by M. P. Shiel
was that?'
'Oh! a bite!' she screamed gladly.
I saw her float bob under, and started up, rushed to her, and taught herhow to strike and play it, though it turned out when landed to benothing but a tiny barbel: but she was in ecstasies, holding it on herpalm, murmuring her fond coo.
She re-baited, and we lay again. I said:
'But what a life: no exit, no light, no prospect, no hope--'
'Plenty of _hope_!' says she.
'Good Heavens! hope of what?'
'I knew vely well that something was lipening over the cellar, or under,or alound it, and would come to pass at a certain fixed hour, and that Ishould see it, and feel it, and it would be vely nice.'
'Ah, well, you had to wait for it, at any rate. Didn't those twentyyears seem _long_?'
'No--at least sometimes--not often. I was always so occupied.'
'Occupied in doing what?'
'In eating, or dlinking, or lunning, or talking.'
'Talking to your_self_?'
'Not myself.'
'To whom, then?'
'To the one who told me when I was hungly, and put the dates to satisfymy hunger.'
'I see. Don't wriggle about in that way, or you will never catch anyfish. The maxim of angling is: "Study to be quiet"--'
'O! another bite!' she called, and this time, all alone, very agilelylanded a good-sized bream.
'But do you mean that you were never sad?' said I when she wasre-settled.
'Sometimes I would sit and cly,' says she--'I did not know why. But ifthat was "sadness," I was never miserlable, never, never. And if Iclied, it did not last long, and I would soon fall to sleep, for hewould lock me in his lap, and kiss me, and wipe all my tears away.'
'He who?'
'Why, what a question! he who told me when I was hungly, and of thething that was lipening outside the cellar, which would be so nice.'
'I see, I see. But in all that dingy place, and thick gloom, were younever at all afraid?'
'Aflaid! _I_! of what?'
'Of the unknown.'
'I do not understand you. How could I be _aflaid_? The known was thevery opposite of tellible: it was merely hunger and dates, thirst andwine, the desire to lun and space to lun in, the desire to sleep andsleep: there was nothing tellible in that: and the unknown was even lesstellible than the known: for it was the nice thing that was lipeningoutside the cellar. I do not understand--'
'Ah, yes,' said I, 'you are a clever little being: but your continualfluttering about is fatal to all angling. Isn't it in your nature tokeep still a minute? And with regard now to your habits in thecellar--?'
'_Another!_' she cried with happy laugh, and landed a young chub. Andthat afternoon she caught seven, and I none.
* * * * *
Another day I took her from the pitch to one of the kitchens in thevillage with some of the fish, till then always thrown away, and taughther cooking: for the only cooking-implement in the palace is the silveralcohol-lamp for coffee and chocolate. We both scrubbed the utensils,and boil and fry I taught her, and the making of a sauce from vinegar,bottled olives, and the tinned American butter from the _Speranza_, andthe boiling of rice mixed with flour for ground-baiting our pitch. Andshe, at first astonished, was soon all deft housewifeliness, breathlessofficiousness, and behind my back, of her own intuitiveness, grated somedry almonds found there, and with them sprinkled the fried tench. And weate them, sitting on the floor together: the first new food, I suppose,tasted by me for twenty-one years: nor did I find it disagreeable.
The next day she came up to the palace reading a book, which turned outto be a cookery-book in English, found at her yali; and a week later,she appeared, out of hours, presenting me a yellow-earthenware dishcontaining a mess of gorgeous colours--a boiled fish under red peppers,bits of saffron, a greenish sauce, and almonds: but I turned her away,and would have none of her, or her dish.
