{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25037/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25037","id":"gutenberg_25037","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25037","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Warfare","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Supernatural","World War I","World War, 1914-1918","World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n     WAR AND THE WEIRD\n\n\n             BY\n      FORBES PHILLIPS\n            AND\n    R. THURSTON HOPKINS\n\n\n LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL,\n HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD.\n\n\n\n\n     _Copyright\n All rights reserved\n        1916_\n\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\n    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.\n    Punctuation has been normalised. Dialect spellings have been\n    retained. The oe ligature is shown as [oe].\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n               INTRODUCTION\n\n                                      PAGE\n\n   I. THE UNCANNY UNDER FIRE            11\n\n  II. WAR THE REVEALER                  17\n\n III. THE SOUL'S BOUNDARY LINE          21\n\n  IV. THE SPIRITUAL ENTITY              27\n\n   V. ANGELS                            31\n\n  VI. FELLOWSHIP WITH THE UNSEEN        35\n\n VII. THE WHITE COMRADE                 39\n\n\n               FIVE SKETCHES\n\n   I. OMBOS                             49\n\n  II. THE DE GAMELYN TRADITIONS        101\n\n III. THE MILLS OF GOD                 127\n\n  IV. THE STORY OF A SPY               137\n\n   V. THROUGH THE FURNACE              161\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nBY FORBES PHILLIPS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE UNCANNY UNDER FIRE\n\n\n\"Do you think there is anything in it?\" He was a clean-set six-foot\nspecimen of English manhood, an officer of the R.F.A. wounded at Mons,\nwho spoke. \"I mean I haven't studied these subjects much--in fact, I\nhaven't studied them at all. Sport is more in my line than spiritualism\nand that kind of thing, but when you have experiences brought under your\nvery nose again and again, you cannot help thinking there must be\nsomething in such things.\" He had just told me that in the last few\nminutes' sleep he managed to get on the march to Mons he dreamt that he\nwas unable to sit his horse. The next day he was wounded inside his\nright knee, not seriously, but sufficient to stop him riding for a week\nor two. \"I should never have thought anything more of it--I mean,\nconnecting the dream with the ill-luck--but in the South African\ncampaign there were quite remarkable instances. You see, at such times\nwhen you are playing hide-and-seek with shrapnel, officers and men get\nvery chummy when we do get a spell for a talk. The Tommies give us their\nconfidences, and ask us all kinds of strange questions about religious\nand super-natural things.\"\n\nTake premonitions, for example. How shall we account for the British\nsoldier's actual versions of the matter? There are countless stories in\nthis war, in every war, of men having a warning, a sub-conscious\ncertainty of death. The battlefield is armed with a full battery of\nshot, which thrill with human interest and have around them a halo of\nsomething uncanny, supernormal. It may be that in the stress and shock\nof battle the strings--some of the strings--of the human instrument get\nbroken; that poor Tommy, gazing into the night of the long silence,\nbecomes a prey to morbid fancies, which presently are worked up into\npremonitions. There may be something in this, but the men of inaction\nare more prone to fancies than men on active service. Another theory\nsuggests that the same power within which questions, supplies an answer.\nIt may be so; but no one is anxious for the answer Death brings. One can\nonly smile at the crass stupidity of most of the explanations given by\nthose who deny the existence of super-natural agencies and powers. The\nregion of spiritual dynamics is destined to be the science of the\nfuture.\n\nIn a somewhat sceptical age it is worth while noticing that from the\nearliest dawn of history, under varying forms of government and\ncivilisation with which we are acquainted, the belief in premonitions\nwas unchallenged. The old Greeks and Latins were the keenest thinkers\nthe world so far has seen; yet they believed in ghosts, omens, and\npremonitions. (They would smile in lofty scorn at some of the\nsuperstitions to-day taught under the Elementary Education Act of 1870.)\nUnbelief in such things super-natural, therefore, cannot be accepted as\na sign of lofty mentality. A journalistic friend was staying with me\nsome few months ago. We were sitting smoking rather late after dinner.\n\"Do you believe in ghosts?\" I asked. \"Don't be so absurdly foolish!\" he\ncried angrily. \"That's all right,\" I remarked quietly. \"Now I know you\nwon't mind sleeping in our haunted room; many foolish people do object.\"\n\"Great Scott!\" he ejaculated, \"no haunted room for me!\" Nor would he\neven look at it. He would not face the logical sequence of his dogmatic\nunbelief. Only a brave man dare express all he believes.\n\nNow it is well known that every advance in scientific knowledge is\ngreeted with mocking laughter. We know the jeers with which even clever\nmen greeted the Marconi claims. It is not so many years ago that a\ndistinguished member of the French Academy of Science rose up amongst\nhis colleagues and pronounced the Edison phonograph to be nothing more\nthan an acoustical illusion. So we are told that soldiers' visions are\noptical illusions. That is no answer. Call them optical delusions if you\nlike, then the query arises what causes these optical delusions, of\nwhich we have countless instances, which inform a man of the hour, and\nsometimes the manner, of his death? To call an effect by another name\ndoes not dispose of the cause of such effect, nor is it any solution of\nthe mystery.\n\nFew thinkers now, worthy of the name, seriously dispute the existence of\nsuper-natural forces and influences. The whole system of Christianity,\nof belief in all ages, is founded upon such things. To-day front-rank\nmen are investigating in avenues of research where once they sneered.\nThere is much fraud and cheap talk in ordinary life, but not under fire.\nMen are not cheap then, nor are they paltry. Strange that where death is\nbusiest the evidence of life beyond and above it all should abound. The\ninvisible, full of awe, is also full of teaching, it is pregnant with\nwhispers. The mind, tuned up to a new tension, receives all kinds of\nMarconi-like messages. What sends such whispers? Is it that in the\nmoment of supreme self-sacrifice and splendid devotion to duty that\nspiritual perceptions are sharpened? Who shall say? \"He was hit, and he\nrushed forward shouting, 'Why, there's my----' then he dropped dead,\nbut he saw someone, of that I am sure.\" So spoke a man of the A.S.C.,\nwho saw his comrade die. Deep calls to deep, and if we put our ear to\nthe call we may hear the message. On the battlefield, as in no other\nplace, there is the call of soul to soul, of heart to heart, intensified\nby all our powers of emotion, which duty calls forth at their best.\nTommy Atkins stares more fixedly into the dim future, the greater the\ngloom the more he searches for the gleam, and sometimes it is vouchsafed\nto him. There is no doubt that mind calls to mind. After all, time and\nspace are artificial things. They cannot be spiritual barriers. Why\nshould a mother, thinking of her lad at the front in a supreme moment of\naffection and deep yearning, not be able to do what frequently happens\nunconsciously among ordinary acquaintances? Often a thought will pass\nfrom one mind to another in a moment of silence.\n\nThe uncanny under fire must take its place among things to be\ninvestigated, the evidence is too convincing to be pooh-poohed. Science\nand philosophy are now boldly entering the dim regions of the occult in\nsearch of its laws; on the battlefield Tommy Atkins is already there\nthinking over weird things and he comes to conclusions, finding the\nlights by which he steers.\n\nThis chapter could not be complete without mentioning another mystery of\nthe battlefield: it is this--the number of instances in which the\nGermans have savagely pounded a church with their artillery, only to\nfind on entering the ruin that the cross was still there erect and\nintact. One Uhlan soldier climbed upon an altar to smash a crucifix,\nslipped and put his ankle out. That may be a coincidence. Next moment a\nshell killed him and one of his comrades, the crucifix remained\nuninjured. Soldiers, French and British, talk of these uncanny things,\ninterpreting them in several ways, but each of these ways is the pathway\nof the spirit--perhaps part of the altar steps on which men climb up\nthrough the darkness to God.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nWAR THE REVEALER\n\n\nWar is not only the Great Educator, it is the Great Revealer. Its\nmarches and bivouacs, its battles, its commonplaces and surprises, its\ntrials and its triumphs, are a singular school of experience. The\nvarious impacts upon man's psychological anatomy produce strange\nresults. They seem like the blows of some Invisible Sculptor, producing\nout of commonplace material a hero and it may be a demi-god. The opening\norchestra of shot and shell braces up the mind of the soldier and\nattunes it up to receive new sensitiveness. The bullets play strange\ndirges on the strings of life before they break them, and each dirge has\nits theme, some song of spiritual things. His gaze is towards the sky\nline and he sees strange things, a whole battery of lights each of which\nis in its way a revelation. The battle chorus crying to the night of\nlong silence becomes a prayer, and the response is ever helpful.\n\nThe individual amid the thunder of his surroundings in the red surge of\nbattle somehow never allows his soul to become obscured. It is taking\nimpressions which later in the day as he sits by the camp fire cause\nhim to think and to reach conclusions which leave him a different man\nfrom what he has been. We see this in the glow of the soldiers' letters\nto those he loves: he has come within the shadow of the Divine Reality\nas the wondrous book of Life and Death opens on the battlefield. The\nresult is the Soldier's Gospel. It would cause the devotees of little\nBethel to faint with its crude \"superstitions\" and absence of\nmeaningless and stupid dogma yet its grip of spiritual things and Divine\nAid would make the ordinary \"go to meeting\" Christian gape with\nastonishment. The soldier's simple faith, his willing endurance, his\nquiet heroisms, his silent self-sacrifice, though they call for no\nlouder name than duty, are just those chords which link him to the Great\nHeroism which saw its culmination in Calvary. After all, deeds only are\nthe words of love.\n\nThe Soldier's Gospel is a wonderful revelation: the world grows\ngratefully small as it appreciates its work, worth and effect upon the\nman. All the lights by which he steers sum up good citizenship rather\nthan sectarianship. We had long ceased to cultivate the former.\n\n\"There goes a hospital ship,\" and a Commander of one of H.M. Patrols\npointed out to me a transport full of wounded. We thought in pity of\nthat array of maimed men, of silent suffering, of bandages, slings,\ncrutches and artificial limbs, but suddenly there arose from the\ntransport a mighty cheer of greeting and salutation to the white ensign.\nThat was the reply of war's wreckage to those who pitied. It is a\nwonderful Gospel that produces this. But the invisible, while full of\nawe, does not daunt him, the soldier reaches out towards the rather\nunknown searching for light and finding it. Under fire means so much, it\nis filled up with so many experiences, you march through a lifetime in a\nfew seconds, you get new views of the past years from another angle of\nvision. Shadow and darkness and doubt are lifted, the soldier is frank\nand honest, he is not hide-bound by petty superstitions, he is willing\nfairly to consider and weigh all sensations, visions and inner\nilluminations. He is not blinded with the dogma of either agnosticism or\nsectarianism, while his sense of humour saves him from many of the\nerrors of the various \"Christian\" brotherhoods. Curious enough, the\npeople who object to duty, who are unwilling to strike a blow for\nrighteousness, invariably belong to some of the freak sects and are\ndevotees of sectarianism in its narrowest meaning.\n\nNo doubt \"Vicarious Suffering\" the root doctrine of many sects in this\ncountry is responsible for the general shirking of duty on the part of\nso many men to-day. Men look to the ballot box for their meat in due\nseason. They want all the privileges of citizenship without the\nresponsibilities. The sects of to-day in teaching that the historic\nChrist took all our sins upon His shoulder have produced a type of\nsentimental immoralist who creeps under the shelter of the Cross,\ncontent that Christ should suffer in his place. So long as the Cross\ndoes not offend his eyesight, he is willing to find refuge in its\nshadow. Where selfishness reigns there is no vision. The gaze is upon\ngain, personal comfort, things entirely earthly. A man who is always\nlooking at mud thinks in terms of mud. Just as a great naturalist\nconfesses a loss of the finer sense of music, so there is the loss of\nthe spiritual vision, for the spiritual sense is just as real as any\nother sense, but it can become useless and drop out of our life, if we\ndo not value it and no longer use it. There are people with an artistic\nsense. There are more without it.\n\nThe doctrine of the atonement is used to promote the crude idea that to\nput our responsibilities upon others is more religious than facing them\noneself. Christ's atonement is no isolated fact in history to make men\ncowards, but a sustained attitude of devotion in which every man and\nwoman is to take a part. Instead of thanking Christ for hanging there\nupon the Cross in our place we should strive for the same courage, the\nsame endurance, the supreme devotion to duty and the vision of Divine\nAid will be ours perhaps in Angel form. To the brave in all ages has\ncome the vision of higher things.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE SOUL'S BOUNDARY LINE\n\n\n\"I never was religious, but this business is changing me and many\nthousands more,\" so writes a soldier. From another soldier's letter we\nget, \"War is the most sobering influence I know ... it sobers their\nevery day. They listen more attentively to the religious services.\nSometimes I wish for the sake of the morals of our army that we were\nalways at war.\"\n\nWhen I was in Northern France I came in contact with many wounded French\nsoldiers, men who had gone to the front as atheists and returned firm\nbelievers. \"Thank the good God I have really seen. I fell wounded in\ntwenty-three places they tell me. I fell cursing a God I did not believe\nin: then a cold hand was laid upon my brow. I looked up and saw--ah! my\nGod! how beautiful a Being. Now I do not want, I do not care to live for\nI want to see that beautiful Being again. I know I shall. Leave me. See\nto the others.\" This was a voluntary statement of a French soldier who\ncalled me to his side simply to light a cigarette for him. I left him\nperfectly happy and it was quite true about his number of wounds. He\nlived only a few hours and he knew that he was dying. Men do not usually\ntell lies on their death beds.\n\nWonderful is the warp and woof of life under fire. It is the parade of\nthe living, the dead and those on the borderland. Men go through the\nwhole gamut of emotions. War is an object lesson of laughter and tears\nplaying hide and seek with each other. The tragedy and the comedy follow\nclose on each other's heels. Deep calls not only to deep but to shallow\nas well, and in the end all notes harmonize. Where the swathe of the\nscythe is wide men's souls expand in heart qualities. Amidst the\nwreckage of a battlefield he picks up all kinds of things, every faculty\npicks up something and they become contributions to soul force. The\ngreater the gloom the more the soldier searches for the gleam. Religion\nand resolution meet in the soldier and give him deeper vision. He hears\nhis comrade say, \"I shall be taken to-day, give this to ----.\" Examples\nof this premonition abound. He enters a bombarded village, the only\nthing standing intact frequently is a figure of Christ crucified, or the\nMadonna looking down upon a mass of crumbling ruin. These facts are\nagain and again verified by photographs. Often the talk of the camp as\nthe men settle down by the fire is of the weird and the uncanny that\nhas happened during the day; and there are pauses when the soldiers\nstare into the embers and forget to suck their pipes.\n\nTo explain the book of life, one would require the scrolls of eternity.\nWar throws light on some of its stray pages as they flutter for a second\non the wings of time and then disappear, but not before it has flung its\ncressets of light upon the black pall of doubt. Everyone now talks of\npsychic phenomena. In a paltry generation of superficial thinking the\nsubject was one for jest, but there is far more in it than jesters are\nlikely to discover. Mocking laughter never discovered anything except\nthe vacuous fool. The appearances of spiritual beings give but scant\nopportunity for examination but serious investigation has now taken the\nplace of cheap sneering. After all religion is founded upon a philosophy\nof apparitions. The vision of angels at Mons is no new thing.\nCatholicism is founded on such visions and no religion worthy of the\nname is without its story of angels. New aspects of matter have laid\nmany materialistic theories in the dust, the mysterious potencies of\nmatter which the latest science is revealing, the energy of electrons,\nand radium are giving us a new science of super-sensual physics and with\nit new vistas of thought.\n\nIt is no longer necessary to apologize for the work of psychic research,\nthat is among intelligent people. Light is gaining on the darkness. \"I\nfelt another hand assisting me to steer,\" said a sailor man to me who\nvainly tried to explain how he kept his boat from what appeared certain\ndestruction. He would scorn to be called a religious man. \"There is\nnothing of the ranter in me--you know sir,\" and he used uncomplimentary\nremarks which I omit. \"But there sir, it was no skill of mine. All I saw\nwas death and destruction for me and my mates, yet I knew we should pull\nthrough all right. There was another that shipped as passenger in the\ndarkness.\"\n\nThe question of immortality and of the existence of spiritual entities\nwhich had been relegated to the limits of illusions and dreams in\nVictorian times by the fumbling amateur philosophers of that day, can\nnow be discussed with quiet in the old philosophic vein which\ncharacterized the great age of thought when Greek sages argued in the\nGardens of Athens. This fact alone justifies a book of the present\ncharacter. The bumptious and dull ass who announces \"Miracles do not\nhappen,\" is now seen in true perspective and he cuts a poor figure.\n\nApparitions, telepathy and clairvoyance are not explanations, but names\nfor facts demanding separate explanations. In regard to such the\n\"ecclesiastical damn\" and the \"scientific damn\" have been freely used.\nIf men have been hypnotized by ghost stories, they certainly have been\ndeluded by stories of unnatural science. To deny activities of life\nnatural and super-natural is rather silly considering no man has solved\nthe life principle. The atoms forming the material of the brain may be\nproved ultimately to be identical with those that compose a jelly-fish\nor a jar of margarine, and brain appears to be the organ of mind, but it\nis mind that grasps things, places things, and thinks. Life is concerned\nwith _thought_ as well as atoms. It receives thoughts from all sides,\nsometimes it claims to detect the thought giver--and that is to have a\nfuller vision. Men think quickly on the field of battle. They are not\nconstrained by a narrow education and a narrower conventionalism to\nlimit their thoughts to what others think in their own circle.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE SPIRITUAL ENTITY\n\n\nWhy is it that men in all ages, the best of men, the most gifted of men,\nwith the evidence of the senses so strongly against them, have believed\nthat a spiritual personal entity survives death's disaster? That men do\nso is seen in all literature and witnessed to in all lands. Vedic hymns,\n3,500 years old sing of a spiritual body with as clear a vision as S.\nPaul. We are collecting the evidence that has floated down the ages and\nexamining it with a new criticism. The attitude of \"Pooh! Bah!\" of Early\nVictorian times is no longer the mark of superiority. It is now, as it\nwas then, the mark not only of ignorance but stupid dullness. The frame\nof mind which used to dismiss everything with the word \"impossible\" is\nnow recognized not as science but ignorance. The researches of a\nCrookes, of a Sir Oliver Lodge, Myers, Gurney, Rochas, Gabriel Delanne,\nLombroso, in the region of the occult command serious attention.\nSwedenborg communicated messages from people who had long passed to\ntheir relatives on matters of fact which were found accurate in every\ndetail.\n\nM. Rochas speaks of an externalized consciousness which feels a touch.\nWithin man is the plant and machinery of all kinds of faculties, one is\nthe perception of the spiritual. Had it been trained like his sense of\nmusic, we should no longer be in the dark of despair over our dead. The\ntrend of thought to-day is to show man a spiritual being in a spiritual\nuniverse, that death is merely transition. If not, then God is the\nCosmic Murderer. The spiritual sense of man is his faculty of response\nto the spiritual world around him, just as his musical sense is his\nmeasure of response and his reception of the world of music around him.\nBy some magic in the red surge of war, this spiritual response is\nsharpened and quickened as every other sense is, and the soldier sees\nvisions. Man working within time and space is influenced by what is\nbeyond the one and the other, the full significance of this world would\nseem to be in another scheme of things to which this is only the\nvestibule. The soul's wave movements have their laws. In that soul is\nsome fine Marconi-like instrument which registers impressions, and from\ntime to time receives spiritual warnings and perceives spiritual beings.\nSerious men are now boldly investigating. Little help comes from the\nsectarians who seem to begrudge God his universe; everything has to be\ncheapened to the worm's-eye view of little Bethel, which steeped in\npolitics has long lost sense of the spiritual. The old Greeks and Latins\nwere acute thinkers, yet they believed in spiritual beings and their\nappearances. It was only in the days of cheap thinking that it required\na special valour to express belief in the super-natural. The fact is,\nmost people are like the devils of scripture who \"believe and tremble\"\nwithout admitting the authority of their belief. It is refreshing to\nfind a writer like Mr. W. S. Lilley in the _Nineteenth Century_\nprofessing his absolute belief in ghosts. To man, and it would appear to\nman alone on this plane, it is given to explore the unknown and to\nestablish the communion of soul with soul.\n\nAfter all it is a question of evidence. If a man say \"I won't believe in\nanything super-natural whatever the evidence may be,\" it is best to\nleave him to his folly. If he will accept the evidence that would pass\nmuster in a court of law, then you have a common ground, you can weigh\nevidence. To me the evidence for spiritual appearances is overwhelming\nlooking at it from the strictly legal angle of vision.\n\nIn years gone by the scientific genius began with the assertion that\neverything must have had a beginning, and to assert that there was a\nspiritual Being with no beginning was nonsense. To the dim indistinct\ncrowd such appeared to be clever reasoning. But our very consciousness\ninsists that there is something which had no beginning, and Reason adds,\n\"else there could be nothing now.\" For example, Space could not have had\na beginning, that Duration could not, that Truth could not, that\nsomehow, somewhere these Three Eternals must have been co-eternal,\nincomprehensible. And in this Trinity \"none is afore or after the\nother,\" which recalls the Athanasian Creed.\n\nI cannot prove that Truth had no beginning, yet my consciousness tells\nme at no period was it laid down as something new, that the shortest\ndistance between two points would be a straight line. No mathematician\nhas ever proved that there is no boundary to space, but something within\nme tells me that there can be no such boundary. Even Reason tells me\nthat an impassable boundary would only serve to indicate the unlimited\nextension beyond.\n\nIn all ages we have the mystic. Now the mystic is common to all\nreligions. He is the man who has felt the touch of spiritual beings, the\ncall of Heavenly things, and we have to explain him. In seeking to do\nthis we shall realize some of the truth of the things soldiers see which\nwe have called \"The Weird in War.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nANGELS\n\n\nThe evidence for the existence and the appearance of angels does not\nrest on the testimony merely of men who fought at Mons. But even that\nevidence which is accepted by the talented author of _The Bowmen_\nrequires some explaining away and he admits that there is a difficulty\nin ignoring it. But there is the accumulating evidence of the ages. When\nwe have explained away the soldiers' delusions, we have to confront\nthose of the world's wisest sons--giants in thought. We have to confront\nthe fact that all great religions have the theory of angels.\n\nAfter all, every good thought may be the whisper of an angel, every\nbeautiful prospect may be but the glint of the wing, every ray of light\nand heat but the waving of the robes of those higher spiritual\nintelligences which rush hither and thither on God's service, whose\nfaces see God in Heaven. Such a belief is just as sound, and far more\nphilosophical than any of the guesses I have read so far, given us as\n\"explanation\" of such phenomena.\n\nI am in hearty agreement with much that Mr. Arthur Machen writes in his\nbook _The Bowmen_. It is a book everyone should read. That splendid\nstory of failure and triumph, the Retreat from Mons, prompted him to\nwrite a story on an Angelic Host coming to the aid of the British force.