by Saki
The English gamekeeper, whose knowledge of wild life usually runs on limited and perverted lines, has evolved a sort of religion as to the nervous debility of even the hardiest game birds; according to his beliefs a terrier trotting across a field in which a partridge is nesting, or a mouse-hawking kestrel hovering over the hedge, is sufficient cause to drive the distracted bird off its eggs and send it whirring into the next county.
The partridge of the war zone shows no signs of such sensitive nerves. The rattle and rumble of transport, the constant coming and going of bodies of troops, the incessant rattle of musketry and deafening explosions of artillery, the night-long flare and flicker of star-shells, have not sufficed to scare the local birds away from their chosen feeding grounds, and to all appearances they have not been deterred from raising their broods. Gamekeepers who are serving with the colours might seize the opportunity to indulge in a little useful nature study.
The Gala Programme
An Unrecorded Episode in Roman History
It was an auspicious day in the Roman Calendar, the birthday of the popular and gifted young Emperor Placidus Superbus. Every one in Rome was bent on keeping high festival, the weather was at its best, and naturally the Imperial Circus was crowded to its fullest capacity. A few minutes before the hour fixed for the commencement of the spectacle a loud fanfare of trumpets proclaimed the arrival of Cæsar, and amid the vociferous acclamations of the multitude the Emperor took his seat in the Imperial Box. As the shouting of the crowd died away an even more thrilling salutation could be heard in the near distance, the angry, impatient roaring and howling of the beasts caged in the Imperial menagerie.
‘Explain the programme to me,’ commanded the Emperor, having beckoned the Master of the Ceremonies to his side.
That eminent official wore a troubled look.
‘Gracious Cæsar,’ he announced, ‘a most promising and entertaining programme has been devised and prepared for your august approval. In the first place there is to be a chariot contest of unusual brilliancy and interest; three teams that have never hitherto suffered defeat are to contend for the Herculaneum Trophy, together with the purse which your Imperial generosity has been pleased to add. The chances of the competing teams are accounted to be as nearly as possible equal, and there is much wagering among the populace. The black Thracians are perhaps the favourites –’
‘I know, I know,’ interrupted Cæsar, who had listened to exhaustive talk on the same subject all the morning; ‘what else is there on the programme?’
‘The second part of the programme,’ said the Imperial Official, ‘consists of a grand combat of wild beasts, specially selected for their strength, ferocity, and fighting qualities. There will appear simultaneously in the arena fourteen Nubian lions and lionesses, five tigers, six Syrian bears, eight Persian panthers, and three North African ditto, a number of wolves and lynxes from the Teutonic forests, and seven gigantic wild bulls from the same region. There will also be wild swine of unexampled savageness, a rhinoceros from the Barbary coast, some ferocious man-apes, and a hyæna, reputed to be mad.’
‘It promises well,’ said the Emperor.
‘It promised well, O Cæsar,’ said the official dolorously, ‘it promised marvellously well; but between the promise and the performance a cloud has arisen.’
‘A cloud? What cloud?’ queried Caesar, with a frown.
‘The Suffragetæ,’ explained the official; ‘they threaten to interfere with the chariot race.’
‘I’d like to see them do it!’ exclaimed the Emperor indignantly.
‘I fear your Imperial wish may be unpleasantly gratified,’ said the Master of the Ceremonies; ‘we are taking, of course, every possible precaution, and guarding all the entrances to the arena and the stables with a triple guard; but it is rumoured that at the signal for the entry of the chariots five hundred women will let themselves down with ropes from the public seats and swarm all over the course. Naturally no race could be run under such circumstances; the programme will be ruined.’
‘On my birthday,’ said Placidus Superbus, ‘they would not dare to do such an outrageous thing.’
‘The more august the occasion, the more desirous they will be to advertise themselves and their cause,’ said the harassed official; ‘they do not scruple to make riotous interference even with the ceremonies in the temples.’
‘Who are these Suffragetæ?’ asked the Emperor. ‘Since I came back from my Pannonian expedition I have heard of nothing else but their excesses and demonstrations.’
