The Drovers Wife by Henry Lawson. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The two-roomed house is built of round timber, slabs and stringy bark, and floored with spritz slabs. A big bark kitchen standing at one end is larger than the house itself, for a rounder included. Bush all around, bush with no horizon for the country's flat. No ranges in the distance. The bush consists of stunted, rotten native apple trees. No undergrowth, nothing to relieve the eye, save the darker green of a few shioks which are sowing above the narrow, almost waterless creek. Nineteen miles to the nearest sign of civilisation, a shanty on the main road. The drover, an ex-squatter, is away with sheep. His wife and children are left here alone. Four ragged, dried-up looking children are playing about the house. Suddenly one of them yells, Snake, mother, here's a snake. The gaunt, sun-brown bushwoman dashes from the kitchen, snatches her baby from the ground, holds it on her left hip, and reaches for a stick. Where is it? Here, gone to the wood-heep, yells the eldest boy, a sharp-faced urchin of eleven.   The youngster comes reluctantly, carrying a stick bigger than himself. Then he yells triumphantly, there it goes under the house, and darts away with club uplifted. At the same time the big black yellow-eyed dog of all breeds, who has shown the wildest interest in the proceeding, breaks his chain and rushes after that snake. He is a moment late, however, and his nose reaches the crack in the slabs just as the end of its tail disappears. Almost at the same moment the boy's club comes down and skins the aforesaid nose. Alligator takes small notice of this, and proceeds to undermine the building. But he is subdued after a struggle and chained up. They cannot afford to lose him. The drover's wife makes the children stand together near the doghouse while she watches for the snake. She gets through small dishes of milk and sets them down near the wall to tempt it to come out. But an hour goes by and it does not show itself. It is near sunset, and a thunderstorm is coming. The children must be bought inside. She will not take them into the house, for she knows the snake is there, and may at any moment come up through a crack in the rough slab floor. So she carries several armfuls of firewood into the kitchen, and then takes the children there. The kitchen has no floor, or rather an earthen one, called a ground floor in this part of the vulture. There is a large, roughly made table in the centre of the place. She brings the children in and makes them get onto the table. There are two boys and two girls, mere babies. She gives them some supper, and then, before it gets dark, she goes into the house and snatches up some pillows and bead clothes, expecting to see or lay her hand on the snake any minute. She makes a bed for on the kitchen table for the children, and sits down beside it to watch all night. She has an eye on the corner, and a green sapling club laid in readiness on the dresser by her side. Also a sewing basket and a copy of the young lady's journal. She has bought the dog into the room. Tommy turns in under protest, but says he'll lie awake all night and smash that blinded snake. His mother asks him how many times she has told him not to swear. He has his club with him under the bead clothes, and Jackie protests as, ''Mommy, Tommy's skinning me alive with his club. Make him take it out.'' Tommy says, ''Shut up, you little. Do you want to be bit with a snake?'' Jackie shuts up. ''If you're bit,'' says Tommy, after a pause, ''you'll swell up and smell and turn red and green and blue all over till you burst. Won't you, mother?'' ''Now then, don't frighten the child. Go to sleep,'' she says. The two younger children go to sleep, and now and then Jackie complains of being skeezed. More room is made for him. Presently, Tommy says, ''Mother, listen to them, adjective little pupsums. I'd like to screw their blanky-necks.'' And Jackie protests stoutly, but they don't hurt us, the little blanks. ''Mother, there, I told you you'd teach Jackie to swear.'' But the remark makes her smile. Jackie goes to sleep. Presently, Tommy asks, ''Mother, do you think they'll ever exclicate the adjective kangaroo?'' ''Lord, how am I to know, child?  Near midnight, the children are all asleep, and she sits there still, sowing and reading by turns. From time to time she glances round the floor on wall-plate, and whenever she hears a noise, she reaches for the stick. The thunderstorm comes on, and the wind rushing through the cracks in the slab wall threatens to blow out her candle. She places it on a sheltered part of the dresser and fixes up a newspaper to protect it. At every flash of lightning, the cracks between the slabs gleam like polished silver. The thunder rolls, and the rain comes down in torrents.  