\nHe wrote it after the manner of the journalist who is an eye-witness of\nthe event. Many people still believe what they read in the newspapers;\nand many people believed his story. But he is altogether wrong when he\nimagines that he is the author of the belief in Angelic visions. I was\nin France hearing stories of angelic intervention long before Mr. Machen\nwrote his delightful yarn. A frog might as well imagine that his croak\nis responsible for the whole world of music, as to postulate that his\nstory gave rise to the theory of Angels. Men had visions of such long\nbefore the first stone of our venerable shrine at Westminster was laid,\nbefore the Romans built their first mud huts in the valley of the Tiber,\nbefore the Pyramids raised their terrific greatness to the heavens. So\nMr. Machen need not concern himself on that score.\n\nThe Anglican Church has failed dismally to keep before people the\nteaching of the Church in regard to Angels and Angelic intervention in\nthe affairs of men. There I am in entire agreement with Mr. Machen.\nSoldiers tell their stories of angels and a few bishops cackle; but not\none of them dares to speak of the fuller belief of the Church in angels\nand the soul-inspiring mystery of the Communion of Saints, the\ninter-relationship between those on the earth-plane and those who have\npassed to the higher life. The hardworking priest in the slums\nfearlessly proclaims this one sacrament of life with the Divine Life,\nhis belief in angels and their help, in saints and their prayers, and\nbecause he believes he is able to work under conditions which make life\nfor a cultured man almost intolerable. But he works, thankful to be left\nalone by his bishop: for war has declared a close time for ritualistic\ncurates. But the soldier whose patriotism he has nurtured writes home to\nhim telling frankly his experiences, his dreams, his visions. I have\nseen many of these letters. The writers are not liars nor are they\nhysterical subjects, but fine specimens of healthy manhood. Here and\nthere a dissenting divine has raised his voice to declare there may be\nsomething in these stories of angels, but the dissenting pulpit is under\nthe despotism of the pew and cry of \"Rome\" is enough. \"Honest doubt\" is\nalways sure of a sympathetic audience, \"honest belief\" is greeted with\nthe cry of superstition or the cuckoo cry of \"Popery.\"\n\nA soldier sees something super-natural. Some one says I know a hundred\nor a thousand soldiers who did not see it. A man may witness a murder.\nHis evidence is accepted in the law courts. They do not call the hundred\nthousand people who did not see it in proof that no murder was\nperpetrated. Few people know the fundamental principles of evidence.\nMore people misuse it.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nFELLOWSHIP WITH THE UNSEEN\n\n\nReligion is man's fellowship with the Unseen, and it would seem that\nbishops and various crank divines are determined that such a belief\nshall be discouraged. Man's nature has upon it the Hall Marks of Heaven.\nWoven into man's anatomical texture we find faculties that transcend\nthis world, that are for ever intent upon the waves that beat upon us\nfrom another shore. He sees the coastline of another world to which he\ncommits his dead. We call such people Mystics, Catholics, Seers, etc.\nThey are the people who have had touch with the Unseen. After all, the\npeople with actual personal experience of spiritual power, who shape\ntheir lives by their experience are the real assets of belief.\n\nMan may or may not be sprung from the beast, he may or may not have been\nraised from slime. Man's spirit did not arise in slime, that at all\nevents came from a race of flame. Dust will not account for everything.\n\nThe Church in its greatest office of all, the Communion Service, claims\nto worship in union with \"Angels and Archangels and with _all_ the\nCompany of Heaven.\" Having proclaimed this tremendous fact the Church,\nfor the most part leaves it, and bishops view any further annunciation\nof the fact with suspicion and sometimes with threats.\n\nOn one solemn day in the year the Church invokes S. Michael and all\nAngels. S. Michael's Mass as it is still called. The old teaching of the\nChurch bids us lift our eyes to behold those more intimate intelligences\nwhich stand nearer the Great and Central Mystery. When a soldier\nstumbles by chance upon one of those higher beings he is regarded as the\nvictim of hallucination, of superstition or drink or all of them. A\nchaplain with dull German Protestantism obscuring his view of spiritual\nthings treats him as some unclean thing. Dissent in England for years\nhas been synonymous with pro-Germanism. It has been at war with the\nhistoric creed of Christendom. It was better for their aims that angels\nshould not exist.\n\nBefore dull German Protestantism with its gross materialism raised the\nplentiful crop of sects in England, our country was known through Europe\nas \"Merrie England.\" Our people loved the festival of S. Michael. S.\nMichael's Mass was a red letter day. The Communion and Inter-Communion\nof earth with heaven was emphasized. Families met that day to pray and\nfeast, lovers plighted their troth, gatherings of relatives and friends\nwas the rule, joy was the key-note. Then dissent raised its ugly head,\ndissent that had its birth in Germany. These kill-joys got the upper\nhand. The recognition of the Christ-Mass, Christmas and the\nMichael-Mass, Michaelmas, was put down by law. Dissent has never\nhesitated to use compulsion when it lay ready to hand to enforce\nmaterialism. So belief in angels well nigh ceased to exist. To-day the\nrevival comes from actual experience rather than from church teaching.\nThe antagonism to such belief amounts to unreasonable heights of folly.\nLuther has so long occupied the place of Christ that dissent has\nforgotten what Christ taught us in regard to angels. We ignore the fact\nthat He claimed to have seen angels, and to have had their help and\nministration. When politics mix with religion, spirituality dies, there\nis no vision, for there is little belief and less sincerity. No wonder\nthe soldier's vision of angels strikes them as something altogether\nbeyond the pale of belief.\n\nIt is time that our \"spiritual fathers\" and other stepfathers began to\ngive us a lead in spiritual things. We are burdened with bishops who\nplay to the gallery and the cheaper press, who would rather take a\nconfirmation service in a coal-pit than in a consecrated shrine of\nprayer, for the simple reason that \"Confirmation in a Coal-pit\" gets a\nflaming advertisement in every paper. Their vision is set on notoriety:\nthe spiritual vision recedes. How can they have sympathy with those who\npierce the boundary line that separates this world from a higher plane?\n\nMen who have spent their lives on office seeking can never be seers or\npriests. Parsons who beat the political drum may rise to power\npolitical, never to the power spiritual. The vision glorious is to those\nwho face duty, self-sacrifice, and see in them the Divine Call, who\nbelieve in the sacrifice of the Gospel rather than its comfort. The\ncharlatan must not dominate the Christian in our spiritual pastors, if\nit do, then such are not qualified to minister in spiritual things.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE WHITE COMRADE\n\n\nThe story that angels fought on the side of the Allies in the battle of\nMons must rest upon evidence, coupled with experience. If we begin by\nassuming that there can be no intelligences in the universe unless they\nare clothed in the regulated fashion, then no amount of evidence will\nsuffice. It is a worm's-eye view that regards man as the last word in\nmind.\n\nMeanwhile France is pursuing the evidence for another story exclusively\nof French origin and vouched for by men to whom the belief in spiritual\nbeings is repugnant, viz., the apparition of \"Le Camarade Blanc,\" of\nwhom at Nancy, in the Argonne, at Soissons and Ypres men talked with\nhushed voices but with the quiet assurance of men who had seen. It must\nbe something arresting which changes an atheist into a mystic. Again and\nagain the French wounded speak of a man in white bending over them as\nthey lay on the field helpless, and ministering relief. The mysterious\none whom our allies call the \"Comrade in White\" appears simultaneously\non different parts of the battlefield. His mission ever is one of\nmercy.\n\n_The Living Church_ reprints from _Work and Life_ an article giving a\nfull account of \"The White Comrade,\" furnished by a wounded soldier. All\naccounts agree in the main facts. He is generally observed after \"severe\nfighting,\" he appears where \"death is busiest,\" he \"ignores shot and\nshell,\" he is ever \"calm, collected,\" and brings with him an atmosphere\nof peace. Men of the 87th and 128th French Infantry who have been\nfighting in the Argonne, have seen him, and on several occasions he has\nbeen seen in the trenches.\n\nThe soldier's account which appeared in _The Living Church_ is worth\nreading. It is not conclusive evidence, but the number of such\nexperiences has value on the great subject of Spiritual Intervention.\nReligion pledges itself to such a belief. This is the soldier's story,\none of many similar stories:\n\n\"It was the next day. At noon we got word to take the trenches in front\nof us. They were two hundred yards away, and we weren't well started\ntill we knew that the big guns had failed in their work of preparation.\nWe had advanced 150 yards when we found it was no good. Our captain\ncalled to us to take cover, and just then I was shot through both legs.\n\n\"I fell into a hole of some sort. I suppose I fainted, for when I opened\nmy eyes I was all alone. The pain was horrible, but I didn't dare to\nmove lest the Germans should see me, for they were only fifty yards\naway, and I did not expect mercy. I was glad when the twilight came.\nThere were men in my own company who would run any risk in the darkness\nif they thought a comrade was still alive.\n\n\"The night fell, and soon I heard a step, not stealthy, as I expected,\nbut quiet and firm, as if neither darkness nor death could check those\nuntroubled feet. So little did I guess what was coming that, even when I\nsaw the gleam of white in the darkness I thought it was a peasant in a\nwhite smock, or perhaps a woman deranged. Suddenly I guessed that it was\n'The Comrade in White.'\n\n\"At that very moment the German rifles began to shoot. The bullets could\nscarcely miss such a target, for he flung out his arms as though in\nentreaty, and then drew them back till he stood like one of those\nwayside crosses that we saw so often as we marched through France. And\nhe spoke. The words sounded familiar, but all I remember was the\nbeginning, 'If thou hadst known,' and the ending, 'but now they are hid\nfrom thine eyes.' And then he stooped and gathered me into his arms--me,\nthe biggest man in the regiment--and carried me as if I had been a\nchild.\n\n\"I must have fainted again, for I awoke to consciousness in a little\ncave by a stream, and 'The Comrade in White' was washing my wounds and\nbinding them up. I wanted to know what I could do for my friend to help\nhim or to serve him. He was looking toward the stream and his hands were\nclasped in prayer; and then I saw that he, too, had been wounded. I\ncould see, as it were, a shot-wound in his hand, and as he prayed a drop\nof blood gathered and fell to the ground. I cried out. I could not help\nit, for that wound of his seemed to be a more awful thing than any that\nbitter war had shown me. 'You are wounded, too,' I said. Perhaps he\nheard me, perhaps it was the look on my face, but he answered gently:\n'This is an old wound, but it has troubled me of late.' And then I\nnoticed sorrowfully that the same cruel mark was on his feet. You will\nwonder that I did not know sooner. I wonder myself. But it was only when\nI saw his feet that I knew him.\"\n\nAn incident which left a great impression upon me occurred at a hospital\nin North West France in September 1914 quite early in the war. I was\nvisiting some wounded English and French soldiers. One poor fellow, a\nParisian, called me to his side. \"Come close, monsieur, for I would talk\nin a whisper. You are English--yes: and you English are common sense,\npractical--tell me--do you believe in God and angels, such things as\npriests teach children and women?\"\n\n\"My measure of experience in life has compelled my belief in angels or\nspiritual beings, and common sense demands my belief in a Supreme Mind\nwhich I call God, the one Basic Fact,\" I replied.\n\n\"Monsieur I would talk with you. Do you believe that this God has\npriests to reveal such things to us?\"\n\n\"The Great Supreme Mind has priests, leaders, prophets, in all\ndepartments of knowledge, music, mathematics, chemistry, navigation or\nengineering--why should He not have chosen instruments to reveal\ntheological truth?\"\n\nHe lay some time quiet, then he said, \"It is good; now I feel I can tell\nyou, for you will not smile. For years, ever since I could think, I have\nbeen an atheist. I went into this war an atheist. A few days ago a shell\nburst near me and I was wounded in twenty-nine places.\" (This statement\nwas subsequently substantiated by the doctor and a nursing sister of\nmercy.) \"Monsieur, I was in great pain: then suddenly a kind face was\nlooking into mine, something touched my brow, the awful pain ceased.\n'You called me,' a soft voice said. Then I remembered that when I was\nwounded I had cried, 'Oh, my God!' and I laughed, monsieur, for I was an\natheist. Then I lost consciousness with that kind face still bending\nover me. Now I lie and think of that kind face. The doctors say maybe I\nshall recover, and the sisters here say to me that it is all in the Good\nGod's hands and I am content. I say it is all in the Good God's hands.\nWhen that kind face was looking into mine I cried out 'I am an atheist,'\nand he just smiled and said 'But you called me.'\"\n\nI offered to get a priest for the poor fellow, but he shook his head.\n\"No, monsieur. I have been an enemy of priests all my life--an enemy of\nreligion--the Church. To offer the remaining days of my wreckage to\nGod--no--I have but a few hours to live, and I would think of that kind\nface, and when I think of it the pain ceases. Ah, monsieur, I had\nwonderful arguments to show that there was no God, and that the clerics\nare the people's enemies--yet when I was struck down I called 'Oh, my\nGod!' It is comical. That is why the kind face smiled.\"\n\nAnother wounded French soldier said to me: \"When I go back to Toulon I\nshall have something to say to my comrades. I always thought priests\nwere only half men, but my God! I have seen them fight. It is\nmagnificent. A priest led us when we hesitated, I got my two wounds\nfollowing him--a priest. Oh! it is truly unbelievable to think that I\nshould follow a priest. He led us to triumph. He led me to something\nmore. That day I knew religion was true. I saw something in his face. I\nsaw it again when he fell wounded, and I was wounded but I could only\nthink of him. Ah, life is droll--Now I go back to Toulon with two bad\nwounds and a religion. Priests--I have seen them fight, and I lie and\nlaugh at myself and my comrades as fools for we thought of them as mere\namusements for women and children. I saw priests go forward where my\nnoble comrades held back--my noble comrades who sneer at priests. It is\ndroll.\"\n\n\n\n\nFIVE SKETCHES\n\nBY R. THURSTON HOPKINS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nOMBOS\n\n\nWe were talking at the club about spirit manifestations, and retailing\nthe usual second or third-hand accounts of family spooks and deceased\naunts showing themselves to their sorrowing relatives.\n\n\"It is strange the tricks which our brains will sometimes play us,\" said\nBarton. \"I remember once seeing a ghost myself, and I can tell you that\nthe sensation is a very curious one. It was a good many years ago, when\nI was out in Bombay in the National Indian Bank, and I had been sitting\nup until the early hours trying to trace some fraudulent entries in the\nbank's books by one of our clerks who had absconded with a considerable\nsum of money.\n\n\"Everybody in the bank building had long since gone home or to bed,\nwhere I ought to have been myself, so I was vastly astonished when I\nlooked up from the ledger to see somebody sitting at the desk where I\nmyself had been writing a few moments before. I felt quite upset for a\nmoment, until I recognised the intruder. He was nebulous, but I could\nsee plainly enough who it was.\"\n\n\"A member of your family in England?\" asked Duckford, who was a firm\nbeliever in the good old-fashioned second sight of the Scotch\nHighlanders. Barton answered in his peculiarly quiet way.\n\n\"No, it was myself. The appearance of seeing an image of one's self is\nnot altogether unusual, I believe. But, of course, such a thing is\nreally all nonsense ... a matter of nerves.\"\n\n\"Now, I do not think it is fair of you to put all such things down to\nnerves,\" said Captain Crabbe, who had returned wounded from France after\nbeing in the field since the outbreak of the Great War. \"If one cannot\nalways explain, one need not therefore ridicule.\" Crabbe made this\nremark with a gravity that was somewhat unusual with him.\n\n\"Bless my soul, boy, you haven't been seeing the Angels of Mons or the\nAgincourt Bowmen over there in Flanders, have you?\" asked Duckford,\nregarding Crabbe with a keen eye, and scenting something savouring of\nthe mysterious, the super-natural. \"Do you believe in these stories? I\nmean--superstitions?\"\n\nCaptain Crabbe shook his head. \"Not greatly,\" he said smiling. \"But I am\nnot one of those who thoughtlessly laugh at that which is out of the\ncommon, merely because it cannot be explained on ordinary grounds. Not\nsince I have spent nearly twelve months over in France, at any rate. Are\nyou interested in the weird?\"\n\n\"I'd be a fool if I wasn't,\" said Duckford, selecting a cigar from his\ncase. \"What's your story about--I see you have one to tell. I am not\ninquisitive as a rule; but, somehow your manner has warned me that you\nhave something singularly interesting to tell.\"\n\nCrabbe remained silent a short time. Then, looking at Duckford very\nearnestly, he answered:\n\n\"Well, perhaps I may tell you my story, though I would not tell it to\nall these heretics around me. Indeed, only two or three other people\nhave ever heard it. I hate--ah! more than I can convey to any living\nsoul--even to think about it. But to you it may be of special interest.\"\n\n\"You know that I look upon all such things from the point of a simple,\nunbiassed inquirer,\" returned Duckford. \"Come along, Crabbe.\"\n\n\"A good cigar in front of the card room fire, and your story, eh?\"\nDuckford led the way up to the snug card room where a cheerful fire was\nblazing. \"Sit down. Where is that dashed waiter? Oh, you there, Griggs.\nCome along with some whisky and soda.\"\n\nCrabbe sat down in a deep chair by the fire, and stretched his feet to\nthe flame. Duckford said nothing; only pulled at his cigar and\npatiently waited for what he knew was soon coming.\n\n\"Do you know--but, no, of course you don't,\" he began presently. \"But\ncan you imagine how it can be that a man could pass all his force into a\nbronze statue and make it live.... You've heard these literary men and\nartists talk about putting their souls into their work, Duckford?\"\nDuckford pursed his lips. \"Everything lives--even a bronze statue,\" he\nsaid seriously. \"If it was not so it would atrophy, it would crumble and\ndisappear. Look at the case of----\"\n\n\"That's just what old Ombos said. And if he didn't understand all about\nthose things, I should jolly well like to be led to the man who did.\nOmbos told me hundreds of times that a man walked about this earth\nthrowing his force into everything he came in contact with--scattering\nsome kind of power; and of course that power is picked up by stones and\nhouses and ... statues, or anything. Ombos misused it; that was\ndisastrous. It seems to me that it is safe to use this god-energy only\nin its own proper sphere. You have very likely heard of men who have\ntried to pass themselves into inanimate objects? Well, what would you\nsay if I tell you that _I_ even _I_--who sit now so soberly before you,\nwhom before the war you knew to be ordinarily, a quiet,\npeaceably-disposed, sport-loving English fellow--had once been under\nthe spell of a bronze statue that somebody had passed clean into?\"\n\n\"You were under the hypnotic influence of your friend Ombos, probably,\"\nI suggested.\n\n\"You may think so, _now_; but you just wait till I have told you all\nabout Ombos, and the bronze statue. Then you'll be able to decide if it\nwas trickery.... It would be different if you could have seen the\nstatue.\"\n\nThen Crabbe proceeded to unfold his strange tale.\n\n\"You know that when the war first broke out I was attached to the\nLoamshires, and we were one of the first British Regiments to start for\nthe land across the water. After six months' fighting, during which\nevery day was crowded with enough incident to provide a three-reel\nthriller for a cinema-man, I found myself quartered at Ypres. Have you\never been to Ypres? If you have, it will act as a kind of antidote to\nthose wretched picture post-cards which show it in its last phase--a\nheap of senseless wreckage. The 'Coal Boxes,' 'Jack Johnsons' and other\nvaried presents from Krupp's had not fallen on the town with such\nlavishness at the time my regiment found shelter there. It was a June\nafternoon when I first found my way there. A mellow drowsiness hung over\nthe Cloth Hall and Cathedral. It was indeed a very pleasant little town.\nThe old houses of the square, the Prior's Gate, the noble trees, the\nstretch of green turf, all shared in the dream-like repose. In the Rue\nBar-le-Duc, as everybody knows, just where it winds around to the fine\ngateway of the Cathedral, there is a row of little shops with bulging\nleaded windows, dusty and delightful. The one that took my eye was an\nantique shop. I had a whole regiment of aunts and uncles at home who in\nevery letter demanded souvenirs, and here was the chance to lodge a\nshipping order, with about a hundred labels, and leave the old\nantiquarian fogey to send 'em off. It was inside that I met Ombos for\nthe first time. I selected the souvenirs, and wrote labels; but old\nOmbos made a devil of a muddle over sending them off, and a very prim\nmaiden aunt received a snuff box adorned with a young French lady in\nvery scanty attire.... By the way, you don't know my aunt Sylvia, do\nyou?\"\n\nCrabbe laughed heartily for the first time that evening.\n\n\"I spent some hours in the bulging window of that old shop examining the\nwonderful collection of beautiful old things, and staggering about on\npiles of andirons and copper warming pans, old Ombos watching me all the\ntime with an amused smile.\n\n\"I can still see Ombos standing like a figure carved in old ivory, with\none skinny yellow hand resting on the edge of a black oak table.\n\n\"'I call all this stuff here rubbish; not worth looking at. But people\ndo not understand real good stuff if I show it to 'em,' he said, and\nsmiled a remotely contemptuous smile. 'Now if you really want to see\nsome choice antiques ...'\n\n\"He motioned me to follow, and taking a lighted taper, led the way into\na room at the back of his shop. Ombos pottered about with the taper on\nthe end of a rod; suddenly a big overhead chandelier burst into light\nand I stood blinking in amazement.\n\n\"It was one of the most gorgeously furnished oak-panelled rooms I have\never seen. The floor was of black polished ebony, and strewn on the\nfloor were priceless leopard skins and Persian rugs. There were heavy\nChinese tapestries worked in crimson and gold, Tibetan devil-masks, gold\ncandelabra, armour richly inlaid with precious stones, wondrous black\noak furniture.... But I can assure you, I could continue indefinitely\ndescribing the contents of that room without giving you any adequate\nidea of what it was like!\n\n\"'Hardly what you expected to see, eh?' Ombos said, and there was a\nfaint trace of mockery in his tone.\n\n\"I looked around me helplessly.\n\n\"'No!' I said, sinking into a most luxurious silk-cushioned divan.\n'Trenches, and this! I suppose I'll wake up soon.'\n\n\"'Would you like to see my bronze statue of Albert of Cologne? It's the\ngem of my collection, and has a world-wide reputation!'\n\n\"'It's rather different, you may say.' He looked full over my head as I\nspoke, and following the direction of his eyes, I turned. In a dark\nrecess in that part of the room stood a bronze statue, some six feet in\nheight. It portrayed the great mystic in a long habit fashioned after a\nmonkish cowl, and his hair and face reminded me of a bust of Nero I had\nonce seen in the gallery of the Louvre. Ombos told me that the life of\nAlbert Magnus had been written by Dr. Sighart. This Dominican, _magnus\nin magia_, _major in philosophia_, _maximus in theologia_, was\ndistinguished alike for his knowledge of the black art and his great\nvirtue, for austerity of regimen, and dislike of any form of society.\nFor other details of this philosopher I must refer you to Sighart's\nexcellent monograph and Mr. James Mew's work on _The Black Art_ from\nwhich we learn that Albert of Cologne was accused by the vulgar of\nholding illicit commerce with the devil. They believed as a matter of\ncourse that he was aided by Beelzebub. And legends grew about him in\nwild luxuriance. In particular he is credited with the creation of an\nandroid, homunculus, or, as some say, a fair maiden--an idea which\nGoethe may have copied in his celebrated play--able, according to some,\nto say only 'Salve,' but, according to others, to predict with the\nunerring accuracy of a Zadkiel a change of government, or the advent of\na pestilence, a royal marriage or a royal death. But all agree that\nthis automaton was smashed by his pupil Thomas Aquinas, who ought to\nhave known better than to believe it a device of the Evil One. This\nstory of the speaking statue may go with those other marvels of his\nvision of the Holy Virgin to encourage him in theological study, and his\nstupendous garden of flowers and birds and fountains in mid-winter for\nWilliam of Holland, and that gracious scent which arose after a longer\ntime than four days out of his sacred sepulchre, and his vision of St.\nDominic, who himself revealed to him the secret of the stone, whereby he\ndischarged all the debts of his bishopric.\n\n\"These bald facts about our friend Magnus must suffice. Old Ombos had a\nsplendid edition of his works, lately published in Paris under the\ndirection of a certain August Borguet; twenty large folios on all\nimaginable subjects. They included chapters on hawks and adhering to\nGod, on meteors and the mystery of the Mass, on the healing of the leper\nand the _eau de vie_.\n\n\"I was a gross Philistine in those days--still am, as a matter of\nfact--and I could not appreciate the statue. A strenuous life with my\nRegiment had stifled what little appreciation for such things a more\nleisured existence might have fostered. I could not appreciate nor\nunderstand the things that Ombos was saying about the bronze statue and\nthe strange Master of the Masters it portrayed.