‘They are a political sect of very recent origin, and their aim seems to be to get a big share of political authority into their hands. The means they are taking to convince us of their fitness to help in making and administering the laws consist of wild indulgence in tumult, destruction, and defiance of all authority. They have already damaged some of the most historically valuable of our public treasures, which can never be replaced.’
‘Is it possible that the sex which we hold in such honour and for which we feel such admiration can produce such hordes of Furies?’ asked the Emperor.
‘It takes all sorts to make a sex,’ observed the Master of the Ceremonies, who possessed a certain amount of worldly wisdom; ‘also,’ he continued anxiously, ‘it takes very little to upset a gala programme.’
‘Perhaps the disturbance that you anticipate will turn out to be an idle threat,’ said the Emperor consolingly.
‘But if they should carry out their intention,’ said the official, ‘the programme will be utterly ruined.’
The Emperor said nothing.
Five minutes later the trumpets rang out for the commencement of the entertainment. A hum of excited anticipation ran through the ranks of the spectators, and final bets on the issue of the great race were hurriedly shouted. The gates leading from the stables were slowly swung open, and a troop of mounted attendants rode round the track to ascertain that everything was clear for the momentous contest. Again the trumpets rang out, and then, before the foremost chariot had appeared, there arose a wild tumult of shouting, laughing, angry protests, and shrill screams of defiance. Hundreds of women were being lowered by their accomplices into the arena. A moment later they were running and dancing in frenzied troops across the track where the chariots were supposed to compete. No team of arena-trained horses would have faced such a frantic mob; the race was clearly an impossibility. Howls of disappointment and rage rose from the spectators, howls of triumph echoed back from the women in possession. The vain efforts of the circus attendants to drive out the invading horde merely added to the uproar and confusion; as fast as the Suffragetæ were thrust away from one portion of the track they swarmed on to another.
The Master of the Ceremonies was nearly delirious from rage and mortification. Placidus Superbus, who remained calm and unruffled as ever, beckoned to him and spoke a word or two in his ear. For the first time that afternoon the sorely tried official was seen to smile.
A trumpet rang out from the Imperial Box; an instant hush fell over the excited throng. Perhaps the Emperor, as a last resort, was going to announce some concession to the Suffragetæ.
‘Close the stable gates,’ commanded the Master of the Ceremonies, ‘and open all the menagerie dens. It is the Imperial pleasure that the second portion of the programme be taken first.’
It turned out that the Master of the Ceremonies had in no wise exaggerated the probable brilliancy of this portion of the spectacle. The wild bulls were really wild, and the hyæna reputed to be mad thoroughly lived up to its reputation.
The Infernal Parliament
In an age when it has become increasingly difficult to accomplish anything new or original, Bavton Bidderdale interested his generation by dying of a new disease. ‘We always knew he would do something remarkable one of these days,’ observed his aunts; ‘he has justified our belief in him.’ But there is a section of humanity ever ready to refuse recognition to meritorious achievement, and a large and influential school of doctors ass
erted their belief that Bidderdale was not really dead. The funeral arrangements had to be held over until the matter was settled one way or the other, and the aunts went provisionally into half-mourning.
Meanwhile, Bidderdale remained in Hell as a guest pending his reception on a more regular footing. ‘If you are not really supposed to be dead,’ said the authorities of that region, ‘we don’t want to seem in an indecent hurry to grab you. The theory that Hell is in serious need of population is a thing of the past. Why, to take your family alone, there are any number of Bidderdales on our books, as you may discover later. It is part of our system that relations should be encouraged to live together down here. From observations made in another world we have abundant evidence that it promotes the ends we have in view. However, while you are a guest we should like you to be treated with every consideration and be shown anything that specially interests you. Of course, you would like to see our Parliament?’
‘Have you a Parliament in Hell?’ asked Bidderdale in some surprise.
‘Only quite recently. Of course we’ve always had chaos, but not under Parliamentary rules. Now, however, that Parliaments are becoming the fashion, in Turkey and Persia, and I suppose before long in Afghanistan and China, it seemed rather ostentatious to stand outside the movement. That young Fiend just going by is the Member for East Brimstone; he’ll be delighted to show you over the institution.’
