"Ejiao?!!?" 

"Yeah! One thing!!!!! I am ejiao!!!" 

"Ah --!? Is it really you?!" I let out a cry, almost fell down from the chair, even in the hands of coke had left behind. Mygod! My ear has a problem, or I have a problem with my eyes? In front of the girl is really ejiao?? 

Short hair is elegant, wearing a white with blue strawberry design hair band; Plaid skirt, relaxed in a big mess! What is natural 18 change! The girl is bad, always change a hairstyle like changed a person! Is really surprising. 

"I want something, you bring?" At this moment, ShenXueHui slowly came to my in front, she whispers. 

"Ah!!!!!" I had to let out a cry again. 

Damn it! Just remember only fled to forget to buy ShenXueHui what cherry earrings!!!!! Miserably! This diverse as the girl will not because I don't have to buy her eardrop is crying again? ! 

"Well... that... this..." I panic hands and feet, and quickly searching the reasonable excuse in mind. 

"Is this?" 

Wow - -! My eyes will fall out!! My god! Cherry earrings? ! That damned spend with you is a magician! He what time to get to this thing! ? 

10 

Look at that in front of our eyes sparkling red cherry eardrop, I absolutely want to charge forward to kiss that boy! 

"......" The bright red cherry let ShenXueHui froze, she just stand that in, the rim of the eye red, a long time to open the mouth, "thank you..." 

She took the deep and remote leisurely hand eardrop, expertly to wear them in the other ear. 

"Ha ha, good? Xue hui?" Ejiao obediently stood there, full of expectation to asked. 

I saw snow hui tightly fastened on the lips, cheeks and eyes are slightly reddish, even the hands are trembling. She is a strange reaction my frown. In front of the girl let me more and more don't understand, always feel on her body, must have hidden too many secrets... 

"Very beautiful really beautiful..." Hui deep feeling ground looked at the snow ejiao, blank face emerge for the first time a girl that gentle and charming. 

Her smile, it is very beautiful, also very like snow girl... 

Damn it! How do I think of snow qi again? ! I in the heart by oneself a mouth hard, he hurriedly put my thoughts to somewhere else. 

"Ha, ha! One thing!!!!! Isn't it nice!?" Ejiao excitedly jumped to my in front, kept fiddling with the ears of two bright red cherry. 

"Ok!" Before I left the pie mouth, restore the good mood, mind says, "more and more like pupils! Ha ha......" 

"You are a no emotional appeal of hate guy!" Ejiao made a face at me, began to pull aside the snow of hui, "xue hui, we ignore anyang! Go! We choose a necklace to go, okay?!" 

Xue hui didn't speak, but very fondly looked at other's face, gently nodded. 

Two girls holding hands walking away. 

11 

Damn! And want to leave the two of us? Absolutely not!!!!! Want to know me anyang in downtown but has risk of lost!!!!! 

"You!" I place a motioning with his hand angrily toward the deep and remote, "go! Also silly standing stem what?! We followed them both!" 

You took me, played a yawn, idly manyouyou to come up with. 

"Aye? You this guy!" Has just struck me cherry eardrop, then hit you on the shoulder, "which come of the thing are you? How do I don't know!?" 

"From the others." 

"Send?" I was quite surprised, "who sent?" 

You gave me a frown look like very don't understand why I don't know this matter. 

"South dream palace of the boss." 

"South dream palace boss?? My eyes got the boss, "you mean, this is we just racing customs clearance for cherry eardrop prize?!" 

You didn't speak, but is low head to continue to go forward idly. 

Ha! Ha! You really can have such a coincidence? ! Surprisingly eerily, south dream palace of boss is doing a good thing! More praise, however, is a flower and you this boy! Ha ha, so disorderly situation did not forget to take the prize, is really love him to death! 

"Hey! It's you......" 

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I put my arms on you shoulder, side ha ha laugh, side to speed up the pace, keep up with the ShenXueHui and ejiao the two girl. 

2 yorum Devamini oku

"Chun, you did what? You to pull me out to accompany you crazy, I should have the right to know what this is about?" I have ignition, although I dreamed of and his countless kind of see the scene, but this way, I can't really enjoy. 

"... now only you can help me!" 

"What's going on, the police why catch you?" 

"I into hard drugs were caught." 

"What, you actually into hard drugs?" I know a lot of people are playing rock and roll into hard drugs, but he had more than once to I promise, he never touch the stuff. 

"Is my girlfriend gave to me, she has been smoking. I advised her that she didn't listen to, also changed my smoke. Not a few times I was addicted to it." 

"But it also not worthwhile so they find you ah." 

"My money spent... I, I and several elder brothers in drug......" 

Chun bowed his head, as I predicted, the woman sooner or later, the key of the chun. Chun suddenly silence let air become very cold. His face that kind of sad expression reminds me of his first kiss me eyes. 

First love age (8) 

In my and chun become good friends after half a year, outside a claim to like my not grade small hun hun, all the day in the waiting outside the school gate I, is the so-called small hun hun also have class division, like he was dressed like that just to farmers, test scores, but also almost no all day feel good small hun hun, I see all don't think a waste of time. That day, after school, he and a few bad friends and waited at the gate of the school, he told me tangled process, chun also out, see he took me not to put, go up is a boxing. Gathered a lot of classmates, many girls are on the side to chun free when cheerleaders, I thought you so excited simply not to help frame. Those who are not chun opponent, unaided took out a knife, but chun really tough, several bottom knife to get our hands, like my the man seemed to don't want to in front of me, a crazy impact chun back on the past. I called the chun 1 let him be careful, he fiercely a turn, knives just into the man's lap. See from the man's leg not bleeding out, I was scared to cry, squatted on the ground will not rise, chun knife throw on the ground to embrace me, that moment I think chun is a hero. It is because that thing, chun fired. 

I come to his senses. 

"I will send to all kinds of food, I have several good friends, let me see if I can help." I think he still don't hurry back to Japan, first etc. Besides, maybe there was hope. If these things with my dad said, let him to solve, should not be too much trouble. But how do I say, said chun is my what person I want to help him, my father know that I and this people, estimated to clean up on the door first I give the crack. But I know that a few speak nor too have component, but in order to chun, I decided to give it a try. 

"Thank you, YiFei." I'm from chun eyes see touched and love, although he tried to conceal, I still feel nervous. 

Out on the other side, has almost dawn. The early hours of the morning mist like my heart, look not clear direction. I leaned her head against the window, suddenly appeared before we go to the PARTY hao luck embrace together and a group of disorderly bump of the scene, the time he has not become now the band's bassist, like a big boy. He always picked me's tight, our side smile side and they crashed to hit, as if the world is like this, is so simple. I thought we did not meet this year, chun life is happy, but now I see, chun not like me slowly growth and progress, but and we should go against the way and do it. Even our love is not such as I expect that often taken for granted, I thought I exit is done, when I have learned to give up and forget, slowly go far to find, in situ except love memory, and a forever like a child the same chun. Man is blind, persistent wait forget what you really want, also forget time had given themselves and each other corrosion out of all recognition. In fact, I am that one is more afraid of change, although to strange things full of compilation of impulse, but also just dragonfly of water in beitou, like went into the wrong classroom flurried exit to feeling, clearly embarrassed, but again will did Sarah laugh. Sometimes cried in the life circle is too boring. Can really leave Beijing, will not have a fear, it is often the most direct and naked. So we are all like to live in the habit, according to practice good way to think and live, as if I'm chun feelings, because habits and exist. There really is one day, chun again into my life, but I feel strange and fear. I believe that a lot of people have had me such feeling, pains and back a love, only to find true love has its storage life. 

1 yorum Devamini oku

YanReXuan along the line of sight of a turn, knowledgeable ZhangYiFei immediately found that customer fundus of suspicion. 

Secretly the wry smile at the same time not forget to pray Stuart don't angry. This customer look though both difficult and difficult to deal with, the standard of a large house like macaroni, but hands hit the money was indeed in the line of vc so long to see for the first time. This "big fat fish" if pass this life he will not forgive myself! 

ZhangYiFei like determined like holding the left fist, facing the YanReXuan but and curled up big smile. "Stuart is our best performance in the company, in good condition to the highest rate of a. And our company is the one of the most prestige. I think Mr. Yin is also know that to find our!" 

YanReXuan corners of a pie, the line of sight under slightly wind the radian of absolute approximate contempt. "If it weren't for some reason let I can't take own, or do you really think I like you this small company will protect me?" 

"Well," ZhangYiFei leng once, on the face look stiff stiff, "Mr Yin words say so is right now, but is not noticeable is the tenet of our company, so that we can avoid a lot of trouble. Right, Stuart?" Turn to see SiTuZhen, indeed as expected to see her show very not happy expression. 

ZhangYiFei comfort to her to wink, want to walk in the long term, the one and only way is not against the customer. Who knows these people have may at any time into their enemies? Don't make enemies to make yourself and the company stability. 

Know ZhangYiFei meaning, so SiTuZhen also had to press their full belly of gas. 

Long to twenty several, also have seen a lot of all kinds of people, but to be honest, like this before YanReXuan so boring, also is really the first see life. 

"Master, ZhangYiFei freight is always a line of credit, they have one of the best protection, I think this should not be a problem." Stand upright in YanReXuan back side of the black man it seems should be YanReXuan hand, right now he is leaning slightly lower YanReXuan ear to persuade. Even though it was a whisper it deliberately used let other people also can hear of volume, like is not hope in the start, the two sides in the unpleasant. 

ZhangYiFei biggest skill is one of face to judge the situation. 

Piling up with laughter, and proposes the man to pick, "yes, yes, the -" canthus is a bit low, swept on the table card, "said Mr. Hong is the Yin, Mr. Please be assured that the a trip to the us, the safety of." Waved back, "Stuart, you to come over." 