* * * * *
About a mile up to the west of the palace is a very old ruin in thedeepest forest, I think of a mosque, though only three truncatedinternal pillars under ivy, and the weedy floor, with the courtyard andportal-steps remain, before it being a long avenue of cedars, gentlydescending from the steps, the path between the trees choked withlong-grass and wild rye reaching to my middle. Here I saw one day alarge disc of old brass, bossed in the middle, which may have beeneither a shield or part of an ancient cymbal, with concentric ringsgraven round it, from centre to circumference. The next day I broughtsome nails, a hammer, a saw, and a box of paints from the _Speranza_;and I painted the rings in different colours, cut down a slimlime-trunk, nailed the thin disc along its top, and planted it well,before the steps: for I said I would make a bull's-eye, and do rifle andrevolver practice before it, from the avenue. And this the next eveningI was doing at four hundred feet, startling the island, it seemed, withthat unusual noise, when up she came peering with enquiring face: atwhich I was very angry, because my arm, long unused, was firing wide:but I was too proud to say anything, and let her look, and soon sheunderstood, laughing every time I made a considerable miss, till at lastI turned upon her saying: 'If you think it so easy, you may try.'
She had been wanting to try, for she came eagerly to the offer, andafter I had opened and showed her the mechanism, the cartridges, and howto shoot, I put into her hands one of the _Speranza_ Colt's. She tookher bottom-lip between her teeth, shut her left eye, vaulted out therevolver like an old shot to the level of her intense right eye, andsent a ball through the geometrical centre of the boss.
However, it was a fluke-shot, for I had the satisfaction of seeing hermiss every one of the other five, except the last, which hit the black.That, however, was three weeks since, and now my hitting record is fortyper cent., and hers ninety-six--most extraordinary: so that it is clearthat this creature is the _protegee_ of someone, and favouritism is inthe world.
* * * * *
Her book of books is the Old Testament. Sometimes, at noon or afternoon,I may look abroad from the roof or galleries, and see a remote figuresitting on the sward under the shade of plane or black cypress: and Ialways know that the book she cons there is the Bible--like an oldRabbi. She has a passion for stories: and there finds a store.
Three nights since when it was pretty late, and the moon very splendid,I saw her passing homewards close to the lake, and shouted down to her,meaning to say 'Good-night'; but she thought that I had called her, andcame: and sitting out on the top step we talked for hours, she withoutthe yashmak.
We fell to talking about the Bible. And says she: 'What did Cain toAbel?'
'He knocked him over,' I replied, liking sometimes to use such idioms,with the double object of teaching and perplexing her.
'Over what?' says she.
'Over his heels,' said I.
'I do not complehend!'
'He killed him, then.'
'That I know. But how did Abel feel when he was killed? What is it to be_killed_?'
'Well,' said I, 'you have seen bones all around you, and the bones ofyour mother, and you can feel the bones in your fingers. Your fingerswill become mere bone after you are dead, as die you must. Those boneswhich you see around you, are, of course, the bones of the men of whomwe often speak: and the same thing happened to them which happens to afish or a butterfly when you catch them, and they lie all still.'
'And the men and the butterfly feel the same after they are dead?'
'Precisely the same. They lie in a deep drowse, and dream anonsense-dream.'
'That is not dleadful. I thought that it was much more dleadful. Ishould not mind dying.'
'Ah!... so much the better: for it is possible that you may have to diea great deal sooner than you think.'
'I should not mind. Why were men so vely aflaid to die?'
'Because they were all such shocking cowards.'
'Oh, not all! not all!'
(This girl, I know not with what motive, has now definite
ly set herselfup against me as the defender of the dead race. With every chance she isat it.)
'Nearly all,' said I: 'tell me one who was not afraid--'
'There was Isaac,' says she: 'when Ablaham laid him on the wood to killhim, he did not jump up and lun to hide.'
'Isaac was a great exception,' said I: 'in the Bible and such books, youunderstand, you read of only the best sorts of people; but there weremillions and millions of others--especially about the time of thepoison-cloud--on a very much lower level--putrid wretches--covetous,false, murderous, mean, selfish, debased, hideous, diseased, making theearth a very charnel of festering vices and crimes.'
This, for several minutes, she did not