 about Mr. Preserved Higgins part in it, but that he himself …

“Well, Mr. Wade, you know that I've quite a little pull with the British government. What you need is rifles and ammunition and supplies, and I'll make it my affair to see that you get them. On the other hand—well—I am a business man, not an altruist, and so …”

And he talked on, outlining his plan.

But Hector was hardly listening. Loverlike, he saw in Mr. Warburton's gray, ascetic features a shadowy and sentimental resemblance to a little oval of a face, crowned by a mass of hair that was like curled sunlight; he wondered about Jane, and, with single-minded, self-centered English tactlessness, he voiced his wonder the next moment, cutting through Mr. Warburton's intricate sentence, which was filled to the brim with rates of interest and difficulties of transportation and unearned increment and sinking fund and similar financial details.

“How is your daughter, Mr. Warburton?”

And, suddenly, Mr. Warburton smiled.

It was not that he had forgotten about Jane. He couldn't very well, for her personality was too femininely insistent. But, momentarily, her picture had become rather blurred in the mazes of dollars and cents.

So he smiled, just a little guiltily.

“The joke is on me,” he said. “That infernal Baluchi guide of mine told me that you were—oh—all sorts of a gay and festive dog.”

Hector flared up.

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“I … what?”

“I had no idea you were Hector Wade. I thought you were some Oriental Don Juan. That's what my Baluchi told me. Told me—oh, well—that a girl wasn't safe with you unless she was accompanied by half-a-dozen chaperons armed to the teeth, and so he persuaded me to leave Jane in a little village oasis—the last, one the other side of the eastern gate.”

“What did he do that for?” Hector was puzzled, faintly uneasy.

“Oh—just to work me for a tip, I suppose. And he worked me all right. That final bakshish I gave him is going to make history in Central Asia.”

And he laughed again. For he was a shrewd business man who believed in the rhythmic law of human equation, the personal element, and as frequently, in New York and London, he had discovered that the roseate geniality due to a dry Martini, a lavish display of ambiguous hors d'œuvres, ornamental ices in frilled pink papers, and the right sort of coffee and liqueur, were of valuable help in directing a man's judgment and fountain pen; thus the flash of Jane's dark eyes through the center of this prosy business discussion might help in influencing the young Englishman.

“I'll send for her as soon as we're through with our little talk,” he said. “She'll be all right at the village, in the meantime.”

“I suppose so,” said Hector, still with that same faint uneasiness; and once more the financier launched forth upon the roaming, treacherous sea of dollars and cents which he knew so well how to navigate.

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“As to those land concessions,” he began again, “my proposition is fair and square …”

Hector Wade jerked himself back into the reality of things.

“Mr. Warburton,” he said, “I do not doubt it in the least. Fair and square. Of course. But only fair and square according to the limits of your understanding!”

“The—limits of my …?” Mr. Warburton stammered. An angry red flushed his lean cheeks. He did not like to have his probity impugned, even in a roundabout way; and it was that which the other was evidently trying to do.

“According to the limits of your understanding—exactly!” Hector went on. “But not according to the understanding of Asia.”

“Is this an ethical discussion or a business discussion?” demanded the financier with a faint sneer.

“Both—as it ought to be. You see, your ideas on progress and happiness …”

“Interchangeable terms!”

“So you say! Your ideas and those of the Orient do not happen to dovetail. You say that money, and the progress which money buys, is happiness; and the Orient replies that poverty can often be a far greater happiness—if poverty brings contentment.”

“Poverty—brings—contentment?” Here was a revolutionary theory which nettled the financier.

“Poverty from your point of view,” smiled Hector, “and not from the point of view of the Orient. My Tamerlanis”—and he dwelt just a little on the “my”—“

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 are rich—and happy—when they have three square meals a day, a handful of brittle Latakia tobacco leaves and …”

“But you are a European!” interrupted Mr. Warburton. “You are an Englishman, the descendant of a nation of shopkeepers.”

“Yes. But I am also the regent of this country. And I have not been here very long. Perhaps a measure of development may do Tamerlanistan a whole lot of good. I don't know—yet.”

“I can prove to you that …”

“You can prove to me exactly nothing—at least about Tamerlanistan. I must learn by myself, and I am rather slow. I take one step at a time, and my present step is over yonder”—he pointed west, through the window where brilliant wedges of sunlight misted the town with golden gauze. “I must pacify the border province. Nothing else counts.”

“Right there I can help you. I tell you I have a great deal of pull with the British-Indian government.”

