Snake and Sword - Percival Christopher Wren
SNAKE AND SWORD
_A NOVEL_
BY
PERCIVAL CHRISTOPHER WREN
DEDICATED TO MY WIFE ALICE LUCILLE WREN
CONTENTS
PART I.
THE WELDING OF A SOUL
I. The Snake and the Soul
PART II.
THE SEARING OF A SOUL
II. The Sword and the Snake
III. The Snake Appears
IV. The Sword and the Soul
V. Lucille
VI. The Snake's "Myrmidon"
VII. Love--and the Snake
VIII. Troopers of the Queen
IX. A Snake avenges a Haddock and Lucille behaves
in an un-Smelliean Manner
X. Much Ado about Almost Nothing--A Mere
Trooper
XI. More Myrmidons
PART III.
THE SAVING OF A SOUL
XII. Vultures and Luck--Good and Bad
XIII. Found
XIV. The Snake and the Sword
Seven Years After
PART I.
THE WELDING OF A SOUL.
CHAPTER I.
THE SNAKE AND THE SOUL.
When Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, V.C., D.S.O., of the Queen's
Own (118th) Bombay Lancers, pinned his Victoria Cross to the bosom of
his dying wife's night-dress, in token of his recognition that she was
the braver of the twain, he was not himself.
He was beside himself with grief.
Afterwards he adjured the sole witness of this impulsive and emotional
act, Major John Decies, never to mention his "damned theatrical folly"
to any living soul, and to excuse him on the score of an ancient
sword-cut on the head and two bad sun-strokes.
For the one thing in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the
waters under the earth, that Colonel de Warrenne feared, was breach of
good form and stereotyped convention.
And the one thing he loved was the dying woman.
This last statement applies also to Major John Decies, of the Indian
Medical Service, Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, and may even be
expanded, for the one thing he ever _had_ loved was the dying
woman....
Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne did the deed that won him his
Victoria Cross, in the open, in the hot sunlight and in hot blood,
sword in hand and with hot blood on the sword-hand--fighting for his
life.
His wife did the deed that moved him to transfer the Cross to her, in
darkness, in cold blood, in loneliness, sickness and silence--fighting
for the life of her unborn child against an unseen foe.
Colonel de Warrenne's type of brave deed has been performed thousands
of times and wherever brave men have fought.
His wife's deed of endurance, presence of mind, self-control and cool
courage is rarer, if not unique.
To appreciate this fully, it must be known that she had a horror of
snakes, so terrible as to amount to an obsession, a mental deformity,
due, doubtless, to the fact that her father (Colonel Mortimer Seymour
Stukeley) died of snake-bite before her mother's eyes, a few hours
before she herself was born.
Bearing this in mind, judge of the conduct that led Colonel de
Warrenne, distraught, to award her his Cross "For Valour".
One oppressive June evening, Lenore de Warrenne returned from church
(where she had, as usual, prayed fervently that her soon-expected
first-born might be a daughter), and entered her dressing-room. Here
her Ayah divested her of hat, dress, and boots, and helped her into
the more easeful tea-gown and satin slippers.
"Bootlair wanting ishweets for dinner-table from go-down,[1] please,
Mem-Sahib," observed Ayah, the change of garb accomplished.
"The butler wants sweets, does he? Give me my keys, then," replied
Mrs. de Warrenne, and, rising with a sigh, she left the dressing-room
and proceeded, _via_ the dining-room (where she procured some small
silver bowls, sweet-dishes, and trays), to the go-down or store-room,
situate at the back of the bungalow and adjoining the
"dispense-khana"--the room in which assemble the materials and
ministrants of meals from the extra-mural "bowachi-khana" or kitchen.
Unlocking the door of the go-down, Mrs. de Warrenne entered the small
shelf-encircled room, and, stepping on to a low stool proceeded to
fill the sweet-trays from divers jars, tins and boxes, with
guava-cheese, crystallized ginger, _kulwa_, preserved mango and
certain of the more sophisticated sweetmeats of the West.
