Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

During the serving of the unusually large meal, which occupied the attention of the women for a time, Lulu slipped out backwards under the rear curtain of the tent and disappeared. Few missed her for a time, for all were busy, but when the call was given, “Bring out the bride and let her husband claim her,” great was the astonishment, for no bride was on hand. One abused the other, and the angry bridegroom accused his host of treachery and would have shot him but for the interference of others, who reminded him again that Allah was with the patient ones.

All denied that the girl was dead, for had they not seen her alive only a short time before? She would return soon, they said, and put an end to the confusion and mystery.

Meanwhile scouts were sent out around the camp, only to return later without tidings of the fugitive. All that night watch was kept, but morning dawned without the mystery being solved, and as the day wore on speculations were indulged in as to whom the purchase price of Lulu belonged, for, although she had now disappeared, she on her part had not done anything within the seven days of the feast to cause her intended master to claim the price paid for her. The sun set again without any light being shed on the disappearance or whereabouts of the girl-bride, and Abd-el-Thullam was furious at being balked of his prey, swearing by every oath available that he would lose neither wife nor purchase price, even if the regaining of one or the other made lifelong enmity between the two tribes.

[_From a Photograph._]]

We must now leave the puzzled company in the guest-tent and see what had become of Lulu. After slipping under the tent-cloth, she commenced to run as fast as her bare feet would permit her. In her excitement and joy at being free she cared little in which direction she fled, and although the night was unusually dark, by reason of heavy storm-clouds, she sped on over hill and valley until thoroughly tired and exhausted. As she rested her weary little frame on the soft herbage of the wilderness the solitude and stillness made her nervous and afraid. Her trepidation was not lessened by a sudden movement near her--made, probably, by a jackal more alarmed than herself.

The fright made her rise quickly and again take to flight, but after running a few hundred yards misfortune overtook her, for, without warning, she tripped and fell headlong into an old unused cistern quite twenty-five feet deep. The fall made her unconscious, and as the pit was far from the camp she was safe for that night, while a tangle of creepers and thorns over the mouth of the cavity made her fairly secure by day.

Here, bruised and unconscious, the poor little bride-to-be lay until daybreak, when, with the rising sun, her senses returned to her. Having considered her surroundings, she decided to secure herself further by creeping into an old tomb hewn in the side of the cistern, where at least she could die in peace rather than be the slave of one utterly distasteful to her. So, with one last fond thought for her absent lover, she swallowed the gipsy’s potion and crawled into the small aperture. Here she soon fell into a stupor, caused partly by weariness, but mainly by the powder bought from the old drug-vender.

But what had become of the boy-lover all these days that he had not returned to the camp and become conversant with all that had happened to his little companion?

As already stated, he was delayed by a slack market; but after some days he was free to return, and, in charge of two camels, he set out for his wilderness home. On the day after Lulu’s escape he was crossing the great plain, happy at the prospect of reaching camp before evening. Being somewhat religiously inclined, he halted at noonday to pray, and soon after remounting was warned to seek shelter from a storm that was announced by a sharp crack of thunder. Looking about him he saw a cavity in the ground wide and high enough to allow his camels to enter. By dint of pulling, coaxing, and beating he forced the beasts in, and at last all three found themselves in the same pit into which Lulu had fallen the night before.

_From a Photograph._]

The heavy rain dripping through the opening above made the youth seek better shelter, so he presently crept into the old tomb, and, to his amazement, found that it was already occupied by someone apparently deep in slumber.

Curiosity made him try to rouse the sleeper, but it was of no use. Crawling farther in, it was not long before the amazed camel-boy discovered that the insensible girl was his dearly-loved Lulu. Assuring himself that she was not dead, and, of course, ignorant of the circumstances that had brought her to the cavern, he left her, and, taking the best of the two camels, rode off post-haste to carry the news of Lulu’s condition to the camp and get help.

The announcement caused a good deal of talk, stir, and excitement, which was suddenly put a stop to by Abd-el-Thullam jumping on his mare and making off at full speed toward the cavern, hoping to be the first to secure his dearly-bought bride.

Others joined in the race, but it seemed as if no one would overtake the eager chief, when suddenly he was seen to fall heavily, having been thrown to the ground by his mare putting her foot into a hole.