\n\n\"Old Ombos--you could not help but think that he had grown very much\nlike the statue himself; or had the statue grown like him?--held up a\ncandelabra which threw the details of the bronze figure into relief and\ncast flickering reflections on the dark oak panelling of the recess.\n\n\"'It's an exquisite thing,' said Ombos. 'See how he rears himself on his\nblack granite plinth. A noble pile of mellow bronze, irregular yet\ngraceful.' Ombos regarded it smilingly, yet with one of his queer,\nsinister looks. It would have been hard to know what he was thinking. He\nwas one of those tall, emaciated chaps, that make us men of ordinary\nstature feel dwarfish; and as I looked at his skull-like face I wondered\nat first where his eyes were hidden ... they seemed so far back in the\ndark hollows on each side of his nose.\n\n\"I placed myself before Albert of Cologne--to try and appreciate it, you\nknow. Well, I didn't think a great deal of it, but of course I was a\nPhilistine. I had seen many great, heavy bronzes in the British Museum,\nand they hadn't even stirred my heart, so it is not surprising that this\none failed to affect me. I told Ombos, merely to please him, that I\nthought it was an extraordinary piece of work. But he very soon saw that\nI was not able to appreciate old Magnus, and he drew a heavy plush\ncurtain back in front of him.\n\n\"'Come back! Come away!' he said. 'You have not yet the understanding.\nOh, it's big! It's a big god, I tell you.'\n\n\"Ombos was very patient with me, but as he walked up and down the room\nkicking the leopard skin rugs I knew he was thinking what an idiot I\nwas, and I just waited.\n\n\"'You have not yet the understanding,' he muttered. 'It may come to you\none day ... the doors of life and death are left ajar from time to time,\nand the light of Al Tughrai's lamp of wisdom shines out upon us for a\nmoment between the opening and closing.' The carved ivory face of old\nOmbos seemed softer when he said that.\n\n\"'Did my brother care for the old bronze? Did he love it as I do, every\ncurve in the lean and corded neck ...'\n\n\"And then all of a sudden he walked over to me! 'Come!' he said, putting\nhis hand on my shoulder and speaking in a voice which he had the trick\nof making wonderfully amiable. 'Dear me, dear me! How I must bore you\nwith my old relics. You want some tea and muffins or something of the\nkind, eh? Will you do me the honour of taking tea with me?' he said,\nleading me through a door in a recess and a wilderness of corridors to a\nsmall room, where a charming French girl presided over a steaming\ntea-pot of massive silver.\n\n\"'This is Captain Crabbe,' said Ombos introducing me to her. He turned\nto me. 'This is Margot, my niece,' he said with a smile.\n\n\"I made a step forward and bowed slightly; she was very pretty, this\ngirl, as she stood there with the rich red light from the silk lamp\nshades behind her. She was one of those dark, seductive women that look\ntheir best in a warm light; and that evening her face and figure seemed\ninstinct with the joy of youth.\n\n\"Never before have I tasted such hot-cakes and sandwiches, and muffins\n... there could be nothing like them, nor any hot-cakes to set above\nthem in all Europe. The sinister look had now quite passed from my\nhost's face as he sat before me stirring tea and munching muffins\ncomfortably; he seemed goodheartedness embodied. On the table were some\nwonderful lucid china bowls filled with cigarettes, Parascho and\n_caporal ordinaire_, Egyptian and every imaginable kind. After tea we\npushed back our chairs and smoked. His conversation was delightful, and\nshowed me at once that he was a man of brilliant gifts, yet an\neccentric. I felt much as Mark Twain must have felt when he first met\nRudyard Kipling; Twain has summed up, in that inimitable way of his, the\nfeeling of being in the presence of an overwhelming personality. 'I\nbelieved that he knew more than any person I had met before, and I knew\nthat he knew that I knew less than any person he had met before--though\nhe did not say it, and I was not expecting that he would.'... That was\nexactly how I felt when I was talking tea with Ombos ... his\nconversation was as exhilarating as wine; his presence diffused a\nstimulating atmosphere; I felt exalted by his joyous enthusiasm.\n\n\"Well (to get on), after I left him at the door of his old shop (which\nwas such a dingy entrance to all the luxury of the interior of the\nplace), and I think we were loth to part, it was agreed between us that,\nshould I remain in the town, we were to meet again. As I walked down the\nlittle _pave_ street something I couldn't account for began to sweep\nover me; it was not merely that the presence of Ombos had fascinated me;\nthere was something else. There was something that stirred in my\nheart--a thing which you will not understand. If you had known Ombos you\nmight have understood. I wanted to go back and have another look at that\nbronze statue; I was becoming desperately afraid that I had been too\nhasty in my inspection of it--that I had under-estimated it. I was very\nyoung, heedless, self-esteemed and smug, and had hardly paused to pay a\nmoment's tribute to it. I felt that Albert of Cologne was standing\nthere, absorbed, proud, erect, and defiant, waiting for me to find my\n_true_ eyes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Of course, I did see the bronze statue again, or I shouldn't be\nsitting here wasting your time and patience. Within a few days I went\nround again to the old shop, and old Ombos was standing there amid his\nQueen Anne candlesticks and piles of books just as if he had been\nwaiting for me.\n\n\"'Come in, come in!' he said, speaking in a voice that made me feel\nhonestly welcome. 'Dear me, dear me! I am very glad you have not\nforgotten me.'\n\n\"'No,' I said. 'Not forgotten you or the bronze statue. It was the only\nthing in your place that did not interest me when I first walked in.'\n\n\"I paused, and Ombos prompted me half unconsciously: 'Yes?'\n\n\"'Now!' I said, meeting his eyes misting my own in doing so, 'it is the\nonly thing I should like to see.'\n\n\"'Ah!' he said.... 'Well, I told you that he might come over you slowly;\nbut the gods direct rightly whom they will. I tell you that such things\nas the Keys of Mercy and the Lamps of Wisdom are not gained in one swift\nbreath. What's gained in a few moments is not worth having. All those\nwho have through toil and pain entered into citizenship in the Celestial\nCity will tell you that. Gods do not grow in one night like mushrooms.\nEvery great masterpiece is an evolution, be it a statue, a poem, a\npainting, a man--or a god. If it is ever given to you to see my Albert\nof Cologne as I see him you will understand what I mean.' He turned\nround to me and I gave a start, I can tell you. Never have I seen such\nlurid gleams of light as those that danced from those two deep-set eyes!\nI say 'lurid,' for at times, the colour of them took a blood red hue,\nand changed quickly again to a glittering green. As I stared at him--it\nwas all over in a few seconds--the baleful glare seemed to grow in\nintensity, till I felt as though I were enduring the mocking gaze of\nAlbert of Cologne himself; and verily, I half expected any moment to see\nOmbos change into a mighty bronze demon or some appalling, devilish\nshape from the under-world.\n\n\"'Er--shall we go and have a look at the statue?' I said, with a\nhalf-conscious determination to see whether it really ever had existed\n(I was beginning to think that Ombos had been using a kind of hypnotic\ninfluence on me, thus inducing me to see visions); and also, as I\nbelieve, with some vague wish to shut out the sight of those rolling,\nglittering eyes. For the first time I felt towards him a fierce anger,\nand I found myself making a resolution never to return to see him again\nwhen once I was free of the place.\n\n\"'Ah!' he said, 'I thought you'd want to come back and see Albertus\nMagnus; I want you to have a good look at him this time and tell me if\nhe looks quite as commonplace as he did before. Such things can only\ntrickle slowly into the soul, but presently, ah! they get right hold of\none--they permeate one, and then there comes a time ...'\n\n\"Ombos snatched at the heavy curtain, and the rings screeched on the\nbrass rod. Clothed in his monkish garb, his face furrowed and seamed;\nthe lustre of his eyes dimmed by the tears of centuries--there stood\nAlbertus. The sunken cheeks spoke of years of study and aspiration, but\nthe swelling muscles of his arms, the deep chest, the wonderful\nhands--big, bony, horrible hands--spoke of one from whom age has taken\nlittle toll. Here was age, wisdom, mysticalness, a subtle sense of\npensive melancholy, and a persistence that never tires.\n\n\"'Well, how do you like my statue this time?' asked Ombos.\n\n\"'Splendid!' I breathed.\n\n\"'Yes,' he said looking hard at me. 'The best of it is Albertus asks for\nnothing. You can neither bribe nor buy him; your flattery will not move\nhim; your approbation or blame alike are vain ... he has the\nself-sufficiency of the Master of Masters.'\n\n\"'Yes,' I found myself saying eagerly. 'He is the Master of Masters.'\n\n\"Suddenly he turned and threw the curtain back and took me by the arm\nand led me away. 'My force is all going into Albertus--but I must not\noverdo it. If I stand too long before him he drains me of all my\ngod-energy, you know ... that leaves me sick and exhausted. You've heard\nabout how Michael Angelo put all his power into his marble statue of\nMoses? You've read about such things? You know the kind of gush. I met a\npoor, half-crazed, devil-driven poet-fellow in Paris some years ago who\ntold me he had written a great poem; he had lured the crucified soul of\na murderer into his verses. Confoundedly conceited about it, too, he was\n... called it _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_. Bah! It would have taken him\na lifetime to put a murderer's socks into a poem. He was a mountebank\n... a posturer! And what is this winged thing men name the soul? And who\ndid make the stars?' Ombos turned demon-like eyes on me, and his whole\nface seemed lit up with an appalling mirth.\n\n\"'Believe them not, for they are not miraculous ones. They will be lost\nfor ever; they will die. Their books and statues may live, but they will\ndie, as sure as the grass grows over graves. My force and body and soul\nis passing into the Master of Masters.... I shall live and be a god, I\nshall stand oblivious and indifferent to the centuries as they stalk\nby.'\n\n\"'You don't mean to tell me ...'\n\n\"Ombos looked up, his red-green eyes gleaming as he answered,\n\n\"'Most certainly I do ... my soul will pass into that bronze statue when\nI am ready to give it up.'\n\n\"'The war, Mr. Ombos,' I thought as I looked at his shrivelled fearsome\nfigure, 'has turned your head. There are certainly a few bats in your\nbelfry. You will find your way into an asylum before many weeks have\npassed.'\n\n\"You must understand, I didn't realize what kind of a chap I was dealing\nwith then, I didn't know that he was all cold and calm and apart from\nlife ... very clever and--philosophical, _but not human_.\n\n\"'Nonsense! How can a man's soul pass into a bronze statue?' I asked\nrather testily. 'Good heavens, man, do you realize that you're trying to\nmake me believe that which is beyond the pale of all human possibility!'\n\n\"'Human possibility! What is human possibility? I tell you that all this\nis fact; simply.' Ombos rose and began to pace to and fro over the\nPersian rugs like a tiger. 'I'm not given to imagining things.'\n\n\"'Bah!' he grunted. 'Every child will tell you that the tendency of\nspirits to return to the old haunts of bodily life is almost universal.\nThe universal laws apply ... there is no escape from the great law, the\nattraction of environment.'\n\n\"'The rest is merely every-day knowledge. Have you ever heard of ancient\nformula by which the grosser factors of the body may be eliminated,\nleaving the ethereal portions to retain the spirit? Do you not\nunderstand that the body may be preserved from absolute disintegration?\nThe old alchemists all knew that death could be indefinitely deferred\nin this way. Professor Vaini left among his papers a work of two\nthousand pages in which he clearly demonstrated that it was possible for\na spiritualized body to retain a modified life practically for ever. Any\ndoctor will tell you the hair and nails of a dead person will often grow\nfor years after....'\n\n\"Ombos turned his glittering eyes on me a moment inquisitively.\n\n\"'Oh, tell me all that kind of stuff if you like,' I protested\ngood-humouredly. 'It makes no impression on me. I'm a normal man, Ombos,\nand I object to having my free imagination harrowed over things that\ndon't count. Behind that curtain is a bronze statue, and it never can or\nwill be anything else but a bronze statue, and that's about the sum and\ntotal of it all.'\n\n\"'I was merely telling you a few cold and scientific facts,' returned\nOmbos argumentatively.\n\n\"'Now, if I wished to impress you it would be easy enough. I would like\nto test that sensitiveness which you boast that you don't possess. I\nthink I could give you a severe shaking-up! And I will begin by telling\nyou that I will employ mere vulgar trickery ... the trickery of any\nmountebank who fools people at a country fair!'\n\n\"He looked at me with that slow smile of his--the smile of the\nmystic--mocking, mysterious.\n\n\"I answered him with a weak laugh. 'You may try some of your tricks,\nwizard; but you will fail to impress me, I think!'\n\n\"'I make it a habit not to fail.'\n\n\"His keen eyes flamed, and his brow was dark and hot. He started up and\nwalked over to the small oak escritoire. Bending down he produced a\nsmall glass lamp, and put a light to it. It burnt with the imperceptible\nflame of pure spirit of wine. He took it and vanished a moment. When he\nreturned, and set it before me, it gave out a keen white glare and\nheavily-scented smoke. He took me by the arm and pointed to the black\nvelvet curtain which hid the bronze statue. 'See, there: behind--through\nthe curtain. Who is that?'\n\n\"While I looked, Ombos gave a strange rasping sound. Then, in a tone of\nweird intensity: 'See! See!' and he laid his hand on mine ... the\ncurtain was no longer there, and some vague thing gathered--the statue\nwas dim behind it--the form of a man.\n\n\"'The veil is drawn,' said the voice of Ombos. 'Master, the veil is\ndrawn. See, if you will. See!'\n\n\"In a fluid light the form darkened. I saw Ombos seated before a table\nwith his head bowed down over a folio volume, quiet and still. The head\nwas ill to look at, and I knew he was dead.... All grew misty and faded\ninto light again.\n\n\"'The veil is drawn,' he droned. 'Look again!'\n\n\"Again a film gathered in the light and I saw the Albertus Magnus for a\nmoment. Then it changed to Ombos, himself.... A lean and grim form with\ndim mocking features, and yellow eyes that glittered and flickered....\n\n\"And again the vision blurred and faded into light. Then Ombos dashed\nthe lamp aside, and the room was in red darkness ... the silence and\ndarkness seemed to endure for an eternity. I heard the hiss of a quick\nindrawn breath at last ... it was my own breathing.... I opened my eyes.\n\n\"I was in the small room where I had taken tea with Ombos and Margot\nsome weeks before. Supper was laid on a superb octagon table. 'They were\ngood tricks, were they not?' said Ombos, with an easy laugh. His keen\neyes smote keen into mine. 'Now you will in truth be able to go away and\ntell people how I tricked you, how it was plainly all a cheat.'\n\n\"At that moment Margot came in with a big apron tied about her. She\ngreeted me pleasantly, setting a tray down on the table.\n\n\"'We do our own work here, Captain Crabbe,' she said. 'Do you want to\nmake yourself useful?'\n\n\"I rose promptly. My little adventure into the occult world with Ombos\nhad been rather exhilarating. I was glad when she told me to follow her\nout, through a long corridor into the kitchen, where she gave me a\ncan-opener and a tin of sardines.\n\n\"'Open those up and turn them into this little dish, please. And if you\nhave any hygienic aversion to tinned things, please forget it. Otherwise\nyou will have to eat some of my hot teacakes.'\n\n\"Margot was standing at the table, cleaning a crisp head of celery. The\nposition showed me her profile, with a little wisp of black hair\nescaping near one ear.\n\n\"We sat down to one of the most cheerful meals three people have ever\nenjoyed. We sat chatting there for nearly an hour. All the while I was\ntrying to reconcile this man Ombos who sat talking boyishly with the\nstudent of occultism and black magic I had talked with an hour or so\nbefore. If I had felt any resentment of the tricks he had played on me\nit would have vanished utterly. Afterwards Margot made real Turkish\ncoffee over a dainty spirit lamp ... once--in a critical stage in the\ncoffee-making, too--she looked up and her eyes sought mine; then her red\nlips parted in a smile. She poured out the coffee deftly, blowing out\nthe lamp, and put the little copper pot on a plate.\n\n\"Ombos surveyed his coffee with the air of a connoisseur, his head\nturned on one side.\n\n\"Margot produced the bowls of cigarettes and reached over my shoulder to\noffer me one. 'You want Egyptian?' she said smiling. 'You see I have a\ngood memory--you smoked them last time.'\n\n\"A warm faint perfume came from her hair.\n\n\"It was ten o'clock when I rose to leave, Ombos and Margot came out to\nthe front to say good night: my last glimpse, as I walked down the\n_pave_ street, was of Margot--a bare-headed figure, with wistful grey\neyes, calm with the mysterious wisdom of pure womanhood. She waved her\ndainty lace handkerchief to me.\n\n\"That was the last of Ombos in the flesh. The next day, after German\nshells had poured on Ypres for six hours without cessation, my regiment\nleft the town, and we went out a mile or two to take over some trenches.\n\n\"A month later my duty took me back to Ypres, and I found myself walking\nup the Rue Bar-le-Duc towards the little antique shop. Overhead the\nshells whistled without cessation. It was now a city of the dead--one\ncould not realize that it was the same pleasant little town where I had\nmet with so strange an experience a few weeks back. Men, children and\nhorses were lying dead in every gutter.\n\n\"In due course I arrived at the shop. A large hole had been ripped in\nthe _pave_ road before the door, and I had to step over a dead and\ntwisted soldier to gain an entrance. Of course the place was empty.\nOmbos, Albertus Magnus and all the wonderful contents of the spacious\nold rooms had disappeared. I made a search of the house, and it was not\nwithout a curious sensation in my heart that I entered the room where\nthe Master of Masters had towered in his niche. Silence--only the faint\nboom of a gun far away in the French trenches--awful, ghastly silence.\nThen a deafening roar and a falling of masonry as Krupp's marked down\nanother house in the town of sorrow. The horror of it!\n\n\"I turned dismally away, out into the Rue Bar-le-Duc, and along the\nsquare. A few scattered lights shone feebly through the evening mist,\nand over towards the Norman bridge the yellow flames from a burning\nhouse lit up the sky with a lurid glow. At nearly every street corner\nlittle groups of civilians had collected and were talking and\ngesticulating in a terrified manner. When a big shell came with a\nhoarse, rattling noise through the air, like a racing motor cycle on the\ntrack at Brooklands, they would rush into their homes, panic-smitten. If\ndeath winked, and passed them over, out they would creep again. And so\nthey lived in an inferno of shells for weeks on end.\n\n\"An ambulance wagon overturned in the middle of the road attracted my\nattention. I could not repress a shudder as I looked on the\nshell-shattered wreck.... It was the old type of four-horse ambulance\nused by the army in South Africa; possibly it had jolted into the\nshell-swept death-trap of Spion Kop, or carried men into the reeking\nenteric camps of Ladysmith. Well, it had made its last journey this\ntime! The four dead horses had not been cut away from the traces, and\nfrom underneath the huddled and twisted heap stuck out an arm, and in\nthe hand was clutched one of those short, stumpy whips which are used by\nthe lead driver of a gun. I can see that poor chap in my mind thrashing\nand urging his team of horses into a gallop, for it was not reckoned\nwise to meander about the streets of Ypres, and then--one blinding\ncrash.\n\n\"I swung round with a great desire to get away from the appalling scene,\nand as I did so, I noticed a girl in a doorway struggling in the grip of\na powerful, swarthy-faced man of middle age. In the fading light I\ncaught a glimpse of her face, and I was out of the shadow and by her\nside like a sky-rocket.\n\n\"'Let her go!' I said shortly. 'Before I mop out the gutter with you.'\n\n\"The man turned on me.\n\n\"'Who the devil----'\n\n\"'That's enough!'\n\n\"A Red Cap--a corporal in the Military Police--loomed into view, and\nwith an imprecation the rough backed away from the girl, turned, and in\na moment was lost in the gloom. I brought my eyes back to the girl who\nhad confronted me in the red light of sunset, and I stood gazing at her\ndumbly, fascinated, but with never a word to say. She was burning with\nanger and shame, trembling like an aspen, too.\n\n\"_It was Margot!_\n\n\"The girl glanced up at me, a look that set my heart throbbing. It was\nmy first real sight of her since I had seen her that afternoon with\nOmbos. I had thought her pretty then, but there is a distinct gap\nbetween a pretty woman and a lovely woman, and she was as beautiful as a\nGreek marble. Indeed, but for the carmine of her lips, and long dark\neyelashes, she might have been chiselled out of pellucid stone, for her\nskin was dead white. She was--or had been--beautifully and expensively\ndressed, and there was breeding and refinement in every line of her\nface.\n\n\"'Don't you know me?' I said.\n\n\"The girl looked at me intently.\n\n\"'I know you, of course,' she said.\n\n\"I won't waste time in trying to tell you what my thoughts and\nsensations were. Rather I will tell you instead, what I did.\n\n\"It was some minutes later, and already we had started to walk slowly\nback in the direction of the Rue Bar-le-Duc.\n\n\"'And now you want to know--' she said.\n\n\"'Yes--that's it--what's become of Ombos ... and the bronze statue?'\n\n\"Margot looked up at me, and a strange melancholy transformed her\nface.... She was at a loss for words.... 'Poor Ombos--oh, poor, cranky\nOmbos,' she muttered. 'One morning I found him dead in his room, with\nall his wonderful, brown, powdery-looking books. He was leaning on a\ntable over an old volume that he was fond of.... And then the doctors\ncame. He had died, they afterwards said, of failure of the heart's\naction.'\n\n\"'Dead,' I murmured mechanically....\n\n\"'Then everything was very uncomfortable. But I saved a good sum of\nmoney, and I sent most of the valuable things to Paris to be sold--no\nliving soul coming forward to make any claims. Ombos left everything to\nme ... bonds, securities, and all. Come this way--I have a little room\nup the side-street.\n\n\"'He left me well provided for. He----'\n\n\"'Yes; but why on earth do you stay in this dead city,' I broke in.\n\n\"'Sssh!... Don't interrupt unless I ask you questions.\n\n\"'I'll tell you all about everything. It's extraordinarily\ndifficult....'\n\n\"I waited.\n\n\"'You see,' she picked her words carefully, 'Ombos was so--queer about\nthat horrible Albertus Magnus of his. He had made me promise never to\npart with it and it seemed to me--stupidly perhaps--that I owed him\nthat--to see that his only wish was carried out to the letter. Otherwise\nI should never dare to have stayed here. You couldn't expect me to move\nabout with a gigantic bronze figure without making ample preparations.'\n\n\"'Ah!'...\n\n\"'This is where I live,' she said in a low voice.\n\n\"Margot had halted in front of an alley leading over rough cobbles, into\na small square of what appeared to be old oak-fronted houses. A narrow\npassage-way ran down by one side of the end house.\n\n\"'Won't you come inside, and--see Albertus? This way,' she said. 'It's\nrather dark, I'm afraid.'\n\n\"In pitch-black darkness, guided by Margot's hand, I stumbled through a\ndoorway into a spacious hall--a mysterious, fusty-smelling cavern of a\nplace--along a passage, and then up a flight of worn stone stairs. It\nwas one of those old houses where one could feel the silence and hear\nthe shadows. The steps came out upon a bare landing with oak-lined\nwalls, lit only by a solitary flickering candle, and Margot, halting\nbefore a locked door, opened it and motioned me to enter.\n\n\"The room was in darkness, and I knew not what fear, akin to that little\ngrey shadow of a fear, was to be found in the darkness there. At first I\nhesitated. Then Margot came with the candle, and as it guttered, the\nflame threw distorted shadows; at one moment lighting up a dark spot\nwith a sudden flash, and then sending queer, erratic reflections chasing\nacross the oak panelling. Then a flicker displayed the unmade bed on\nwhich Margot had lain.... She coloured deeply.\n\n\"'You have stored the bronze statue in some other part of the house,' I\nsaid at a venture.\n\n\"She looked at me, as I thought, a little uneasily.\n\n\"'You aren't afraid of that old statue?' she exclaimed. 'We might at\nleast light up the candles,' she added, as I made no reply; and she\nturned and put a burning taper to the candelabra.\n\n\"As Margot spoke the candles flared up, and then, with a sudden start of\nunexplained dismay, I saw in a corner by the bed stood the bronze\nfigure.\n\n\"As I looked at it I felt the horror of nightmare seize me, for it bore\na striking resemblance to Ombos. A dreadful exuberance and vitality\nseemed to shine through the thing, an exuberance wholly malign, a\nvitality that foamed and frothed with unimaginable evil. Evil beamed\nfrom the deep cavernous eyes; it leered in the demon-like mouth....\nUgh!--\n\n\"Margot walked up to me and patted my shoulder. 'Well, and are you\nreally afraid of that thing,' she said, pointing to the statue.\n\n\"'But, don't you see?' said I. 'It's scarcely the face of a bronze\nfigure. It's almost human. No; it isn't even human. It's the face of\nsome devil.' Margot laughed.\n\n\"'Yes: he isn't very cheerful,' she said. 'Scarcely a boudoir ornament,\neh? I'll throw a blanket over Albertus if you like.'\n\n\"'I really wish you would,' I said, 'I don't care so long as he can't\ngrin at me.'\n\n\"Somehow, with the bronze figure covered up, I felt much lighter and\nhappier.\n\n\"I think that Margot--that Margot must have been rather overstrained\nafter the struggle with that brute. She seemed to be all nerves--upset:\ninsisted in putting her little white hand on mine in a very solemn way,\nand thanking me for all sorts of imaginary favours.... Got 'a wheeze'\ninto her head, among other rot, that I had saved her life.