It was after sunset and the _hamal_ had not yet lit the lamps, so that
this pantry, a dark room at mid-day, was far from light at that time.
But for the fact that she knew exactly where everything was, and could
put her hand on what she wanted, she would not have entered without a
light.
For some minutes the unfortunate lady stood on the stool.
Having completed her task she stepped down backwards and, as her foot
touched the ground, she knew _that she had trodden upon a snake._
Even as she stood poised, one foot on the ground, the other on the
stool, both hands gripping the high shelf, she felt the reptile
whipping, writhing, jerking, lashing, flogging at her ankle and
instep, coiling round her leg.... And in the fraction of a second the
thought flashed through her mind: "If its head is under my foot, or
too close to my foot for its fangs to reach me, I am safe while I
remain as I am. If its head is free I am doomed--and matters cannot be
any the worse for my keeping as I am."
_And she kept as she was,_ with one foot on the stool, out of reach,
and one foot on the snake.
And screamed?
No, called quietly and coolly for the butler, remembering that she had
sent Nurse Beaton out, that her husband was at polo, that there were
none but native servants in the house, and that if she raised an alarm
they would take it, and with single heart consider each the safety of
Number One.
"Boy!" she called calmly, though the room swam round her and a deadly
faintness began to paralyse her limbs and loosen her hold upon the
shelf--"Boy! Come here."
Antonio Ferdinand Xavier D'Souza, Goanese butler, heard and came.
"Mem-Sahib?" quoth he, at the door of the go-down.
"Bring a lamp quickly," said Lenore de Warrenne in a level voice.
The worthy Antonio, fat, spectacled, bald and wheezy, hurried away and
peremptorily bade the _hamal_[2], son of a jungle-pig, to light and
bring a lamp quickly.
The _hamal_, respectfully pointing out to the Bootlair Sahib that the
daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any
lamp, complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney,
trimming the wick, pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory
and commendable job of it.
Lenore de Warrenne, sick, faint, sinking, waited ... waited ... waited
... gripping the shelf and fighting against her over-mastering
weakness for the life of the unborn child that, even in that awful
moment, she prayed might be a daughter.
After many cruelly long centuries, and as she swayed to fall, the good
Antonio entered with the lamp. Her will triumphed over her falling
body.
"Boy, I am standing on a snake!" said she coolly. "Put the lamp--"
But Antonio did not stay to "put" the lamp; incontinent he dropped it
on the floor and fled yelling "Sap! Sap!" and that the Mem-Sahib was
bitten, dying, dead--certainly dead; dead for hours.
And the brave soul in the little room waited ... waited ... waited ...
gripping the shelf, and thinking of the coming daughter, and wondering
whether she must die by snake-bite or fire--unborn--with her unhappy
mother. For the fallen lamp had burst, the oil had caught fire, and
the fire gave no light by which she could see what was beneath her
foot--head, body, or tail of the lashing, squirming snake--as the
flame flickered, rose and fell, burnt blue, swayed, roared in the
draught of the door--did anything but give a light by which she could
see as she bent over awkwardly, still gripping the shelf, one foot on
the stool, further prevented from seeing by her loose draperies.
Soon she realized that in any case she could not see her foot without
changing her position--a thing she would _not_ do while there was
hope--and strength to hold on. For hope there was, inasmuch as _she
had not yet felt the stroke of the reptile's fangs_.
Again she reasoned calmly, though strength was ebbing fast; she must
remain as she was till death by fire or suffocation was the
alternative to flight--flight which was synonymous with death, for, as
her other foot came down and she stepped off the snake, in that
instant it would strike--if it had not struck already.
Meantime--to call steadily and coolly again.