He did not move, and when the others reached him they discovered to their consternation that he had broken his neck and was quite dead. Instead of a reluctant bride being escorted to the distant camp, therefore, the corpse of the unfortunate chief was carried thither.

On reaching the cavern the men found Lulu still deep in the drug-induced slumber, and, making a rough litter out of their roomy outer garments, they carried her to their camp and laid her on her rude bed of heather and dry grass.

Fortunately, the old gipsy-woman had not left the camp, and now, taking in the situation, she administered a dose of some concoction that soon had the effect of rousing the sleeper and making her able to explain her presence in the rock-hewn tomb.

Slowly but surely Lulu regained vigour, and the old youthful spirit came again, much to the joy of Abd-Salaam and her father. After a few weeks another marriage feast was kept, for there was now no obstacle to the wedding of the lovers, the price of the bride having been paid by the ill-fated “servant of cruelty.” The affair was hurried this time, for the feast was to have a happy ending; love, instead of custom, had won the day.

BY HERBERT G. PONTING, F.R.G.S

The amusing story of an American who set out to eclipse the
round-the-world record. The author, himself a globe-trotter of
many years’ standing, describes him as “the most extraordinary
man I ever met,” and after reading the narrative we fancy the
reader will be inclined to agree with him.

I met him at Dalny, in August, 1903--the year before war broke out between Japan and Russia.

I had been travelling in Manchuria, and had come down from Mukden only just in time to catch, by the skin of my teeth, the weekly steamer to Japan. The train was more than an hour late, and the drosky that I hired at the station--with my luggage piled in anyhow by the Chinese porters--had been driven by the dishevelled moujik in charge at a pace that laughed at speed limits and scorned such trifling obstacles as ruts and holes nearly a foot in depth.

As we tore up to the steamer’s berth at the great wharf, that was later to prove of such inestimable value to the Japanese, the driver shouting and lashing his three horses into foam, the gangway was on the point of being lowered, and I had horrible visions of having to spend a week in that most dead of dead-alive towns, in which I already seemed to know every house.

With commendable courtesy, however, the officials permitted me to get myself and effects on board, and a moment later we were steaming out into the fine harbour.

The steamer was the _Mongolia_, which had the misfortune six months later to be the first Russian vessel captured by the Japanese.

I was leaning over the rail, watching the hills receding from view, when I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder, and on looking round was confronted by a rather sallow-faced, wiry-looking individual of medium height, with steel-grey eyes that seemed to pierce through mine clean into my brain.

“Say, d’you speak English?” he asked me.

I admitted that, being an Englishman, I had a moderate command of the language.

“Well, I ain’t English, I’m Amur’can,” he replied.

“So I see.”

“Well, say now, how’d you know I was Amur’can?”

“By your accent; one would scarcely make the mistake of taking you for anything else.”

“Well, say, you’re smart enough to be an Amur’can, too, at that rate. Anyhow, I’m mighty glad to see you, for since I parted with my friend, who went to Port Arthur, I ain’t had a chance of hearin’ a language that anyone could understand. I’m out to beat the record round the world for the _New York_ ----, and if I only make it in Japan I’ll beat the previous best by exactly twelve days.”

He then related to me how he had left New York and travelled _viâ_ Liverpool, London, Dover, Ostend, Berlin, Moscow, and the Trans-Siberian Railway to Dalny; and here he was, bound for Nagasaki, Japan, where he would take the train for Yokohama, and thence travel by the _Empress of India_ to Vancouver, by the Canadian Pacific Railway to Quebec, and from there back to New York.

“I’m going to publish a book on the trip, and I’ve got about enough information to fill it already. Say, though, my wife’ll be glad to see me back again in New York. She’s a beautiful woman, my wife. She’s tall and dark, and has a straight-front figure--a woman can’t be fashionable without a straight-front figure--and when she walks she leans forward like a kangaroo and does the glide. Ever seen it? I tell you, sir, there’s nuthin’ like it; and it takes a New York girl to do it properly, and there ain’t many girls in New York as can lick my wife at walkin’. I’ll introduce you to her sometime if I ever see you in New York, an’ if you don’t say she’s about the slickest thing you ever saw in skirts, well, you ain’t much of a judge o’ weather.