Originally ZhangYiFei standing in the back of the Stuart impatient like pie pie, but still a step forward. 

"Jason, you this safe, as long as he can trust." Stood up, ZhangYiFei quite proud of clap Stuart really shoulder, "Stuart, Mr Yin to say hello. 

Reluctant to YanReXuan nodded his head, the right hand arm subconscious across the coat according to the slightly plump holster. 

"Jason." 

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"Well." Only slightly with a nod of his head to be. YanReXuan narrowed his eyes, disgruntled at SiTuZhen face mask to a pair of eyes sunglasses, cold grunted, side side head, "feed, your company's employees how so rude? And people speak incredibly still wore sunglasses?" 

1 yorum Devamini oku

He is -- 

YeJingJing and build a FuXiao stared at each other, and at the same time, wrinkle up eyebrows, with one voice shout: "YangPeng!" 

Yes, YangPeng, their class day word first problem students, always fighting, smoking, drinking, skip classes disco dancing, sleeping in class snore, and went to the teacher chair sticky chewing gum the so-called "bad students" this do he done. Heard that he graduated from junior high school is not to study, in the street all day long walk, more than ten years get-together sporadic haven't seen his face, nor have I listened to his news. How suddenly appeared at the moment, but also become the core character? 

"Hi, branch secretary and commissary in charge of studies." Said was gung-ho YangPeng have sharp eyes to see two people, stopped mouth, stood up and deserves to be greeted with a. 

"Yang wang," YeJingJing surrender calls, "hope that you are well ah." When one of his most famous contribution is to take a brick smashed with director's glass, so he got a "brick help" the title of wang. 

"Safe, safe." YangPeng hey hey smile, revealing a white teeth, reflecting the dark LianTang, a bit like "Mr Beaver" new Colgate herbal whitening toothpaste ads. 

Build FuXiao smile to ask: "talk about what topic so to the matter? Put a few table, light refreshments don't listen to you a man speak. Come on, then, we listen to." 

"Don't don't," YangPeng repeatedly motioning with his hand, "I didn't do anything rash before party, afraid you sweep black put me to sweep in." 

YeJingJing stare big eye, "out of the underworld? You are not true to set up what brick help axe help?" 

Come first classmate kick up a fuss way: "almost! He didn't go to make to help, but that gangs are big, want to recruit him son in law by adoption, the za Yang wang also not stem?". The most difficult digest beauty grace, 'YangPeng, then what's the matter?" 

"How also do not," he skated shrugged his shoulders, "she in a warfare in the end, give me a daughter and a lot of money." 

"Oh?" All the people are to open his mouth. 

"Not the letter?" YangPeng turned a circle, especially show a value does not poor regalia, "or you think how do I send? My daughter this year 12 right now also want to go to the school, you see, this is the picture of her." Said from jacket pocket wallet, take photos, pass from his recent classmate see. 

"Yi? Don't say, this face fierce a look really like." 

"Well, look like the head type, a handsome, but much more handsome than you eyebrow eye." The classmates all talks at once land discussion. 

"YangPeng, this is not your sister childhood photos?" 

"My sister age photos now early turned yellow.? Envy? Just wah also blow her children can play soy sauce, my daughter can making soy sauce." 

"It's not, YangPeng, you let your daughter making soy sauce!" 

"No, for example: well, my daughter marks, this back to me to take her, let her read the first city best junior high school. He lift up high the chin, a pair of female foot all the way. 

A female classmate suddenly way: "YangPeng, you this year many big? Twenty-nine? Daughter was twelve?" 

"The whole thirty." He stripped off valve orange throw in imports, "eighteen years old, born of the little boy British legal marriageable age to 15, what's so strange about that?" 

1 yorum Devamini oku

Grandpa's grandmother finally moved back. Five floors, a layer of not empty. 

Little elder brother say or think of used to live in grandpa's grandmother home of fun, and I did not. Naughty two children are my grandparents love protection, without any outside influence, no worries, no worries. It is fairly young hair produce white hair, is in a person hard tear off, not be to enjoy his firm plait of I found. 

Night suddenly shouted hungry after the can is yellow Fried egg, the kitchen for two hours after full of pumpkin pie, these have been we hung on his lips, as long as say a want will appear things, and now it's gone? And that hide in the kitchen will cook noodles into a pot of paste day and went to where? 

Memory is unquenchable, like water don't disappear, water will never stop as flowing. 

Won't like before and grandpa sit very near, said very casual words, intermediate seems to be forcefully cover on a wall, there is gap, can see each other, feel each other, but always push doesn't open. 

Grandma before love dress up, in general the cloth short sleeve shorts can fully out a circle, dresser never have rose fragrance hair oil. The only one not change, still love cry, speaking of previous events can't help shedding tears. Whenever at that time, we will also gently mouth, said: there is nothing to cry about it. 

Food taken late at night is no longer a Fried egg, instead bubble surface and so on fast food. And pumpkin pie, I also can't remember how long did not eat. 

How can so that people do not go to think, it is only a second, I also want to get back to the past. 

1 yorum Devamini oku

As soon as he had come up quite close he said, mouthing in a growl —

“What’s this I hear, Whalley? Is it true you’re selling the Fair Maid?”

Captain Whalley, looking away, said the thing was done — money had been paid that morning; and the other expressed at once his approbation of such an extremely sensible proceeding. He had got out of his trap to stretch his legs, he explained, on his way home to dinner. Sir Frederick looked well at the end of his time. Didn’t he?

Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the carriage going past.

The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the pockets of an alpaca jacket inappropriately short and tight for a man of his age and appearance, strutted with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only to the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, staring straight before him. They had been good comrades years ago, almost intimates. At the time when Whalley commanded the renowned Condor, Eliott had charge of the nearly as famous Ringdove for the same owners; and when the appointment of Master-Attendant was created, Whalley would have been the only other serious candidate. But Captain Whalley, then in the prime of life, was resolved to serve no one but his own auspicious Fortune. Far away, tending his hot irons, he was glad to hear the other had been successful. There was a worldly suppleness in bluff Ned Eliott that would serve him well in that sort of official appointment. And they were so dissimilar at bottom that as they came slowly to the end of the avenue before the Cathedral, it had never come into Whalley’s head that he might have been in that man’s place — provided for to the end of his days.

The sacred edifice, standing in solemn isolation amongst the converging avenues of enormous trees, as if to put grave thoughts of heaven into the hours of ease, presented a closed Gothic portal to the light and glory of the west. The glass of the rosace above the ogive glowed like fiery coal in the deep carvings of a wheel of stone. The two men faced about.

“I’ll tell you what they ought to do next, Whalley,” growled Captain Eliott suddenly.

“Well?”

“They ought to send a real live lord out here when Sir Frederick’s time is up. Eh?”

Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord of the right sort should not do as well as anyone else. But this was not the other’s point of view.

“No, no. Place runs itself. Nothing can stop it now. Good enough for a lord,” he growled in short sentences. “Look at the changes in our time. We need a lord here now. They have got a lord in Bombay.”

He dined once or twice every year at the Government House — a many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill laid out in roads and gardens. And lately he had been taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant’s steam-launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that he had “most obligingly” gone out in person to pick out a good berth for the ducal yacht. Afterwards he had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess herself lunched with them. A big woman with a red face. Complexion quite sunburnt. He should think ruined. Very gracious manners. They were going on to Japan . . . .

He ejaculated these details for Captain Whalley’s edification, pausing to blow out his cheeks as if with a pent-up sense of importance, and repeatedly protruding his thick lips till the blunt crimson end of his nose seemed to dip into the milk of his mustache. The place ran itself; it was fit for any lord; it gave no trouble except in its Marine department — in its Marine department he repeated twice, and after a heavy snort began to relate how the other day her Majesty’s Consul-General in French Cochin-China had cabled to him — in his official capacity — asking for a qualified man to be sent over to take charge of a Glasgow ship whose master had died in Saigon.

“I sent word of it to the officers’ quarters in the Sailors’ Home,” he continued, while the limp in his gait seemed to grow more accentuated with the increasing irritation of his voice. “Place’s full of them. Twice as many men as there are berths going in the local trade. All hungry for an easy job. Twice as many — and — What d’you think, Whalley? . . .”

He stopped short; his hands clenched and thrust deeply downwards, seemed ready to burst the pockets of his jacket. A slight sigh escaped Captain Whalley.

“Hey? You would think they would be falling over each other. Not a bit of it. Frightened to go home. Nice and warm out here to lie about a veranda waiting for a job. I sit and wait in my office. Nobody. What did they suppose? That I was going to sit there like a dummy with the Consul-General’s cable before me? Not likely. So I looked up a list of them I keep by me and sent word for Hamilton — the worst loafer of them all — and just made him go. Threatened to instruct the steward of the Sailors’ Home to have him turned out neck and crop. He did not think the berth was good enough — if — you — please. ‘I’ve your little records by me,’ said I. ‘You came ashore here eighteen months ago, and you haven’t done six months’ work since. You are in debt for your board now at the Home, and I suppose you reckon the Marine Office will pay in the end. Eh? So it shall; but if you don’t take this chance, away you go to England, assisted passage, by the first homeward steamer that comes along. You are no better than a pauper. We don’t want any white paupers here.’ I scared him. But look at the trouble all this gave me.”

“You would not have had any trouble,” Captain Whalley said almost involuntarily, “if you had sent for me.”