She knows by this that the snake is there. There are large cracks in that wall, opening under the floor of the dwelling-health. She is not a cariod, but recent events have shaken her nerves. A little son of her brother-in-law was lately built by a snake and died. Besides, she has not heard from her husband for six months, and is anxious about him. He was a driver, and started squatting here when they were married. The drought of 1800 dash ruined him. He had to sacrifice the remnant of his flock and go driving again. He intends to move his family into the nearest town when he comes back, and in the meantime, his brother, who keeps a shanty on the main road, comes over about once a month with provisions. The wife still has a couple of cows, one horse and a few sheep. The brother-in-law kills one of the latter occasionally, gives her what she needs of it, and takes the rest in return for other provisions. She is used to being left alone. She once lived like this for 18 months. As a girl, she built the usual castles in the air, but all her girlish hopes and aspirations have long been dead. She finds all the excitement and recreation she needs in the young lady's journal, and Heaven Helper takes her pleasure in the fashion plates. Her husband is an Australian, and so is she. He is careless, but a good enough husband. If he had the means, he would take her to the city and keep her there like a princess. They are used to being apart, or at least she is. No use fretting, she says. He may forget sometimes that he is married, but if he has a good check when he comes back he will give most of it to her. When he had money he took her to the city several times, hired a railway sleeping-compartment and put up at the best hotel. He also bought her a buggy, but they had to sacrifice that along with the rest. The last two children were born in the bush. One, while her husband was bringing a drunken doctor by force to attend her. She was alone on this occasion and very weak. She had been ill with a fever. She prayed to God to send her assistance. God sent Black Mary, the whitest dune in all the land. Or at least God sent King Jimmy first, and he sent Black Mary. He put his black face round the doorpost, took in the situation as a glimpse and said cheerfully, All right, Mrs. I bring my old woman. She'd down the Long Creek. One of the children died while she was here alone. She rode nineteen miles for assistance, carrying the dead child. It must be near one or two o'clock. The fire is burning low.  He is not a very beautiful dog, and the light shows numerous old wounds where the hair will not grow. He is afraid of nothing on the face of the earth or under it. He will tackle a bullock as readily as he will tackle a flea. He hates all other dogs, except kangaroo dogs, and is a marked dislike to friends or relations of the family. They seldom call, however. He sometimes makes friends with strangers.  Most snake dogs end that way. Now and then the bush woman lays down her work and sits there and watches and thinks. She thinks of things in her own life, for there is little else to think about. The rain will make the grass grow, and this reminds her how she fought a bush fire once while her husband was away. The grass was long and very dry, and the fire threatened to burn her out. She put on an old pair of her husband's trousers and beat out the flames of the green bale till great drops of sooty perspiration stood out on her forehead and ran in streaks down her blackened arms. The sight of his mother in trails is greatly amused, Tommy, who worked like a little hero by her side, but the terrified baby hailed lustily for his mummy. The fire would have mastered her but for four excited bushmen who arrived in the nick of time. It was a mixed up affair all round. When she went up to take the baby, he screamed and struggled convulsively, thinking it was a black man, an alligator, trusting water the child since in his own instinct, charged furiously, and, being old and slightly deaf, did not, in his excitement, at first recognize his mistress' voice, but continued to hang on to the molestings until choked off by Tommy with a saddle-stroke. The dog saw her for his blunder and his anxieties had let it be known it was all a mistake. It was as evident as his ragged tail and twelve-inch grin could make him. It was a glorious time for the boys, a day to look back to and talk about and laugh over for many years. She thinks how she fought a flood during her husband's absence. She stood for hours in the drenching downpour and dug an overflow gutter to save the dam across the creek, but she could not save it. There are things a bushwoman cannot do. Next morning the dam was broken and her heart was nearly broken too, for she thought how her husband would feel when he came home and saw the result of years of labour swept away. She cried then. She also fought the Pluroniumonia, dosed and bled the fury manning cattle, and whipped again where her two best cows died. Again she fought a mad bullock that besieged the house for a day. She made bullets and fired at him through cracks in