LITMIR.BIZ

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was the cold Dead Hand which I had grasped? ...

      "I lit the wall-lamp.

      "There lay the table, overturned in the struggle. There lay the little lamp which I had carried in from the neighbouring bathroom. Its glass chimney was shattered and oil was running from its brass reservoir. And there, in my right arm, was the great, gaping stab.

      "Going to the mirror, I saw at a glance that there were marks of fingers on my throat.... And I knew that nothing bigger than a rat could have left the room!

      "I felt that I had had enough of mystery in solitude, and remembered my orderly. I was weak and faint from the awful struggle, and a little sick from the stab.... Also, my friends, I was frightened.... A murderous foe who can throttle and stab, does not lock the door on the inside as he leaves the room, look you, and neither does he climb through a small window in silence without disturbing bric-a-brac upon the sill....

      "I unlocked the door, and shouted to my Jean Boule. He replied on the instant, and came running.

      "He must have thought me mad when he heard my tale—until I directed his attention to the stab in my arm and the finger-marks on my neck....

      "He stared at the debris on the floor, at the undisturbed ornaments on the window-ledge, at the door, and finally at the marks on my person.

      "'Why does not Monsieur le Capitaine bleed?' said he suddenly. 'Has he used anything to stop the hæmorrhage so successfully?' and he took my arm in his hands.

      "Sure enough—no drop of blood had flowed from the deep stab in my forearm.

      "'Why, the arm is dead,' cried Jean Boule, as he felt it. 'What have you been doing to it, mon Capitaine? ... Excuse me' ... and he placed a thumb on each side of the stab, opened it, and peered. Then he laughed in his quiet gentlemanly way, and glanced at the smashed lamp.

      "'I thought so,' he said. 'Glass. No circulation. The hand dead,' and he laughed again.

      "'What do you mean, Légionnaire?' I asked, nettled by his amusement.

      "'Why—Monsieur le Capitaine has had a great and terrible fight with himself—and won. He went to sleep on his right side with his right arm raised and bent over his neck—and the arm also went to sleep as the circulation ceased, owing to the position—and Monsieur le Capitaine got hold of his throat and choked himself. Then he had nightmare, cauchemar, turned on his back, and woke up choking, and it was some time before he could budge the cold, stiff arm.... When he did, he flung it straight on to the lamp, broke the thing, and cut himself to the bone.' ...

      "And so it was! ...

      "But I contend that I have been throttled by a Dead Hand, d'Amienville." ...

      Lieutenant d'Amienville made a strange noise in his throat and then rose and escaped from the circle of mocking eyes.

      It was felt that Captain d'Armentières had not only moved an immovable arm, but had, as the droll English say, "pulled" an unpullable leg.

V. The Gift

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      It was Guest Night at the Spahis' mess.

      "What I complain of is the utter absence of gratitude among natives," said "Général" Archambaud Thibaud d'Amienville of the Chasseurs d'Afrique of the XIXth Army Corps of La République Française. "It is highly significant that there is no word for 'Thank you' in the vernacular, isn't it? ... If you do a native a good turn, he either wonders what you want of him, or else casts about in his mind for the reason why you want to propitiate him. If you had cause to punish one of your Spahis and did not do it, he would think you were afraid to. Kindness is in their eyes pure weakness. If you forego vengeance, it must be because you think the offender may avenge that vengeance. No, gratitude doesn't flourish under a tropical sun." ... Lieutenant d'Amienville was very young and therefore very cynical.

      "Is it a plant of very hardy growth under a temperate one?" inquired Captain Gautier d'Armentières of the First Battalion of the Legion. "I seem to have heard complaints, and I fancy that poets from the days of Homer to those of this morning have had something to say about it."

      "Quite so," agreed Médecin-Major Parme; "but pass me the matches, and I will promise a brief pang of gratitude.... Quite so.... If a fellow does you a really good turn, he is strongly inclined to like you for evermore, and you are equally strongly disposed to regard him as a nuisance, and his mouldy face as a reminder of the time when you had to faire la lessive¹⁰ or were in some fearful scrape.... I could name a certain absinthe-sodden old Colonel who absolutely loathes me for having saved him, body and soul, some years ago, when he had been betting (and, of course, losing, as all people who bet do) and had then gone to Monte Carlo to put everything right at the gaming-tables! What made it worse was the fact that the departed francs were rather the property of Madame la République than of the Colonel. And Madame prefers to do her own gambling. His position, one Sunday night, was that Monday morning must find him with gold in his pocket or lead in his brain. I found the gold, as I had been at school with him, and had stayed with his people a lot, ... but I am sure he merely remembers a very shady passage in his career every time he sees me, and loathes me in consequence. He paid the debt off long ago, too."

      "I believe you are right," agreed Colonel Lebrun. "One uses the expression 'debt of gratitude,' and nobody really likes being in debt.... The gratitude is rarely paid though. I suppose it is because the creditor of gratitude occupies the higher ground, and one resents being on the lower."

      "I certainly once lost a friend by doing him a kindness," put in Adjudant-Major Berthon of the Legion, who was also dining at the Spahis' mess. "This was a loan case, too, and a slight coolness ending in a sharp frost followed immediately upon it.... And it wasn't my fault the coolness arose, I am sure."

      "Of course the benefactor always likes the beneficiary better than the beneficiary likes the benefactor," said the cynical "Général" d'Amienville, "and the kind action always dwells longer in the mind of the doer than in that of the receiver. Far longer. Always."

      "Not always," observed Captain d'Armentières. "Only yesterday..."

      "Always," contradicted d'Amienville.

      "I was about to say," continued d'Armentières, "that, only yesterday, I reminded a man of a good turn he did me years ago, and he had clean forgotten it.... And it was a deed I could not forget if I lived to be a hundred years old."

      "I simply don't believe a man could give you half of his kingdom, or save your valuable life or honour, and forget all about it," replied the "Général."

      "I did not say he gave me a half of his kingdom or saved my valuable life or honour," was the quiet answer. "I said he did me a good turn and had absolutely forgotten the incident though I have not, and never shall. I feel the deepest gratitude towards him and always will. I should be very glad of an opportunity of proving the fact." ...

      "A very noble sentiment," sneered the young gentleman.

      "No," said d'Armentières patiently. "I am not concerned to exhibit my high morality, fine nature, and noble sentiments, but am stating an example in opposition to your theory; a fact of memory—the respective memories of benefactor and beneficiary. He had forgotten doing the kindness, while I had remembered receiving it."

      "What was the nature of the action, if one might inquire?" put in Médecin-Major Parme.

      "Yes, what did he do, mon salop?" added Colonel Lebrun. "Surrender the beauteous damsel whom you both loved, with the hiccuping cry, 'Take her. She is thine,' and thenceforth hide a breaking heart beneath a writhing brow or a wrinkling tunic or something?"

      "Did he leap into the raging flood, or only place his huge fortune at your disposal? What was the noble deed?" asked Adjudant-Major Berthon.

      "It was a gift," replied d'Armentières, smiling. "A free, unsolicited, unexpected,

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