This time she called to the _hamal_, a Bhil, engaged out of
compassion, and likely, as a son of the jungle's sons, to be of more
courage than the stall-fed butler in presence of dangerous beast or
reptile.
"_Hamal_: I want you," she called coolly.
"Mem-Sahib?" came the reply from the lamp-room near by, and the man
approached.
"That stupid butler has dropped a lamp and run away. Bring a pail of
water quickly and call to the _malli_[3] to bring a pail of earth as
you get it. Hasten!--and there is baksheesh," said Mrs. de Warrenne
quietly in the vernacular.
Tap and pail were by the door of the back verandah. In a minute the
_hamal_ entered and flung a pail of water on the burning pool of oil,
reducing the mass of blue lambent flames considerably.
"Now _hamal_," said the fainting woman, the more immediate danger
confronted, "bring another lamp very quickly and put it on the shelf.
Quick! don't stop to fill or to clean it."
Was the pricking, shooting pain the repeated stabbing of the snake's
fangs or was it "pins and needles"? Was this deadly faintness death
indeed, or was it only weakness?
In what seemed but a few more years the man reappeared carrying a
lighted lamp, the which he placed upon a shelf.
"Listen," said Mrs. de Warrenne, "and have no fear, brave Bhil. I have
_caught_ a snake. Get a knife quickly and cut off its head while I
hold it."
The man glancing up, appeared to suppose that his mistress held the
snake on the shelf, hurried away, and rushed back with the cook's big
kitchen-knife gripped dagger-wise in his right hand.
"Do you see the snake?" she managed to whisper. "Under my foot!
Quick! It is moving ... moving ... moving _out_."
With a wild Bhil cry the man flung himself down upon his hereditary
dread foe and slashed with the knife.
Mrs. de Warrenne heard it scratch along the floor, grate on a nail,
and crush through the snake.
"Are!! Dead, Mem-Sahib!! Dead!! See, I have cut off its head! Are!!!!
Wah!! The brave mistress!----"
As she collapsed, Mrs. de Warrenne saw the twitching body of a large
cobra with its head severed close to its neck. Its head had just
protruded from under her foot and she had saved the unborn life for
which she had fought so bravely by just keeping still.... She had won
her brief decoration with the Cross by--keeping still. (Her husband
had won his permanent right to it by extreme activity.) ... Had she
moved she would have been struck instantly, for the reptile was, by
her, uninjured, merely nipped between instep and floor.
Having realized this, Lenore de Warrenne fainted and then passed from
fit to fit, and her child--a boy--was born that night. Hundreds of
times during the next few days the same terrible cry rang from the
sick-room through the hushed bungalow: "It is under my foot! It is
moving ... moving ... moving ... _out!_"
* * * * *
"If I had to make a prophecy concerning this young fella," observed
the broken-hearted Major John Decies, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon of
Bimariabad, as he watched old Nurse Beaton performing the baby's
elaborate ablutions and toilet, "I should say that he will _not_ grow
up fond of snakes--not if there is anything in the 'pre-natal
influence' theory."
PART II.
THE SEARING OF A SOUL.
CHAPTER II.
THE SWORD AND THE SNAKE.
Colonel Matthew Devon De Warrenne, commanding the Queen's Own (118th)
Bombay Lancers, was in good time, in his best review-order uniform,
and in a terrible state of mind.
He strode from end to end of the long verandah of his bungalow with
clank of steel, creak of leather, and groan of travailing soul. As the
top of his scarlet, blue and gold turban touched the lamp that hung a
good seven feet above his spurred heels he swore viciously.
Almost for the first time in his hard-lived, selfish life he had been
thwarted, flouted, cruelly and evilly entreated, and the worst of it
was that his enemy was--not a man whom he could take by the throat,
but--Fate.
Fate had dealt him a cruel blow, and he felt as he would have done had
he, impotent, seen one steal the great charger that champed and pawed
there at the door, and replace it by a potter's donkey. Nay,
worse--for he had _loved_ Lenore, his wife, and Fate had stolen her
away and replaced her by a squealing brat.