the slabs with an old shotgun. He was dead in the morning. She skinned him and got seventeen and six for the hide. She also fights the crows and eagles that have designs on her chickens. Her plan of campaign is very original. The children cry, Crows, mother! And she rashes out and aims a broomstick at the birds as though it was a gun Bang! The crows live in a hurry. They are cunning, but a woman's cunning is greater. Occasionally a bushman in the horrors or a villainous-looking sundowner comes and nearly scares the life out of her. She generally tells the suspicious-looking stranger that her husband and two sons were at work below the dam or over at the yard, for he always cunningly inquires for the boss. Only last week a gallophless swagman, having satisfied himself that there were no men in the place, threw his swag down on the veranda and demanded tucker. She gave him something to eat, then he expressed his intention of staying for the night. It was sundown then. She got a batten from the sofa, loosened the dog and confronted the stranger, holding the batten in one hand and the dog's collar in the other. Now you go, she said. He looked at her under the dog and said, All right, mum, in a cringing tone and left. She was a determined-looking woman and alligator's yellow eyes cleared unpleasantly. Besides, the dog's choreing-up apparatus greatly resembled that of the reptile he was named after. She has few pleasures to think of as she sits here alone by the fire or on guard against the snake. All days are much the same to her. But on Sunday afternoon she dresses herself tired as the children, smartens up baby, and goes for a lonely walk along the bush-track, pushing an old perambulator in front of her. She does this every Sunday. She takes as much care to make herself and the children look smart as she would as if she were going to do with a block in the city. There is nothing to see, however, and not a soul to meet. You might walk for twenty miles along this track without being able to fix a point in your mind unless you're a bushman. This is because of the everlasting maddening sameness of the stunted trees. That monotony, which makes a man long to break away and travel as far as trains can go, and sail as far as ships can sail and farther. But this bushwoman is used to the loneliness of it. As a girl-wife she hated it, but now she would feel strange away from it. She's glad when her husband returns, but she does not gush or make a fuss about him.  She seems contented with her lot. She loves her children, but has no time to show it. She seems harsh to them. Her surroundings are not favourable to the development of the womanly or sentimental side of nature. It must be near morning now, but the clock is in the dwelling-house. Her candle is nearly done. She forgot she was out of candles, so more wood must be got to keep the fire up, and so she shuts the dog inside and hurries round to the wood-heap. The rain has cleared off. She seizes a stick, pulls it out, and crash. The whole pile collapses. Yesterday she bargained with a stray blackfeller to bring her some wood, and while he was at work she went in search of a missing car. She was absent an hour or so, and the native made good use of his time. On her return she was so astonished to see a good heap of wood by the chimney that she gave him an extra figure of tobacco and praised him for not being lazy. He thanked her and left with head erect and chest well out. He was the last of his tribe and a king, but he had built that wood-heap hollow. She is hurt now, and tears spring to her eyes as she sits down by the table. She takes up a handkerchief to wipe the tears away, but pokes her eyes with her bare fingers instead. The handkerchief is full of holes and she finds she has put her thumb through one and her forefinger through another. This makes her laugh to the surprise of the dog. She has a keen, very keen sense of the ridiculous, and some time or other she will amuse Bushman with the story. She has been amused before like that. One day she sat down to have a good cry, and the old cat rubbed against her dress and cried too. Then she had to laugh. It must be near daylight now. The room is very close and hot because of the fire. Alligator still watches the wall from time to time. Suddenly he becomes greatly interested. He draws himself a few inches near the petition and a thrill runs through his body. The hair on the back of his neck begins to bristle and the battle light is in his yellow eyes. She knows what this means and lays her hand on the stick. The lower end of one of the petitions has a large crack on both sides.   