“Oh, yes. You told me. Rifles and bullets and all that sort of thing. But I fancy I shan't need them. I have rather a different plan. Anyway, there'll be no talk of concessions until either I know more about Tamerlanistan than I do know, or until the former prime minister, Hajji Akhbar Khan, returns from abroad. He and the late Ameer had certain ideas about these concessions.”

“I remember,” said Mr. Warburton, with rather a grim smile. “They wouldn't even listen to the propositions I made them through the Babu Chandra—”

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70 "Don't go, Volodka," said Rodion diffidently. "Don't go with them, son. You are foolish, like a little child; they will teach you no good; don't go!"

"Don't go, son," said Stepanida, and she blinked as though about to shed tears. "I bet they are calling you to the tavern."

"'To the tavern,'" Volodka mimicked.

"You'll come back drunk again, you currish Herod," said Lukerya, looking at him angrily.

"Go along, go along, and may you burn up with vodka, you tailless Satan!"

"You hold your tongue," shouted Volodka.

"They've married me to a fool, they've ruined me, a luckless orphan, you red-headed drunkard " wailed Lukerya, wiping her face with a hand covered with dough. "I wish I had never set eyes on you."

Volodka gave her a blow on the ear and went off.

Elena Ivanovna and her little daughter visited the village on foot. They were out for a walk. It was a Sunday, and the peasant women and girls were walking up and down the street in their brightly-coloured dresses. Rodion and Stepanida, sitting side by side at their door, bowed and smiled to Elena Ivanovna and her little daughter as to acquaintances. From the windows more than a dozen children stared at them; their faces expressed amazement and curiosity, and they could be heard whispering:


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“And perhaps they were right. From all I hear about Hajji Akhbar Khan …”

And then, with utter, dramatic suddenness, the name of the Hajji was echoed by a shrill voice that drifted through the curtains which separated the audience hall from the women's quarter.

“Hajji Akhbar Khan—didst thou say?” It was the old nurse's screaming voice. “And dost thou mean to tell me that the princess—that little, little fool of a princess—went there, without telling me? Why didst thou not tell me, O daughter of a noseless she-camel?”

The next moment she burst into the audience hall, like a miniature whirlwind of passion, her wizened, berry-brown features distorted with rage and grief, dragging after her a weeping slave girl whom she cuffed and kicked as a sort of accompaniment to the tale which she poured into Hector's ear.

“''Zid! Zid!''—Hurry! Hurry!” she wound up, and Hector, pale, slightly trembling, turned to the American.

“Pardon my abruptness,” he said, “I have to go …”

“Has anything happened? Can I help you?”

“I don't know. No time to explain. Awfully sorry.” And he picked up the ancient Oriental blade from a low taboret and ran out of the audience hall and into the outer court.

A splendid stallion was there, champing at his bit, saddled, gayly caparisoned, belonging to some courtier who had come for audience.

Hector threw his leg across the saddle, and was off

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 at a gallop, while the old nurse looked after him, trembling, crying … and presently turned again to the slave girl.

“Why didst thou not tell me, daughter of a wart?”

“I couldn't—the princess never thought that the Hajji wasn't …”

"She has less sense even than thou! A husband—that is what she needs! A husband who beats her—but not too much—or may Allah help him!” she wound up in a disconcerting mingling of defiance and gentleness.

“What has happened?” Mr. Warburton asked Babu Chandra, who had come into the audience hall, fully as excited as the nurse had been.

“The Princess Aziza Nurmahal fell into a trap. And so—so did …”

“Who?”

“Your daughter, Heaven-Born!”

And, like the nurse, he told a jerking, hysterical tale, at the end of which the financier, even as Hector had done, rushed out of the palace, into the outer court, and mounted the first horse he saw.

And off and away, toward the eastern gate, toward the open country that rose slowly, gradually, to a far horizon of soft curves and blue vapors, slashed with silver and nicked with livid purple, while Hector was urging his stallion toward the West, where the Ghulan River laid a shining ribbon across the town's straggling suburbs, and where the turrets and bulbous domes of the dead Ameer's mausoleum swept to the sky in a stony abandon.

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Rh "The Kutcherov lady has come! The Kutcherov lady!"

"Good-morning," said Elena Ivanovna, and she stopped; she paused, and then asked: "Well, how are you getting on?"

"We get along all right, thank God," answered Rodion, speaking rapidly. "To be sure we get along."

"The life we lead!" smiled Stepanida. "You can see our poverty yourself, dear lady! The family is fourteen souls in all, and only two bread-winners. We are supposed to be blacksmiths, but when they bring us a horse to shoe we have no coal, nothing to buy it with. We are worried to death, lady," she went on, and laughed. "Oh, oh, we are worried to death."

