Life's Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People - Rudyard Kipling

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growing diffidence and distrust of mankind made John Hay unwilling to give this precious message of hope to his friends. They might take it up and analyse it. He was sure it was true, but it would pain him acutely were rough hands to examine it too closely. To him alone of all the toiling generations of mankind had the secret of immortality been vouchsafed. It would be impious – against all the designs of the Creator – to set mankind hurrying eastward. Besides, this would crowd the steamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all things to be alone. If he could get round the world in two months – some one of whom he had read, he could not remember the name, had covered the passage in eighty days – he would gain a clear day; and by steadily continuing to do it for thirty years, would gain one hundred and eighty days, or nearly the half of a year. It would not be much, but in course of time, as civilisation advanced, and the Euphrates Valley Railway was opened, he could improve the pace.

      Armed with many sovereigns, John Hay, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, set forth on his travels, two voices bearing him company from Dover as he sailed to Calais. Fortune favoured him. The Euphrates Valley Railway was newly opened, and he was the first man who took ticket direct from Calais to Calcutta – thirteen days in the train. Thirteen days in the train are not good for the nerves; but he covered the world and returned to Calais from America in twelve days over the two months, and started afresh with four and twenty hours of precious time to his credit. Three years passed, and John Hay religiously went round this earth seeking for more time wherein to enjoy the remainder of his sovereigns. He became known on many lines as the man who wanted to go on; when people asked him what he was and what he did, he answered —

      ‘I’m the person who intends to live, and I am trying to do it now.’

      His days were divided between watching the white wake spinning behind the stern of the swiftest steamers, or the brown earth flashing past the windows of the fastest trains; and he noted in a pocket-book every minute that he had railed or screwed out of remorseless eternity.

      ‘This is better than praying for long life,’ quoth John Hay as he turned his face eastward for his twentieth trip. The years had done more for him than he dared to hope.

      By the extension of the Brahmaputra Valley line to meet the newly-developed China Midland, the Calais railway ticket held good via Karachi and Calcutta to Hongkong. The round trip could be managed in a fraction over forty-seven days, and, filled with fatal exultation, John Hay told the secret of his longevity to his only friend, the house-keeper of his rooms in London. He spoke and passed; but the woman was one of resource, and immediately took counsel with the lawyers who had first informed John Hay of his golden legacy. Very many sovereigns still remained, and another Hay longed to spend them on things more sensible than railway tickets and steamer accommodation.

      The chase was long, for when a man is journeying literally for the dear life, he does not tarry upon the road. Round the world Hay swept anew, and overtook the wearied Doctor, who had been sent out to look for him, in Madras. It was there that he found the reward of his toil and the assurance of a blessed immortality. In half an hour the Doctor, watching always the parched lips, the shaking hands, and the eye that turned eternally to the east, won John Hay to rest in a little house close to the Madras surf. All that Hay need do was to hang by ropes from the roof of the room and let the round earth swing free beneath him. This was better than steamer or train, for he gained a day in a day, and was thus the equal of the undying sun. The other Hay would pay his expenses throughout eternity.

      It is true that we cannot yet take tickets from Calais to Hongkong, though that will come about in fifteen years; but men say that if you wander along the southern coast of India you shall find in a neatly whitewashed little bungalow, sitting in a chair swung from the roof, over a sheet of thin steel which he knows so well destroys the attraction of the earth, an old and worn man who for ever faces the rising sun, a stop-watch in his hand, racing against eternity. He cannot drink, he does not smoke, and his living expenses amount to perhaps twenty-five rupees a month, but he is John Hay, the Immortal. Without, he hears the thunder of the wheeling world with which he is careful to explain he has no connection whatever; but if you say that it is only the noise of the surf, he will cry bitterly, for the shadow on his brain is passing away as the brain ceases to work, and he doubts sometimes whether the doctor spoke the truth.

      ‘Why does not the sun always remain over my head?’ asks John Hay.

      THROUGH THE FIRE

      The Policeman rode through the Himalayan forest, under the moss-draped oaks, and his orderly trotted after him.

      ‘It’s an ugly business, Bhere Singh,’ said the Policeman. ‘Where are they?’

      ‘It is a very ugly business,’ said Bhere Singh; ‘and as for THEM, they are, doubtless, now frying in a hotter fire than was ever made of spruce-branches.’

      ‘Let us hope not,’ said the Policeman, ‘for, allowing for the difference between race and race, it’s the story of Francesca da Rimini, Bhere Singh.’

      Bhere Singh knew nothing about Francesca da Rimini, so he held his peace until they came to the charcoal-burners’ clearing where the dying flames said ‘whit, whit, whit’ as they fluttered and whispered over the white ashes. It must have been a great fire when at full height. Men had seen it at Donga Pa across the valley winking and blazing through the night, and said that the charcoal-burners of Kodru were getting drunk. But it was only Suket Singh, Sepoy of the load Punjab Native Infantry, and Athira, a woman, burning – burning – burning.

      This was how things befell; and the Policeman’s Diary will bear me out.

      Athira was the wife of Madu, who was a charcoal-burner, one-eyed and of a malignant disposition. A week after their marriage, he beat Athira with a heavy stick. A month later, Suket Singh, Sepoy, came that way to the cool hills on leave from his regiment, and electrified the villagers of Kodru with tales of service and glory under the Government, and the honour in which he, Suket Singh, was held by the Colonel Sahib Bahadur. And Desdemona listened to Othello as Desdemonas have done all the world over, and, as she listened, she loved.

      ‘I’ve a wife of my own,’ said Suket Singh, ‘though that is no matter when you come to think of it. I am also due to return to my regiment after a time, and I cannot be a deserter – I who intend to be Havildar.’ There is no Himalayan version of ‘I could not love thee, dear, as much, Loved I not Honour more;’ but Suket Singh came near to making one.

      ‘Never mind,’ said Athira, ‘stay with me, and, if Madu tries to beat me, you beat him.’

      ‘Very good,’ said Suket Singh; and he beat Madu severely, to the delight of all the charcoal-burners of Kodru.

      ‘That is enough,’ said Suket Singh, as he rolled Madu down the hillside. ‘Now we shall have peace.’ But Madu crawled up the grass slope again, and hovered round his hut with angry eyes.

      ‘He’ll kill me dead,’ said Athira to Suket Singh. ‘You must take me away.’

      ‘There’ll be a trouble in the Lines. My wife will pull out my beard; but never mind,’ said Suket Singh, ‘I will take you.’

      There was loud trouble in the Lines, and Suket Singh’s beard was pulled, and Suket Singh’s wife went to live with her mother and took away the children. ‘That’s all right,’ said Athira; and Suket Singh said, ‘Yes, that’s all right.’

      So there was only Madu left in the hut that looks across the valley to Donga Pa; and, since the beginning of time, no one has had any sympathy for husbands so unfortunate as Madu.

      He went to Juseen Daze, the wizard-man who keeps the Talking Monkey’s Head.

      ‘Get me back my wife,’ said Madu.

      ‘I can’t,’ said Juseen Daze, ‘until you have made the Sutlej in the valley run up the Donga Pa.’

      ‘No riddles,’ said Madu, and he shook his hatchet above Juseen Daze’s white head.

      ‘Give all your money to the headmen of the village,’ said Juseen Daze; ‘and they will hold a communal Council, and the Council will send a message that your wife must come back.’

      So

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