The dog lies still and the woman sits as one fascinated. The snake comes out a foot farther. She lifts her stick and the reptile, as though suddenly we're of danger, sticks his head in through a crack on the other side of the slab and hurries to get his tail around after him. Alligator springs and his jaws come together with a snap. He misses for his nose is large and the snake's body closed down in the angle formed by the slabs on the floor. He snaps again as the tail comes round. He has the snake now and tugs it out 18 inches. Thud, thud comes the woman's club on the ground. Alligator pulls again, thud, thud. Alligator gives another pull and he has the snake out. A black brute five feet long. The head rises to dart about but the dog has the enemy close to the neck. He's a big heavy dog but as quick as a terrier. He shakes the snake as though he felt the original curse in common with mankind. The eldest boy wakes up, sees his stick and tries to get out of bed but his mother forces him back with a grip of iron. Thud, thud. The snake's back is broken in several places. Thud, thud its head is crushed and Alligator's nose skinned again. She lifts the mangled reptile on the point of her stick carries it to the fire and throws it in then piles on the wood and watches the snake burn. The boy and dog watch too.  The younger children are quieted and presently go to sleep. The dirty-legged boy stands for a moment in his shirt watching the fire. Presently he looks up, sees the tease in her eyes and throwing his arms around her neck exclaims, Mother I won't never go drovin' blast me if I do and she hugs him to her worn out breasts and kisses him and they sit thus together while the sickly daylight breaks over the bush. End of the drover's wife The Five Boons of Life by Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. The Five Boons of Life by Mark Twain. Chapter 1 In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket and said, Here are the gifts, take one, leave the others, and be wary, choose wisely, oh, choose wisely, for only one of them is valuable. The gifts were five, fame, love, riches, pleasure, death. The youth said eagerly, There is no need to consider and he chose pleasure. He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth delights in, but each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain and empty, and each departing mocked him. In the end he said, These years I have wasted if I could but choose again I would choose wisely. Chapter 2 The fairy appeared and said, Four of the gifts remain, choose once more, and oh, remember, time is flying and only one of them is precious. The man considered long, then chose love and did not mark the tears that rose in the fairy's eyes. After many, many years the man sat by a coffin in an empty house and he communed with himself, saying, One by one they have gone away and left me, and now she lies here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after desolation has swept over me. For each hour of happiness the treacherous traitor love has sold me, I have paid a thousand hours of grief. Out of my heart of hearts I curse him. Chapter 3 To choose again it was the fairy speaking. The years have taught you wisdom, surely it must be so. Three gifts remain, only one of them has any worth. Remember it and choose warily. The man reflected long, then chose fame, and the fairy sighing went her way. Years went by and she came again and stood behind the man where he sat solitary in the fading day thinking and she knew his thought. My name filled the world and the phrases were on every tongue and it seemed well with me for a little while, how little a while it was. Then came envy, then detraction, then calamity, then hate, then persecution, then derision, which is the beginning of the end, and last of all came pity, which is the funeral of fame. The bitterness and misery of renown target for mud in its prime for contempt and compassion in its decay. Four. Choose yet again. It was the fairy's voice. Two gifts remain and do not despair. In the beginning there was but one that was precious and it is still here. Wealth, which is power, how blind I was, said the man. Now at last life will be worth living. I will spend, squander, dazzle. These mockers and despisers will crawl in the dirt before me and I will feed my hungry heart with their envy. I will have all luxuries, all joys, all enchantments of the spirit, all contentments of the body that man holds dear. I will buy, buy, buy. Deference, respect, esteem, worship, every pinch-beck grace of life the market of a trivial world can furnish forth. I have lost much time and chosen badly here to fore, but let that pass. I was ignorant, then, and could but take for best what seemed so. Three short years went by and a day came when the man sat shivering in a mean garret. And he was gaunt and won and hollowed and clothed in rags and he was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling. Curse all the world's gifts for mockeries and gilded lies and miscalled every one. They are not gifts, but merely lendings. Pleasure, love, fame, riches. They are but temporary disguises for lasting realities. Pain, grief, shame, poverty. The fairy said true. In all her store there was but one gift which was precious, only one that was not valueless. How poor and cheap and mean I know those others now to be, compared with that inestimable one, that dear and sweet and kindly one that steeps in the dreamless and enduring sleep the pains that persecute the body and the shames and griefs that eat the mind and heart. Bring it. I am weary. I would rest. Chapter 5 The fairy came bringing again four of the gifts, but death was wanting. She said, I gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was ignorant, but trusted me, asking me to choose for it. You did not ask me to choose. Oh, miserable me, what is left for me? What not even you have deserved, the wanton insult of old age. End of The Five Boons of Life by Mark Twain. John and I, or How I Nearly Lost My Husband by Stephen Leacock. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. It was after we had been married about two years that I began to feel that I needed more air. Every time I looked at John across the breakfast table, I felt as if I must have more air, more space. I seemed to feel as if I had no room to expand. I had begun to ask myself whether I had been wise in marrying John, whether John was really sufficient for my development. I felt cramped and shut in. In spite of myself the question would arise in my mind whether John really understood my nature. He had a way of reading the newspaper propped up against the sugar bowl at breakfast, but somehow made me feel as if things had gone all wrong. It was bitter to realize that the time had come when John could prefer the newspaper to his wife's society. But perhaps I had better go back and tell the whole miserable story from the beginning. I shall never forget, I suppose no woman ever does, the evening when John first spoke out his love for me. I had felt for some time past that it was there. Again and again he seemed about to speak, but his words seemed to fail him. Twice I took him into the very heart of the little wood beside Mother's house, but it was only a small wood, and somehow he slipped out on the other side. Oh, John, I had said. How lonely and still it seems in the wood with no one here but ourselves. Do you think, I said, that birds have souls? I don't know, John answered. Let's get out of this. I was sure that his emotion was too strong for him. I never feel a bit lonesome where you are, John, I said, as we made our way among the underbrush. I think we can get out down that little gully, he answered. Then one evening in June, after tea, I led John down a path beside the house to a little corner behind the garden where there was a stone wall on one side and a high fence right in front of us and thorn bushes on the other side. There was a little bench in the angle of the wall in the fence, and we sat down on it. Many, John said, there's something I meant to say. Oh, John, I cried, and I flung my arms round his neck. It all came with such a flood of surprise. All I meant meant, John went on, but I checked him. Oh, don't, John, don't say anything more, I said. It's just too perfect. Then I rose and seized him by the wrist. Come, I said, come to mother, and I rushed him along the path. As soon as mother saw us come in, hand in hand in this way, she guessed everything. She threw both her arms round John's neck and fairly pinned him against the wall. John tried to speak, but mother wouldn't let him. I saw it all along, John, she said. Don't speak, don't say a word. I guessed your love for men from the very start. I don't know what I should do without her, John, but she's yours now. Take her. Then mother began to cry, and I couldn't help crying, too. Take him to father, mother said, and we each took one of John's wrists and took him to father on the back for Randa. As soon as John saw father, he tried to speak again. I think I ought to say he began, but mother stopped him. Father, she said, he wants to take our little girl away. He loves her very dearly, Alfred, she said, and I think it our duty to let her go, no matter how hard it is. And oh, please heaven, Alfred, he'll treat her well and not misuse her or beat her. And she began to sob again. Father got up and took John by the hand and shook it warmly. Take her, boy, he said. She's all yours now. Take her. So John and I were engaged, and in due time our wedding day came and we were married. I remember that for days and days before the wedding day, John seemed very nervous and depressed. I think he was worrying, poor boy, as to whether he could really make me happy and whether he could fill my life as it should be filled. But I told him that he was not to worry because I meant to be happy and was determined just to make the best of everything. Father stayed with John a good deal before the wedding day, and on the wedding morning he went and fetched him to the church in a closed carriage and had him there already when we came. It was a beautiful day in September, and the church looked just lovely. I had a beautiful gown of white organ-dee with tulle at the throat, and I carried a great bunch of white roses, and Father led John up the aisle after me. I remember that Mother cried a good deal at the wedding and told John that he had stolen her darling and that he must never misuse me or beat me. And I remember that the clergyman spoke very severely to John and told him he hoped he realized the responsibility he was taking and that it was his duty to make me happy.  