Captain Eliott was immensely amused; he shook with laughter as he walked. But suddenly he stopped laughing. A vague recollection had crossed his mind. Hadn’t he heard it said at the time of the Travancore and Deccan smash that poor Whalley had been cleaned out completely. “Fellow’s hard up, by heavens!” he thought; and at once he cast a sidelong upward glance at his companion. But Captain Whalley was smiling austerely straight before him, with a carriage of the head inconceivable in a penniless man — and he became reassured. Impossible. Could not have lost everything. That ship had been only a hobby of his. And the reflection that a man who had confessed to receiving that very morning a presumably large sum of money was not likely to spring upon him a demand for a small loan put him entirely at his ease again. There had come a long pause in their talk, however, and not knowing how to begin again, he growled out soberly, “We old fellows ought to take a rest now.”

“The best thing for some of us would be to die at the oar,” Captain Whalley said negligently.

“Come, now. Aren’t you a bit tired by this time of the whole show?” muttered the other sullenly.

“Are you?”

Captain Eliott was. Infernally tired. He only hung on to his berth so long in order to get his pension on the highest scale before he went home. It would be no better than poverty, anyhow; still, it was the only thing between him and the workhouse. And he had a family. Three girls, as Whalley knew. He gave “Harry, old boy,” to understand that these three girls were a source of the greatest anxiety and worry to him. Enough to drive a man distracted.

“Why? What have they been doing now?” asked Captain Whalley with a sort of amused absent-mindedness.

“Doing! Doing nothing. That’s just it. Lawn-tennis and silly novels from morning to night . . . .”

If one of them at least had been a boy. But all three! And, as ill-luck would have it, there did not seem to be any decent young fellows left in the world. When he looked around in the club he saw only a lot of conceited popinjays too selfish to think of making a good woman happy. Extreme indigence stared him in the face with all that crowd to keep at home. He had cherished the idea of building himself a little house in the country — in Surrey — to end his days in, but he was afraid it was out of the question, . . . and his staring eyes rolled upwards with such a pathetic anxiety that Captain Whalley charitably nodded down at him, restraining a sort of sickening desire to laugh.

“You must know what it is yourself, Harry. Girls are the very devil for worry and anxiety.”

“Ay! But mine is doing well,” Captain Whalley pronounced slowly, staring to the end of the avenue.

The Master-Attendant was glad to hear this. Uncommonly glad. He remembered her well. A pretty girl she was.

Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as if in a dream.

“She was pretty.”

The procession of carriages was breaking up.

One after another they left the file to go off at a trot, animating the vast avenue with their scattered life and movement; but soon the aspect of dignified solitude returned and took possession of the straight wide road. A syce in white stood at the head of a Burmah pony harnessed to a varnished two-wheel cart; and the whole thing waiting by the curb seemed no bigger than a child’s toy forgotten under the soaring trees. Captain Eliott waddled up to it and made as if to clamber in, but refrained; and keeping one hand resting easily on the shaft, he changed the conversation from his pension, his daughters, and his poverty back again to the only other topic in the world — the Marine Office, the men and the ships of the port.

He proceeded to give instances of what was expected of him; and his thick voice drowsed in the still air like the obstinate droning of an enormous bumble-bee. Captain Whalley did not know what was the force or the weakness that prevented him from saying good-night and walking away. It was as though he had been too tired to make the effort. How queer. More queer than any of Ned’s instances. Or was it that overpowering sense of idleness alone that made him stand there and listen to these stories. Nothing very real had ever troubled Ned Eliott; and gradually he seemed to detect deep in, as if wrapped up in the gross wheezy rumble, something of the clear hearty voice of the young captain of the Ringdove. He wondered if he too had changed to the same extent; and it seemed to him that the voice of his old chum had not changed so very much — that the man was the same. Not a bad fellow the pleasant, jolly Ned Eliott, friendly, well up to his business — and always a bit of a humbug. He remembered how he used to amuse his poor wife. She could read him like an open book. When the Condor and the Ringdove happened to be in port together, she would frequently ask him to bring Captain Eliott to dinner. They had not met often since those old days. Not once in five years, perhaps. He regarded from under his white eyebrows this man he could not bring himself to take into his confidence at this juncture; and the other went on with his intimate outpourings, and as remote from his hearer as though he had been talking on a hill-top a mile away.

He was in a bit of a quandary now as to the steamer Sofala. Ultimately every hitch in the port came into his hands to undo. They would miss him when he was gone in another eighteen months, and most likely some retired naval officer had been pitchforked into the appointment — a man that would understand nothing and care less. That steamer was a coasting craft having a steady trade connection as far north as Tenasserim; but the trouble was she could get no captain to take her on her regular trip. Nobody would go in her. He really had no power, of course, to order a man to take a job. It was all very well to stretch a point on the demand of a consul-general, but. . .

“What’s the matter with the ship?” Captain Whalley interrupted in measured tones.

“Nothing’s the matter. Sound old steamer. Her owner has been in my office this afternoon tearing his hair.”

“Is he a white man?” asked Whalley in an interested voice.

“He calls himself a white man,” answered the Master-Attendant scornfully; “but if so, it’s just skin-deep and no more. I told him that to his face too.”

“But who is he, then?”

“He’s the chief engineer of her. See THAT, Harry?”

“I see,” Captain Whalley said thoughtfully. “The engineer. I see.”

How the fellow came to be a shipowner at the same time was quite a tale. He came out third in a home ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain Eliott remembered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both with his skipper and his chief. Anyway, they seemed jolly glad to get rid of him at all costs. Clearly a mutinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out here, a perfect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, unable to keep a berth very long; pretty nigh went through every engine-room afloat belonging to the colony. Then suddenly, “What do you think happened, Harry?”

Captain Whalley, who seemed lost in a mental effort as of doing a sum in his head, gave a slight start. He really couldn’t imagine. The Master-Attendant’s voice vibrated dully with hoarse emphasis. The man actually had the luck to win the second prize in the Manilla lottery. All these engineers and officers of ships took tickets in that gamble. It seemed to be a perfect mania with them all.

Everybody expected now that he would take himself off home with his money, and go to the devil in his own way. Not at all. The Sofala, judged too small and not quite modern enough for the sort of trade she was in, could be got for a moderate price from her owners, who had ordered a new steamer from Europe. He rushed in and bought her. This man had never given any signs of that sort of mental intoxication the mere fact of getting hold of a large sum of money may produce — not till he got a ship of his own; but then he went off his balance all at once: came bouncing into the Marine Office on some transfer business, with his hat hanging over his left eye and switching a little cane in his hand, and told each one of the clerks separately that “Nobody could put him out now. It was his turn. There was no one over him on earth, and there never would be either.” He swaggered and strutted between the desks, talking at the top of his voice, and trembling like a leaf all the while, so that the current business of the office was suspended for the time he was in there, and everybody in the big room stood open-mouthed looking at his antics. Afterwards he could be seen during the hottest hours of the day with his face as red as fire rushing along up and down the quays to look at his ship from different points of view: he seemed inclined to stop every stranger he came across just to let them know “that there would be no longer anyone over him; he had bought a ship; nobody on earth could put him out of his engine-room now.”

Good bargain as she was, the price of the Sofala took up pretty near all the lottery-money. He had left himself no capital to work with. That did not matter so much, for these were the halcyon days of steam coasting trade, before some of the home shipping firms had thought of establishing local fleets to feed their main lines. These, when once organized, took the biggest slices out of that cake, of course; and by-and-by a squad of confounded German tramps turned up east of Suez Canal and swept up all the crumbs. They prowled on the cheap to and fro along the coast and between the islands, like a lot of sharks in the water ready to snap up anything you let drop. And then the high old times were over for good; for years the Sofala had made no more, he judged, than a fair living. Captain Eliott looked upon it as his duty in every way to assist an English ship to hold her own; and it stood to reason that if for want of a captain the Sofala began to miss her trips she would very soon lose her trade. There was the quandary. The man was too impracticable. “Too much of a beggar on horseback from the first,” he explained. “Seemed to grow worse as the time went on. In the last three years he’s run through eleven skippers; he had tried every single man here, outside of the regular lines. I had warned him before that this would not do. And now, of course, no one will look at the Sofala. I had one or two men up at my office and talked to them; but, as they said to me, what was the good of taking the berth to lead a regular dog’s life for a month and then get the sack at the end of the first trip? The fellow, of course, told me it was all nonsense; there has been a plot hatching for years against him. And now it had come. All the horrid sailors in the port had conspired to bring him to his knees, because he was an engineer.”

Captain Eliott emitted a throaty chuckle.

“And the fact is, that if he misses a couple more trips he need never trouble himself to start again. He won’t find any cargo in his old trade. There’s too much competition nowadays for people to keep their stuff lying about for a ship that does not turn up when she’s expected. It’s a bad lookout for him. He swears he will shut himself on board and starve to death in his cabin rather than sell her — even if he could find a buyer. And that’s not likely in the least. Not even the Japs would give her insured value for her. It isn’t like selling sailing-ships. Steamers DO get out of date, besides getting old.”

“He must have laid by a good bit of money though,” observed Captain Whalley quietly.

The Harbor-master puffed out his purple cheeks to an amazing size.

“Not a stiver, Harry. Not — a — single — sti-ver.”

He waited; but as Captain Whalley, stroking his beard slowly, looked down on the ground without a word, he tapped him on the forearm, tiptoed, and said in a hoarse whisper —

“The Manilla lottery has been eating him up.”

He frowned a little, nodding in tiny affirmative jerks. They all were going in for it; a third of the wages paid to ships’ officers (“in my port,” he snorted) went to Manilla. It was a mania. That fellow Massy had been bitten by it like the rest of them from the first; but after winning once he seemed to have persuaded himself he had only to try again to get another big prize. He had taken dozens and scores of tickets for every drawing since. What with this vice and his ignorance of affairs, ever since he had improvidently bought that steamer he had been more or less short of money.