\n\n\"'Look here,' I said. 'I wish you wouldn't talk so jolly silly. I'm not\na bit unselfish, I'm a novelist. There was nothin' doin' with my\ncrowd--regiment I mean--and so I came here to look for \"copy.\" That was\nwhy I persisted in seeing you home here. It was all just a matter of\n\"copy\" to me--at the start.' I paused, and Margot turned her tourmaline\neyes full on me. Had you asked me after my first visit to old Ombos what\nMargot's eyes were like I could not have told you the colour to save my\nlife. If I had been forced to weigh out a guess I might have said they\nwere a shade of grey. Grey? Name of a little dog! Yes, I should have\ncalled 'em grey, but that would have been like describing the Pyramids\nby saying they were stone. However can I describe the wonder that I\nfound ...\"\n\nA sort of flush appeared on Crabbe's boyish face. \"I--I'm afraid I have\nrun off the track of my story a bit,\" he stammered, \"but I may as well\ntell you all of it.\"\n\n\"Take a drink of whiskey;\" said Duckford slowly, \"and take your own\ntime.\"\n\n\"Margot looked at me, her lips quivering. 'You've not found much \"copy\"\nI'm afraid,' she answered despondently.\n\n\"'Now,' I said, meeting her eyes, '\"copy\" matters not at all ... you are\nall that matters.'\n\n\"It does not in the least concern you or the story to know what manner\nof a woman Margot is. But I might say that she is in fulness a\nwoman--not a fribble, or one of those pick-me-up-and-carry-me women. So\nwhen I said plain words to her she did not pretend to misunderstand.\n\n\"'Don't let us be conventional,' I went on, 'It wouldn't fit in with\nthese wonderful days a bit. Perhaps I've no right to talk to you like\nthis--but Ombos is dead and you seem to have no friend in the world. We\nhave got caught up, you and I, in one of the marvellous tangles of this\ngreat conflict, and God knows how it's all going to end. But it seems to\nhave been written in the book of fate that we should meet, and whether\nOmbos and his bronze statue haunts me to the end of my days or he\ndoesn't, I'm glad I have met you, and to know for just one swift hour\nI've used these hands of mine in your service. I wouldn't take back one\nminute of these great days!'\n\n\"Margot was regarding me with her wide eyes, a little startled, but I\nsaw beyond those rounds of tourmaline a soft light.\n\n\"'How is it?' said Margot calmly. 'A few hours ago you hadn't spoken\nmore than a few words to me ... you don't know me.'\n\n\"'In times of war,' I reminded her, 'we live a year in a day.'\n\n\"Margot rested her chin on her hands. 'What a strange world it is,' she\nmurmured.\n\n\"'Confoundedly strange,' I agreed. 'I can't help thinking even now that\nmy meeting with Ombos in that weird den in the Rue Bar-le-Duc was all a\ndream, and I'm going to wake up soon.'\n\n\"'I didn't mean that,' Margot said quietly. 'That didn't seem so strange\nto me. Perhaps it's because I lived with Ombos for nearly four years.'\n\n\"'It was just like a page torn from the _Arabian Nights_ to me,' I said.\nShe smiled at me wanly.\n\n\"'The only other home I've known was with foster-parents in Paris when I\nwas quite a child,' she said. 'I was brought here straight from a\nconvent school in Brussels. Ombos was my guardian. He'--she hesitated,\nshivering--'I don't think he was quite--sane, but he was always very\nkind to me.'\n\n\"'Margot,' I stammered as I imprisoned her hands in mine, 'I'm going to\ntake you out of this mudhole of a place.... I'm going to send you over\nto England. I'll stay here and look after you to-night, and to-morrow\nI'll see you on your way.'\n\n\"She dragged her hands away suddenly.\n\n\"'But are you _sure_?' Margot said, half sobbing. 'Please reflect ...\nyou are in too much of a hurry. When an idea comes to you--the idea,\nthat you want me for instance--what do you do? Instead of taking the\nidea for a long, cool walk, you sit down here to work it up ... it is\nthe eternal boyishness of the Englishman. You must first think of your\nfuture.'\n\n\"'But do you think that the future holds anything for me now that I\nwouldn't throw away with both hands for you?' I said, and the passion of\nmy voice whipped the blood up into that alabaster face ... she put out\nher hands with a little pleading movement.\n\n\"'Don't,' she said again.\n\n\"'I must,' I said stubbornly. 'There's nothing in the world powerful\nenough to take you from me ... if you will have me. Margot, you must\nbelieve me ... you shall believe me!' I added almost savagely, and my\nhands closed round her waist as she leaned against the back of a huge\nold divan. Margot closed her eyes for a moment and her head dropped\ngently on my shoulder. Her hair brushed my face, and the faint musky\nscent that came from it is woven into all my after memories of that\nmoment, I drew her closer and she sighed for very happiness, while life\ndrifted past in uncounted minutes or hours.\n\n\"It was the next evening that I arranged to have one of the A.S.C.\ncars,--then running between Ypres and St. Omer,--wait for us outside\nMargot's rooms. Under cover of darkness I bundled Margot into the\nmotor-lorry, got the bronze statue in, and jumped up on the driver's\nseat beside her, and sank down with a gasp of relief. One last glimpse\nof the little bulgy window of the shop as the lorry rounded the corner,\nand then I turned and looked at the girl. Tears glittered in her eyes,\nand her lips were quivering. I put my hand out and closed over her\nice-cold fingers.\n\n\"'Margot!' I said, 'I'm taking you to Boulogne and then you will go to\nEngland to my home. My people will look after you....'\n\n\"'But--' she hesitated.\n\n\"'There are no \"buts,\"' I said firmly, 'You are coming with me. You\ncan't stay in this infernal hole, like a rat in a trap.'\n\n\"Margot gave a weary little sigh and leaned closer to me, giving herself\ninto my care as trustfully as a child. Until that time she had been just\na figure in the great war game that might provide me with something to\n'write up' into a book. That had been my principal thought. Now, all in\na few moments, her beauty, the frightened look which had shone in her\ngreat grey eyes, her distress made me forget all that, drove all\nthoughts of traffic with publishers from my mind. I knew only that it\nwas good to help her.\n\n\"Then I set about thinking how I could get Margot and Albertus Magnus to\nEngland. It was going to be a difficult game. I went carefully over all\nthe good fellows I knew who could help me. There was old Longden of the\nA.S.C. depot at St. Omer, there was Captain Chester, the transport\nofficer at Boulogne, and Orgles of ammunition supply at Cassel, which is\na small place where the strings of motors from the base unload.\n\n\"Well, (to get on,) we arrived late that night at St. Omer, and by a\nvast amount of bribery and cajolery I got some A.S.C. men to knock up a\nstrong case for the Albertus Magnus and--but enough. It is sufficient to\nsay that an officer who was going home on leave was kind enough to see\nMargot as far as Boulogne, and in the fullness of time both Albertus\nMagnus and the girl came safely to England.\n\n\"I have endeavoured to give you the facts of my strange story up to this\npoint, without omission or exaggeration. I have been careful not to miss\nout the slightest items. If I have failed, it must not be put down to\nforgetfulness: for I do not think there is a single thing about old\nOmbos that has not been permanently fixed in my mind. Even now I have\nbut to shut my eyes to see the leering face of Albertus, to stand once\nmore trembling with terror and see that green shadow jump into the dusk\nwith hellish glee and frolicsome skippings and toppings gallop away, to\nwalk into the old library at home and see poor Price with his knees\ndrawn up and eyes fixed open in extreme terror--But enough. I do not\nexaggerate.\n\n\"And now I must come to what you'll call the second part of the\nstory--though it was all one long connected nightmare to me. I returned\nfrom France, as you know, six months ago, with a bullet in my leg, and\nthought myself in the best of luck to get a 'blighty' one; I mean a\nslight wound which necessitated me being sent back to England. I went\ndown to a charming old house at Monk's Ely which my father had lately\nmoved into, and soon drifted into peaceful ways of country life. The\ntrivial little objects and customs of rustic life--those simple things\nthat are best of all--attracted me surprisingly.\n\n\"A delightful room full of my books and pictures had been prepared on\nthe ground floor of the house, but I was not often in it. Still, I\naccorded to my bronze statue a prominent corner in the room, where he\nfrowned upon all my other possessions with that great look of\ndisinterestedness which only bronze or death can typify.\n\n\"A week or two passed without incident, except that again and again a\ncurious feeling that sometimes I was not _alone_ was present in my mind.\nIn a way I got used to it, because after being in the trenches and\nlooking in the face of death as a kind of hobby the feeling of release\nand lightness that comes over one drives all other troubles clean away.\nBut after a while this feeling seemed to be growing in poignancy. In\nfact at the end of the first fortnight I mentioned it to my father.\n\n\"'Strange you should have felt like that,' he said one night after\ndinner, 'because for the last day or so, the same sensation has been\ncreeping over me. When is it that you have your ghostly visitor? Have\nyou any feeling now of such a thing, for instance?'\n\n\"We were having a smoke on the lawn ... it was a beautiful evening of\nstars, and as he spoke I felt the unseen presence with terrific\nintensity. At that moment the door that led from the library quietly\nswung open, and just as quietly closed again, as if someone had passed\nout into the garden.\n\n\"'Did you see that?' I said. 'There is not a breath of wind stirring:\nodd thing that a door should play those kind of tricks.'\n\n\"My father was silent a moment.\n\n\"'You felt it then,' he said.\n\n\"'Frightfully!' I breathed.\n\n\"'Let's get back to the dining-room,' my father urged.\n\n\"Just as we got up to the house door (not the library door which opened\non the path), I saw, as I thought, a figure move in the bushes near the\nlibrary. Perhaps it would be better to describe it as a shadow ... but I\ncould swear that it was of a greenish colour. For one moment, from sheer\nterror of the unseen, I stood frozen to the doorstep, and then my father\ntouched my arm and we walked in together.\n\n\"That evening, my friend Price, after his wont, dropped in. I had just\nrun the car round to the front door and was about to run into the\nvillage to bring the vicar back to stay with us over the\nweek-end--besides I badly wanted to get away from those infernal gusts\nof depression that swept the place. I did not scruple to keep to my\narrangements and told Price to make himself comfortable in the library\ntill my return. 'You'll find cigars, spirits--and _the_ spirit,' I said\njokingly. He nodded and laughed, and I jumped into the car, and quickly\nput a mile between myself and--the bronze statue, for I was convinced\nthat Albertus of Cologne was connected in some unearthly way with the\nface of Fear that often turned full on me.\n\n\"A half-hour afterwards I had pulled up at the vicarage, and was hanging\non to the bell which gave forth a mighty clamour. I was impatient to get\ninside for a moment and behold the good genial face of the vicar.\nSomehow, wherever the vicar went, he had a wonderful way of cheering\nthings up; his presence diffused an atmosphere of merriment. The door\nsuddenly opened and I was face to face with him:\n\n\"'My dear boy,' cried the vicar, 'I am glad to see you.'\n\n\"Then he stared at me in amazement. 'What have you done to yourself? You\nhave aged years since I saw you last week.'\n\n\"'Ah, I have things to tell you,' I said, 'Things that will make you\nthink I am off my head, but I shall convince you----'\n\n\"The vicar took my arm and walked me up to his sanctum, a fine spacious\nchamber, beautified with that simplicity which throws a wonderful\ndignity over all, and tends to show how in omission so much more\nrefinement is to be discovered than in ornament. Touches of the vicar's\nkeen discernment of those things which are worthy and noble were\nrevealed on every hand--knowledge of this sort is older than ten\nthousand years. The room received one like a friend. The alcoves were\nfilled with well-bound books, there was a superb Persian carpet, old\ngate-legged tables--oak was there everywhere; in the beams and the\nshelves and the mighty writing desk. The servant had brought in a small\ntable with syphons and spirits, and had set a lamp upon it. 'Help\nyourself,' said the vicar.\n\n\"I poured out a dose of whisky and was lifting it for a squirt of soda\nwhen all at once I saw Fear; not apprehension, not foreboding, but\nFEAR--the glass fell from my hand and my fingers sagged on the handle of\nthe syphon. I saw my reflection in a long glass, and my face was\nbleached to an unhealthy dull whiteness.\n\n\"Suddenly like a shot, right in the middle of things, I found myself\nwondering about poor Price. And I wasn't only wondering somehow I was\nhorribly uneasy about him. It came to me that I had been heartless to\nleave him all alone with the statue. At last I couldn't stand the strain\nany longer. I got up.\n\n\"'Vicar,' I said, 'I'm going back to see if Price is all right. It will\nsound quite mad to you, I expect, but if you want to know the sober\ntruth, I will tell you that I have just seen him in a vision: he was in\ntrouble, I know. But come, let us get into the car. I have never told\nanyone my whole story yet, but I shall like to tell you about Ombos and\nhis statue. I will tell you on the way back to Abbot's Ely. It is about\ntime, in fact, that I tried to classify what I have learned.'\n\n\"I then briefly related the story of Ombos and our acquaintance. I\nconcealed nothing, dwelling on the irresistible alluring influence of\nthe bronze statue. I described the depression, the despair, the\noverpowering moral weakness which seemed to follow me since the\nAlbertus Magnus had become one of my possessions. In short, I lifted the\ncurtain, for the first time, and showed the vicar a true picture of the\nstrange world I had moved in for the last few weeks.\n\n\"When we had returned and backed the car into the coach house we walked\nacross the lawn to the back door. Here we met Clayton, the butler. He\nappeared to be frightened, and told me that he had heard a kind of\nquivering, sobbing voice coming from the library. He thought Mr. Price\nwas ill. We went to the door. It was locked, and an application of a\nspare key proved that the other key had been left in the lock inside. We\nknocked loudly, and called. There was no reply. Clayton's conviction\nthat 'something had happened' worked on my nerves frightfully, and in\nthe end the vicar and I forced open the door with some gardening tools.\n\n\"Something _had_ happened.\n\n\"The room was in complete darkness, and at first nothing could be\ndiscerned at all. A slight wind had got up in the last half an hour; and\nit rustled the trailers of ivy against the opened windows. The heavy\ncurtains moved carelessly in the draught, and the trees creaked faintly.\nBut beyond these inevitable noises, the room was quiet. Then gradually,\nthe outline of the room became visible and the framework of the window\nbegan to shape itself dimly before my eyes. In the hazy light from the\nglass doors, and the vague light of a lamp in the hall, I saw that the\nchesterfield in the window bay where Price so often lounged was\ntenanted. A gleam of his light tweed suit showed there and across\nthat.... Oh, I fully expected to see the other thing! Across that there\nwas an obscure greenish shadow.\n\n\"I walked towards it, when suddenly the shadow shot upwards and was lost\nto sight. Then the springs of the chesterfield creaked and wheezed, the\nsame as they will when suddenly released from pressure. Clayton came in\nat that moment holding a candelabra aloft and the feeble flames\ndisclosed poor old Price. He was on his back, his knees slightly drawn\nup. The face was not the face of a man at all--it was a horrible mask of\ncontorted terror. His eyes were opened and fixed; the mouth was twisted\nin a gape of fearful wonder.\n\n\"'Run, Clayton,' said I; 'a doctor and a policeman!' Clayton placed the\ncandelabra on the table and bounced out and down the front steps.\n\n\"Price was dead without a doubt. He had been strangled, the doctor\nthought from the greenish-black marks on his neck and other\ncircumstances. The savage deed had been accomplished with frightful\nferociousness and strength. Soon the room was in the possession of the\npolice, and the vicar and I turned out. There was little evidence at\nthe inquest. The cries of poor Price had been heard by my man, the body\nhad been found--that was the practical summing-up of the whole matter.\nThe doctor gave his evidence as to the probability of murder, and the\npolice evidence tended in the same direction. It was affirmed that (some\nwould say) he had been baffled by Price in an attempt to rob the house,\nhad sacrificed the poor fellow to the fury of his checked greed, and had\nafterwards escaped by the window. The jury found that Price had died by\nthe hand of some person unknown.\n\n\"'Well, vicar,' I asked afterwards, 'what do you think of the verdict?'\n\n\"He told me that from _his_ point of view it seemed to be the most\nreasonable one that could be given; and to agree with the laws of\ncommon-sense.\n\n\"'Yes,' I replied, 'perhaps you are right from the common-sense point of\nview. Nevertheless, I know that Price did not die by any human agency.\nIt is too ghastly; I can still see that green shadow hovering above his\nbody on the couch. The huge shadow, the Elemental, the spirit of\nOmbos--whatever you like to call it--was there in that room with Price.\nIt was there in a form that could be seen and felt. It is something more\nsubstantial than an ordinary shadow ... it is a thing of hellish terror,\nand it comes from that infernal bronze statue.'\n\n\"Thence forward, as day followed day, the ghastly memory of the murder\nof Price seemed to recede from my mind. I neither heard nor saw\nanything, nor did that sense of the unseen presence lurking about the\nhouse, come to me. I was beginning to hope that the spell of the bronze\nstatue had passed away for good. But one night after this interval I\nagain felt fear looking whitely on me again. If I were to describe all\nthe incidents of the next few days in their order my story would never\ncome to an end, and your patience would be exhausted. Wherever I went\nafter dark had fallen the shadow of the unseen followed me. I had a\npassion for inviting people to stay with me, and I longed for\ncompanionship of my kind which I had never known before; I was eager to\nthrow myself into the realities of life. The sense of a certain kind of\nseparateness is hell! Just you ask anybody who knows. I called on\npeople, lived in my car, and dined out on the slightest provocation. I\nremember I spent one evening, (after my desperate efforts to find some\ngood Samaritan to bear me company), with a party of road-menders; I\nhelped them break up the stones and all that kind of thing. But after\nthey had packed up their tools and tea cans and bid me 'thanks and good\nnight,' I met fear on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows. It\nwould be almost impossible to describe the swerves that my mind took\nfrom that time till the end. The presence of the Albertus Magnus filled\nme by turns with dread, blind fear, an overshadowed sort of pleasure,\nand utter hopelessness. I dare not have it taken away; and I knew that\nits presence was driving me mad. The vicar told me that if I could make\nup my mind to have the statue removed or destroyed, it might dispel all\nmy troubles. I ought to make an application to the authority on bronzes\nat the British Museum, who would be only too pleased to accept it. An\napplication to escape the company of Albertus Magnus! A request that the\nBritish Museum would graciously take over a bronze statue, the soul of\ndeparted Ombos, and a blind terror that walked at twilight! The vicar's\nproposal sent me into a paroxysm of hysterical laughter.\n\n\"I'd gone into the library one afternoon about four, as I had heavy\narrears of letter-writing to make up. It was surprising that I should\nchoose that room where Albertus Magnus towered in his corner--and (I\ndon't know why) I felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too\nlong from him. By half past six I had finished. I went to the door to\nring for Clayton to post my letters, and turned to light up the\ncandelabra (I forgot to say that it was a fad of my father's all through\nhis life to use candelabra in preference to electric light or gas), when\nI heard, I thought I heard a chuckle behind me--low, faint, but\nunmistakably malicious. The fate of poor Price flashed into my mind, and\nat the same time, I myself was watching myself fight on that same\nchesterfield with something horrible, unclean, intangible. I turned\nround instantaneously, feeling that the Albertus Magnus was at his\nhellish game again. With sudden horror I saw where the chuckle had come\nfrom. The statue had changed from the bronze-green to a fleshy-green. It\nwas alive, and the great muscles were twitching and quivering. To my\nunutterable horror, I perceived it was not Albertus Magnus.... _It was\nOmbos!_ His breath came in horrid little flutters, with seconds between\neach one, as if he had just come to life and was not quite used to it. A\ndreadful viciousness and vitality shone from his green eyes, and his\ndemon-like mouth was twisted into a grin of unimaginable evil.\n\n\"'Gods don't grow in one night like mushrooms,' he said with a leer.\n(There was no mistake about his voice--it was Ombos; the words rang\nthrough my brain as if they had been shouted.) 'You can't expect a\nstatue to turn into a god in a breath, or to come down and skip about\n... it takes time and faith.'\n\n\"At that moment I must have gone mad. I snatched the heavy candelabra\nand with a howl of rage I hurled it with all my force at his narrow\nleering eyes. It struck the solid bronze with a terrific crash and fell\nat the base of the pedestal whereon Ombos had stood a moment before.\n\n\"Clayton rushed in at this juncture, and we went into the sitting-room.\nI saw him wipe his forehead with the back of his hand.\n\n\"'He's been here again, sir,' he said. 'I was standing on the gravel\npath by the library, a minute ago, when I saw him close by me in the\nbushes. He came across the water-meadow, I think. And any way he made\noff back that way when I shouted at him. Begad, though, it'll be worth a\ntrifle to see who this rascal is, sir. I wonder what he's after. Not the\ncommon kind of assassin. What?'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"This was the climax; I felt that another such encounter would drive me\nraving mad. Somewhere there must be a natural explanation; it was only a\nquestion of finding it. Among other things it occurred to me that\nsomeone, for reason unknown, might be playing a series of practical\njokes upon me, but it was hard to believe a hoax of such malignant and\nserious intent. Besides, it did not explain the death of Price which, I\nfelt more and more convinced, was in some way connected with the bronze\nstatue. I felt it would be my own fault if I did not get some part of\nthe mystery cleared up soon. It was plain, too, that I must virtually\nact alone. The first thing was to find a helper, and after casting about\nme I thought of a member of my company, John Travers, who had lost two\nfingers at Charleroi at the first stage of the war. He was a giant in\nstature, his muscular force would have warranted him in contesting a\nfall or two with a full-grown lion.\n\n\"I wrote to Travers the same evening and his answer came a couple of\ndays later, saying that he would be down by the first train that he\ncould catch. I said nothing in my letter about the bronze statue, but\nmerely mentioned that I feared a gang of thieves had marked my house\ndown, and I wanted his help to guard the place for a week or so.\n\n\"Well, Travers arrived. Armed with two new service rifles, we each in\nturn kept watch over the statue, agreeing that a shot out of the window\nshould warn the other, were any sudden danger to arise.\n\n\"On the second night of our vigil I retired to bed hugely sleepy. I had\nleft Travers on guard in the library. He was seated in an armchair under\nmy Albertus Magnus, with his rifle over his knees. I did not take off my\nclothes, but threw myself, dressed as I was, upon the bed. Determining\nto make sure of some rest I took a stiff glass of hot brandy. I slept--I\ncould scarcely help sleeping--but not for long, for I suddenly awoke\nfrom a tumultuous dream, my limbs atremble, and my forehead sticky with\ncold sweat. It seemed as though somebody was calling my name from a vast\ndistance. The room was full of whisperings and moanings and strange\nuncanny things. Something was evidently at work in my sub-consciousness.\nNothing was wrong with Travers or I should have heard the report of his\nrifle. Yet something _was_ wrong! The conviction grew stronger and\nstronger within me. Then came the faint sound of rattling at the brass\nknob, and with sudden horror I saw the door open a couple of inches. A\npause of some seconds and it was pushed open still farther. For a space\nof five seconds my heart seemed to stop beating, and then the worst\ncame. You will think I was beside myself; but as the door was pushed\nopen a face peeped round behind it, and I saw two green eyes looking at\nme! I had at once recognised the face, and the face was that of Ombos!\nHe appeared to smile at me, but it was a leer of inscrutable evil and\nmalevolence, and I took up my rifle and fired at a venture. A howl of\npain, hoarse with anger, rent the air, and the face vanished.... I\nrushed downstairs and into the library. As I entered, the body of\nTravers came twisting across the room like a penny whirligig. His head\nstruck the marble fire-place with a frightful dull thud, and he fell a\nmotionless heap on the floor. I struck straight in front of me with a\nrifle--and hit something--something that pushed past me. Then the front\ndoor opened and shut with a deafening clang. A sudden qualm of real fear\ntook hold of my heart, but, mastering it as best I could, I opened the\nfront door and tore madly down the drive. I looked down the hushed\nstreet. Past the lamp-posts, skipping from the gloom into the light and\nfrom light into shadow, with a series of bounds, sped a horrible apish\nform. It bounded along with incredible fleetness, and was soon lost to\nview in the distant gloom. Just at that moment Clayton came down the\ndrive. I could not speak. I pointed to the library.... I beckoned him to\nfollow. On the floor lay the dead body of John Travers. The statue of\nAlbertus Magnus had vanished!