Within a year of his marriage his wife was dead and buried, and his
son alive and--howling. He could hear him (curse him!).
The Colonel glanced at his watch, producing it from some mysterious
recess beneath his belted golden sash and within his pale blue tunic.
Not yet time to ride to the regimental parade-ground and lead his
famous corps to its place on the brigade parade-ground for the New
Year Review and march-past.
As he held the watch at the length of its chain and stared,
half-comprehending, his hand--the hand of the finest swordsman in the
Indian Army--shook.
Lenore gone: a puling, yelping whelp in her place.... A tall,
severe-looking elderly woman entered the verandah by a distant door
and approached the savage, miserable soldier. Nurse Beaton.
"_Will_ you give your son a name, Sir?" she said, and it was evident
in voice and manner that the question had been asked before and had
received an unsatisfactory, if not unprintable; reply. Every line of
feature and form seemed to express indignant resentment. She had
nursed and foster-mothered the child's mother, and--unlike the
man--had found the baby the chiefest consolation of her cruel grief,
and already loved it not only for its idolized mother's sake, but with
the devotion of a childless child-lover.
"The christening is fixed for to-day, Sir, as I have kept reminding
you, Sir," she added.
She had never liked the Colonel--nor considered him "good enough" for
her tender, dainty darling, "nearly three times her age and no better
than he ought to be".
"Name?" snarled Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne. "Name the little
beast? Call him what you like, and then drown him." The tight-lipped
face of the elderly nurse flushed angrily, but before she could make
the indignant reply that her hurt and scandalized look presaged, the
Colonel added:--
"No, look here, call him _Damocles_, and done with it. The Sword hangs
over him too, I suppose, and he'll die by it, as all his ancestors
have done. Yes--"
"It's not a nice name, Sir, to my thinking," interrupted the woman,
"not for an only name--and for an only child. Let it be a second or
third name, Sir, if you want to give him such an outlandish one."
She fingered her new black dress nervously with twitching hands and
the tight lips trembled.
"He's to be named Damocles and nothing else," replied the Master, and,
as she turned away with a look of positive hate, he added
sardonically:--
"And then you can call him 'Dam' for short, you know, Nurse."
Nurse Beaton bridled, clenched her hands, and stiffened visibly. Had
the man been her social equal or any other than her master, her
pent-up wrath and indignation would have broken forth in a torrent of
scathing abuse.
"Never would I call the poor motherless lamb _Dam_, Sir," she
answered with restraint.
"Then call him _Dummy!_ Good morning, Nurse," snapped the Colonel.
As she turned to go, with a bitter sigh, she asked in the hopeless
tone of one who knows the waste of words:--
"You will not repent--I mean relent--and come to the christening of
your only son this afternoon, Sir?"
"Good morning, Nurse," observed Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, and
resumed his hurried pacing of the verandah.
* * * * *
It is not enough that a man love his wife dearly and hold her the
sweetest, fairest, and best of women--he should tell her so, morning
and night.
There is a proverb (the unwisdom of many and the poor wit of one) that
says _Actions speak louder than Words_. Whether this is the most
untrustworthy of an untrustworthy class of generalizations is
debateable.
Anyhow, let no husband or lover believe it. Vain are the deeds of dumb
devotion, the unwearying forethought, the tender care, the gifts of
price, and the priceless gifts of attentive, watchful guard and guide,
the labours of Love--all vain. Silent is the speech of Action.
But resonant loud is the speech of Words and profitable their
investment in the Mutual Alliance Bank.
"_Love me, love my Dog?_" Yes--and look to the dog for a dog's
reward.
"_Do not show me that you love me--tell me so._" Far too true and
pregnant ever to become a proverb.
Colonel de Warrenne had omitted to tell his wife so--after she had
accepted him--and she had died thinking herself loveless, unloved, and
stating the fact.