This, in Captain Eliott’s opinion, gave an opening for a sensible sailor-man with a few pounds to step in and save that fool from the consequences of his folly. It was his craze to quarrel with his captains. He had had some really good men too, who would have been too glad to stay if he would only let them. But no. He seemed to think he was no owner unless he was kicking somebody out in the morning and having a row with the new man in the evening. What was wanted for him was a master with a couple of hundred or so to take an interest in the ship on proper conditions. You don’t discharge a man for no fault, only because of the fun of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore, when you know that in that case you are bound to buy back his share. On the other hand, a fellow with an interest in the ship is not likely to throw up his job in a huff about a trifle. He had told Massy that. He had said: “‘This won’t do, Mr. Massy. We are getting very sick of you here in the Marine Office. What you must do now is to try whether you could get a sailor to join you as partner. That seems to be the only way.’ And that was sound advice, Harry.”

Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly still all over, and his hand, arrested in the act of stroking, grasped his whole beard. And what did the fellow say to that?

The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master-Attendant. He had received the advice in a most impudent manner. “I didn’t come here to be laughed at,” he had shrieked. “I appeal to you as an Englishman and a shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an illegal conspiracy of your beggarly sailors, and all you condescend to do for me is to tell me to go and get a partner!” . . . The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage on the floor of the private office. Where was he going to get a partner? Was he being taken for a fool? Not a single one of that contemptible lot ashore at the “Home” had twopence in his pocket to bless himself with. The very native curs in the bazaar knew that much. . . . “And it’s true enough, Harry,” rumbled Captain Eliott judicially. “They are much more likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in Denham Road for the clothes on their backs. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you make too much noise over it for my taste, Mr. Massy. Good morning.’ He banged the door after him; he dared to bang my door, confound his cheek!”

The head of the Marine department was out of breath with indignation; then recollecting himself as it were,

“I’ll end by being late to dinner — yarning with you here . . . wife doesn’t like it.”

He clambered ponderously into the trap; leaned out sideways, and only then wondered wheezily what on earth Captain Whalley could have been doing with himself of late. They had had no sight of each other for years and years till the other day when he had seen him unexpectedly in the office.

What on earth. . .

Captain Whalley seemed to be smiling to himself in his white beard.

“The earth is big,” he said vaguely.

The other, as if to test the statement, stared all round from his driving-seat. The Esplanade was very quiet; only from afar, from very far, a long way from the seashore, across the stretches of grass, through the long ranges of trees, came faintly the toot — toot — toot of the cable car beginning to roll before the empty peristyle of the Public Library on its three-mile journey to the New Harbor Docks.

“Doesn’t seem to be so much room on it,” growled the Master-Attendant, “since these Germans came along shouldering us at every turn. It was not so in our time.”

He fell into deep thought, breathing stertorously, as though he had been taking a nap open-eyed. Perhaps he too, on his side, had detected in the silent pilgrim-like figure, standing there by the wheel, like an arrested wayfarer, the buried lineaments of the features belonging to the young captain of the Condor. Good fellow — Harry Whalley — never very talkative. You never knew what he was up to — a bit too off-hand with people of consequence, and apt to take a wrong view of a fellow’s actions. Fact was he had a too good opinion of himself. He would have liked to tell him to get in and drive him home to dinner. But one never knew. Wife would not like it.

“And it’s funny to think, Harry,” he went on in a big, subdued drone, “that of all the people on it there seems only you and I left to remember this part of the world as it used to be. . .”

He was ready to indulge in the sweetness of a sentimental mood had it not struck him suddenly that Captain Whalley, unstirring and without a word, seemed to be awaiting something — perhaps expecting . . . He gathered the reins at once and burst out in bluff, hearty growls —

“Ha! My dear boy. The men we have known — the ships we’ve sailed — ay! and the things we’ve done. . .”

The pony plunged — the syce skipped out of the way. Captain Whalley raised his arm.

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As soon as he had come up quite close he said, mouthing in a growl —

“What’s this I hear, Whalley? Is it true you’re selling the Fair Maid?”

Captain Whalley, looking away, said the thing was done — money had been paid that morning; and the other expressed at once his approbation of such an extremely sensible proceeding. He had got out of his trap to stretch his legs, he explained, on his way home to dinner. Sir Frederick looked well at the end of his time. Didn’t he?

Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the carriage going past.

The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the pockets of an alpaca jacket inappropriately short and tight for a man of his age and appearance, strutted with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only to the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, staring straight before him. They had been good comrades years ago, almost intimates. At the time when Whalley commanded the renowned Condor, Eliott had charge of the nearly as famous Ringdove for the same owners; and when the appointment of Master-Attendant was created, Whalley would have been the only other serious candidate. But Captain Whalley, then in the prime of life, was resolved to serve no one but his own auspicious Fortune. Far away, tending his hot irons, he was glad to hear the other had been successful. There was a worldly suppleness in bluff Ned Eliott that would serve him well in that sort of official appointment. And they were so dissimilar at bottom that as they came slowly to the end of the avenue before the Cathedral, it had never come into Whalley’s head that he might have been in that man’s place — provided for to the end of his days.

The sacred edifice, standing in solemn isolation amongst the converging avenues of enormous trees, as if to put grave thoughts of heaven into the hours of ease, presented a closed Gothic portal to the light and glory of the west. The glass of the rosace above the ogive glowed like fiery coal in the deep carvings of a wheel of stone. The two men faced about.

“I’ll tell you what they ought to do next, Whalley,” growled Captain Eliott suddenly.

“Well?”

“They ought to send a real live lord out here when Sir Frederick’s time is up. Eh?”

Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord of the right sort should not do as well as anyone else. But this was not the other’s point of view.

“No, no. Place runs itself. Nothing can stop it now. Good enough for a lord,” he growled in short sentences. “Look at the changes in our time. We need a lord here now. They have got a lord in Bombay.”

He dined once or twice every year at the Government House — a many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill laid out in roads and gardens. And lately he had been taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant’s steam-launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that he had “most obligingly” gone out in person to pick out a good berth for the ducal yacht. Afterwards he had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess herself lunched with them. A big woman with a red face. Complexion quite sunburnt. He should think ruined. Very gracious manners. They were going on to Japan . . . .

He ejaculated these details for Captain Whalley’s edification, pausing to blow out his cheeks as if with a pent-up sense of importance, and repeatedly protruding his thick lips till the blunt crimson end of his nose seemed to dip into the milk of his mustache. The place ran itself; it was fit for any lord; it gave no trouble except in its Marine department — in its Marine department he repeated twice, and after a heavy snort began to relate how the other day her Majesty’s Consul-General in French Cochin-China had cabled to him — in his official capacity — asking for a qualified man to be sent over to take charge of a Glasgow ship whose master had died in Saigon.

“I sent word of it to the officers’ quarters in the Sailors’ Home,” he continued, while the limp in his gait seemed to grow more accentuated with the increasing irritation of his voice. “Place’s full of them. Twice as many men as there are berths going in the local trade. All hungry for an easy job. Twice as many — and — What d’you think, Whalley? . . .”

He stopped short; his hands clenched and thrust deeply downwards, seemed ready to burst the pockets of his jacket. A slight sigh escaped Captain Whalley.

“Hey? You would think they would be falling over each other. Not a bit of it. Frightened to go home. Nice and warm out here to lie about a veranda waiting for a job. I sit and wait in my office. Nobody. What did they suppose? That I was going to sit there like a dummy with the Consul-General’s cable before me? Not likely. So I looked up a list of them I keep by me and sent word for Hamilton — the worst loafer of them all — and just made him go. Threatened to instruct the steward of the Sailors’ Home to have him turned out neck and crop. He did not think the berth was good enough — if — you — please. ‘I’ve your little records by me,’ said I. ‘You came ashore here eighteen months ago, and you haven’t done six months’ work since. You are in debt for your board now at the Home, and I suppose you reckon the Marine Office will pay in the end. Eh? So it shall; but if you don’t take this chance, away you go to England, assisted passage, by the first homeward steamer that comes along. You are no better than a pauper. We don’t want any white paupers here.’ I scared him. But look at the trouble all this gave me.”

“You would not have had any trouble,” Captain Whalley said almost involuntarily, “if you had sent for me.”

Captain Eliott was immensely amused; he shook with laughter as he walked. But suddenly he stopped laughing. A vague recollection had crossed his mind. Hadn’t he heard it said at the time of the Travancore and Deccan smash that poor Whalley had been cleaned out completely. “Fellow’s hard up, by heavens!” he thought; and at once he cast a sidelong upward glance at his companion. But Captain Whalley was smiling austerely straight before him, with a carriage of the head inconceivable in a penniless man — and he became reassured. Impossible. Could not have lost everything. That ship had been only a hobby of his. And the reflection that a man who had confessed to receiving that very morning a presumably large sum of money was not likely to spring upon him a demand for a small loan put him entirely at his ease again. There had come a long pause in their talk, however, and not knowing how to begin again, he growled out soberly, “We old fellows ought to take a rest now.”

“The best thing for some of us would be to die at the oar,” Captain Whalley said negligently.

“Come, now. Aren’t you a bit tired by this time of the whole show?” muttered the other sullenly.

“Are you?”

Captain Eliott was. Infernally tired. He only hung on to his berth so long in order to get his pension on the highest scale before he went home. It would be no better than poverty, anyhow; still, it was the only thing between him and the workhouse. And he had a family. Three girls, as Whalley knew. He gave “Harry, old boy,” to understand that these three girls were a source of the greatest anxiety and worry to him. Enough to drive a man distracted.

“Why? What have they been doing now?” asked Captain Whalley with a sort of amused absent-mindedness.

“Doing! Doing nothing. That’s just it. Lawn-tennis and silly novels from morning to night . . . .”