Elena Ivanovna sat down at the entrance and, putting her arm round her little girl, pondered something, and judging from the little girl's expression, melancholy thoughts were straying through her mind, too; as she brooded she played with the sumptuous lace on the parasol she had taken out of her mother's hands.

"Poverty," said Rodion, "a great deal of anxiety—you see no end to it. Here, God sends no rain our life is not easy, there is no denying it."

"You have a hard time in this life," said Elena Ivanovna, "but in the other world you will be happy."

Rodion did not understand her, and simply coughed into his clenched hand by way of reply. Stepanida said:


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 3. And although death be far off and a long life be assured, the formation of character should none the less begin early, because life must be spent not in learning but in acting. We should therefore be prepared for the actions of life as soon as possible, since we may be compelled to desist from action before we have learned our lesson properly. Indeed, if any wish to devote his life to learning, the multitude of objects which the Creator has placed before his happy gaze is infinite, and, if he chance to have a life like Nestor’s, he will find his most useful occupation in discerning the treasures of divine wisdom that the Creator has provided, and in thus preparing for himself the bulwarks of a happy life. Man’s senses, therefore, must be early brought to bear on the world that surrounds him, since throughout his whole life he has much to learn, to experience, and to accomplish.

4. It is the nature of everything that comes into being, that while tender it is easily bent and formed, but that, when it has grown hard, it is not easy to alter. Wax, when soft, can be easily fashioned and shaped; when hard it cracks readily. A young plant can be planted, transplanted, pruned, and bent this way or that. When it has become a tree these processes are impossible. New-laid eggs, when placed under a hen, grow warm quickly and produce chickens; when they are old they will not do so. If a rider wish to train a horse, a ploughman an ox, a huntsman a dog or a hawk, a bear-leader a bear for dancing, or an old woman a magpie, a raven, or a crow, to imitate the human voice, they must choose them for the purpose when quite young; otherwise their labour is wasted.

5. It is evident that this holds good with man himself. His brain, which we have already compared to wax, because it receives the images of external objects that present themselves to its organs of sense, is, in the years of childhood, quite wet and soft, and fit for receiving all images that come to it. Later on, as we find by experience, it grows hard and dry by degrees, so that things are less readily


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72 "Dear lady, the rich men will be all right in the next world, too. The rich put up candles, pay for services; the rich give to beggars, but what can the poor man do? He has no time to make the sign of the cross. He is the beggar of beggars himself; how can he think of his soul? And many sins come from poverty; from trouble we snarl at one another like dogs, we haven't a good word to say to one another, and all sorts of things happen, dear lady—God forbid! It seems we have no luck in this world nor the next. All the luck has fallen to the rich."

She spoke gaily; she was evidently used to talking of her hard life. And Rodion smiled, too; he was pleased that his old woman was so clever, so ready of speech.

"It is only on the surface that the rich seem to be happy," said Elena Ivanovna. "Every man has his sorrow. Here my husband and I do not live poorly, we have means, but are we happy? I am young, but I have had four children; my children are always being ill. I am ill, too, and constantly being doctored."

"And what is your illness?" asked Rodion.

"A woman's complaint. I get no sleep; a continual headache gives me no peace. Here I am sitting and talking, but my head is bad, I am weak all over, and I should prefer the hardest labour to such a condition. My soul, too, is troubled; I am in continual fear for my children, my husband. Every family has its own trouble of some sort; we have ours. I am not of noble birth. My grand-


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Rh father was a simple peasant, my father was a tradesman in Moscow; he was a plain, uneducated man, too, while my husband's parents were wealthy and distinguished. They did not want him to marry me, but he disobeyed them, quarrelled with them, and they have not forgiven us to this day. That worries my husband; it troubles him and keeps him in constant agitation; he loves his mother, loves her dearly. So I am uneasy, too, my soul is in pain."

Peasants, men and women, were by now standing round Rodion's hut and listening. Kozov came up, too, and stood twitching his long, narrow beard. The Lytchkovs, father and son, drew near.

"And say what you like, one cannot be happy and satisfied if one does not feel in one's proper place." Elena Ivanovna went on. "Each of you has his strip of land, each of you works and knows what he is working for; my husband builds bridges—in short, everyone has his place, while I, I simply walk about. I have not my bit to work. I don't work, and feel as though I were an outsider. I am saying all this that you may not judge from outward appearances; if a man is expensively dressed and has means it does not prove that he is satisfied with his life."