“Say, now that I come to look at you, I’ve seen you before, I guess,” he rattled on. “Wasn’t you the chap that come rushin’ on to the platform at Mukden just as our train was movin’ out of the station?”

I acknowledged that I was. Owing to the impossibility of obtaining any reliable information in the town, several miles away, as to the time of departure of the trains, I had reached the station, to my great chagrin, just in time to see the _train de luxe_ move away from the platform. I had thus been compelled to take a slow and very dirty train three hours later, and hence the reason of my nearly missing the boat at Dalny.

“Looks as if cuttin’ things fine was rather in your line, eh? Say, though, you couldn’t take risks like that if you was doin’ a record round the world. You nearly missed this boat. I was watchin’ you, and if you’d been on my job you’d have perspired like a pig as you was drivin’ up to the wharf, with that woolly-faced pirate yellin’ and thrashin’ them horses to soapsuds, and the steamer whistle blowin’ and the whole durned push hollerin’ and monkeyin’ with the ropes of the gangway. You’d have had your heart in your boots, young feller, if you’d been on my lay-out and seen how near you came to botchin’ up the whole job.

“And talkin’ of botchin’ jobs, if this steamer doesn’t arrive in Nagasaki in time to catch the eight o’clock train on Thursday, I’m done. That train’ll just give me time to catch the _Empress_ at Yokohama. If I miss it there ain’t another boat until the _Gaelic_ for San Francisco, nine days later, and as that’s a slower route I’ll be fourteen days longer than if I catch the _Empress_. Gee whiz, though, it’ll break my wife’s heart if I don’t clip that twelve days off the record. She and I figured this whole thing out together months before I started.

“Now, this boat’s due to arrive at Nagasaki at eleven o’clock, and if she does no better’n that there’s no power on earth can help me; the game’s lost. Guess I’ll have to try and square the captain to get her into harbour by seven o’clock. If I can’t do that my wife’ll be heartbroken; she’s set her heart on this. You ought to see her; she’s the finest girl in New York--tall and slender, with dark eyes and hair, and she’s got a straight-front figure. But, say, I guess I’ll have to try and square the captain; I ain’t a nervous man, but I’m gettin’ nervous about this.”

With that he took me on one side, where there was no possibility of any eavesdropping, and, drawing his watch from his pocket, said, “You see that watch? How much do you suppose it’s worth?”

I looked at it closely. It appeared to be a handsome gold-cased, centre-seconds hunter, but, after the American fashion, the gold was not hallmarked. I confessed that I could form no idea of its value, but it appeared to me to be an expensive one.

“It’s a most difficult thing for anyone but an expert to tell the value of a watch, and you aren’t the only one to think this is somethin’ choice,” said my new acquaintance. “Now you’ve got a whole lot to learn, and I’m goin’ to put you up to a tip that’ll save you a pile of money. There’s not many experts on watches to be met with travellin’, and most people would think this worth fifty dollars at least. That’s where they’re wrong. I buy these watches by the dozen, and they only cost me one dollar and twenty cents each that way. They’re gold-washed, but they look like solid gold. I always have one on my chain; it’s no good havin’ it anywhere else. It must be on the chain you’re wearin’, and when the time comes for business you’ve got to tenderly draw it out of your pocket as if it was somethin’ you valued more than your life.

“Now, when I started out from Moscow I bought a second-class ticket, and I got into the best unoccupied first-class compartment I saw on the train. After a while the conductor comes along to examine the tickets. I handed him mine. He couldn’t speak a word of English, but he gave me to understand by pretty good actin’ that I’d have to clear out into the other end of the train.

“Not bein’ a bad hand at actin’ myself, I was right _in_ it. I gently pulled my watch from my pocket--it was one like this I now have on me--and showed him clearly that I intended to give it to him when we reached Irkutsk if he let me stay where I was. I repeated the word Irkutsk several times, each time touchin’ his pocket.

“Well, sirree, you ought to have been there to see his face when he caught sight of that watch! His eyes bulged out of his head so you could hang your hat on ’em, and to show what he felt like in his heart he took hold of my hand and shook it.

“After that he was like a mother to me all the way. Other compartments were filled up, but I had mine to myself always. Every time I passed him I gave him a wink and tapped my watch-pocket, and he switched on the nicest smile he kept in stock.