\n\n\"And there the story ends. I can give no explanation whatever, beyond\nwhat I have related. The bronze figure has never, so far as I know, been\nseen again, nor has the restless spirit of poor Ombos walked again in\nour garden and library. But, taking the circumstances into\nconsideration, the whole train of events points to the fact that Ombos\n_had_ in some occult way passed his ethereal body into that statue, and\nfor that very reason he was unable to rest quietly in his grave.\"\n\n\"You will continue to live in the house at Abbot's Ely, of course,\" said\nDuckford.\n\nCrabbe shook his head. \"Never! I wrote a week ago putting it in the\nagent's hands for sale. There may be nothing in it, but I hardly want to\nmake any new experiments now. The bronze statue has disappeared. I\nshould like to think it was stolen by a gang of burglars. But I\nremember that chuckle--the malicious mirth of some unearthly thing, it\nseemed. And I remember ... let us leave it at that. I want to forget, to\nwalk in the Sunshine, in the crowded Strand, away from the darknesses\nand silences. As I say, there the story ends.... I have told you all of\nit.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut Captain Crabbe did not tell it all. The best part was \"strictly\nprivate.\" He married Margot at half-past ten on the following Saturday\nmorning but one, at St. George's, Hart Street, Bloomsbury.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE DE GAMELYN TRADITIONS\n\n\nHe was just an Irish soldier's son; a real boy in real life, and his\nname was Tim, and that was the only name he had besides his surname\nwhich was Gamelyn. And somehow he was perfectly happy. But one day he\nfound an old book and read about a boy whose name was Victor; and the\nmore he read about Victor the more ardent was his wish to be like\nVictor, and he wished that he had been called Victor--for Victor was a\ngenius and a gentleman, and all things which Victor put his hands to\nwere crowned with success. But Tim's name _was_ Tim Gamelyn, which was\nunfortunate; and when he went to an English school at Margate they\ncalled him, because his hair was red, \"Carrots\" which was heartbreaking.\n\nIn the book nobody had ever jeered at Victor or called him nicknames;\nthey would have been dealt with very severely, besides they would not\nhave dared; he was far too heroic. So Tim became very furious when the\nother fellows called him \"Carrots.\" But the more he showed his dislike\nfor this name the more the boys made use of it, also when they had time\nto spare--they warmed their hands in the imaginary heat radiated by his\nruddy hair. It was impossible to uphold any dignity under the\ncircumstances, and he began to wonder what Victor would have done in a\nlike predicament. But then Victor's hair was rich and brown and curly,\nand no one could have said a word against it; Tim's was red and of the\nkind that fate keeps in stock of the humble and low, and it made a\nlittle lump come up in his throat when he realized it. Then the football\nseason on, Victor, Tim well remembered, had gone in for every kind of\nathletic sport. When he had first arrived at a strange boarding school\nhe had refused, with a heedless laugh, to say whether he could play or\nnot. Victor did not even deign to go near the football field for a\nmonth. But ten minutes before the Match of the year commenced he\nsuddenly made up his mind to play. During the first half of the game\nVictor had \"laid low\"; he was waiting. Then his eyes flashed, and his\nlithe, active figure flashed up the field sending the ball into the\nposts like a shot from a gun, thus scoring the first and only goal. He\nhad then fainted away; and a beautiful girl had exclaimed \"A-a-a-a-a-h,\"\nand had hurried to him with a smelling-bottle and much sympathy. When he\nrecovered, he sat up and made an apology for stopping the game and was\nloudly cheered by both teams. This was the model which Tim had to keep\nin his mind's eye. In one or two ways he succeeded, and in others he\nfailed--failed dismally.\n\nWhen Tim came to ask questions about football at Thetford Grammar School\nhe found it was quite another thing. In the first place the boys all\nspoke to him in that specially offensive you're-only-a-little-kid sort\nof way. They also took it for granted that he had never seen a football\nin his life. He found it impossible to refuse (with a careless laugh) to\nsay whether he had ever kicked a ball before. He was told that he would\nhave to play in the next school practice match, and that if he could\nkick a ball, he might be allowed to play in a _real_ match one fine day.\nWhen the first practice game commenced, Tim remembered that an\nenthusiastic crowd had run by Victor's side, shouting wildly: \"Hurrah!\nhurrah for Victor.\" It is true that a few of the smaller boys shouted at\nhim. But what they shouted was: \"Put a bit of life into it, old\nCarrots!\" and \"Go it, Rufus! You'll never score a goal if you kick the\nball in that mother-may-I-have-an-orange style.\" During the first part\nof the game Tim was rather quiet--he was waiting for a golden\nopportunity, just as Victor had waited. It came when the forwards were\nin full movement, and the ball came travelling neatly along the line on\nthe right wing. It finally came to rest at Tim's feet, and he, avoiding\na man who darted at him, raced forward a few yards. Then something,\nwhich came through the air like a Whitehead Torpedo, sent him spinning\nbackwards on the grass. Amidst roars of laughter from the other fellows,\nthe Whitehead Torpedo, (who was a boy and smaller than Tim), spun round,\nran the ball a few dozen yards, and sent it soaring away with a vent\nkick straight for the goal. There was a moment of silence. The ball\npitched fair and square on the top bar, and then trickled gently between\nthe posts.\n\nA howl of joy went up from the small fry who had been \"ragging\" Tim all\nthe time.\n\nTim sat up and looked about him. He had not fainted, but he felt very\nsick and dizzy, and nobody sympathised with him. A small freckle-faced\nboy was standing over him.\n\n\"The ground _is_ slippery to-day,\" he grinned, extending a hand to the\nunfortunate Tim, who lay on the sludgy, squdgy mud gasping like a\nrecently-landed trout.\n\nTim accepted, and scrambled painfully to his feet. The pomp of battle\nhad departed from him.\n\nA few weeks afterwards, as Tim was walking across the water meadows, he\nsaw a youth of serious and agricultural appearance throwing a poor,\ndefenceless little terrier into the mill stream. Every time the\nmiserable little animal crawled up on to the river bank the youth\nhurled it into the deep water again. Now, that was the kind of thing\nthat Victor was very down on. In every chapter Victor punished people\nfor cruelty to animals. Victor's blood always boiled at such a\nsight--moreover, his strong arm always shot out, his eyes always\nflashed, and the great hulking coward _always_ lay prone at his feet\nbegging for mercy with clasped hands. So Tim gathered together his\nrecollections of Victor's stock phrases, and advanced on the stolid\nyouth:\n\n\"You cowardly ruffian! Have you no feelings that you ill-treat a man's\nbest friend in that way?\"\n\nThe stolid-looking youth seemed slightly astonished. He thrust his face\nforward and shook his fist under Tim's nose. \"Not your blooming\nbusiness,\" he said. \"You shift.\"\n\n\"You've got no right,\" began Tim.\n\n\"Right!\" The youth's note was fierce. Then he took poor Tim by the\nscruff of his neck, and observed that he had been teaching the pup to\nswim because he was water-shy, and that it was good for all kinds of\npups to know how to swim. Then he pushed Tim into the water after the\npup in order to teach him to keep his mouth shut and mind his own\nbusiness.\n\nTim went away with the idea (perfectly correct) that the stolid-looking\nyouth's hands that had gripped his neck and the seat of his knickers\nwere very strong, and another impression that even Victor would not have\nstood an earthly chance against such a fellow. And it was just then that\nhe was aware of a little grey idea floating in the background of his\nmind that Victor was a bit of a prig--also a fraud. It annoyed him that\nany such notion should occur to him that the glory of his hero was an\nillusion, and he shook his head to get rid of it. Then his brain sent a\n\"wireless\" that Victor might be all right in a little toy world of his\nown, peopled entirely by heroes and scoundrels, and with all the\nscoundrels physically contemptible; but that he would have done less\nbrilliantly in the mixed-up old world that we have got at present.\n\nSuddenly, as from a clear sky, came a bolt of common-sense to Tim, and\nhe realized he had been a fond and foolish jay. And that was why, when\nhe had finished prep that evening, he exchanged a copy, bound in calf,\nof _Victor the Valiant_ for two oranges and a catapult.\n\nOf course, the reaction set in. Tim was sent up to the station to bring\nhome a new bicycle for the head master, and he was especially warned\n_not_ to ride it--just to walk it. Of course he tried to ride it down\nCastle Hill, and collided violently with a milk cart. He returned with\nwhat had been a new machine. So the Head made him write out one hundred\ntimes:\n\n    And since he cannot spend or use aright\n      The little time here given in his trust;\n    But wasteth it in weary underlight\n      Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust,\n    He naturally clamours to inherit\n      The Everlasting Future that his merit\n    May have full scope--as surely is most just.\n\nAnd Tim muttered, \"All right, keep your hair on, Ben!\"\n\n\"H'm;\" said the Head, overhearing Tim. \"Write it out _two_ hundred times\nfor your insolent conduct.\"\n\nThat was the start of his demoralisation. According to the laws of the\nMedes and Persians, and the laws of Victor the Valiant, disaster and\ndishonour would be the end of _this_! It was not at all the way Victor\nwould have behaved. As a matter of fact on one occasion when a master\nhad been idiotic enough to give Victor a hundred lines, the valiant one\nhad replied: \"Pardon me, sir, but if I may be so presumptuous I think I\ncan call your attention to the fact that you--unintentionally, of\ncourse--are treating me too severely.\" And the master had at once seen\nthe error of his ways and relieved Victor of the imposition.\n\nTim failed to get the verse written out in the stipulated time and the\nimposition was trebled. Also he gathered up another hundred lines for\n\"failure to attend prayers\" and this placed him in a state of hopeless\nbankruptcy.\n\nWhen he wrote home to his mother. Here is what he said:\n\n    \"DEAREST MOTHER:\n\n    \"I got two hundred lines for breaking the Head's bicycle yesterday.\n    Give my love to Dad. I got another hundred lines to-day for not\n    being present at prayers. But don't you worry--I am not really\n    bad--God has forgotten me, that is all.\n\n                                           \"Your loving Son,\n                                                              \"TIM.\"\n\nAnd Tim--such was his natural depravity--did not much care. So callous\nand indifferent did he become that he ceased to be hurt when the boys\ncalled him \"Carrots.\" In fact he laughed. And as he no longer objected\nwhen he was called \"Carrots\" the boys dropped that name, and the\nshortest one survived. The boys started to call him \"Tims\" and in a few\nmonths he had won their affection from the lowest fag to the highest lad\nin the school.\n\nTwo years afterwards, by dint of practice and pluck he had so far\nadvanced that he ran second in the quarter-mile at the Sports. Of course\nthis was not very heroic. He was rewarded for this feat of strength with\na patent egg-boiler, which was of no sort of use to him, and, as he\ndiscovered afterwards, of no use to anybody else. But he was exceedingly\nproud of the thing and also exceedingly careful to conceal this fact\nfrom the other boys.\n\nHe became, to sum up his attitude, less and less like Victor. But it is\nnot to be presumed that he was sinking into mental nothingness. He was\nnot perhaps quite so refined in his language as he might have been, he\nused slang, and sometimes was inclined to hang his hat on the floor and\ntalk back. He was rather untidy in his dress. But certain compensating\nqualities of the highest value were appearing in Tim. He had gathered to\nhimself a plentiful supply of gumption--genius is all right, but if it\ncomes to a slow-down gumption is better. His hatred of \"swank\" reached\nthe point of unreasoning prejudice. He made many mistakes; but depend\nupon this: the man who has never made a mistake has never made anything\nelse worth having.\n\nAnd Tim never became a great soldier, or a great sailor, or anything\ngreat. But he had good spirits, and he concealed about his person a\nheart of gold; and after he left Thetford Grammar School, boys found\nthat somehow the games in the old playground seemed flat and spiritless.\nThey said that things weren't as they used to be in Tim's time.\n\nI have told the reader that Tim Gamelyn's father was a retired\nnon-commissioned officer who lived near Dublin on a small private income\nand a pension. It will be seen that Tim's people did not roll in wealth\nany to speak of. They owned a small farm with five cows, twenty pigs and\na flock of hens. There was beer always in the cellar, bacon hanging up\nin the kitchen and a bucket of soft soap in the out-house. In the top\nlean-to room where Tim slept, in the winter time the rain and sleet\ndrifted cheerily in through the cracks and covered the army blankets\nwhich covered him. But he didn't lie awake thinking about it--boys like\nTim who help on farms start playing shut-eye as soon as they hit the\npillow.\n\nOld Sergeant Gamelyn came of an ancestry which, somebody or other of\ndistinction once said--and very truly--is the backbone of the British\nArmy. To put it briefly, if not gracefully, \"what old Gamelyn didn't\nknow about soldiering weren't worth knowin'!\" He had the ten thousand\nand ten commandments of the King's Regulations always at his finger\ntips, and he and his people had served in the same battalion, under the\nsame officers or descendants for generations. There was Michael Gamelyn\nwho fell at Malplaquet; there was another Gamelyn who had served at\nMinden; four Gamelyns served through the Peninsular. But only one came\nthrough to Waterloo. Balaclava, the Indian Mutiny and Spion Kop each\nclaimed a Gamelyn, and when the British troops returned from Lhasa in\n1904 they left one Sergeant Royden Gamelyn--resting in peace ten paces\nto the rear of the Pargo Keeling Gate. Of course Tim Gamelyn grew up in\nthe shadow of these things. There was an old book in his father's oak\nkit box which Tim loved. In it he read about forgotten drill and manual\nexercises, the uncomfortable and graceless man[oe]uvres of the rigid but\nredoubtable men who fought at Waterloo. Also there were pictures in\ncolour of warriors in three-cornered hats, high stocks and powdered\nwigs. These men Tim worshipped. He had by heart the quaint words of\ncommand in which Wellington's men were told to charge a musket with\npowder and ball. And I doubt not that he could have taken a brigade and\nmarched them to the attack with the best of the old-time sergeants.\n\nThen in August 1914 came the great war, and when Tim suggested going\ninto Dublin to see Colonel Arbuthnot about joining up to that battalion\nthrough which all the best of the Gamelyn men had passed, his mother\ntried to laugh. But Tim saw the tears running down her cheeks, as she\nthrew her apron over her head and went out to bring the clothes in off\nthe line. His father then flung out his hand to him and said:\n\n\"Good boy, I thought 'twas in you. Good luck.\"\n\nBut when Tim joined his regiment soldiering had taken many new turns.\nThe modern rifle would not allow men to march into battle with colours\nflying and bands playing: the old brave way was impossible in the face\nof machine guns. The pomp and pageantry of battle had departed and there\nwas nothing left but for the attacking party to crawl in a most\ninelegant fashion upon the ground.\n\n\"Down!\" cried the sergeant-instructor to poor Tim, who started his\nlessons in field training with some vague idea about marching on the foe\nwith \"head and eyes erect\" and with \"pace unfaltering and slow.\" \"When\nyou get out to Flanders you will have to get right down on your belly if\nyou want to _live_ a little longer than ten minutes. Extend to\nfive-six-ten paces and get as close to old mother earth as possible and\nhide your bloomin' selves!\"\n\n\"Hide yourselves!\" thought Tim. \"Not thus is it written in my father's\nbook of drill! It plainly said therein that the duty of a soldier was to\nlearn how to die, not to hide from death.\"\n\nCrushed and dejected he returned that morning to breakfast to wolf a\nchunk of bread and butter, washed down by dishwater, misnamed tea.\n\nAfter breakfast he retired to a corner and thought it all out. The words\nof the Sergeant came back to him: \"_Hide yourself if yer want to live!_\"\n\nThese words stuck in his memory, as words which bring a new light on an\noutlook will. That was the start of his demoralisation. He was the first\nof all his line who had been told to hide himself from death. No more\nthe worsted bravery, the pipeclay, lace and scarlet. No more the old\nmilitary swagger. No more the drummer boy with a waist like a French\ndancing girl, wrists like Bombardier Wells, and shoulders like a wooden\nman out of a Noah's Ark. No more the throbbing and growling of the\ndrums; the staccato detonations and the insolent crescendoes of the\ndrums. No more the wild music that the bands played to the men who\nfought at Minden, Malplaquet and Wynendael. No more the brushing of a\ncomrade's arm one's own, inspiring boldness; no more a thousand red\ncoats marching on the enemy with slow and unfaltering pace. Tim could\nsee the men of his dreams now, in his mind's eye, marching with heads\nand eyes erect ... see, too, the smoke of continuous volleys bursting\nout along the steady lines as they fired by sections and companies on\ntheir foes. Well, it was all a thing of the past now. It was plainly his\nduty not to be reckless. \"Do not be dashing, do not expose yourself, do\nnot cheer and make a noise,\" they said; \"creep along like a worm in the\ngrass; be crafty, be wary--and fall down on the face before death.\"\n\nIt did not stop there. Lastly and worst they took away the officers of\nhis dreams. They even dressed them like privates and some were armed\nwith rifles. There were no flashing swords to follow. Not once did he\nsee an officer anything like his father's picture of the Duke of\nWellington on the white horse pointing a curly sword to the skies and\nwaving a cocked hat. Then there came the day when Tim made his first\nacquaintance with field training, and beheld a loose and disorderly\nscramble which men called an advance. To him it seemed just a mob of\nmasterless men, crawling and crouching on the grass, firing as they\npassed, and bowing cringingly before death. It was a sight he could\nhardly endure--an exhibition offensive to any soldier whose forbears had\nlearnt to achieve the impossible as a matter of routine and had held\nfirm for half a day at Quatre Bras with never so much as the flicker of\nan eye-lid. Gad! there could only be one end to this kow-towing to\ndeath, and that would be disaster and disgrace.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe long dull plains of northern Europe stretched before Tim's\ngaze--great undulations of hard, hot earth and waving grass. He'd been\nmarching all day, and it was hot. Hot!... ye Gods!... On those plains it\nwas like a Turkish bath. Then \"down\" came the order, and the battalion\nflung itself to the ground. Oh, but it was good to rest! Towards sunset\nthe clouds piled up blacker and blacker, and some hung frothy over the\nridge in the distance. As the sun dropped, the west turned red--all\nblood red--and he heard the order to march. He heard the word passed\ndown the line in half whispers, and the impressive sound of regiments\ngetting under arms came to his ears. Another five miles they marched\nand halted for tea. Then all the men became very silent--and while they\nrested they talked in whispers as they watched the awful sky. When it\ngrew dark the flick-flack of lightening played across the sky and it\nshowed the men's faces white and drawn. Presently Tim's Company\nlieutenant came up with the news that they would not be able to rest\nuntil morning as they had anticipated. There could be no stopping, for\nthe regiment had to reach the rendezvous at daybreak. As the storm\nrolled nearer, the wind got up, in puffs--first warm and then cold, and\na few drops of rain fell--great drops that fell flop-flop-flop--on Tim's\nface. With a flash that leapt crackling over the plain, the storm loosed\nitself. The lightning turned the rain into sheets of glittering silver,\nand the hot ground fairly boiled. Tim, with a thousand others drenched,\nand blinded, struggled over the slippery turf. That was a storm. Tim\ncould have seen to read; and the thunder wrestled in the low churning\nclouds like a million devils, and through it all ran the chorus of wind\nand lashing rain. Presently the storm lessened and died away, and the\nrain settled to pour down on them for an hour or so. The squelch-squelch\nof soaking boots and the creaking of leather equipment was all he heard.\nThey halted for breakfast, and Tim chewed his rations sitting on the\nsodden ground in sodden clothes; and as he sipped his lukewarm coffee,\nhe shivered in the coming dawn.\n\nAlmost immediately they went on again.\n\nRight before them, at the head of a valley, rose a ridge. In the creepy\nlight it looked miles high and a million spitting points of fire flashed\nfrom it. The British guns in the woods at the back then began, and they\nseemed to have no relation to the unvarying plumes of smoke bursting\nabove the long lines of fresh-turned earth two thousand yards away--no\nconnection with the screeching of the shells overhead. \"Extended order!\"\ncame the command, and Tim with his regiment stumbled forward. His breath\ncame and went in little painful gasps. From the right came a curious\ngasping choke, and looking, he saw the man next to him throw up his arms\nand pitch forward on his face. Suddenly he became aware of a peculiar\nwailing above him, as if the air itself was in torture. Again a long\nline of fire flashed out ahead of him and again came the wailing sound.\nA Boche machine-gun loosed a few belts of cartridges in the spasmodic\nstyle of her kind. There was no mistake about it this time--massed\ninfantry were sweeping the plain with rifle fire, and the quick-firers\nwere feeling for an opening.\n\nAnother man was hit--close to Tim. He squealed like a girl; and a fellow\nnear turned a dirty white, stumbled, with a clatter fell in a fainting\nfit. Tardily the men advanced, and any acute observer would have seen\nthey had little heart in the business. Some hung behind almost\nunconsciously, and had to be hurried up by the sergeants. The bullets\nbecame more thick. A man started to blubber behind. \"Gawd 'ave mercy! I\n... I can't stand it! I won't go on!\" he whined. It turned out to be a\nsergeant, who had broken down too. He'd had little rest, poor chap,\nthrough shepherding his company ... and now he had knocked under. The\ncompany swayed and hesitated. Some of them faced round. It was touch and\ngo. \"Steady there! Steady! Come on, men;\" said Stansfield, the little\ncompany lieutenant, as the men wavered on the grey edge of collapse.\n\"Steady that company; what in hell's the matter with 'em. Keep your men\nup and going, Sir!\" shouted a captain rushing over. But the company had\ngone all to pieces. The fire of battle had departed from them, and it\nflung itself on the ground. And soon the whole battalion was taking\ncover in the same way. A captain called on Tim's company to advance. Two\nmen obeyed and one of them was Tim. But the enemy's fire redoubled and\nthe other man was shot, and so Tim at once took cover again. The saying\nof his sergeant-instructor in England came to his mind, that a man must\nlie down and hide if he wished to live, and he felt quite justified in\nhugging the earth. Tim ached in every inch of his body. Surely\nsomething was snapping in his brain, for those dusty khaki figures on\nthe ground, the sky, the earth all seemed to be dancing madly about him.\nIt was not yet light and Tim strained his eyes to pierce the darkness.\nThen he made a discovery. A dark mass, like some prehistoric monster,\nwas gradually approaching. Tim spoke to a man next to him who was softly\nswearing and bandaging a shattered hand. He peered through the light and\nhalf-light of dawn, and then started to laugh in a nervous way. \"Hell,\nmate;\" he said, \"the whole German race are advancing against us; it's\nall up with us. Look, they are coming on like a solid wall ... springing\nout of the earth just solid ... no end to 'em.\"\n\nIt was just about that time that Tim observed a light mist rising in\nfront of him. It seemed to scintillate and sparkle as it rose, and\ncurled in a sort of pillar or spiral. \"Great Heaven!\" he whispered to\nhimself, \"the thing is taking shape.\"\n\nAnd true enough, in a very few moments he saw standing erect in front of\nhim a tall man--and he was dressed in shining armour; that was the\nstrange thing about him. A strange-looking fellow this! He was more like\na Spaniard than an Englishman, with black eyes and olive complexion. His\nexpression was lofty and noble, and his tall lithe figure was in strict\naccordance with British traditions. So were the bold features, which\nwere rather marred by a white scar which stretched from his left nostril\nto the angle of his jaw. But the jet-black hair and the eyes--the deep,\ndark, challenging eyes--were those of Seville. A straight sword by his\nside and a painted long-bow at his shoulder proclaimed him a bowman. A\nwhite surcoat with the red lion of St. George upon it covered his broad\nchest, while a sprig of new-plucked furze at the side of his steel cap\ngave a touch of gaiety to his grim war-worn clothes.\n\nNo sooner had Tim looked up than a deep rich voice exclaimed:\n\n\"_Corpus Domini!_ do you need a leader?\"\n\nTim was not a man to be easily startled, and with the bullets whining\nand ping-thudding all around him, it was no manner of a time to be\neasily startled. But the voice, on account of its unearthly sound,\nfairly made him jump. He picked up his rifle, and stood upright. \"Come\nalong! Come along!\" the voice went on. \"Why dost stand there, De\nGamelyn?\"\n\n\"Oh, my God! I ... I can't stand it! The loss of blood and the marching\nhas done for me!\"\n\n\"So! coming into the fight like a lion, you go out like a lamb. By Saint\nPaul! this is not in accordance with the De Gamelyn traditions. Take up\nthy arms! Come along!