She got up to go away and took her daughter by the hand.

"I like your place here very much," she said, and smiled, and from that faint, diffident smile one could tell how unwell she really was, how young and how pretty; she had a pale, thinnish face with dark eyebrows and fair hair. And the little girl was just


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74 such another as her mother: thin, fair, and slender. There was a fragrance of scent about them.

"I like the river and the forest and the village," Elena Ivanovna went on; "I could live here all my life, and I feel as though here I should get strong and find my place. I want to help you—I want to dreadfully—to be of use, to be a real friend to you. I know your need, and what I don't know I feel, my heart guesses. I am sick, feeble, and for me perhaps it is not possible to change my life as I would. But I have children. I will try to bring them up that they may be of use to you, may love you. I shall impress upon them continually that their life does not belong to them, but to you. Only I beg you earnestly, I beseech you, trust us, live in friendship with us. My husband is a kind, good man. Don't worry him, don't irritate him. He is sensitive to every trifle, and yesterday, for instance, your cattle were in our vegetable garden, and one of your people broke down the fence to the bee-hives, and such an attitude to us drives my husband to despair. I beg you," she went on in an imploring voice, and she clasped her hands on her bosom—"I beg you to treat us as good neighbours; let us live in peace! There is a saying, you know, that even a bad peace is better than a good quarrel, and, 'Don't buy property, but buy neighbours.' I repeat my husband is a kind man and good; if all goes well we promise to do everything in our power for you; we will mend the roads, we will build a school for your children. I promise you."

"Of course we thank you humbly, lady," said


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 impressed or engraved upon it. Hence Cicero’s remark, “Boys pick up countless things with rapidity.” In the same way it is only in the years of boyhood, when the muscles are still capable of being trained, that the hands and the other members can be trained to produce skilled work. If a man is to become a good writer, painter, tailor, smith, cabinet-maker, or musician, he must apply himself to the art from his early youth, when the imagination is active and the fingers flexible: otherwise he will never produce anything. If piety is to take root in any man’s heart, it must be engrafted while he is still young; if we wish any one to be virtuous, we must train him in early youth; if we wish him to make great progress in the pursuit of wisdom, we must direct his faculties towards it in infancy, when desire burns, when thought is swift, and when memory is tenacious. “An old man who has still to learn his lessons is a shameful and ridiculous object; training and preparation are for the young, action for the old” (Seneca, Epist. 36).

6. In order that man may be fashioned to humanity, God has granted him the years of youth, which are unsuitable for everything but education. While the horse, the ox, the elephant, and other beasts, mere animated masses, come to maturity in a few years, man alone scarcely does so in twenty or thirty. Now, if any imagine that this arises from chance or from some accidental cause or other, he surely betrays his folly. To all other things, forsooth, God has meted out their periods, while in the case of man alone, the lord of all, He allows them to be fixed by chance! Or are we to suppose that nature finds it easier to complete the formation of man by slow processes? Nature, who with no trouble can produce vaster bodies in a few months. We can only suppose, therefore, that the Creator, of deliberate intent, interposed the delay of youth, in order that our period of training might be longer; and ordained that for some time we should take no part in the action of life, that, for the rest of our lives, and for eternity, we might be the more fitted to do so.

7. In man, that alone is lasting which has been imbibed


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Rh Lytchkov the father, looking at the ground; "you are educated people; it is for you to know best. Only, you see, Voronov, a rich peasant at Eresnevo, promised to build a school; he, too, said, 'I will do this for you,' 'I will do that for you,' and he only put up the framework and refused to go on. And then they made the peasants put the roof on and finish it; it cost them a thousand roubles. Voronov did not care; he only stroked his beard, but the peasants felt it a bit hard."

"That was a crow, but now there's a rook, too," said Kozov, and he winked.

There was the sound of laughter.

"We don't want a school," said Volodka sullenly. "Our children go to Petrovskoe, and they can go on going there; we don't want it."

Elena Ivanovna seemed suddenly intimidated; her face looked paler and thinner, she shrank into herself as though she had been touched with something coarse, and walked away without uttering another word. And she walked more and more quickly, without looking round.

"Lady," said Rodion, walking after her, "lady, wait a bit; hear what I would say to you."

He followed her without his cap, and spoke softly as though begging.

"Lady, wait and hear what I will say to you."

They had walked out of the village, and Elena Ivanovna stopped beside a cart in the shade of an old mountain ash.

"Don't be offended, lady," said Rodion.

"What does it mean? Have patience. Have pa-