“Gee whiz, though, comin’ across Siberia the inside of that train was hotter’n the gates of Hades, and every day that feller would come to my room two or three times to see if he couldn’t do something to make me more comfortable.

“At Irkutsk I handed over the watch, and either his joy at receivin’ it or his sorrow at partin’ with me was so great that he tried to kiss me.

“Irkutsk is where they change trains, and I met an Englishman on the platform who lived in Port Arthur; he was goin’ back there by way of Dalny. He had been on a holiday to England, and was comin’ back on third-class trains, as he had spent about all his money, and had only just enough to skin through third-class. When I found he knew the country and could talk Russian, I invited him to come along with me; I told him I’d fix things up all right.

“Well, by and by the conductor comes along, same as the other had done. There we were, both in a first-class compartment, one with a second and the other with a third-class ticket. I didn’t have need to do any dumb show this time, for my friend, who spoke the lingo, did all the gassin’, and told him there was a nice present waitin’ for him when Dalny was reached if we could stay where we were, and when I tenderly took another watch out of my pocket and looked at it as though it was the only thing I’d ever loved on earth, he was as much overcome with joy as number one had been.

“Well, that watch fixed it just as I knew it would. We both stayed where we were, and when, at Dalny, I handed it over to the conductor, I calculated those two watches, worth two dollars and forty cents, had saved me about one hundred and twenty-five dollars.

“That Englishman was as chock-full of knowledge about Manchuria as an egg is full of meat, and I got enough information out of him to write up the whole trip across Russia and Siberia.

“Now you see the point I’m gettin’ at. There’s more of them watches in my bag, besides this one on my chain, and I’d like to see the captain of this ship richer by one of ’em, provided he does somethin’ to earn such a valuable present as he’ll consider it, until he gets to pryin’ into the works and askin’ experts’ opinions about it; but by that time I’ll be a long way off and it ’ain’t likely as I’ll ever see him again. There’s one disadvantage about this game that’s worth remarkin’--you can’t play it on the same man twice.

“As soon as I came aboard this ship and found out from the steward the time she gets to Nagasaki, I saw another watch would have to go, and that the captain o’ the ship would be the fortunate possessor. There’s a difficulty in the way, as he can’t speak English; and I can’t approach him through the steward, as that would give the captain away, but I’ve discovered there’s a Russian lady in the saloon, whom the captain’s already gettin’ on with like a house on fire.

“She speaks English with the prettiest accent you ever heard, and I was talkin’ to her for half an hour in the harbour before you showed up. I’ve already told her what I’m doin’, and got her quite worked up about it, an’ I’ve decided she’s the one to work the captain for me. There she is now, comin’ out on deck. Excuse me; there’s no time to be lost; I’ll get hold of her before the captain sees her.”

As they walked up and down the deck talking animatedly together, I could see my new acquaintance was making a deeper impression every minute. Once a few sentences reached me, and I chuckled inwardly.

“She’ll be broken-hearted if I fail to make it.... I’ll introduce you to her if you come to New York. She’ll like you and you’ll like her. She’s tall and dark, with big black eyes, and she’s got a straight-front figure and a----” I had to make a guess at the rest, for they had turned the corner by the wheel-house before the sentence was finished.

I never doubted what the result of his interview would be. Already I felt that the arrival of the _Mongolia_ at Nagasaki by seven o’clock on Thursday morning was the only thing at present to live for. I was completely dominated with enthusiasm for the success of this man’s undertaking, and felt certain he would as surely win the Russian lady’s sympathy and co-operation in his project as he had already secured mine.

After half an hour he came back to me.

“That little woman’s all right. She’s made o’ good enough clay to be Amur’can, an’ says she’ll do everythin’ she can to help me. She’s gone to call the captain now.”

Soon she appeared with the captain, talking in the most animated manner to him and punctuating every sentence with most expressive gestures.

Then they came together towards us and she said, “I haf ze captain told what you say off your great journey, and he tell me it iss impossible we come to Nagasaki so early unless he burn extra fifty tons of coal. Ze captain say if you pay ze coal he can do it, but if you not pay ze coal it iss impossible, but ze captain he like verry much to help you.”