\" said the stranger tapping him on the shoulder\nwith a barbed shaft trimmed with grey goose feather.\n\n\"Oh! please ... please.... I'm so tired!\" said Tim, like a child\nspeaking to its nurse.\n\nThe bowman saw that the boy's lips and tongue were black with thirst,\nand his eyes were blood-shot. And when Tim staggered over to him all his\nbody heaved and trembled like an overdriven horse. Sick and dizzy with\npain, he cast himself to earth again, and waited for death. \"Why don't\nthey hit me?... I've tried,--oh, so hard!\" he sobbed.\n\n\"Steady there! Steady, De Gamelyn! Take this,\" said the bowman, and drew\nsomething from his side and handed it to him. It was a sword, if swords\nbe made of fire, of lightning, of dazzling lights; and the moment Tim\ngrasped it all his pain and dizziness fell from him.\n\n\"What is this?\" he asked.\n\n\"The Sword of Life and Death,\" said the bowman.\n\n\"Who the blazes are you?\" Tim asked sceptically.\n\nIt was with a touch of the Irish brogue that a cheery voice answered. \"A\nfriend to a friend,\" said the bowman, \"and the devil to a foe.\"\n\n\"Irish?\" Tim questioned.\n\n\"Citizen of the world in time past ... now a citizen of heaven.\"\n\nTim gazed at the strange man in earnest scrutiny. He appeared quite at\nhis ease with bullets whining around him and he unslung a jack of wine\nand drank.\n\n\"May a parched man claim a drink of your wine?\" Tim cried.\n\n\"Give what you have, ask what you need. That is the De Gamelyn code of\nlaw,\" said the man, and handed Tim the flagon.\n\n\"You are cheerful, sir,\" said Tim, his blood somewhat warmed by the\nwine. \"In the name of the devil, who are you, and of what country?\"\n\n\"My name is Nigel De Gamelyn. My Mother, dear soul, was French. My\nfather was wise enough to be an Irishman. So much for my blood, which\nunites happily the practical and the dreamer fluids. I am of no country\nbut I know all places from the King's tombs at Rome to the old inns that\nstand about the upper Arun. I have marched with armies over this\nterritory aforetime. There is no shadow, I believe, on my soul, has such\nstrength in him as I, and I rest content to be nothing to myself and all\nthings to every man. That being bliss.\"\n\nAs the bowman spoke, a bullet kicked up a cloud of dust at his feet.\n\n\"Hola, by my hilt! it is time that we were stirring,\" he said. \"Leave\nthese fellows to grovel and remove yourself. Follow: who follows Nigel\nde Gamelyn?\" He hitched up his belt and strode forward with his great\nbow, and Tim saw him send a shaft with a twanging noise five hundred and\nthirty paces. One of the German officers, towering above the other men,\nstood out distinctly, and then he dropped.\n\n\"I'd like to take a look at that knave,\" the bowman remarked, drawing a\nfresh arrow from his sheaf. \"By the twang of string! I'll swear I\ndrilled him clean between his eyes.\"\n\nThe enemy were getting closer now, and from the men lying around them\nbroke a violent fusillade. It was quite useless, but it relieved their\nnerves. Some were discharging their shots into the turf a few yards in\nfront of them. Others were shooting at aeroplanes.\n\nThen suddenly there came upon Tim a great anger. A bullet striking him\nbrought him to his senses, and he saw the men sprawling belly-flat about\nhim. This was not war, this ignominious crawling, this grovelling in the\nsoil, this halting! The spirit of his fathers spoke to him. He\nremembered one of his father's favourite sayings: \"The duty of a man of\nthe line is to fight, and if needs be, die, not to avoid dying.\" His\nanger grew--\"damn them for a pack of cringing, footling cowards: he, Tim\nGamelyn, descendant of the De Gamelyns who fought in a hundred battles,\nwould teach them how men of his father's house went into battle.\"\n\nA senior officer called on those nearest to Tim to advance. And men rose\nup.\n\n\"D. Company, fix bayonets! Close in!\" came the order. Tim gripped his\nsword and strode over to the Bowman. Then the advancing Germans poured a\nblasting volley on them.\n\n\"The Old Battalion--_charge!_\" came the stentorian voice of a senior.\nThe men scrambled to their feet, and Tim following the Bowman sprang\nahead of the Battalion. The men leapt across the blood-smeared grass\nafter them with the speed of a winged fury, but they struck the Germans\na dozen yards ahead of the battalion. The bowman had hurled aside his\nlong bow and was using a short battle mace with terrific effect. As for\nTim: all he wanted to do was to slash; stab and slash again with that\nwonderful sword. There followed a nightmare of drawn, grinning faces, of\nfierce yells and groans. The mud-stained grey figures struck at him\nwildly, futilely. On and on Tim went, his glittering blade now at a\nwhite face, now at a throat, now at a chest, still stabbing and\nthrusting to pass through the wall of men which barred his way.\n\nThe man with the bow ranged up alongside him: \"On, man, on, in the name\nof God, march forward.... By St. George and Our Lady! we are breaking up\ntheir front;\" he muttered.\n\n\"Strike me crimson!\" bellowed a man near to Tim, \"but you're a blooming\nmarvel! Those German beggars are going down for twenty yards around\nyour (decorated) sword without being hit at all. Look! Look! there goes\nanother Hun down. Let me come over near you, mate!\"\n\nBut Tim knew that De Gamelyn the Bowman had summoned to their help the\narmies of the unconquered dead. They came, the De Gamelyns of all\ngenerations from Crecy to Waterloo: they fought by his side, and the\nmachine gun bullets, which fell upon the dusty earth like tropical rain,\nhurt them not.\n\nAgain and again the Bowman's mace smashed and lashed out before him, and\nTim thrust, and thrust yet again with his sword. He heard the\ndeep-throated roar of the bowman's singing \"The Song of the Bow.\"\n\n    What of the shaft?\n      The shaft was cut in England:\n    A long shaft, a strong shaft,\n      Barbed and trim and true;\n      So we'll drink all together\n      To the grey goose feather\n    And the land where the grey goose flew.\n\nSuddenly a yell, horrible and fierce, uprose from the soldiers, and he\nheard the bowman's voice no more.\n\n\"They're on the run, by Gawd, they've got it right in the neck this\njourney,\" bellowed a soldier as the German infantry broke and tailed\naway. Then something took Tim in the chest, something wet and red, that\nwent through him.\n\nThe man next to Tim saw the long bayonet stand out beyond his back, saw\nTim sway, laughing, and snap the steel short as he fell upon it.\n\nA body of kilted men suddenly swept from the right of the hard-pressed\nbattalion, swept by in silence, and in silence swept the remaining\nBoches up one side of the ridge and down the other into eternity.\n\nTwo days later Colonel Arbuthnot inquired after the welfare of Private\nTim Gamelyn at the field hospital.\n\n\"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke, and a terrible bayonet wound.\nHe died early in the morning,\" said the doctor.\n\n\"Is it true that he saved the battalion by urging our fellows on at the\ncritical moment?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Colonel Arbuthnot, \"but do you happen to know if he had an\nofficer's sword with him by chance when he was carried in here? All my\nmen speak of a 'sword of flame' with which he drove the Huns before him.\nEven hardened soldiers who have been through many campaigns have been\nbabbling all sorts of nonsense of ghostly regiments of bowmen who helped\nto turn the German attack!\"\n\nThe doctor walked over to a shelf, and, taking down a rusty old sword,\nplaced it on the table.\n\n\"Perhaps that is what you refer to, Colonel,\" he said. \"Where the fellow\npicked it up is a mystery to me. It must be some hundreds of years\nold.\"\n\nColonel Arbuthnot took it in his hands and read this inscription on the\nblade:\n\n    NIGEL DE GAMELYN\n      ... ADSUM ...\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE MILLS OF GOD\n\n\nThey were putting little Boudru to bed--the R.H.A. and the Corps of\nRoyal Engineers and Stansfield, the big fat Infantry Sergeant. His\nlittle sister, already tucked up in bed, was nearly asleep. Boudru had\nbeen allowed to stay up till Sergeant Stansfield had come in from duty.\nThe special privilege had been accorded to the little French boy on\nthis, the last night that the British troops were to spend in the\nvillage. Boudru's home was in a portion of our line in which the defence\ntrenches were of the semi-detached type--they did not join up with the\nother part of the line, and at times the place was distinctly unhealthy.\nSometimes it was in the hands of the Huns, sometimes the British rushed\nit, and held on for a few weeks; there had been times when it had been\noccupied by both, at other times it was written on the squared official\nmaps as no man's land. It was a spot in which there was always a feeling\nof something dreadful being close at hand; there was an air of\nexpectancy about it and one felt there was a marked atmosphere of\nnerves about. You might be sniped from the house opposite, or blown out\nof the windows by a seventeen-inch shell. You never know. The man who\nsold you tobacco the day before might be lying stiff in the gutter next\nday, or more probably still, he might be dining with the German Staff a\nmile and a half away. All this uncertainty, coupled with the fact that\nthe place was full of spies, and that valuable information had been\nfinding its way through to the German lines, made the General decide to\nwithdraw his troops and take up some trenches behind it.\n\nBoudru sat on the big armchair and swung his white bare legs defiantly.\nPerhaps it had better be explained that my lord Boudru was five years\nold. \"Boudru going to shut eye?\" said the fat infantry sergeant\nsuggestively.\n\n\"The cots are down and the beds unrolled,\" said the R.H.A. man falling\ninto the diction of the barrack-room.\n\n\"No,\" said Boudru. \"You must tell me for the last time the story about\nthe wicked German baby killer who was turned into a pig. The man of the\nguns must tell it, and the fat man of the infantry shall hide beneath\nthe bed and make pig shrieks--many pig shrieks--at the time when he is\nkilled.\"\n\n\"But we shall disturb little sister Elise,\" said the fat sergeant with\nvisions of a dismal ten minutes wedged beneath the small cot and the\nfloor.\n\n\"Elise is not bye-o yet,\" piped a thin voice from where two eyes were\nsparkling elfishly from a tangle of golden locks.\n\n\"Go on, my English man--There was once a big fat baby killer who lived\nin Potsdam ...\"\n\nThen the R.H.A. man (a journalist by profession, a duke by inclination,\nand now by destiny a very clever gunner) began the famous story. Never\nbefore had the telling of that tale been given with such splendour of\neffect. The fat sergeant had made pig-noises with multitudinous yells in\nat least fifteen different keys, and the little cross-eyed driver of the\nEngineers had dressed up in a real Hun helmet and grey coat. The grand\nfinale in which the Engineer had turned into a pig on all fours and had\nbeen mercilessly put to death with the fat sergeant's bayonet, had\nfilled Boudru's soul with joy. He reflected and gloated on the scene far\ninto the night. Then he fell fast asleep and met with most dazzling\nadventures with a German soldier who had been hiding in the Jacobean oak\nchest with the fleur-de-lis carved on the side, which stands beneath the\nbulgy leaded window.\n\nAs a grey and wretched dawn came in with a cold and dispiriting rain\nthere came to the ears of little Boudru the steady champing of marching\nfeet in the street below. Slush, slush, slush went all those feet,\nbeating the muddy road, and then the noise of metal on metal woke the\nsilent village streets as the guns went by.\n\n\"The soldiers! The soldiers!\" exclaimed Boudru as he bounded over and\njumped on to the Jacobean chest to watch them pass. It was fated that\nthey were the last English soldiers that Boudru would ever see.\n\nSome weeks later Boudru's mother was busy with odd jobs in the kitchen\ngarden and the children were playing in the front room, there was a ring\nat the door and the sound of a butt-end of a rifle, as it \"grounded\" on\nthe cobble stones. When Boudru on tiptoe lifted the latch, the door\nswung open, and a big man in a greenish uniform stood before him. There\nwas no sign of cap-badge or title on his shoulder straps, and he was\nhorribly dirty. He carried two English ration bags, besides his own\nrucksack, and they were all filled to bursting with loot. Evil beamed\nfrom his narrow, leering eyes; and when he smiled at Boudru it twirled\nhis demon-like mouth into a grotesque shape. He looked both depraved and\nsuspicious, a disreputable scoundrel with a gun, and that, you will find\nin the fullness of time, was just what he was.\n\n\"Let us shut the door,\" said Elise. \"This is not a pretty man.\" But the\nman from Stettin pushed past.\n\n\"Brat;\" said he, \"drink.\"\n\nBoudru's mother had hurried up to the door as fast as her bulk and her\nstout legs would permit.\n\nEvery day she had expected a visit from the Huns. It was useless to\nargue with such a man, so she took the German in.\n\n\"Brandy,\" said the man.\n\n\"There is only a little left ... it is over there, on the sideboard.\"\n\nThe soldier walked over, finished half a bottle, and announced that it\nwas like water.\n\n\"More,\" he ordered, \"Shoot you if no find.\"\n\nThe woman at last managed to unearth a bottle of good Burgundy and\nanother bottle of brandy.\n\nHe drank both the bottles, and when he had finished, he asked for more\nlike every other Boche will do. Then he chose the front bedroom and\nthrew himself down on the bed in a drunken sleep.\n\nWhen the next morning broke the French woman went to awaken the thief\nand while the latter was making his toilet little Boudru entered. He\nregarded the Hun with gravity for at least five minutes and then\ndelivered himself of his opinion.\n\n\"I don't like you,\" he said slowly, regarding the Hun, with his elfish\neyes. \"I don't like you. I think you may be like the man in the English\nsoldiers' story, who turned into a pig--a baby killer perhaps. It is\nbecause of your red hair that I think you may turn ...\"\n\nThe man from Stettin who had been trying to drag a comb through his\nhorrible beard and hair, turned, and he looked like a big red devil, the\nsun being on his head, and red beard and all.\n\n\"What's that?\" he said, as he lurched ominously across the room. He had\nswallowed the contents of a flask of Benedictine which he had taken from\nhis rucksack, and the repeated drinks were taking effect.\n\n\"I'll sweep the house, so there isn't a bug in a blanket left--you\ndamned brat!\" He was bellowing like a bull, chewing his red beard and\nmuttering to himself. As he passed a table, he knocked the empty flask\non the floor. It did not break, and he viciously stamped his feet on it,\nsmashing it to pieces. He began to go mad from that moment. As he kicked\nthe wreckage about the room, his glance fell upon his rifle with the\nfixed bayonet. And then the swine-dog ran amok. Boudru stood with his\nback to the door: the blood froze in his veins, and his little body\nstiffened into absolute rigidity.\n\n\"Turn into a pig!\" shrieked the Hun. \"What did you say? Turn into ...\"\n\nThe bayonet flashed, and little Boudru--but what followed shall not be\nprinted. It would be passing the decent bounds of descriptive writing to\nput it in black and white. It is sufficient to say that some minutes\nlater the Hun prised the floor-boards up with his bayonet, and Boudru,\nfrom that moment, without warning, or leaving any trace, disappeared\nfrom the world. He returned in the fullness of time. And this was the\nway of it.\n\nFor the hundredth time that day, the Hun had gone into the bedroom to\nlook out of the bulgy bedroom window. Fear began to come over him\nwithout any warning, and he was thinking of little Boudru down there in\nthe dark. The thing within him that served him for a heart was beating\nqueer rhythms ... the beating sounded like a regiment of British\nInfantry on the march.\n\n\"Look,\" said he to the housewife, \"look out on the road. Do you see\nsoldiers?\"\n\nThe good woman, distraught between suspense and hope for her little one,\nwho had been missing for six long hours, blinked away a tear on her\nlashes and peered through the diamond panes.\n\nNo one was to be seen. But between three and four in the morning the\nfirst faint champing of marching feet could be heard and the Hun came\ndown from the bedroom looking as pale as death. He opened the door and\nstood there listening. The insolent crunch, crunch, crunch of heavy\nnail-studded service boots came nearer, and a khaki column appeared on\nthe winding road. The housewife, whose aching eyes had searched the road\nfor Boudru all day, saw them too.\n\n\"Look,\" she cried, \"look! The English soldiers are coming. Do you see?\"\n\n_They were coming!_\n\nThe man from Stettin rushed up to the bedroom, and jumped into the oak\nchest.\n\n\"Not tell the English! Not tell!\"\n\nFifteen or twenty soldiers were to be heard grounding rifles and\nthrowing off their equipment in front of the house.\n\nEntered here Sergeant Stansfield, and shouted gaily to the housewife,\nbut the moment he looked into her pale and worn face he understood that\nsome sorrow had befallen her. Before he could hold her she had slid\nsilently down on the floor, at his feet, and covered her face.\n\"Ah,--ah,--ah! O God, help and pity me! They have taken my little son,\"\nshe cried.\n\nAt this moment a soldier rushed in at the door. \"I think there is a man\nwho looks like a Boche trying to get out of the bedroom window!\" he\nsaid. \"Will you come, Sergeant? Quick!\"\n\nThe sergeant went quickly, and returned with some men with fixed\nbayonets and led them up to the bedroom: He told them to break in. The\nman was on his knees, with his horrible hands lifted up in supplication.\nThe soldiers kicked the man up and made him go downstairs into the front\nroom.\n\n\"See!\" said a soldier, who held his bayonet ready, \"there is blood on\nhis sleeve.\" The Hun cursed within his heart.\n\n\"It was none of my shedding,\" he whimpered.\n\n\"I had not said so,\" returned the sergeant quietly.\n\n\"We are here to find that out. Perhaps you know something about the lost\nchild?\"\n\n\"I had no hand in it, God strike me dead!\" the Hun answered fervently.\n\nAt that moment there was a sort of earthquake upstairs, a clash of\nfalling bricks and slates, a crashing pandemonium that sent everyone's\nheart to his mouth. A shell had struck the roof. Then the ceiling above\nbulged like a stuffed sack and burst in a cloud of pink-yellow dust.\nSomething dropped with a dead thud fair and square in the centre of the\nfine oak refectory table. Sergeant Stansfield bent forward, looked, and\nthen started back. He gave a cry and turned sickly white. On the table\nlay _the little huddled form of Boudru_. The morning sun that had been\npaling the candles in the sconces, struck the golden hair and staring\neyes, that had a few hours before, held all the spring-time; struck,\ntoo, a heavy scarlet patch on the little overall, as the sergeant\ntenderly turned the little body over....\n\n\"Oh! God of Mercy!... How horrible! A bayonet through his heart ...\" he\nmuttered. The Hun's sleeve spotted with blood came back to his mind, and\nfilled him with blind, unreasoning rage.\n\n\"You swine,\" he said. \"I'll----\"\n\nThe man from Stettin suddenly felt his heart stop beating. He stood\npetrified for a moment; then he clutched the table with one feverish\nmovement; and when he saw the pale cherub face, he became covered at\nonce with perspiration. Then the terror, which had paralyzed him a\nsecond or so, gave way to the wild instinct of self-preservation. He hit\nout wildly with both arms, kicking out at the same moment. In a second\nhe was out in the hall, and had locked the door behind him. A door\nopened somewhere outside, and they heard him running down the garden.\nSome of the men snatched their rifles, rushed to the window, and threw\nit open. Four or five shots rang out simultaneously, and the stench of\ncordite was wafted back on the sharp morning air as the man from Stettin\nfell in a crumpled heap, his face buried in a clump of violets. The\nsergeant went into the garden.\n\n\"Hum!\" he remarked after an instant, \"dead, did you say? He's as dead as\na doornail ... anyway, it's nothing to do with us! If ever a soul went\nstraight to hell,\" he muttered to himself, \"it was that red devil's.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE STORY OF A SPY\n\n\nDonald McNab, private (and distinguished ornament) of the London\nRegiment, leaned his elbows on the little oak table in the bar of the\n\"Three Nuns,\" and eyed me with withering contempt. From a corner of the\nsettle I stared--with a wholly unsuccessful attempt to look\nunconcerned--at a quaint old painting of Sergeant Broughton who first\ntaught Englishmen to box scientifically. When the great are really\nwrathful it ill becomes pigmy people to jabber or argue. So I waited\nwith bent head and respectful silence to which the passing moods of such\nan erratic genius are entitled.\n\nWhen McNab and I had met an hour or so before we had been on the most\nfriendly terms. We had both ordered our pint of beer, filled our pipes,\nand retired to a corner in the bar parlour feeling at peace with the\nworld--barring of course the German Empire and their allied forces.\nEverything, in fact, made for peace and goodwill between us; yet,\nbecause I had spoken with some levity about our incomplete spy system,\nMcNab's wrath had come down on my head like the proverbial \"hundred of\nbricks.\"\n\n\"It seems strange,\" I had remarked to him, \"that the Huns can always\nforestall our most carefully-prepared plans through their almost perfect\nspy system. Our fellows must be dead stupid at the game. Why aren't\nthese German vipers ever nabbed?\"\n\n\"Dead stupid!\" McNab had exclaimed, after gazing at me for a minute in\ndazed stupefaction at my unspeakable temerity in challenging the\nproficiency of the British Army. \"Get under your Blanco pot!\"\n\nNow, when McNab used this picturesque term to me I knew that there was a\nstorm brewing. He only used the expression when he wished to be\nparticularly \"cutting,\" and I received his reproof with, I hope, a\ncorrect realisation of my own insignificance.\n\nThe old world had rolled along for another twenty minutes ere McNab\nshifted his legs, cleared his throat, and interfered with what was left\nin his tankard.\n\n\"I wonder,\" he said musingly to himself, \"if these poor yobs over here\nwill ever know the true 'istory of this bloomin' war?\" Then back came a\nsmile to his face and he shook his head, indicating, perhaps, that he\nhad answered the question to his complete satisfaction. The joyousness\nat the thought of some of those unrecorded slices of military history\ncaused my friend to drop again into a contemplative mood, and he\nstarted humming a little tune under his breath:\n\n    Hello! Hello! who's your lady friend?\n    Who's the little girlie by your side?\n    I've seen you with a girl or two,\n    Oh, oh, oh, I AM surprised at you!\n    Hello! Hello! what's your little game?\n    Don't you think it's time your ways to mend?\n    That's not the gal I saw you with at Brighton,\n    Oh, oh, oh, who's your lady friend?\n\n\"If it is not a rude question,\" I ventured, after another few moments,\n\"did you ever see the capture of a German spy over in France, Mr.\nMcNab?\"\n\n\"Who are you getting at ... trying to pull my leg?\" he demanded, with\nincreased suspicion.\n\n\"Come, come,\" I laughed, \"let us agree to differ about our--er--inferior\nspy system.\"\n\n\"Superior,\" he insisted.\n\nI surrendered before the gleam of his eye. Fool that I had been, ever to\nhave imagined that I could conquer McNab's steely glance!\n\n\"Superior then, if you prefer it.\"\n\nMcNab's eyes, which had glared with indignation, lost their fire and\nassumed their normal expression of calm and relentless despotism, and\nthe red flag of agitated displeasure disappeared from his tanned face.\nHe seized with alacrity the olive branch (also another tankard of beer)\nwhich I held out to him.\n\n\"The history of the British Army,\" he observed as he blew at his ale\n\"'minds me of a married soldier's letter to his wife. The most\ninteresting parts are all left out ... do you get me?\"\n\nMcNab tilted his hat at a perilous angle on one side of his head, and\nthrust his hands deep into his pockets.\n\n\"Touching upon some of those unwritten exploits of the Army,\" I darkly\nhinted: \"I'll bet I can find a brilliant historiographer not a hundred\nmiles away from the 'Three Nuns' who could dictate a few of 'em that\nwould fairly make the _Daily Mail_ turn green with envy--eh, McNab?\"\n\n\"I know the brilliant bloke you mean,\" my friend conceded modestly,\n\"though calling me 'orrible names like that would brand you as a swanker\nor a gentleman wot had left his manners in the hall in any barrack room\nfrom here to Hindustan. When we were resting at Quality Street near\nLoos, for example\"--he paused a moment, and with a playful dig from his\nbanana-like thumb nearly knocked me on the floor--\"why, name of a dog!\nThere you have a case in point!\"\n\n\"A case of a swanker?\"\n\n\"A case of one of those spies. We caught the perisher. Begad, we did!\"\n\nMcNab put the red-hot end of a cigarette into his mouth, stammered with\nwrath in a medley of international profanity at the unexpected warmth,\nand would not be comforted till his favourite barmaid had placed a\nslice of cooling lemon on his tongue.\n\n\"My first introduction to the entertaining sport of spy tracking,\" he\nmumbled, \"was at Loos, where I was sent with several hundred other chaps\nto help push the Huns out of the Hohenzollern Redoubt. At the present\nmoment, as you know (or ought to by this time), I am a military genius\n'ighly thought of at the War Office, a strategist Kitchener has his eye\non, and a model soldier quoted every day by my colonel as a shining\nlight to the regiment. But of course you must remember that a few months\nago I was practically a yob at the game, and now of the fame (and the\nextreme shyness that seems to come with it) of my later avatar.\n\n\"We took over some temporary billets at a shady little spot not far\nbehind the British trenches which was then known as 'Quality Street,'\"\nhe continued, \"and, as I not unreasonably supposed that the smartest and\nmost intelligent bloke in the regiment would be sent to 'elp the\ncolonel, I requested the Dog's Leg (Anglice--lance-corporal) to point\nout his abode to me.\n\n\"'Ask the Quarter Bloke over along in the end cottage, old sport,' he\nsaid with a grin, 'he'll be most 'appy, I've no doubt to personally\nconduct to the old pot-an-pan, and while you're there just ask him to\nlet you have that jug of defaulters' extra milk for me.' It was a\n'wheeze' among the boys to send a poor innocent bloke off for this\nmilk. The point of the 'wheeze' is in the fact that as defaulters are\nchaps doing jankers (Anglice--punishment) they are hardly likely to get\nany extra milk dished out to them. I did not see the joke at first; but\non application to that autocratic beggar--Quartermaster King was his\ntally--he fully explained things to me in that witheringly sarcastic\nmanner peculiar to sergeant-majors and quarter-blokes.