If one of them at least had been a boy. But all three! And, as ill-luck would have it, there did not seem to be any decent young fellows left in the world. When he looked around in the club he saw only a lot of conceited popinjays too selfish to think of making a good woman happy. Extreme indigence stared him in the face with all that crowd to keep at home. He had cherished the idea of building himself a little house in the country — in Surrey — to end his days in, but he was afraid it was out of the question, . . . and his staring eyes rolled upwards with such a pathetic anxiety that Captain Whalley charitably nodded down at him, restraining a sort of sickening desire to laugh.

“You must know what it is yourself, Harry. Girls are the very devil for worry and anxiety.”

“Ay! But mine is doing well,” Captain Whalley pronounced slowly, staring to the end of the avenue.

The Master-Attendant was glad to hear this. Uncommonly glad. He remembered her well. A pretty girl she was.

Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as if in a dream.

“She was pretty.”

The procession of carriages was breaking up.

One after another they left the file to go off at a trot, animating the vast avenue with their scattered life and movement; but soon the aspect of dignified solitude returned and took possession of the straight wide road. A syce in white stood at the head of a Burmah pony harnessed to a varnished two-wheel cart; and the whole thing waiting by the curb seemed no bigger than a child’s toy forgotten under the soaring trees. Captain Eliott waddled up to it and made as if to clamber in, but refrained; and keeping one hand resting easily on the shaft, he changed the conversation from his pension, his daughters, and his poverty back again to the only other topic in the world — the Marine Office, the men and the ships of the port.

He proceeded to give instances of what was expected of him; and his thick voice drowsed in the still air like the obstinate droning of an enormous bumble-bee. Captain Whalley did not know what was the force or the weakness that prevented him from saying good-night and walking away. It was as though he had been too tired to make the effort. How queer. More queer than any of Ned’s instances. Or was it that overpowering sense of idleness alone that made him stand there and listen to these stories. Nothing very real had ever troubled Ned Eliott; and gradually he seemed to detect deep in, as if wrapped up in the gross wheezy rumble, something of the clear hearty voice of the young captain of the Ringdove. He wondered if he too had changed to the same extent; and it seemed to him that the voice of his old chum had not changed so very much — that the man was the same. Not a bad fellow the pleasant, jolly Ned Eliott, friendly, well up to his business — and always a bit of a humbug. He remembered how he used to amuse his poor wife. She could read him like an open book. When the Condor and the Ringdove happened to be in port together, she would frequently ask him to bring Captain Eliott to dinner. They had not met often since those old days. Not once in five years, perhaps. He regarded from under his white eyebrows this man he could not bring himself to take into his confidence at this juncture; and the other went on with his intimate outpourings, and as remote from his hearer as though he had been talking on a hill-top a mile away.

He was in a bit of a quandary now as to the steamer Sofala. Ultimately every hitch in the port came into his hands to undo. They would miss him when he was gone in another eighteen months, and most likely some retired naval officer had been pitchforked into the appointment — a man that would understand nothing and care less. That steamer was a coasting craft having a steady trade connection as far north as Tenasserim; but the trouble was she could get no captain to take her on her regular trip. Nobody would go in her. He really had no power, of course, to order a man to take a job. It was all very well to stretch a point on the demand of a consul-general, but. . .

“What’s the matter with the ship?” Captain Whalley interrupted in measured tones.

“Nothing’s the matter. Sound old steamer. Her owner has been in my office this afternoon tearing his hair.”

“Is he a white man?” asked Whalley in an interested voice.

“He calls himself a white man,” answered the Master-Attendant scornfully; “but if so, it’s just skin-deep and no more. I told him that to his face too.”

“But who is he, then?”

“He’s the chief engineer of her. See THAT, Harry?”

“I see,” Captain Whalley said thoughtfully. “The engineer. I see.”

How the fellow came to be a shipowner at the same time was quite a tale. He came out third in a home ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain Eliott remembered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both with his skipper and his chief. Anyway, they seemed jolly glad to get rid of him at all costs. Clearly a mutinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out here, a perfect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, unable to keep a berth very long; pretty nigh went through every engine-room afloat belonging to the colony. Then suddenly, “What do you think happened, Harry?”

Captain Whalley, who seemed lost in a mental effort as of doing a sum in his head, gave a slight start. He really couldn’t imagine. The Master-Attendant’s voice vibrated dully with hoarse emphasis. The man actually had the luck to win the second prize in the Manilla lottery. All these engineers and officers of ships took tickets in that gamble. It seemed to be a perfect mania with them all.

Everybody expected now that he would take himself off home with his money, and go to the devil in his own way. Not at all. The Sofala, judged too small and not quite modern enough for the sort of trade she was in, could be got for a moderate price from her owners, who had ordered a new steamer from Europe. He rushed in and bought her. This man had never given any signs of that sort of mental intoxication the mere fact of getting hold of a large sum of money may produce — not till he got a ship of his own; but then he went off his balance all at once: came bouncing into the Marine Office on some transfer business, with his hat hanging over his left eye and switching a little cane in his hand, and told each one of the clerks separately that “Nobody could put him out now. It was his turn. There was no one over him on earth, and there never would be either.” He swaggered and strutted between the desks, talking at the top of his voice, and trembling like a leaf all the while, so that the current business of the office was suspended for the time he was in there, and everybody in the big room stood open-mouthed looking at his antics. Afterwards he could be seen during the hottest hours of the day with his face as red as fire rushing along up and down the quays to look at his ship from different points of view: he seemed inclined to stop every stranger he came across just to let them know “that there would be no longer anyone over him; he had bought a ship; nobody on earth could put him out of his engine-room now.”

Good bargain as she was, the price of the Sofala took up pretty near all the lottery-money. He had left himself no capital to work with. That did not matter so much, for these were the halcyon days of steam coasting trade, before some of the home shipping firms had thought of establishing local fleets to feed their main lines. These, when once organized, took the biggest slices out of that cake, of course; and by-and-by a squad of confounded German tramps turned up east of Suez Canal and swept up all the crumbs. They prowled on the cheap to and fro along the coast and between the islands, like a lot of sharks in the water ready to snap up anything you let drop. And then the high old times were over for good; for years the Sofala had made no more, he judged, than a fair living. Captain Eliott looked upon it as his duty in every way to assist an English ship to hold her own; and it stood to reason that if for want of a captain the Sofala began to miss her trips she would very soon lose her trade. There was the quandary. The man was too impracticable. “Too much of a beggar on horseback from the first,” he explained. “Seemed to grow worse as the time went on. In the last three years he’s run through eleven skippers; he had tried every single man here, outside of the regular lines. I had warned him before that this would not do. And now, of course, no one will look at the Sofala. I had one or two men up at my office and talked to them; but, as they said to me, what was the good of taking the berth to lead a regular dog’s life for a month and then get the sack at the end of the first trip? The fellow, of course, told me it was all nonsense; there has been a plot hatching for years against him. And now it had come. All the horrid sailors in the port had conspired to bring him to his knees, because he was an engineer.”

Captain Eliott emitted a throaty chuckle.

“And the fact is, that if he misses a couple more trips he need never trouble himself to start again. He won’t find any cargo in his old trade. There’s too much competition nowadays for people to keep their stuff lying about for a ship that does not turn up when she’s expected. It’s a bad lookout for him. He swears he will shut himself on board and starve to death in his cabin rather than sell her — even if he could find a buyer. And that’s not likely in the least. Not even the Japs would give her insured value for her. It isn’t like selling sailing-ships. Steamers DO get out of date, besides getting old.”

“He must have laid by a good bit of money though,” observed Captain Whalley quietly.

The Harbor-master puffed out his purple cheeks to an amazing size.

“Not a stiver, Harry. Not — a — single — sti-ver.”

He waited; but as Captain Whalley, stroking his beard slowly, looked down on the ground without a word, he tapped him on the forearm, tiptoed, and said in a hoarse whisper —

“The Manilla lottery has been eating him up.”

He frowned a little, nodding in tiny affirmative jerks. They all were going in for it; a third of the wages paid to ships’ officers (“in my port,” he snorted) went to Manilla. It was a mania. That fellow Massy had been bitten by it like the rest of them from the first; but after winning once he seemed to have persuaded himself he had only to try again to get another big prize. He had taken dozens and scores of tickets for every drawing since. What with this vice and his ignorance of affairs, ever since he had improvidently bought that steamer he had been more or less short of money.

This, in Captain Eliott’s opinion, gave an opening for a sensible sailor-man with a few pounds to step in and save that fool from the consequences of his folly. It was his craze to quarrel with his captains. He had had some really good men too, who would have been too glad to stay if he would only let them. But no. He seemed to think he was no owner unless he was kicking somebody out in the morning and having a row with the new man in the evening. What was wanted for him was a master with a couple of hundred or so to take an interest in the ship on proper conditions. You don’t discharge a man for no fault, only because of the fun of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore, when you know that in that case you are bound to buy back his share. On the other hand, a fellow with an interest in the ship is not likely to throw up his job in a huff about a trifle. He had told Massy that. He had said: “‘This won’t do, Mr. Massy. We are getting very sick of you here in the Marine Office. What you must do now is to try whether you could get a sailor to join you as partner. That seems to be the only way.’ And that was sound advice, Harry.”

Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly still all over, and his hand, arrested in the act of stroking, grasped his whole beard. And what did the fellow say to that?

The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master-Attendant. He had received the advice in a most impudent manner. “I didn’t come here to be laughed at,” he had shrieked. “I appeal to you as an Englishman and a shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an illegal conspiracy of your beggarly sailors, and all you condescend to do for me is to tell me to go and get a partner!” . . . The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage on the floor of the private office. Where was he going to get a partner? Was he being taken for a fool? Not a single one of that contemptible lot ashore at the “Home” had twopence in his pocket to bless himself with. The very native curs in the bazaar knew that much. . . . “And it’s true enough, Harry,” rumbled Captain Eliott judicially. “They are much more likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in Denham Road for the clothes on their backs. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you make too much noise over it for my taste, Mr. Massy. Good morning.’ He banged the door after him; he dared to bang my door, confound his cheek!”