‘You will just be in time to hear the opening of a debate,’ said the Member, as he led Bidderdale through a spacious outer lobby, decorated with frescoes representing the fall of man, the discovery of gold, the invention of playing cards, and other traditionally appropriate subjects. ‘The Member for Nether Furnace is proposing a motion “that this House do arrogantly protest to the legislatures of earthly countries against the wrongful and injurious misuse of the word ‘fiendish’, in application to purely human misdemeanours, a misuse tending to create a false and detrimental impression concerning the Infernal Regions.”’
A feature of the Parliament Chamber itself was its enormous size. The space allotted to Members was small and very sparsely occupied, but the public galleries stretched away tier on tier as far as the eye could reach, and were packed to their utmost capacity.
‘There seems to be a very great public interest in the debate,’ exclaimed Bidderdale.
‘Members are excused from attending the debates if they so desire,’ the Fiend proceeded to explain; ‘it is one of their most highly valued privileges. On the other hand, constituents are compelled to listen throughout to all the speeches. After all, you must remember, we are in Hell.’
Bidderdale repressed a shudder and turned his attention to the debate.
‘Nothing,’ the Fiend-Orator was observing, ‘is more deplorable among the cultured races of the present day than the tendency to identify fiendhood, in the most sweeping fashion, with all manner of disreputable excesses, excesses which can only be alleged against us on the merest legendary evidence. Vices which are exclusively or predominatingly human are unblushingly described as inhuman, and, what is even more contemptible and ungenerous, as fiendish. If one investigates such statements as “inhuman treatment of pit ponies” or “fiendish cruelties in the Congo”, so frequently to be heard in our brother Parliaments on earth, one finds accumulative and indisputable evidence that it is the human treatment of pit ponies and Congo natives that is really in question, and that no authenticated case of fiendish agency in these atrocities can be substantiated. It is, perhaps, a minor matter for complaint,’ continued the orator, ‘that the human race frequently pays us the doubtful compliment of describing as “devilish funny” jokes which are neither funny nor devilish.’
The orator paused, and an oppressive silence reigned over the vast chamber.
‘What is happening?’ whispered Bidderdale.
‘Five minutes Hush,’ explained his guide; ‘it is a sign that the speaker was listened to in silent approval, which is the highest mark of appreciation that can be bestowed in Pandemonium. Let’s come into the smoking-room.’
‘Will the motion be carried?’ asked Bidderdale, wondering inwardly how Sir Edward Grey would treat the protest if it reached the British Parliament, an entente with the Infernal Regions opened up a fascinating vista, in which the Foreign Secretary’s imagination might hopelessly lose itself.
‘Carried? Of course not,’ said the Fiend; ‘in the Infernal Parliament all motions are necessarily lost.’
‘In earthly Parliaments nowadays nearly everything is found,’ said Bidderdale, ‘including salaries and travelling expenses.’
He felt that at any rate he was probably the first member of his family to make a joke in Hell.
‘By the way,’ he added, ‘talking of earthly Parliaments, have you got the Party system down here?’
‘In Hell? Impossible. You see we have no system of rewards. We have specialised so thoroughly on punishments that the other branch has been entirely neglected. And besides, Government by delusion, as you practise it in your Parliament, would be unworkable here. I should be the last person to say anything against temptation, naturally, but we have a proverb down here “in baiting a mouse-trap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse”. Such a party-cry, for instance, as your “ninepence for fourpence” would be absolutely inoperative; it not only leaves no room for the mouse, it leaves no room for the imagination. You have a saying in your country, I believe, “there’s no fool like a damned fool”; all the fools down here are, necessarily, damned, but – you wouldn’t get them to nibble at ninepence for fourpence.’
‘Couldn’t they be scolded and lectured into believing it, as a sort of moral and intellectual duty?’ asked Bidderdale.
‘We haven’t all your facilities,’ said the Fiend; ‘we’ve nothing down here that exactly corresponds to the Master of Elibank.’
At this moment Bidderdale’s attention was caught by an item on a loose sheet of agenda paper: ‘Vote on account of special Hells.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I’ve often heard the expression “there is a special Hell reserved for such-and-such a type of person”. Do tell me about them.’