\n\n\"'Defaulter's milk?' echoed he. 'Why, you lop-eared leper, you've got\ncorpuscular fool wrote as plain as a motor lorry number all over your\nugly face. If I wasn't sure that you was not more of a born idiot than a\nruddy knave, etc., etc., etc., I would have you slick in mush before\nyour feet could touch the ground!'\n\n\"Much crest-fallen, and terribly mortified, I returned to the cottage\nwhich had been selected to shelter me noble self, only to be met there\nwith a volley of derisive laughter, repeated demands for the jug of\nDefaulter's milk, and questions about the quarter bloke's health.\n\n\"'A cat may look at a _King_,' said the Dog's Leg, and fell backwards\nout of the open window at his own joke, breaking 'is collar bone. One\nshould never forget, at every time, as the Scriptures say, that pride\nallus goes before a fall, and that all the King's 'orses and all the\nKing's men can't not even pick 'im up again!\"\n\nMy murmured compliments on his amazing aptness in the knowledge of Holy\nWrit were checked by a sudden discovery that my best silver cigarette\ncase had vanished from the table.\n\n\"Which of you civilians has stole the gentleman's silver case?\"\n\nThis question, uttered not in the friendliest possible terms, was\naddressed to a young gentleman with a very pimply face, and\nkaleidoscopic coloured socks, of the genus Slacker, who had suddenly\nfound the painting of Sergeant Broughton an object of absorbing\ninterest.\n\nThis inquiry meeting with no response from the Slimy Slacker, (to use\nMcNab's expressive name for him), he gave utterance to a sigh of\nresignation.\n\n\"I believe, sir,\" suggested an old gentleman who was warming his toes at\nthe fire, \"that you deposited the gentleman's cigarette\ncase--er--inadvertently in your own pocket!\"\n\n\"Why, strike me crimson!\" cried McNab, diving his beef-steakish hands\ninto his tunic pockets. \"Why, so I did! I'm the biggest giddy fool at\nthat kind of wheeze that ever lived. It's a knock-out, ain't it? Never\nmind--'_honi soit qui mal y_ eighteen pence,' as the French poet bloke\nsaid!\n\n\"It so happened that on the very next day our old man's servant went\nsick, and in spite of my extreme youth and innocence, I was selected\nfrom the crowd to fill the vacant billet. And then it was that the\nColonel realised that fate had dropped a heaven-sent blessing on his\nknees in the shape of a--well, in the shape of an ingenious bloke like\nme. He lifted up his voice in thanksgiving for that the British Army\nheld warriors so wise, and then looked up his whiskey and cigars.\n\n\"At one end of Quality Street there stood a Y.M.C.A. hut. On the next\nday when I pushed the door of this Bun-Wallah's paradise open, the first\nperson I saw was old Tommy--Tommy wot had fought up and down the\nGodforsaken veldt with me for three years on end, Tommy who had always\nthe knack of droppin' out of the blue from nowhere.\n\n\"'Well, 'ere's a go!' he cried dropping half a cup of boiling coffee\ndown another chap's neck, as 'is smile broadened, 'it's a 'ell of a time\nsince I struck you.'\n\n\"I saw the dawn of recognition on his ugly mug; and I could have guessed\nto a word the joyful expressions of welcome that were springing to his\nlips.\"\n\nMcNab paused.\n\n\"Quite so,\" I prompted, seeing the change that took place in my friend's\nface.\n\n\"I am afraid I should have guessed dead wrong,\" continued McNab with his\neyes downcast. \"However, what he did spit out was: 'strike me up a\ngum-tree if it ain't the bloke what borrowed 'alf a crown off me when I\nwas quartered at the \"Shot\" in '98.'\n\n\"I was pretty well worked up at this remark; but I said to him with\nquiet dignity: 'I believe, Tommy, that I sent it back by post.'\n\n\"'You sent me back a threepenny bit,' he says, with a very naughty word,\n'and told me it was my 'alf crown worn down.'\n\n\"'Come, come, old chum!' I laughed, 'let us forget all about that, such\na thing is really only \"very small beer\" indeed.'\n\n\"'Humph!' grunted Tommy. 'It was a blighted small 'alf crown, too.'\n\n\"'Sit down,' he continued, clutching me by the wrist and dragging me\ninto a vacant chair. It was not in champagne, of course, that we drank\neach other's health. But you can always trust old Tommy to have a little\npig's ear hidden somewhere. 'What's the matter with a bottle of Bass?'\nsays he to me. ''Tis against ole Kitchener's wishes,' says I. 'Of course\nit is,' says Tommy; 'and wot is more, it's the ruin of dear ole\nEngland--God bless it!' 'Rot yar innards--let's go and 'ave some,' I\nsays bein' always one to reason out matters to a logical conclusion.\n\n\"There is a large slag heap in the neighbourhood of Quality Street where\nthe French and Germans met early in the war. They wanted each other's\ncompany exclusive on this here heap. Well, they met, and fell to arguin'\nwhether the French should 'ave it as a mounting for a few machine-guns\nor the Germans should keep it for sniping purposes. Hence the air was\nsoon clouded with shells, shrapnel, and all other deadly diseases.\nSeeing the children had got over their shyness in this little fright and\nhad really played quite a good game, this particular slag heap was\nbearing abundant fruit in the way of trophies. Furthermore, Tommy\nsuggested that it would be indeed nice if we could make our way there\none evening and collect a few German helmets, bayonets, and other\ncuriosities for the old people at home.\n\n\"As a result of our confabulation we found ourselves about ten that\nnight crawling up a hedge towards the slag heap in question. When we did\nget there we went and lost our blighted selves. How long we were\ncrawling and twisting about that Gawd-forsaken heap or which way our\nlines lay I'd no means of knowing. But poor old Tommy rolled down a bank\nwith an armful of German helmets and other trophies, making a noise like\na fire engine galloping up the Mile End Road. Then suddenly one of those\nGerman flares fell on the ground about a hundred yards away, and all\nthings, including Tommy and I, shone out in their naked splendour. Then\nyou can take it from me we _did_ see where we were.\n\n\"I thought Tommy was having a bad attack of epileptic fits for a moment,\ntill it transpired that he had flumped down on a dead Boche in\nendeavouring to escape the searching glare of the flare. After the\nthing had burnt its giddy self out Tommy crawled crab-fashion over into\nthe providential cutting in which I had taken shelter. He was wiping his\nforehead with the back of his hand, and he looked very solemn and rather\nfrightened. 'Did you spot that chap crouching in that V-shaped cutting\ndown there?' he said. 'I thought he was one of our old crowd at first,\nbut what with that cursed light and the excitement I could not be\ncertain.'\n\n\"'I saw nothing.'\n\n\"'Just before the flare went up I noticed a flash lamp; one of those\nthings used to give signals with. I got an awful turn then.'\n\n\"'Rot,' I said: 'I don't believe a word of it.'\n\n\"'Do you mind coming over this way then?' said Tommy.\n\n\"In the pitch-black darkness, guided by Tommy, I stumbled up a path\nwhich I'll swear was all of a one in three gradient. We came out upon a\nlittle ledge overlooking what we now knew to be the German lines. Tommy\nmotioned me to keep my eye on the V-shaped cutting in the slag below us.\n\n\"'I think the beggar is down in the extreme angle of the V,' he\nwhispered as he crawled beside me.\n\n\"Then I overbalanced, fell over the ridge, and dropped clean on to\nsomething soft and yielding below. Red specks dotted the blackness\nbefore my eyes for a few moments as I bounced on the hard stones. I\njumped up with a jerk and spun round to find, blocking my path, a\nmenacing figure regarding me over the barrel of a Browning pistol. In\nthe other hand he held an electric torch.\n\n\"'Don't move,' he said in good English.\n\n\"His tone was quiet and crisp, an' his face showed me that 'e was out\nfor blood.\n\n\"'I have it in my mind almost to be sorry for you, British Tommy,' he\nsaid calmly, 'You know too much. I am going to decide on the best way to\ndis----'\n\n\"He got as far as 'dis'--when something leaped out of the shadows and he\nwas hurled back with a sudden rush. It was Tommy, and he swung his heavy\nBoche rifle and stove the man down with terrific force. There was a\ndreadful half-choked, whimper and then silence.\n\n\"Tommy stood regarding the still form with a bleached face. He then bent\nover him, but without touching, looked up at me.\n\n\"'Saved a firing party the trouble,' he said. 'He's dead all right.'\n\n\"He straightened himself up.\n\n\"'What the devil shall we do with it, McNab?'\n\n\"''Tis a spy he was,' I answered, 'and it's ten to one that he has a\ncode or some kind of papers tucked away on him. Just run through his\npockets before we leave him.'\n\n\"'No, no,' Tommy said, 'I can't touch him he'll haunt me, sure.'\n\n\"The man was quite dead when I rolled him over. I took from his pockets\na leather bound code book, English, French and German bank notes, and a\ngold stop watch.\n\n\"'No good stayin' here,' said Tommy, 'I vote we crawl back and talk it\nover. This is a crummy old place.'\n\n\"When we got back to billets and examined our loot, it was a sure enough\nGerman spy's code book, and it contained a rough sketch of all our\ntrenches and what not, quite sufficient to use in conjunction with the\nsquared map he carried. The book was printed in German.\n\n\"'You know,' said Tommy, 'we must report this to the Colonel as soon as\nwe can.'\n\n\"'An' be collared for being out at night without a pass first thing? Not\nmuch,' said I.\n\n\"'We must hide this loot. They may search us when they find him out\nthere,' said Tommy, looking to the future.\n\n\"'Hide away, then,' I said, but my mind was elsewhere, for all of a\nsudden, I had been hit in the eye with a brilliant inspiration.\n\n\"The following morning, when I took our ole man his early tea, I found\n'im sitting up in bed sucking a fat cigar and bewilderin' himself with\nthe brigade orders.\n\n\"'I beg your pardon, sir!' I says, 'but may I have a word with you?'\n\n\"'You know, McNab,' he says, screwing his eye-glass into his eye with a\nsmile--'you know that I am at any hour of the day or night glad to have\na talk to a man of understanding like yourself.'\n\n\"'That's good of you, Colonel,' I says, 'to meet me with such kindness.\nBut I think, as you say, that I have just a little more than the usual\nshare of intellec' under my hat, but what I have come to lay before your\nnotice is this: I have discovered why the Boche guns always register on\nour artillery positions the moment they are taken up, and the source of\nthe leakage of information.'\n\n\"'Oh, you have, have you?' says he.\n\n\"''Tis a spy, sir,' says I, 'and it's signalling to the Huns he was when\nI caught him.'\n\n\"'Another blessed spy legend,' he yawned, 'I really thought that you,\nMcNab, would be the last man to become afflicted with the spy craze. I\nhave arrested half a dozen so-called spies this week already only to\nfind they were harmless rustics--'\n\n\"'I beg your pardon, Colonel,' I returns, with that chilling dignity\nwhich has at times even made generals falter, 'but there is no legend\nabout Private McNab's spy.'\n\n\"'Then trot out your spy,' he says, 'and I'll come and look 'im over.'\n\n\"'I not only caught him red-handed at his nefarious trafficking (them\nwas the very words I used) ... I not only caught the blighter, but I put\nhis light out.'\n\n\"'What?' he shouts, clutching my arm, 'you killed the poor brute.'\n\n\"'_We_ did--me and Tommy, and we found this here code in his fob,' said\nI.\n\n\"With that I threw the little code book on the bed, and the old man,\nafter looking through it carefully (he could read German, our old man),\ngot out of bed and started dressing in a businesslike way.\n\n\"'Shut that door, McNab,' says he, 'and let me have the benefit of your\ninvaluable advice.'\n\n\"All of a sudden I was struck with a brilliant inspiration, and I let\nthe old Colonel have it for what it was worth.\n\n\"As it happened the old man thought a mighty lot of it--such a lot, in\nfact, that by one o'clock that day he started to imagine the inspiration\nhad come from his own fertile brain. He liked to think that it was his,\nand, Lord bless 'im, I don't grudge him the glory.\n\n\"After laying our heads together, the Colonel went back to the artillery\nlines and spent three hours talking to the Battery Major, and I looted a\ndozen three-pounder rockets of var-i-ous colours out of the stores. In\nthe afternoon the Colonel called all his officers together, and kept the\nblighted motorcycle dispatch riders busy buzzing up and down the line\nwith messages, till late in the evening.\n\n\"'I have called you gentlemen together,' he says to his officer, 'in\norder to ask you to corporate with me. I shall fire some rockets from\nthe slag heap to-night about ten o'clock. On the first of these signals\nthe Germans will open a very heavy cannonade on our trenches. I'll\ntrouble you to have your men all in the dug-outs, and under cover at a\nquarter to ten!'\n\n\"That night, soon after the Colonel, Tommy and I started off for the\nslag heap in the dark, taking with us a bundle of rockets. My idea was\nat last going to be tested--what do you think it was, Sir?\"\n\nI discreetly pretended my utter inability to guess.\n\n\"Why, nothing more or less than to hoist these German blokes with their\nown petard, so to speak. We were going to fool them by giving them\nsignals in their own code. Well, after stumbling and groping about for\nhalf an hour,\" McNab continued, \"we arrived at the spot near where we\nhad overlooked the spy.\n\n\"'I think this is the ledge from which I fell,' Tommy whispered as we\ncrawled on. The next instant the Colonel disappeared, and the little\nprocession came to an abrupt standstill. A crashing noise was heard as\nthe old man with a quarter of a ton of slag went tobogganing down the\nstone-shod slope.\n\n\"'This _is_ the spot,' Tommy said tersely. And up to us came hoarse\nwhispered curses as our ole man tongue-lashed us for a full minute in\ngross and detail.\n\n\"'Lie quite still, Colonel,' I whispered, 'the Hun swine-dogs may send\nup a flare if they hear us.'\n\n\"But no flare flared, and no sniper sniped.\n\n\"'This game gives me the blooming creeps,' old Tommy muttered\nshudderingly, thinking of Huns and guns three miles deep all round.\nAfter that the Colonel struggled clear of the 'alf ton of slag atop o'\nhim. Tommy and I wandered a little more until we got down to the old\nman. Here we halted. 'Here's the place where we left the dead spy,' said\nTommy, his eyes peering into the darkness of the V-shaped cutting. 'I\ncan still see Fritz lying in the corner. We had better get right over\n_this_ side. Come on!'\n\n\"'I see,' said the Colonel. 'This is the key of the position. It\noverlooks the German trenches and when the spy was using his flash lamp\nhe could not be observed by the men in our lines.'\n\n\"'Good thing we short-circuited his little game,' reflected Tommy\nhugging an arm full of rockets.\n\n\"'Ah!' says he, fingering the electric torch. 'How this game of war\nmakes one think. My 'orizon has indeed broadened. Just to think that a\nfew flashes from this little chap will mean more than all those\nglittering stars above to the German fellows in the trenches over there.\nIt's simply ridiculous to waste our little concert on a few Huns in the\ntrenches to-night. We must socialise the whole blooming show. We must\nget the head up of all the Huns for miles around. Let us consult the\ncode book,' he said, and then opening it he read out some of the rocket\ncodes. They all seemed simple enough. But he had some difficulty in\nfinding the one he wanted, having first of all of course to translate\nthem into English; but presently he seized upon the one he wanted, he\nrepeated it over with delight:\n\n\"'_Two green rockets in rapid succession mean: \"Enemy making active\npreparations for offensive movement\" and when followed after a suitable\ninterval by a single red rocket, mean: \"Enemy will attack without\ndelay.\"_'\n\n\"'Touch off two green rockets, McNab, if you please,' said the Colonel\nwith a tremor in his voice.\n\n\"I touched off two three-pounders which rose several thousand yards, and\nburst into bunches of gorgeous stars. A faint clattering noise came to\nus from the Hun trenches, and we all hugged the earth fairly closely as\na rapid fusillade broke out from all quarters. Rifles cracked all around\nus to the extent of thousands, and with that a most impressive humming\nnoise, which I had never had the pleasure of hearing before, because\nbeing a soldier I had always formed a part of it--the noise of whole\narmies turning out to meet an attack.\n\n\"'Colonel,' I says, 'it may have escaped you that the angry and 'ighly\nintelligent Boche on our front will soon be sending up _their_ rockets\nto confuse our own men. Might I recommend a red rocket before they open\ntheir part of the ball, and bend the lights! That will spell to 'em:\nEnemy will attack without delay, and it will also expedite their\nartillery just a leetle.'\n\n\"The Colonel laid his hand on my shoulder.\n\n\"'McNab,' says he, 'there's worse blokes than you sitting on thrones.\nThey shall 'ave that red rocket. None the less,' he remarked, 'the\nsituation is undeniably getting a bit feverish. Trot out Red Rufus!'\n\n\"I rightly took the command to read:\n\n\"'Send up a red rocket.' Rufus soared up into the sky and burst into a\nred glare that simply shouted: 'Here they come after you' to the Huns.\n\n\"'Oh-h-h-h-h!' exclaimed old Tommy as the twirly-whirly red stars fell\nthrough the sky.\n\n\"'Silence!' said the old man. 'This is the sanguinary British\nExpeditionary Force, not a (decorated) Brock's Benefit at the Crystal\nPalace. What in Hong-Kong are you jumping about like a richly decorated\norgan-grinder's monkey for?'\n\n\"The Huns grasped the meaning of their dead spy's signal as soon as it\nshowed in the heavens, so to speak. We lay belly-flat and held our\nbreaths for a moment or so in silence, but we were about the only silent\nthings for a hundred miles. Flares went up by the thousand and\nsearchlights cut up the sky in every direction. All kinds of mysterious\nguns got into action and all the batteries for a hundred miles must have\nlet drive as well. From then on, for at least two hours, the shells\npoured excruciating-wise into our deserted trenches without\ncessation,--shrapnel, high explosive, six inch, twelve inch--thousands\nof pounds the Huns wasted that night.\n\n\"I wish you could have seen Tommy bowing to right and left of the German\ntrenches acknowledging the applause which the Huns would have given him\nif they'd known the facts. On the other hand, as the Colonel observed,\nthey might 'ave killed him.\n\n\"'They'll have to pull up their socks at Krupp's to replace the shells\nthey have blazed away in this little pantomime,' said Tommy pressing his\nhands to his sides. 'Star programme--heap big star programme! Phew! Oh,\nI wish I could stop laughing, I ain't 'ad such a laugh for years!'\n\n\"'And in this little code book here,' said the old man, a hand on each\nof our shoulders, 'there are hundreds of little love messages we can be\ngetting ready to surprise 'em with. Presently we'll begin to send 'em\ninstructions to concentrate their fire on empty houses--tell 'em they\nare chock-full of British troops. Then they'll fairly let loose the\nbow-yows of war. Damme, how their gunners will gun! Oblige me by\nthinking of four hundred guns, pumping val-u-able shells into an empty\nhouse.'\n\n\"The exquisite humour of it brought us down screaming with laughter in a\ntangle on the slag-heap. A searchlight broke out from the back of the\nHun trenches and began searching our lines.\n\n\"'They're looking for our attacking party, or the Angels of Mons,'\npanted the old man, his knees in a shell hole and his face in the grass.\n'Well, let's get our things packed and hurry back. I think they have\nsent back for a fresh supply of shells. The sooner we get out of it the\nbetter. Sufficient unto the day--or night, perhaps one should say.'\n\n\"Well, it's dry work talking,\" said McNab, wistfully surveying the\ninterior of his empty mug.\n\nI took measures--pint measures--to allay his thirst.\n\n\"Let me see now,\" he said; \"let me see.\"\n\n\"And did you do any signalling with the flash lamp the next night?\" I\ntimidly hinted, \"I believe you mentioned that it was your intention.\"\n\n\"Yes, we did have some fun, I can tell you, and 'twas better still next\nnight. Once more we returned, to the slag-heap, then,\" McNab swept on,\n\"we started to flash a few messages over to the German lines. They soon\npicked up our signals and after a brief interrogation they replied. Then\nthey started to ask questions. 'At which part of the British line would\nit be wise to launch an attack?' they flashed.\n\n\"And our old man flashed back a trench that was fairly bristly with\nmachine guns. Then they asked other questions, but we did not reply. We\nlaid low and said nothing, for you can take it from me, mister, that a\nreal spy is a man of few words, and playing with a flashlight in enemy\nlines is not exactly a healthy game.\n\n\"Had we have signalled too freely the Huns would have soon become\nsuspicious, for, mark you, the flares that we had popped off at 'em the\nnight before had left 'em with an uncomfortable feeling that their spy\nwas taking quite unreasonable risks. It is of course most unusual for a\nspy to make use of rocket signals. Do I make myself comprehensible?\"\n\n\"Perfectly. Did the Huns attack?\" I asked.\n\nMcNab nodded. \"They attacked us three days afterwards at five o'clock in\nthe morning. It was like a nightmare. The Germans came on, evidently\nthinking they were on a soft job, and you can realize what a wonderful\ntarget they made for the gunners who had been waiting for 'em. Such a\ntarget that gunners dream about but never see. We had some\neighteen-and-a-'arf-pounders not five hundred yards away, and they let\ngo right into the thick of 'em. And each case shot with its four hundred\nbullets swept and tore their ranks. With a mighty gasp and something\nlike a groan the Huns staggered, recovered, and with wild yells came\ncharging on to a hundred machine guns. And all the time the shells came\nover at them and tore wide swathes in their closely-packed ranks. Then\nour boys got into 'em and swept the remaining Huns into eternity!\"\n\n\"Unless this story had come from such a highly-reliable fountain-head,\nMcNab,\" I murmured, after a moment or so, \"I would never have believed\nthat the whole thing was not a fabrication.\"\n\nMcNab removed his pot of beer on one side, and leaned across the table.\nI moved my chair back quickly, just missing another vigorous stab from\nhis huge index-finger.\n\n\"The history of this war,\" he observed impressively, \"will be interwoven\nwith extraordinary things like this 'ere tale I have been telling you.\nAnd you may lay to it, mister, that the most extraordinary things of all\nwill never see the light of day in the printed page.\"\n\n\"I can _quite_ understand that,\" I said pointedly; \"for, although a\nstudent of military history of this war myself, I cannot recall a single\nreference to any of the remarkable events which occurred in the trenches\nduring the eight months you were with your regiment over there!\"\n\nMcNab regarded me for a full minute with rapidly-rising choler. Then he\nshifted his stare from me to an old gentleman who was warming his toes\nat the fire.\n\n\"The yarn I have told you is as true as the drill book, though you need\nnot believe it if you have conscientious objections. I have been\nrecounting real slices of history. Leastways, when I say history I may\nbe wrong, because they will never appear in history. But they\n_'appened_, Mister--'appened as surely as I am sitting here with an\nempty pot in front o' me. An'--an'----\" McNab stammered in his\nexcitement--\"if any bloke says they didn't, be jabers, I'll--I'll drink\nhis beer!\"\n\nBut neither the old gentleman nor any member of the company wished to\ndisagree with him, and he rose up from the chair with a mug to order his\nfinal half-pint. He returned (a trifle unsteadily, perhaps) with his\nbeer and a particularly vile cigar in his mouth. Whether it was the\neffect of the heat or the--er--beer I cannot say, but he blundered over\nmy legs, causing me a sharp twinge of pain.\n\n\"What an awkward beggar you are that you can't see to walk straight,\" I\nsaid.\n\nMcNab looked down at my legs after giving them another stirring up with\nhis foot. \"Why, Go' bless my soul,\" he said, \"it's quite true, I am an\nawkward devil. I certainly should have seen _those_ feet. However did\nyou get 'em into the bar?\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHROUGH THE FURNACE\n\n    Give us our rest, O Father, in thine own appointed time and of thy\n    gracious olden fashion. Lay thy annulling seal upon the o'erlabored\n    heart: drop thy healing nepenthe into the weary brain. Teach us not\n    to fear that which brings us nearer to Thee. Suffer us to go to\n    sleep with no more consciousness than the flowers that take no care\n    for their awakening. Give us this last and best of all thy\n    gifts--Parva domus, magna quies!\n\n\nHilaire O'Hagan sat in the September sunshine on the grass that skirted\nthe roadside. For some time he had been examining with a stare of\nmelancholy interest the worn toes of his boots. On his head was a dingy\nstraw hat; to his form and limbs there hung a faded and creased coat and\na pair of shiny black trousers;--he held in his hand five shillings\nwhich had been thrust into his hand when the prison gates had opened to\nhim that morning. He had taken the money and swaggered out with a\nparting gibe at the constable who closed the doors behind him.\n\nO'Hagan was an incorrigible rascal. Some years before, when he stood in\nthe Assize Court, a venerable judge had told him so. \"O'Hagan,\" said\nthe judge grimly, \"you are what I should term an incorrigible rogue, and\nI shall send you to prison for two years with hard labour. You have run\nacross my path many times before. When you gain your liberty it will be\nvery much to your advantage if you keep out of my way for good and all.\"\n\nO'Hagan had received the sentence with the same impertinent smirk on his\nface as he had received many similar sentences.\n\nNow he was a free man. He was powerful, full of health, and--lazy. He\nreflected aloud, with evident enjoyment (and in the speech of a lettered\ngentleman), \"This is indeed one of those days when it is good to be\nalive!\"\n\n\"O'Hagan!