The head of the Marine department was out of breath with indignation; then recollecting himself as it were,

“I’ll end by being late to dinner — yarning with you here . . . wife doesn’t like it.”

He clambered ponderously into the trap; leaned out sideways, and only then wondered wheezily what on earth Captain Whalley could have been doing with himself of late. They had had no sight of each other for years and years till the other day when he had seen him unexpectedly in the office.

What on earth. . .

Captain Whalley seemed to be smiling to himself in his white beard.

“The earth is big,” he said vaguely.

The other, as if to test the statement, stared all round from his driving-seat. The Esplanade was very quiet; only from afar, from very far, a long way from the seashore, across the stretches of grass, through the long ranges of trees, came faintly the toot — toot — toot of the cable car beginning to roll before the empty peristyle of the Public Library on its three-mile journey to the New Harbor Docks.

“Doesn’t seem to be so much room on it,” growled the Master-Attendant, “since these Germans came along shouldering us at every turn. It was not so in our time.”

He fell into deep thought, breathing stertorously, as though he had been taking a nap open-eyed. Perhaps he too, on his side, had detected in the silent pilgrim-like figure, standing there by the wheel, like an arrested wayfarer, the buried lineaments of the features belonging to the young captain of the Condor. Good fellow — Harry Whalley — never very talkative. You never knew what he was up to — a bit too off-hand with people of consequence, and apt to take a wrong view of a fellow’s actions. Fact was he had a too good opinion of himself. He would have liked to tell him to get in and drive him home to dinner. But one never knew. Wife would not like it.

“And it’s funny to think, Harry,” he went on in a big, subdued drone, “that of all the people on it there seems only you and I left to remember this part of the world as it used to be. . .”

He was ready to indulge in the sweetness of a sentimental mood had it not struck him suddenly that Captain Whalley, unstirring and without a word, seemed to be awaiting something — perhaps expecting . . . He gathered the reins at once and burst out in bluff, hearty growls —

“Ha! My dear boy. The men we have known — the ships we’ve sailed — ay! and the things we’ve done. . .”

The pony plunged — the syce skipped out of the way. Captain Whalley raised his arm.

“Good-by.” "http://www.jewelrystore-online.net/links-of-london-c-10.html" mce_href="http://www.jewelrystore-online.net/links-of-london-c-10.html"Links of London store

1 yorum Devamini oku

We were close to Karak when the drums of the Little People began beating.

The leaden weariness pressed down upon me increasingly. I struggled to keep awake. Tibur’s stroke on my head had something to do with that, but I had taken other blows and eaten nothing since long before dawn. I could not think, much less plan what I was going to do after I had got back to Karak.

The drums of the Little People drove away my lethargy, brought me up wide-awake. They crashed out at first like a thunderburst across the white river. After that they settled down into a slow, measured rhythm filled with implacable menace. It was like Death standing on hollow graves and stamping on them before he marched.

At the first crash Evalie straightened, then sat listening with every nerve. I reined up my horse, and saw that the Witch-woman had also halted and was listening with all of Evalie’s intentness. There was something inexplicably disturbing in that monotonous drumming. Something that reached beyond and outside of human experience — or reached before it. It was like thousands of bared hearts beating in unison, in one unalterable rhythm, not to be still till the hearts themselves stopped . . . inexorable . . . and increasing in steadily widening area . . . spreading, spreading . . . until they beat from all the land across white Nanbu.

I spoke to Lur.

“I am thinking that here is the last of my promises, Witch-woman. I killed Yodin, gave you Sirk, I slew Tibur — and here is your war with the Rrrllya.”

I had not thought of how that might sound to Evalie! She turned and gave me one long level look of scom; she said to the Witch-woman, coldly, in halting Uighur:

“It is war. Was that not what you expected when you dared to take me? It will be war until my people have me again. Best be careful how you use me.”

The Witch-woman’s control broke at that, all the long pent-up fires of her wrath bursting forth.

“Good! Now we shall wipe out your yellow dogs for once and all. And you shall be flayed, or bathed in the cauldron — or given to Khalk’ru. Win or lose — there will be little of you for your dogs to fight over. You shall be used as I choose.”

“No,” I said, “as I choose, Lur.”

The blue eyes flamed on me at that. And the brown eyes met mine as scornfully as before.

“Give me a horse to ride. I do not like the touch of you — Dwayanu.’’

“Nevertheless, you ride with me, Evalie.”

We passed into Karak. The drums beat now loud, now low. But always with that unchanging, inexorable rhythm. They swelled and fell, swelled and fell. Like Death still stamping on the hollow graves — now fiercely — and now lightly.

There were many people in the streets. They stared at Evalie, and whispered. There were no shouts of welcome, no cheering. They seemed sullen, frightened. Then I knew they were listening so closely to the drums that they hardly knew we were passing. The drums were closer. I could hear them talking from point to point along the far bank of the river. The tongues of the talking drums rose plain above the others. And through their talking, repeated and repeated:

“Ev-ah-lee! Ev-ah-lee!”

We rode over the open square to the gate of the black citadel. There I stopped.

“A truce, Lur.”

She sent a mocking glance at Evalie.

“A truce! What need of a truce between you and me — Dwayanu?”

I said, quietly:

“I am tired of bloodshed. Among the captives are some of the Rrrllya. Let us bring them where they can talk with Evalie and with us two. We will then release a part of them, and send them across Nanbu with the message that no harm is intended Evalie. That we ask the Rrrllya to send us on the morrow an embassy empowered to arrange a lasting peace. And that when that peace is arranged they shall take Evalie back with them unharmed.”

She said, smiling:

“So — Dwayanu — fears the dwarfs!”

I repeated:

“I am tired of bloodshed.”

“Ah, me,” she sighed. “And did I not once hear Dwayanu boast that he kept his promises — and was thereby persuaded to give him payment for them in advance! Ah, me — but Dwayanu is changed!”

She stung me there, but I managed to master my anger; I said:

“If you will not agree to this, Lur, then I myself will give the orders. But then we shall be a beleagured city which is at its own throat. And easy prey for the enemy.”

She considered this.

“So you want no war with the little yellow dogs? And it is your thought that if the girl is returned to them, there will be none? Then why wait? Why not send her back at once with the captives? Take them up to Nansur, parley with the dwarfs there. Drum talk would settle the matter in a little while — if you are right. Then we can sleep this night without the drums disturbing you.”

That was true enough, but I read the malice in it. The truth was that I did not want Evalie sent back just then. If she were, then never, I knew, might I have a chance to justify myself with her, break down her distrust — have her again accept me as the Leif whom she had loved. But given a little time — I might. And the Witch-woman knew this.

“Not so quickly should it be done, Lur,” I said, suavely. “That would be to make them think we fear them — as the proposal made you think I feared them. We need more than hasty drum talk to seal such treaty. No, we hold the girl as hostage until we make our terms.”

She bent her head, thinking, then looked at me with clear eyes, and smiled.

“You are right, Dwayanu. I will send for the captives after I have rid myself of these stains of Sirk. They will be brought to your chamber. And in the meantime I will do more. I will order that word be sent the Rrrllya on Nansur that soon their captured fellows will be among them with a message. At the least it will give us time. And we need time, Dwayanu — both of us.”

I looked at her sharply. She laughed, and gave her horse the spurs. I rode behind her through the gate and into the great enclosed square. It was crowded with soldiers and captives. Here the drumming was magnified. The drums seemed to be within the place itself, invisible and beaten by invisible drummers. The soldiers were plainly uneasy, the prisoners excited, and curiously defiant.

Passing into the citadel I called various officers who had not taken part in the attack on Sirk and gave orders that the garrison on the walls facing Nansur Bridge be increased. Also that an alarm should be sounded which would bring in the soldiers and people from the outer-lying posts and farms. I ordered the guard upon the river walls to be strengthened, and the people of the city be told that those who wished to seek shelter in the citadel could come, but must be in by dusk. It was a scant hour before nightfall. There would be little trouble in caring for them in that immense place. And all this I did in event of the message failing. If it failed, I had no desire to be part of a massacre in Karak, which would stand a siege until I could convince the Little People of my good faith. Or convince Evalie of it, and have her bring about a peace.

This done, I took Evalie to my own chambers, not those of the High-priest where the Black Octopus hovered over the three thrones, but a chain of comfortable rooms in another part of the citadel. The little troop, which had stood by me through the sack of Sirk and after, followed us. There I turned Evalie over to Dara. I was bathed, my wound dressed and bandaged, and clothed. Here the windows looked out over the river, and the drums beat through them maddeningly. I ordered food brought, and wine, and summoned Evalie. Dara brought her. She had been well cared for, but she would not eat with me. She said to me:

“I fear my people will have but scant faith in any messages you send, Dwayanu.”

“Later we will talk of that other message, Evalie. I did not send it. And Tsantawu, dying in my arms, believed me when I told him I had not.”

“I heard you say to Lur that you had promised her Sirk. You did not lie to her, Dwayanu — for Sirk is eaten. How can I believe you?”

I said: “You shall have proof that I speak truth, Evalie, Now, since you will not eat with me, go with Dara.”

She had no fault to find with Dara. Dara was no lying traitor, but a soldier, and fighting in Sirk or elsewhere was part of her trade. She went with her.

I ate sparingly and drank heavily. The wine put new life in me, drove away what was left of weariness. I put sorrow for Jim resolutely aside for the moment, thinking of what I intended to do, and how best to do it. And then there was a challenge at the door, and the Witch-woman entered.