‘I’ll show you one in course of preparation,’ said the Fiend, leading him down the corridor. ‘This one is designed to accommodate one of the leading playwrights of your nation. You may observe scores of imps engaged in pasting notices of modern British plays into a huge press-cutting book, each under the name of the author, alphabetically arranged. The book will contain nearly half a million notices, I suppose, and it will form the sole literature supplied to this specially doomed individual.’
Bidderdale was not altogether impressed.
‘Some dramatic authors wouldn’t so very much mind spending eternity poring over a book of contemporary press-cuttings,’ he observed.
The Fiend, laughing unpleasantly, lowered his voice.
‘The letter “S” is missing.’
For the first time Bidderdale realised that he was in Hell.
The Achievement of the Cat
In the political history of nations it is no uncommon experience to find States and peoples which but a short time since were in bitter conflict and animosity with each other, settled down comfortably on terms of mutual goodwill and even alliance. The natural history of the social developments of species affords a similar instance in the coming-together of two once warring elements, now represented by civilised man and the domestic cat. The fiercely waged struggle which went on between humans and felines in those far-off days when sabre-toothed tiger and cave lion contended with primeval man, has long ago been decided in favour of the most fitly equipped combatant – the Thing with a Thumb – and the descendants of the dispossessed family are relegated today, for the most part, to the waste lands of jungle and veld, where an existence of self-effacement is the only alternative to extermination. But the felis catus, or whatever species was the ancestor of the modern domestic cat (a vexed question at present), by a masterstroke of adaptation avoided the ruin of its race, and
‘captured’ a place in the very keystone of the conqueror’s organisation. For not as a bond-servant or dependent has this proudest of mammals entered the human fraternity; not as a slave like the beasts of burden, or a humble camp-follower like the dog. The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends; it will not be kennelled or harnessed nor suffer any dictation as to its goings out or comings in. Long contact with the human race has developed in it the art of diplomacy, and no Roman Cardinal of mediaeval days knew better how to ingratiate himself with his surroundings than a cat with a saucer of cream on its mental horizon. But the social smoothness, the purring innocence, the softness of the velvet paw may be laid aside at a moment’s notice, and the sinuous feline may disappear, in deliberate aloofness, to a world of roofs and chimney-stacks, where the human element is distanced and disregarded. Or the innate savage spirit that helped its survival in the bygone days of tooth and claw may be summoned forth from beneath the sleek exterior, and the torture-instinct (common alone to human and feline) may find free play in the death-throes of some luckless bird or rodent. It is, indeed, no small triumph to have combined the untrammelled liberty of primeval savagery with the luxury which only a highly developed civilisation can command; to be lapped in the soft stuffs that commerce has gathered from the far ends of the world, to bask in the warmth that labour and industry have dragged from the bowels of the earth; to banquet on the dainties that wealth has bespoken for its table, and withal to be a free son of nature, a mighty hunter, a spiller of life-blood. This is the victory of the cat. But besides the credit of success the cat has other qualities which compel recognition. The animal which the Egyptians worshipped as divine, which the Romans venerated as a symbol of liberty, which Europeans in the ignorant Middle Ages anathematised as an agent of demonology, has displayed to all ages two closely blended characteristics – courage and self-respect. No matter how unfavourable the circumstances, both qualities are always to the fore. Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission to the impending visitation, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance. And disassociate the luxury-loving cat from the atmosphere of social comfort in which it usually contrives to move, and observe it critically under the adverse conditions of civilisation – that civilisation which can impel a man to the degradation of clothing himself in tawdry ribald garments and capering mountebank dances in the streets for the earning of the few coins that keep him on the respectable, or non-criminal, side of society. The cat of the slums and alleys, starved, outcast, harried, still keeps amid the prowlings of its adversity the bold, free, panther-tread with which it paced of yore the temple courts of Thebes, still displays the self-reliant watchfulness which man has never taught it to lay aside. And when its shifts and clever managings have not sufficed to stave off inexorable fate, when its enemies have proved too strong or too many for its defensive powers, it dies fighting to the last, quivering with the choking rage of mastered resistance, and voicing in its death-yell that agony of bitter remonstrance which human animals, too, have flung at the powers that may be; the last protest against a destiny that might have made them happy – and has not.