This was the bitterest drop in the bitter cup of the big, dumb,
well-meaning man.
And now she would never know....
She had thought herself unloved, and, nerve-shattered by her terrible
experience with the snake, had made no fight for life when the
unwanted boy was born. For the sake of a girl she would have striven
to live--but a boy, a boy can fend for himself (and takes after his
father)....
Almost as soon as Lenore Seymour Stukeley had landed in India (on a
visit with her sister Yvette to friends at Bimariabad), delighted,
bewildered, depolarized, Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne had burst
with a blaze of glory into her hitherto secluded, narrow life--a great
pale-blue, white-and-gold wonder, clanking and jingling, resplendent,
bemedalled, ruling men, charging at the head of thundering
squadrons--a half-god (and to Yvette he had seemed a whole-god).
He had told her that he loved her, told her once, and had been
accepted.
_Once_! Only once told her that he loved her, that she was beautiful,
that he was hers to command to the uttermost. Only once! What could
_she_ know of the changed life, the absolute renunciation of pleasant
bachelor vices, the pulling up short, and all those actions that speak
more softly than words?
What could she know of the strength and depth of the love that could
keep such a man as the Colonel from the bar, the bridge-table, the
race-course and the Paphian dame? Of the love that made him walk
warily lest he offend one for whom his quarter of a century, and more,
of barrack and bachelor-bungalow life, made him feel so utterly unfit
and unworthy? What could she know of all that he had given up and
delighted to give up--now that he truly loved a true woman? The
hard-living, hard-hearted, hard-spoken man had become a gentle
frequenter of his wife's tea-parties, her companion at church, her
constant attendant--never leaving the bungalow, save for duty, without
her.
To those who knew him it was a World's Marvel; to her, who knew him
not, it was nothing at all--normal, natural. And being a man who spoke
only when he must, who dreaded the expression of any emotion, and who
foolishly thought that actions speak louder than words, he had omitted
to tell her daily--or even weekly or monthly--that he loved her; and
she had died pitying herself and reproaching him.
Fate's old, old game of Cross Purposes. Major John Decies, reserved,
high-minded gentleman, loving Lenore de Warrenne (and longing to tell
her so daily), with the one lifelong love of a steadfast nature;
Yvette Stukeley, reserved, high-minded gentlewoman, loving Colonel de
Warrenne, and longing to escape from Bimariabad before his wedding to
her sister, and doing so at the earliest possible date thereafter:
each woman losing the man who would have been her ideal husband, each
man losing the woman who would have been his ideal wife.
Yvette Stukeley returned to her uncle and guardian, General Sir Gerald
Seymour Stukeley, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., at Monksmead, nursing a broken
heart, and longed for the day when Colonel de Warrenne's child might
be sent home to her care.
Major John Decies abode at Bimariabad, also nursing a broken heart
(though he scarcely realized the fact), watched over the son of Lenore
de Warrenne, and greatly feared for him.
The Major was an original student of theories and facts of Heredity
and Pre-natal Influence. Further he was not wholly hopeful as to the
effect of all the _post_-natal influences likely to be brought to bear
upon a child who grew up in the bungalow, and the dislike of Colonel
Matthew Devon de Warrenne.
Upon the infant Damocles, Nurse Beaton, rugged, snow-capped volcano,
lavished the tender love of a mother; and in him Major John Decies,
deep-running still water, took the interest of a father. The which
was the better for the infant Damocles in that his real father had no
interest to take and no love to lavish. He frankly disliked the
child--the outward and visible sign, the daily reminder of the cruel
loss he so deeply felt and fiercely resented.
Yet, strangely enough, he would not send the child home. Relations who
could receive it he had none, and he declined to be beholden to its
great-uncle, General Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley, and its aunt Yvette
Stukeley, in spite of the warmest invitations from the one and earnest
entreaties from the other.