Her red braids crowned her and in them shone the sapphires. She bore not the slightest mark of the struggles of the day, nor sign of fatigue. Her eyes were bright and clear, her red lips smiling. Her low, sweet voice, her touch upon my arm, brought back memories I had thought gone with Dwayanu.

She called, and through the door came a file of soldiers, and with them a score of the Little People, unbound, hatred in their yellow eyes as they saw me, curiosity too. I spoke to them, gently. I sent for Evalie. She came, and the golden pygmies ran to her, threw themselves upon her like a crowd of children, twittering and trilling, stroking her hair, touching her feet and hands.

She laughed, called them one by one by name, then spoke rapidly. I could get little of what she said; by the shadow on Lur’s face I knew she had understood nothing at all. I repeated to Evalie precisely what I had told Lur — and which, at least in part, she knew, for she had betrayed that she understood the Uighur, or the Ayjir, better than she had admitted. I translated from the tongue of the dwarfs for Lur.

The pact was speedily made. Half of the pygmies were to make their way at once over Nanbu to the garrison on the far side of the bridge. By the talking drums they would send our message to the stronghold of the Little People. If they accepted it, the beating of the war drums would cease. I said to Evalie:

“When they talk on their drums, let them say that nothing will be asked of them that was not contained in the old truce — and that death will no longer lie in wait for them when they cross the river.”

The Witch-woman said:

“Just what does that mean, Dwayanu?”

“Now Sirk is done, there is no longer much need for that penalty, Lur. Let them gather their herbs and metals as they will; that is all.”

“There is more in your mind than that —” Her eyes narrowed.

“They understood me, Evalie — but do you also tell them.”

The Little People trilled among themselves; then ten of them stepped forward, those chosen to take the message. As they were moving away, I stopped them.

“If Sri escaped, let him come with the embassy. Better still — let him come before them. Send word through the drums that he may come as soon as he can. He has my safe-conduct, and shall stay with Evalie until all is settled.”

They chattered over that, assented. The Witch-woman made no comment. For the first time I saw Evalie’s eyes soften as she looked at me.

When the pygmies were gone, Lur walked to the door, and beckoned. Ouarda entered.

“Ouarda!”

I liked Ouarda. It was good to know she was alive. I went to her with outstretched hands. She took them.

“It was two of the soldiers. Lord. They had sisters in Sirk. They cut the ladder before we could stop them. They were slain,” she said.

Would to God they had cut it before any could, have followed me I

Before I could speak, one of my captains knocked and entered.

“It is long after dusk and the gates are closed. Lord. All those who would come are behind them.”

“Were there many, soldier?”

“No, Lord — not more than a hundred or so. The others refused.”

“And did they say why they refused?”

“Is the question an order. Lord?”

“It is an order.”

“They said they were safer where they were. That the Rrrllya had no quarrel with them, who were but meat for Khalk’ru.”

“Enough, soldier!” The Witch-woman’s voice was harsh. “Go! Take the Rrrllya with you.”

The captain saluted, turned smartly and was gone with the dwarfs. I laughed.

“Soldiers cut our ladder for sympathy of those who fled Khalk’ru. The people fear the enemies of Khalk’ru less than they do their own kind who are his butchers! We do well to make peace with the Rrrllya, Lur.”

I watched her face pale, then redden and saw the knuckles of her hands whiten as she clenched them. She smiled, poured herself wine, lifted it with a steady hand.

“I drink to your wisdom — Dwayanu!”

A strong soul — the Witch-woman’s! A warrior’s heart. Somewhat lacking in feminine softness, it was true. But it was no wonder that Dwayanu had loved her — in his way and as much as he could love a woman.

A silence dropped upon the chamber, intensified in some odd fashion by the steady beating of the drums. How long we sat in that silence I do not know. But suddenly the beat of the drums became fainter.

And then all at once the drums ceased entirely. The quiet brought a sense of unreality. I could feel the tense nerves loosening like springs long held taut. The abrupt silence made ears ache, slowed heart-beat.

“They have the message. They have accepted it,” Evalie spoke.

The Witch-woman arose.

“You keep the girl beside you to-night, Dwayanu?”

“She sleeps in one of these rooms, Lur. She will be under guard. No one can reach her without passing through my room here,” I looked at her, significantly. “And I sleep lightly. You need have no fear of her escape.”

“I am glad the drums will not disturb your sleep — Dwayanu.”

She gave me a mocking salute, and, with Ouarda, left me.

And suddenly the weariness dropped upon me again. I turned to Evalie, watching me with eyes in which I thought doubt of her own deep doubt had crept. Certainly there was no scorn, nor loathing in them. Well, now I had her where all this manoeuvring had been meant to bring her. Alone with me. And looking at her I felt that in the face of all she had seen of me, all she had undergone because of me — words were useless things. Nor could I muster them as I wanted. No, there would be plenty of time . . . in the morning, perhaps, when I had slept . . . or after I had done what I had to do . . . then she must believe . . . .

“Sleep, Evalie. Sleep without fear . . . and believe that all that has been wrong is now becoming right. Go with Dara. You shall be well guarded. None can come to you except through this room, and here I will be. Sleep and fear nothing.”

I called Dara, gave her instructions, and Evalie went with her. At the curtains masking the entrance to the next room she hesitated, half turned as though to speak, but did not. And not long after Dara returned. She said:

“She is already asleep, Dwayanu.”

“As you should be, friend,” I told her. “And all those others who stood by me this day. I think there is nothing to fear to-night. Select those whom you can trust and have them guard the corridor and my door. Where have you put her?”

“In the chamber next this, Lord.”

“It would be better if you and the others slept here, Dara. There are half a dozen rooms for you. Have wine and food brought for you — plenty of it.”

She laughed.

“Do you expect a siege, Dwayanu?”

“One never knows.”

“You do not greatly trust Lur, Lord?”

“I trust her not at all, Dara.”

She nodded, turned to go. Upon the impulse I said:

“Dara, would it make you sleep better to-night and those with you, and would it help you in picking your guard if I told you this: there will be no more sacrifices to Khalk’ru while I live?”

She started; her face lightened, softened. She thrust out her hand to me:

“Dwayanu — I had a sister who was given to Khalk’ru. Do you mean this?”

“By the life of my blood! By all the living gods! I mean it!”

“Sleep well. Lord!” Her voice was choked. She walked away, through the curtain, but not before I had seen the tears on her cheeks.

Well, a woman had a right to weep — even if she was a soldier. I myself had wept today.

I poured myself wine, sat thinking as I drank. Mainly my thoughts revolved around the enigma of Khalk’ru. And there was a good reason for that.

What was Khalk’ru?

I slipped the chain from round my neck, opened the locket and studied the ring. I closed it, and threw it on the table. Somehow I felt that it was better there than over my heart while I was doing this thinking.

Dwayanu had had his doubts about that dread Thing being any Spirit of the Void, and I, who now was Leif Langdon and a passive Dwayanu, had no doubts whatever that it was not. Yet I could not accept Barr’s theory of mass hypnotism — and trickery was out of the question.

Whatever Khalk’ru might be, Khalk’ru — as the Witch-woman had said — was. Or at least that Shape which became material through ritual, ring and screen — was.

I thought that I might have put the experience in the temple of the oasis down as hallucination if it had not been repeated here in the Shadowed-land. But there could be no possible doubt about the reality of the sacrifice I had conducted; no possible doubt as to the destruction — absorption — dissolvement — of the twelve girls. And none of Yodin’s complete belief in the power of the tentacle to remove me, and none of his complete effacement. And I thought that if the sacrifices and Yodin were standing in the wings laughing at me, as Barr had put it — then it was in the wings of a theatre in some other world than this. And there was the deep horror of the Little People, the horror of so many of the Ayjir — and there was the revolt in ancient Ayjirland born of this same horror, which had destroyed Ayjirland by civil war.

No, whatever the Thing was, no matter how repugnant to science its recognition as a reality might be — still it was Atavism, superstition — call it what Barr would — I knew the Thing was real! Not of this earth — no, most certainly not of this earth. Not even supernatural. Or rather, supernatural only insofar as it might come from another dimension or even another world which our five senses could not encompass.

And I reflected, now, that science and religion are really blood brothers, which is largely why they hate each other so, that scientists and religionists are quite alike in their dogmatism, their intolerance, and that every bitter battle of religion over some interpretation of creed or cult has its parallel in battles of science over a bone or rock.

Yet just as there are men in the churches whose minds have not become religiously fossilized, so there are men in the laboratories whose minds have not become scientifically fossilized. . . . Einstein, who dared challenge all conceptions of space and time with his four dimensional space in which time itself was a dimension, and who followed that with proof of five dimensional space instead of the four which are all our senses can apprehend, and which apprehends one of them wrongly . . . the possibility of a dozen worlds spinning interlocked with this one . . . in the same space . . . the energy which we call matter of each of them keyed to the different vibration, and each utterly unaware of the other . . . and utterly overturning the old axiom that two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time.

And I thought — what if far and far back in time, a scientist of that day, one of the Ayjir people, had discovered all that! Had discovered the fifth dimension beyond length, breadth, thickness and time. Or had discovered one of those interlocking worlds whose matter streams through the interstices of the matter of ours. And discovering dimension or world, had found the way to make dwellers in that dimension or that other world both aware of and manifest to those of this. By sound and gesture, by ring and screen, had made a gateway through which such dwellers could come — or at least, appear! And then what a weapon this discoverer had — what a weapon the inevitable priests of that Thing would have! And did have ages gone, just as they had here in Karak.