\" came a sudden voice, harsh and authoritative, from behind\nhim: He rose to his feet and faced about. In the roadway appeared the\nconstable to whom he had addressed some not over polite remarks on his\nway out of prison.\n\n\"Well?\" said O'Hagan.\n\nThe constable snorted. \"Didn't you hear me tell you to move on? We don't\nwant any habitual criminals hanging about here.\"\n\nO'Hagan dived his hands deep into the pockets of his shiny trousers and\nslouched along towards the next village. About a mile ahead was an inn\nhe knew of where he might enjoy a great refreshment, and drink the\nwaters of Lethe. He jingled the silver in his pocket and reflected that\nfor one night at least he could eat strongly, and drink largely, and\nsleep deeply.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOutside a house screened by a mysterious ten foot wall full of the plain\ndignity of unpretending age, a long grey motor car was standing. O'Hagan\nturned and surveyed it, and his quick eye rested upon a leather hand\ncase on a rug beneath the seat. It did not take him a moment to snatch\nit and hide it swiftly beneath his coat. For a second or so he stood\nback against the wall. At that moment a girl came out of the house, in\ncompany with an elderly gentleman, and walked towards the car. O'Hagan\nlooked at the girl swiftly. At the same time she glanced at him, and\ntheir eyes met. Things looked unhealthy for O'Hagan. But fate was\naltogether with him, and the motor moved off and left him standing there\nwith the case under his coat. No glorious figure, this man, but one of\nthose whom specialists now place amongst the doomed as cursed with the\ncriminal instinct, with the vices that require lavish means to feed\nthem--a man who only feels a thrill in life when he is preying on his\nfellows, or eluding the hand of justice.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nO'Hagan walked down the road a little way with his hand resting\nlovingly on the leather case. He turned a corner, cut through the hedge,\nand took a track across a field. In the shelter of a clump of bushes he\nsat leisurely on the grass and went over the contents. Among the various\nodds and ends was a leather purse. He opened it with trembling fingers.\nThere was a sovereign, five one pound notes folded up, eight shillings\nin silver, and a small silver cross hanging on a black silk riband. He\ndropped the silver with a sigh of satisfaction into his trousers pocket,\nand the notes he stored in the lining of his hat. He took up the little\ncross and was about to thrust it into the thick grass, when he paused\nfor a moment, and was aware of an oppressive feeling.\n\n    On a sudden, in the midst of men and day,\n      And while he sat and looked around,\n    He seemed to be in a bygone age,\n      And feel himself the shadow of a dream.\n\nO'Hagan felt that his body was decreasing, sinking under the green turf,\nfalling down, down, down, and yet \"He\" was still above, gazing,\nwondering, open-eyed, open-mouthed, as it were. Gradually, but none the\nless surely, he was being crowded round by many moving \"?'s\" which never\nseemed to grow distinct. He seemed to know at once he was back in the\ndays long past. He shut his eyes against a burning that felt like tears.\nWhen he opened them again he was looking at his own name, fairly carved\nin on the silver cross in quaint old English letters:\n\n    Hilaire O'Hagan\n\nThe clump of bushes before him was now obscured by a thin white cloud.\nAs he watched he was aware of a figure that stood out distinctly before\nhim. He was a man of his own height, thick-set, serious-looking, in a\nmonk's mantle and hood. O'Hagan gave a hurried glance, and as hurriedly\nturned his head away again. The face of the man exactly resembled his\nown. But it was an honest face, without the look of dissipation, and the\nsecret furtive air, which he knew marred his own features. He also\nthought he could see a faint nimbus round his head--but this may have\nbeen illusion. O'Hagan moved away as if he had no wish to see him; but\nthe stranger was not to be put off by any such trick. He touched\nO'Hagan's arm, and brought him to a standstill.\n\n\"Brother!\" he said in a gentle voice.\n\nO'Hagan pulled himself up sharply. For a moment it seemed as if he would\nhave refused to stay, but the next he realized that it would be of no\nuse.\n\n\"What do you want with me?\" he began. \"I know I'm a thief and a\ndrunkard. Do you want to hand me a Sunday School tract? If so get it\nover.\"\n\nThe stranger's hand tightened on his arm, and he began to speak in a\ncalm but strangely thrilling voice. \"It is written there: '_men do not\ndespise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry._'\"\n\n\"Well?\" said O'Hagan, trying to hold a countenance of little concern.\n\n\"Well?\" said the stranger, \"for why did you steal?\"\n\nO'Hagan coughed and held down his head.\n\n\"A man without scruple and without heart,\" the stranger remarked to\nhimself.\n\nO'Hagan looked up with a start. \"Look here,\" he began. \"You've no right\nto----\"\n\nThen of a sudden the mist began to rise from the clump of bushes and the\nstranger vanished. O'Hagan was back in the flesh. He stood there dazed\nfor the moment, with the little cross clutched in his hand. He sat down\nagain and _tried_ to force his spirit back to the other scene, but in\nvain. He felt that he had been thrilled through and through. The\noppression, however, unlike the stern-faced monk, did not vanish, it\ndeepened. A throbbing headache came on, which refused to be shaken off,\nand eventually sent O'Hagan to the \"Bell Inn\" to drink still deeper of\nthe waters of oblivion.\n\nThe day was already falling when he walked, jingling his silver, into\nthe sanded bar of the \"Bell Inn,\" and an hour or so later, when it began\nto fill with drovers and country folk, O'Hagan had looked much on the\ngood brown ale. He was in fact becoming very noisy. Seated in a corner,\nhe sang \"Nell and Roger at the Wake\" in a hoarse voice. The country folk\ngrinned and looked at him curiously.\n\n\"Shut your gab, old sport,\" said a rough-looking drover at last, \"that\nsong is not fit for decent folk to hear.\"\n\nO'Hagan swore like any trooper, and reached his hand out to a large\nspirit bottle at his elbow, and for a moment the drover thought he would\nget it thrown at his head. However, O'Hagan rose to his feet, made a bow\nto the company, and made an apology to the drover. He stood there, a\nblackguard on the face of him, but a gentleman in spite of that\nundefinable and vaguely repulsive smirk which played about his straight\nand refined mouth. He slunk away into the night.\n\nAs O'Hagan walked the night deepened in throbs of gathering darkness.\nThe sense of uneasiness that had been with him ever since the priest in\nthe cassock had appeared to him was not to be easily thrown off. He set\nhimself to argue down the uneasiness for which there was no more\nfoundation than a bad attack of \"nerves\" after the gloomy life in\nprison. He told himself, till he believed it, that a man--just a human\nman--had been crossing the fields, and that being smitten with religious\nfervour he had quoted the Scripture aloud, as he had often heard such\npeople do. He told himself it was mere fancy that was the cause of the\nbelief that something was _shining_ around the man's head. As he argued\nthese things away, and banished the face of his visitor, a certain sort\nof reason usurped his place. But he did not feel comfortable, however,\nhe fell short of any form of fear.\n\nIt was O'Hagan's whole business to find desolate corners, where he could\nsleep without the fear of interruption by the police; and hence being in\na part of the country that he knew well, he bethought himself suddenly\nof the great barn next to the mansion house at Tilney St. Lawrence. It\nwas always full of good hay, as large as a barrack and no thoroughfare\npassed within a quarter of a mile of it. In such a place, and with the\nscent of the hay to lull him, O'Hagan threw his tired body down, and\nsoon lost all the cares of the world in complete repose.\n\nAll his life O'Hagan had been a habitual dreamer; the nights were few,\nthat is to say, when on awakening he did not find that some mental\ntraffics and discoveries had been his, and at times, the whole night\nthrough he would meet with most dazzling adventures. In prison his\ndreams had been a great solace to him, and each night he had settled\ndown to devote the dark hours to the cultivation of joyous dreams. He\nwas one of those men who went to sleep fair and square, and looked for\ndreams. But as O'Hagan stretched in the hay, things were revealed to him\nthat were beyond all dreams, and of course he could not keep the\nstrange priest out of the vision. It opened with finding himself in\nfront of the doors of an old church, where, he understood, he was going\nto hide from someone who wanted to kill him. He knocked on the door and\nthe man who opened the door was the very priest he had seen in the\nafternoon. He asked him to step in and instantly turned round and walked\nup the dimly lit aisle, and O'Hagan understood that he had to follow. In\nsilence they passed through a small arch in the chancel and mounted a\nnarrow oak staircase with many corners and tortuous turns and arrived at\na small landing with a studded door set in it. Quite inexplicably\nO'Hagan's heart sank at the sight of it. However, the priest unlocked\nand opened it, and held it open for him to enter, and without coming in\nhimself, closed it. It was a small oak room with a stone floor, and a\ncurious smell at once attracted his notice. It was there--there, close\nto him--under his very nose--the strong, acrid odour of decay--the\nnauseating smell of the grave. Looking about he saw the floor was paved\nwith grave stones. In one corner stood a fine seventeenth century lead\ncoffin. A curious greyish light shone from it. O'Hagan's conjecture had\nbeen right: there was something awful in the room, and with the terror\nof nightmare seizing him swiftly by the throat and throttling him, he\nawoke in a spasm of terror. O'Hagan was sitting bolt upright with the\nimpression that someone had flashed a lantern in his face, though the\nbarn was absolutely pitch dark. \"I've had a most diabolical nightmare.\nIt was the drink,\" he said to himself, and decided to go to sleep again.\nBut the excessive heat of the barn would let him rest no longer. The\natmosphere seemed to be hot and pungent, and he groped about and opened\nthe door to let in some air. Almost at the same moment someone cried\n\"Fire!\" and shapes of things began to define in a soft grey\nglimmering;--and the gloom was broken up by a red and angry spurt of\nflame from a wing of the old manor house. Again cries of \"Fire!\" came to\nhis ears, and grew and multiplied. O'Hagan was fully awake in an\ninstant, and running at top speed towards the old mansion. When he\nreached it the whole sky about was illuminated by a red and angry light.\nAlmost at the moment of his arrival a tower of smoke arose in front of\nthe porch window, and with a tingling report, a pane fell outwards at\nhis feet. A crowd of cowed and white-faced country folk drew back when\nhe rushed up. Then he looked up at the porch window and saw what it was\nthat made the people go. He saw a girl's terrified face at the window.\n\"The girl I lifted the bag from,\" he said aloud. \"She'll be burnt to\ndeath.\"\n\nThe heavy hall doors were surrounded by the inmates of the house who had\nescaped and O'Hagan pushed through them, and sprang up the broad\nstairway mid choking volumes of smoke. When reached the room above the\nporch the heat was fierce, and the roaring of the fire filled his ears,\nand he had scarce carried the terrified girl out of the room when a side\ndoor fell in, and a branch of flame shot brandishing through the\naperture, and the head of the stairs became lit up with a dreadful and\nfluctuating glare. He carried her swiftly down the stairs, he feared\nevery moment that they would crumple and fall in. But he fought his way\ngrimly, and his jerky swear words were lost in the roaring of the fire.\nAnother moment and they were in the open. Firelight and moonlight\nilluminating the country around with confused and violent lustre, and\nbanked against the stars and the sky they could see a glowing track of\nsmoke.\n\n\"That was a near thing, Miss.\"\n\n\"I thought my end had come!\" she said, the colour returning slowly to\nher face. \"There would have been no chance at all if you had not come up\nfor me, as I was then almost suffocated. It was a very brave act!\" She\ndid not thank him--she couldn't have spoken plain words of thanks to\nsave her life--but O'Hagan knew what she thought--\"Don't say any more\nabout it, Miss, I am really a coward at heart.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I owe my life to you,\" she said earnestly. \"I know there are\nsome things for which thanks are an insult, but you will not mind if I\noffer you a little token of gratitude?\"\n\nO'Hagan's hand was resting on a small silver cross in his pocket, and in\nanother moment he solemnly handed the girl the money and notes he had\nstolen. \"Why, whatever is this?\" asked the girl, staring at O'Hagan in\nbewildered amazement.\n\n\"That's yours,\" he said by way of assistance.\n\n\"But I don't understand!\" she cried, greatly puzzled.\n\n\"Well, Miss, I suppose it does require some elucidation,\" O'Hagan\nreplied somewhat nervously. \"You see, it's only a return of stolen\ngoods. You remember visiting a house in the big grey motor car\nyesterday, Miss?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, I stole your bag from under the seat. I have given you back again\nall that I have left. But I will take this little cross as a token.\" He\ndangled the little silver charm before her face, and before she had time\nto take in the situation O'Hagan had disappeared.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe long plains of Northern Europe stretched before the gaze of a\nregiment of British infantry--great undulations of sodden earth left by\nthe winter rains and thaws. There, in the piercing cold that froze the\nfeet, they waited the signal to advance. Stray bullets whined and pinged\nas they struck the wire and sand bags on the top of the trenches;\noccasionally a man fell on his face; and the ghastly change in the faces\nof the troops bore testimony to the effects. Hilaire O'Hagan lay\nstretched upon his face, occasionally looking towards his officer. His\nheart beat like the pulsing of a motor car. His throat felt dry, his\ncheeks were burning. At times a cold shiver passed right through his\nframe. He fidgeted and lolled from one side, to the other. It seemed to\nhim that he had waited hours for the signal to get over the trenches. He\ntried to strike a match for his pipe; his hand was trembling furiously.\nIt occurred to him that after having passed through the gory awfulness\nof six months' incessant fighting, he was beginning to lose his nerve.\nHe was no longer master of himself. He was afraid. Every man has the\ninstinct that prompts fear, for upon that instinct the whole foundation\nof life-preservation is founded. But over and above this instinct,\ncommon to all of us, O'Hagan had imagination--the graphic, vivid\nimagination that always lurks in Irish blood. Is not the entire history\nof the Celt a rejection of the things of this world for the Shadow and\nthe dream? Upon this basis of fear and imagination O'Hagan started to\nbuild, building and building until he had created a grand structure of\nblind terror which yielded a most exquisite torture to his mind.\n\nA whistle sounded and a shudder traversed the men all down the trench.\nThe officer called to his men. He mounted the parapet and jumped over.\nThere was a sound like the rushing of a river as the regiment poured\nitself over the trench. The men advanced slowly and dazedly. Now any\nacute observer would note that the men were bewildered and had little\nheart in the fight. Their faces worked; and they struggled to walk on,\nbut it seemed useless. The bullets were pattering all around and taking\nheavy toll. Then a few yards in front a shrapnel shell kicked up the\nmud. The German guns had found the range. Someone shouted out the fatal\nwords \"Lie down.\" The regiment was soon hugging the earth, which was\nabout the best thing they could have done. Great showers of shrapnel\nburst over them, and the bullets struck down on them in a continuous\nshower. Some men rose to their feet, and the shrapnel withered them.\nSuddenly one shell burst over O'Hagan, blotting out all around him in\nsmoke and dust, and brutally jerking his mind to fullest tension. This\nshell fire was hell! With the crash imagination and fear began to work\ntogether in his overworked brain--both at once in the queerest jumbling\nmanner. In a few moments O'Hagan was on his feet running away--racing as\nif not merely for his life, but his soul.\n\nWhen O'Hagan's brain cooled and his sight cleared he found himself in\nthe doorway of a little wrecked church. The German shells had gashed\nand ripped the sides and roof, so that birds flew in and out at will.\nHundreds of sparrows chirped in the oak beams above. The shells had\npitted, starred and jerked up the blue flagstones in the porch on which\nO'Hagan stood. Parts of the old church had been shelled nearly level;\nlittle twisted fragments of beautiful leaded windows had been swept up\nin a pile outside with other wreckage. As O'Hagan walked up the aisle a\nfeeling came over him that he knew much of the old place. A quintessence\nand distillation of peace and comradeship seemed to inhabit the soft\ngloam of its chancel. He found himself drifting back to past days and\nseeing dimly in a thin white cloud faces that seemed familiar and yet\nwere unnameable. Then one face stood out distinctly, and O'Hagan watched\nit with breathless wonder and fascination. He moved closer up to it; he\nwould have given much not to have done so, but he could not help\nhimself--he looked closer, and it was--the face of the monk who had\nappeared to him once before. When the cloud had cleared a little, the\noutline of the monk wearing a hood and cowl became visible. Then was\nthere a voice that he identified at once despite the lapse of two years\nsince he had last heard it. \"I have been wanting to speak to you,\nbrother, for many hours, but _something_ I cannot explain to mortal man\nhas prevented me.\" The priest instantly turned round and O'Hagan\nunderstood that he meant him to follow. His heart sank at once, and he\nexperienced a sense of dreadful oppression and foreboding, and with a\nsudden thrill, partly of fear, and partly of curiosity he followed. They\npassed up the aisle and a perfectly familiar staircase. Then he opened a\ndoor, and went in, and at the same moment, sheer unreasoning terror\nseized him. He was afraid, but did not know why: he was simply afraid.\nThen like a sudden recollection, when one remembers some trivial\nadventure of childhood, O'Hagan looked for the old lead coffin. He cast\nhis eyes about with a certain air of proprietorship, and compared the\nroom with the room of his dreams. Nothing had changed. And then, with a\nsudden start of unexplained dread, he saw that the coffin was in the\ncorner--the same leaden coffin that he knew so well with the same\ncurious greyish light coming from it. There was lettering on the lid.\n\n\"What's written there? What's there? Who's there?\" he called. He called\nand continued to call; then another terror, the terror of the sound of\nhis own voice seized him; he did not dare to call again; he whispered.\nThere was something written on the coffin that his mind reeled to\nentertain. Without quite knowing how he came to be there, O'Hagan found\nhimself bending over the coffin. He read the lettering, and it was:\n\n    _Hilaire O'Hagan ob. 1696 aetat 35.\n        Parva domus, magna quies._\n\nHe sank down on his knees with a childish sob. Sometimes the old church\nseemed absolutely still, and the only sound to be heard was the sighing\nof the night breeze below him in the pines, but sometimes the place\nseemed full of muffled movements, and once O'Hagan could have sworn that\nthe large carved handle of the door turned. Even as he stood there he\nheard steps just outside, and with a sudden horror, he saw the heavy\ndoor slowly open. A priest stood in the open doorway with an inscrutable\nsmile on his lips--the same clean-shaven man with a long aquiline nose\nand singularly square chin, that he had seen before in his dreams.\n\n\"Brother,\" he said, in a moved voice. \"You must go back and help your\ncomrades. There is no peace for you yet. Yes, brother, I know it is\nwritten that we shall rest from our labours--but the beginning of our\nrest is not yet. _We_ must go and help them in the firing line\nyonder----\"\n\n\"No, no, holy man!\" O'Hagan pleaded. \"I have had enough.... There is\nhell over there.\"\n\n\"They are calling us, don't you hear them--the living and the dead----\"\n\nO'Hagan could see those great green flashes that burst in the sky so\nnear to him. He could almost hear the angry zipping of high explosive\nshrapnel close over his head. God! how he hated it all!\n\n\"How hard it is, Father, to make these children understand!\" came softly\nfrom the priest's lips.\n\nO'Hagan's regiment had retired to their trenches in good order. They\nwere some of those trenches round about Ypres, and all the world has\nread how the Germans battered and delivered terrific infantry attacks on\nthis part of our line without cessation. A certain morning, about six\no'clock, the Huns decided to deliver a sharp attack, and there was\n\"considerable artillery activity\" on the part of the German guns. Such\nactivity was spoken of in the trenches as \"raising the lid off Hell.\"\nThere was a lull after about an hour's rain of every kind of missile\nthat man has invented to batter his brother with. Then the Huns came on\nin earnest. Some reached the trenches only to be met with a murderous\nfire: they fell in little huddled heaps in the blood and the mud and the\nslime of the trenches. But the whole German race seemed to be flowing in\non the British, and they fairly got into the trenches, though they were\ntwice driven out. Yard by yard the battalion retired. The next moment an\nunearthly, fluorescent light shot and flooded along the trenches. The\ntroops gasped for a moment, and then started back. Standing on a\ntraverse in full view of Germans and Englishmen was a tall man with\nyellow hair, in a priest's cassock. He was brandishing a sword that\nflashed like a tongue of flame, and crying \"Turn back! turn back!\nadvance!\"\n\nPrivate Hilaire O'Hagan, the deserter, stood beside him holding a\nmassive brass altar cross above his head. From that moment O'Hagan\nbehaved like one possessed. He hurled himself over the traverse into the\n\"green\" of the German regiment, and started hacking and stabbing with\nthe pointed end of the cross. The Huns did not like the look of such a\nwild apparition and refused to face him. Bit by bit they retired and\nO'Hagan took advantage of a moment to take a green silk Irish flag, with\na crownless harp, from his pocket, and attach it to the spike of the\ncross. Then, roaring like a lion and brandishing his strange weapon, he\nfell on them once more--and as they broke he saw the hooded priest\ndriving them before him with his flaming sword. A great joy seemed to\nburn up in his soul. Men who watched him said he ran amok. His great\nvoice rose high above the chattering machine guns in a beautiful\nFranciscan chant and the voice of the priest joined in. What O'Hagan,\nbearing his mighty cross, must have looked like in the eerie dawn mist,\nHeaven knows. But seeing such an apparition and hearing the strange\nchant, it is possible the Huns thought the devil had joined in the\nfight. Then a man in the rear trench pointed to the west, where a great\nimage of the cross was shining against a blood red sky, and a voice\ncried \"Forward.\" It passed from man to man, and the regiment advanced,\nhowling, with O'Hagan. They drove the Germans before them like chaff\nbefore a fan, and fell back, in triumph, to their lost trenches. They\nsaw O'Hagan stagger a little and then turn round to where the regiment\nboiled with joy in the trenches.\n\n\"You are back, my children,\" he shouted. \"It is well, for my poor soul\ndesires rest.... Aye, rest indeed!\"\n\nA great peace settled on O'Hagan's face, as he slowly collapsed and lay\nvery still.\n\nNot long after this a country parson received a letter from a\nhare-brained member of his flock, who for many years had been good\nenough to keep him in touch with his doings in far lands. The old vicar\nhad heard that the \"young scoundrel,\" as he called him, had joined a\nvolunteer regiment, and was in the thick of the fighting around Ypres.\nThe letter was written in pencil on leaves torn from a note-book. The\nportion that will interest the reader of this story most is here quoted.\n\n\"On Monday I came across an old friend (?) of ours--Hilaire O'Hagan. We\nhad a brush with about five thousand Huns, and we had under-estimated\ntheir strength. They rushed us in the dawning--a living, greenish-grey\nwave rolled over our trenches, shooting and hacking at the heart of\nwhat had once been a regiment of British Infantry. When the second wave\nlapped over, our men were overborne but they were trying, by common\ninstinct, to reach the second line trenches where they could re-form.\nThen I saw O'Hagan who had dropped from God knows where, standing\nsilhouetted against the red of dawn on the front line trench. He was\nwaving a brass cross and the bullets were pattering around him and\nmaking a noise like rats skipping about an empty house. My God! Pluck! I\nnever thought O'Hagan had it in him. I tell you, he hurled himself down\non the rifles of a thousand Huns, and 'drove them hence' with his mighty\nbrass cross. Our men were soon rallying on the lost trench. The\nstragglers clutched at each other, and pointed to where the cross\nflashed and reeled in the seething mass. Under cover of night our bearer\nparty brought in O'Hagan stone dead with over twenty bullet wounds in\nhim. I know, vicar, when you read this, it will flash into your mind\nthat poor O'Hagan had been drinking again. You may banish any such\nthought ... there was a different look in O'Hagan's eyes. He had seen\nthe 'immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed,\nmillion-coloured, as on the first morning.' We carried him and his cross\nover to an old monastery where we found one of those quaint lead\ncoffins--like the one in the crypt in _our_ old church--and laid him at\nrest beneath the cool blue flagstones outside the chancel door. One of\nour men, a stone-mason in times of peace, roughly graved his name on the\nslab above him. As I walked back to the trenches I turned back to have a\nlast look at the grave. A priest was standing over it with hands\noutstretched to bless....\"\n\n\nTHE END\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and\nAylesbury, for Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd._","title":"War and the Weird","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":38591}