To this my travelling companion made reply, “Madam, will you please tell the captain that the cost of the extra fifty tons of coal is but a trifle, and I’ll do a good deal more than pay for that. I am so anxious to catch that train that if the captain will bring the ship into the harbour by seven o’clock I’ll make him a present of my watch.”

The lady interpreted this. The captain shrugged his shoulders, then he looked up at the funnel, from which great rolling convolutions of thick black smoke were belching, and he let his eye run along the line of reek floating lazily in the cobalt astern for many miles--almost, it seemed, to where the yellow, sun-baked Manchurian hills were disappearing below the horizon--his brows knitted in thought.

Before he had finished his cogitations the would-be breaker of records put his hand into the left pocket of his waistcoat and drew out his watch. He carefully removed the chamois skin bag, soiled sufficiently to show it had long protected the treasure it covered, and holding the watch, which looked a perfect beauty as it caught the sun, in the palm of his hand, he addressed himself straight to the captain.

“Captain, I _must_ catch that train, and if you’ll help me to do it, sir, my watch shall be yours before I leave the ship. Ain’t it a beauty?” and he held it out for admiration.

All this he said in a manner that carried conviction with it. The lady interpreted again, but even that seemed unnecessary. The captain had capitulated, and from that moment the result lay in little doubt. The success or failure of this man’s trip had hung in the balance, and the issue was decided by a five-shilling watch glittering in the sun on the deck of a Russian steamer in the Yellow Sea.

Being in the secret, I could feel only admiration at the record-breaker’s sang-froid and the clever and dramatic manner in which he played his part.

The captain smiled and made a gesture of deprecation, but his eyes told us that he meant that watch should be his, and presently he went below to give directions to the chief engineer. From that moment the black smoke rolled out of the funnel thicker than before, hanging over the steamer’s wake clear to the horizon.

The record-breaker contemplated it and the unrippled seas with joy.

We went up into the fo’c’s’le, and as we leaned over the bow and saw the speed at which the sharp prow was cleaving the glassy water, sending thin feathers of spray high up along the steamer’s trim and tapering sides, his enthusiasm knew no bounds, and his praises of “God’s country” and his wife became almost dithyrambic.

All next day, as we steamed past the archipelago of rocks and barren islands that fringes the coast of Korea, the sea remained calm as a pond, and when at half-past six o’clock on Thursday morning we dropped anchor off the quarantine station at Nagasaki all doubt seemed to be at an end. There was some delay, however, as, though the doctors quickly came on board, made their examinations, and gave us a clean bill of health, it takes time to get under way again, enter the harbour, and take up a berth amongst the shipping this bustling port always contains. We anchored at seven-twenty. The record-breaker knew nothing about the place, and it is a long way to the station. I knew it well, however, and, as I felt as keen on his catching that train as he did himself, I chartered a _sampan_ and had all our luggage lowered into it, whilst he went up on to the bridge to express his thanks and present the watch to the captain. I saw him take it from his pocket and make a little speech as he handed it over, and I saw the captain bow his thanks. Then he shook hands, and in another moment he was beside me and we were being rapidly pulled to the landing-place, or _hatoba_.

There was not a moment to lose. It was past seven-thirty, and a good twenty minutes to the station. Hastily bidding the _sampan_ to wait with my luggage, I engaged rickshaws and we were off at full speed. We reached the station at seven-fifty-five. Having Japanese money on me I paid the rickshaws, whilst he bought his ticket with money he had got exchanged by the steamer’s purser.

He hastily shook hands, thanked me, and got into the train just one moment before it left.

The watch had _really_ done it, but by actually less than a minute, and if I had not been there to help him he would have failed after all. He promised to write me from Yokohama, but this he never did. The last I saw of him he was waving his hat out of the window to me till the train was out of sight.

The last I heard of him was a few weeks later, when I read in an American Press telegram that he had won his spurs and had beaten the previous best round the world by exactly twelve days.

BY ANNIE KER.

Some incidents of a lady’s life in the wilds of New
Guinea. Miss Ker went out to Papua--as the country is now
called--attached to a mission, and describes the many strange,
amusing, and exciting experiences she encountered during her
seven years’ sojourn among the natives, who, not so very long
ago, were always fighting and much addicted to cannibalism--a
practice which still prevails among the wild tribes of the
unexplored interior.