If so, was it one dweller or many who lurked in those gateways for its drink of life? The memories bequeathed me by Dwayanu told me there had been other temples in Ayjirland besides that one of the oasis. Was it the same Being that appeared in each? Was the Shape that came from the shattered stone of the oasis the same that had fed in the temple of the mirage? Or were there many of them — dwellers in other dimension or other world — avidly answering the summons? Nor was it necessarily true that in their own place these Things had the form of the Kraken. That might be the shape, through purely natural laws, which entrance into this world forced upon them.

I thought over that for quite awhile. It seemed to me the best explanation of Khalk’ru. And if it was, then the way to be rid of Khalk’ru was to destroy his means of entrance. And that, I reflected, was precisely how the ancient Ayjirs had argued.

But it did not explain why only those of the old blood could summon —

I heard a low voice at the door. I walked softly over to it, listened. I opened the door and there was Lur, talking to the guards.

“What is it you are seeking, Lur?”

“To speak with you. I will keep you only a little time, Dwayanu.”

I studied the Witch-woman. She stood, very quietly, in her eyes nothing of defiance nor resentment nor subtle calculation — only appeal. Her red braids fell over her white shoulders; she was without weapon or ornament. She looked younger than ever I had seen her, and somewhat forlorn. I felt no desire to mock her nor to deny her. I felt instead the stirrings of a deep pity.

“Enter, Lur — and say all that is in your mind.”

I closed the door behind her. She walked over to the window, looked out into the dim greenly glimmering night. I went to her.

“Speak softly, Lur. The girl is asleep there in the next chamber. Let her rest.”

She said, tonelessly:

“I wish you had never come here. Yellow-hair.” I thought of Jim, and I answered:

“I wish that too. Witch-woman. But here I am.” She leaned towards me, put her hand over my heart. “Why do you hate me so greatly?”

“I do not hate you, Lur. I have no hate left in me — except for one thing.”

“And that —?”

Involuntarily I looked at the table. One candle shone there and its light fell on the locket that held the ring. Her glance followed mine. She said:

“What do you mean to do? Throw Karak open to the dwarfs? Mend Nansur? Rule here over Karak and the Rrrllya with their dark girl at your side? Is it that . . . and if it is that — what is to become of Lur? Answer me. I have the right to know. There is a bond between us . . . I loved you when you were Dwayanu . . . you know how well . . .”

“And would have killed me while I was still Dwayanu,” I said, sombrely.

“Because I saw Dwayanu dying as you looked into the eyes of the stranger,” she answered. “You whom Dwayanu had mastered was killing Dwayanu. I loved Dwayanu. Why should I not avenge him?”

“If you believe I am no longer Dwayanu, then I am the man whose friend you trapped and murdered — the man whose love you trapped and would have destroyed. And if that be so — what claim have you upon me, Lur?”

She did not answer for moments; then she said:

“I have some justice on my side. I tell you I loved Dwayanu. Something I knew of your case from the first. Yellow-hair. But I saw Dwayanu awaken within you. And I knew it was truly he! I knew, too, that as long as that friend of yours and the dark girl lived there was danger for Dwayanu. That was why I plotted to bring them into Sirk. I threw the dice upon the chance of killing them before you had seen them. Then, I thought, all would be well. There would be none left to rouse that in you which Dwayanu had mastered. I lost. I knew I had lost when by whim of Luka she threw you three together. And rage and sorrow caught me — and I did . . . what I did.”

“Lur,” I said, “answer me truly. That day you returned to the Lake of the Ghosts after pursuit of the two women — were they not your spies who bore that lying message into Sirk? And did you not wait until you learned my friend and Evalie were in the trap before you gave me word to march? And was it not in your thought that you would then — if I opened the way into Sirk — rid yourself not only of those two but of Dwayanu? For remember — you may have loved Dwayanu, but as he told you, you loved power better than he. And Dwayanu threatened your power. Answer me truly.”

For the second time I saw tears in the eyes of the Witch-woman. She said, brokenly:

“I sent the spies, yes. I waited until the two were in the trap. But I never meant harm to Dwayanu!”

I did not believe her. But still I felt no anger, no hate. The pity grew.

“Lur, now I will tell you truth. It is not in my mind to rule with Evalie over Karak and the Rrrllya. I have no more desire for power. That went with Dwayanu. In the peace I make with the dwarfs, you shall rule over Karak — if that be your desire. The dark girl shall go back with them. She will not desire to remain in Karak. Nor do I . . . .”

“You cannot go with her,” she interrupted me. “Never would the yellow dogs trust you. Their arrows would be ever pointed at you.”

I nodded — that thought had occurred to me long before.

“All — that must adjust itself,” I said. “But there shall be no more sacrifices. The gate of Khalk’ru shall be closed against him for ever. And I will close it.”

Her eyes dilated.

“You mean —”

“I mean that I will shut Khalk’ru for ever from Karak — unless Khalk’ru proves stronger than I.”

She wrung her hands, helplessly.

“What use rule over Karak to me then . . . how could I hold the people?”

“Nevertheless — I will destroy the gate of Khalk’ru.”

She whispered:

“Gods — if I had Yodin’s ring . . .”

I smiled at that.

“Witch-woman, you know as well as I that Khalk’ru comes to no woman’s call.”

The witch-lights flickered in her eyes; a flash of green shone through them.

“There is an ancient prophecy. Yellow-hair, that Dwayanu did not know — or had forgotten. It says that when Khalk’ru comes to a woman’s call, he — stays! That was the reason no woman in ancient Ayjilrand might be priestess at the sacrifice.”

I laughed at that.

“A fine pet, Lur — to add to your wolves.”

She walked toward the door, paused.

“What if I could love you — as I loved Dwayanu? Could make you love me as Dwayanu loved me? And more! Send the dark girl to join her people and take the ban of death from them on this side of Nanbu. Would you let things be as they are — rule with me over Karak?”

I opened the door for her.

“I told you I no longer care for power, Lur.”

She walked away.

I went back to the window, drew a chair to it, and sat thinking. Suddenly from somewhere close to the citadel I heard a wolf cry. Thrice it howled, then thrice again.

“Leif!”

I jumped to my feet. Evalie was beside me. She peered at me through the veils of her hair; her clear eyes shone upon me — no longer doubting, hating, fearing. They were as they were of old.

“Evalie!”

My arms went round her; my lips found hers.

“I listened, Leif!”

“You believe, Evalie!”

She kissed me, held me tight.

“But she was right — Leif. You could not go with me again into the land of the Little People. Never, never would they understand. And I would not dwell in Karak.”

“Will you go with me, Evalie — to my own land? After I have done what I must do . . . and if I am not destroyed in its doing?”

“I will go with you, Leif!”

And she wept awhile, and after another while she fell asleep in my arms. And I lifted her, and carried her into her chamber and covered her with the sleep silks. Nor did she awaken.

I returned to my own room. As I passed the table I picked up the locket, started to put it round my neck. I threw it back. Never would I wear that chain again, I dropped upon the bed, sword at hand. I slept.

1 yorum Devamini oku

Zhang ailing was born in old China once& nbsp;bound prominent family, her grandfather Zhang PeiGuan is clear in the late qing dynast y famous schools of representative, is li's&n bsp;son-in-law. Zhang ailing father a young diehard sty le, contaminated with scratch on holding the& nbsp;evil, and husband and wife do not. Her mother is nanjing HuangJun door dau ghter, had kept the ocean. Zhang ailing growth in such a family,&n bsp;not only gave her unique Chinese culture& nbsp;and western culture accomplishment, and make& nbsp;her form the sensitive and apathy, withd rawn and practical character. 

Zhang ailing grew up shows special writer&nbs p;talent. 3, 4 years old, mother taught her  recite poetry, intelligent, she can't read a& nbsp;poem a few times will recite, she r ead classical poetry have a good understandin g, and read a little poem can often  ;have a tacit understanding of heart to  a pastiche. 7 years old zhang ailing can write  ;novels, see her letter hand "graffiti" work,  really made my parents happy enough. 

Small AiLing 9 years old, one day, she&n bsp;believed stroke a cartoon, the mother say , father say, she went to the newspaper& nbsp;cartoon, a few days later, the newspaper  to send 5 yuan fees, she jumped wi th joy. Mom and dad said: "the money let y ou control it." Small AiLing was very happy, because t his is her with their own wisdom for&nbs p;the first time to earn money. 

Zhang ailing in high school, literary talent& nbsp;fully revealed. Her school is Shanghai maria girls' sch ool, the school has a literary school ma gazine called "guoguang", zhang ailing often  in the school magazine published novels, book s and papers. There are a "farewell my concubine" wri te and heroic, impassioned, straight to many& nbsp;men admire, also make many writer praise . 

13 years old, zhang ailing in bookstand  to read a book a hate water popular  ;novels in the book, and changing circumstanc es deeply attracted her, after she specifical ly looking for such a book to read,  ;read a few this later, zhang ailing abr upt fantasy, if I could write several po pular novels that this much good. One day, she really to start, the  character is in "a dream of red mansions " ready-made, jia baoyu, Lin daiyu and J iaZheng, Mrs King, more attacks, such as  ;her...... But these people wear is modern clothes , speak the language of the modern peopl e, the modern people, around the bund, w alking, riding a rickshaw, glamour to the&nbs p;neon lights of love... 

A novel every write a section, to see&nb sp;his father, his father often gladly put&nb sp;pen to paper, the proposed title. Novels written order into two volumes w ith manuscript, impressively write the title  "modern a dream of red mansions". 

Zhang ailing's literary works for generations  ;highly, the longer, the better the charm,&nb sp;the influence to the contemporary immortalizati on. In today's Taiwan, there are still a&nb sp;number of zhang ailing's research experts  and scholars, many people also believe that&n bsp;zhang ailing can and should have won  ;the Nobel Prize for literature. 

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