Nurse Beaton fed, tended, clothed and nursed the baby by day; a
worshipping ayah wheeled him abroad, and, by night, slept beside his
cot; a devoted sepoy-orderly from the regiment guarded his cavalcade,
and, when permitted, proudly bore him in his arms.
Major John Decies visited him frequently, watched and waited, waited
and watched, and, though not a youth, "thought long, long thoughts".
He also frequently laid his views and theories on paternal duties
before Colonel de Warrenne, until pointedly asked by that officer
whether he had no duties of his own which might claim his valuable
time.
Years rolled by, after the incorrigible habit of years, and the infant
Damocles grew and developed into a remarkably sturdy, healthy,
intelligent boy, as cheerful, fearless, impudent, and irrepressible as
the heart of the Major could desire--and with a much larger
vocabulary than any one could desire, for a baby.
On the fifth anniversary of his birthday he received a matutinal call
from Major Decies, who was returning from his daily visit to the Civil
Hospital.
The Major bore a birthday present and a very anxious, undecided mind.
"Good morrow, gentle Damocles," he remarked, entering the big verandah
adown which the chubby boy pranced gleefully to meet his beloved
friend, shouting a welcome, and brandishing a sword designed, and
largely constructed, by himself from a cleaning-rod, a tobacco-tin
lid, a piece of wood, card-board and wire.
"Thalaam, Major Thahib," he said, flinging himself bodily upon that
gentleman. "I thaw cook cut a fowl's froat vis morning. It squorked
boofly."
"Did it? Alas, that I missed those pleasing-er-squorks," replied the
Major, and added: "This is thy natal day, my son. Thou art a man of
five."
"I'm a debble. I'm a _norful_ little debble," corrected Damocles,
cheerfully and with conviction.
"Incidentally. But you are five also," persisted the senior man.
"It's my birfday to-day," observed the junior.
"I just said so."
"_That_ you didn't, Major Thahib. This is a thword. Father's charger's
got an over-weach. Jumping. He says it's a dam-nuithanth."
"Oh, that's a sword, is it? And 'Fire' has got an over-reach. And
it's a qualified nuisance, is it?"
"Yeth, and the mare is coughing and her _thythe_ is a blathted fool
for letting her catch cold."
"The mare has a cold and the _syce_[4] is a qualified fool, is he?
H'm! I think it's high time you had a look in at little old England,
my son, what? And who made you this elegant rapier? Ochterlonie Sahib
or--who?" (Lieutenant Lord Ochterlonie was the Adjutant of the Queen's
Greys, a friend of Colonel de Warrenne, an ex-admirer of his late
wife, and a great pal of his son.)
"'Tithn't a waper. It'th my thword. I made it mythelf."
"Who helped?"
"Nobody. At leatht, Khodadad Khan, Orderly, knocked the holes in the
tin like I showed him--or elthe got the Farrier Thargeant to do it,
and thaid _he_ had."
"Yes--but who told you how to make it like this? Where did you see a
hand-part like this? It isn't like Daddy's sword, nor Khodadad Khan's
_tulwar_. Where did you copy it?"
"I didn't copy it.... I shot ten rats wiv a bow-and-arrow last night.
At leatht--I don't think I shot ten. Nor one. I don't think I didn't,
pwaps."
"But hang it all, the thing's an Italian rapier, by Gad. Some one
_must_ have shown you how to make the thing, or you've got a picture.
It's a _pukka_[5] mediaeval rapier."
"No it'th not. It'th my thword. I made it.... Have a jolly
fight"--and the boy struck an extraordinarily correct fencing
attitude--left hand raised in balance, sword poised, legs and feet
well placed, the whole pose easy, natural, graceful.
Curiously enough, the sword was held horizontal instead of pointing
upward, a fact which at once struck the observant and practised eye of
Major John Decies, sometime champion fencer.
"Who's been teaching you fencing?" he asked.