So presently it was all over and we were driven to the station and got the afternoon train for New York and when we sat down in the compartment among all our band boxes and flowers John said, well thank God that's over and I said, oh John, an oath, on our wedding day, an oath. John said, sorry men, I didn't mean, but I said, don't John, don't make it worse. Swear at me if you must, but don't make it harder to bear. We spent our honeymoon in New York. At first I had thought of going somewhere to the great lonely woods where I could have walked under the great trees and felt the silence of nature and where John should have been my Viking and captured me with his spear and where I should be his and his alone and no other man should share me. And John had said all right or else I had planned to go away somewhere to the seashore where I could have watched the great waves dashing themselves against the rocks. I had told John that he should be my caveman and should seize me in his arms and carry me with her he would. I felt somehow that for my development I wanted to get as close to nature as ever I could that my mind seemed to be reaching out for a great emptiness. But I looked over all the hotel and steamship folders I could find capable to get good accommodation. So we came to New York. I had a great deal of shopping to do for our new house so I could not be much with John but I felt it was not right to neglect him so I drove him somewhere in a taxi each morning and called for him again in the evening. One day I took him to the Metropolitan Museum and another day I left him at the zoo and another day at the aquarium. John seemed very happy and quiet among the fishes. So presently we came back home and I spent many busy days in fixing and arranging our new house. I had the drying room done in blue and the dining room all in dark panelled wood and a boudoir upstairs done in pink and white enamel to match my bedroom and dressing room. There was a very nice little room in the basement next to the coal cellar that I turned into a den for John so that when he wanted to smoke he could go down there and do it. John seemed to appreciate his den at once and often would stay down there so long that I had to call to him to come up. When I look back on those days they seemed very bright and happy but it was not very long before a change came. I began to realize that John was neglecting me. I noticed it at first in small things. I don't know just how long it was after our marriage that John began to read the newspaper at breakfast. At first he would only pick it up and read it in little bits and only on the front page. I tried not to be hurt at it and would go on talking just as brightly as I could without seeming to notice anything but presently he went on to reading the inside part of the paper. And then one day he opened up the financial page and unfolded the paper right back and leaned it against the sugar bowl. I could not but wonder whether John's love for me was what it had been. Was it cooling, I asked myself? And what was cooling it? It hardly seemed possible when I looked back to the wild passion with which he had proposed to me on the garden bench that John's love was waning but I kept noticing different little things. One day in the springtime I saw John getting out a lot of fishing tackle from a box and fitting it together. I asked him what he was going to do and he said that he was going to fish. I went to my room and had a good cry. It seemed dreadful that he could neglect his wife for a few worthless fish. So I decided to put John to the test. It had been my habit every morning after he put his coat on to go to the office to let John have one kiss. Just one weenie kiss to keep him happy all day. So this day when he was getting ready I bent my head over a big bowl of flowers and pretended not to notice. I think John must have been hurt as I heard him steal out on tiptoe. Well, I realized that things had come to a dreadful state and so I sent over to mother and mother came and we had a good cry together. I made up my mind to force myself to face things and just to be as bright as ever I could. Mother and I both thought that things would be better if I tried all I could to make something out of John. I have always felt that every woman should make all that she can out of her husband. So I did my best first of all to straighten up John's appearance. I shifted the style of collar he was wearing to a tighter kind that I liked better and I brushed his hair straight backward instead of forward and gave him a much more alert look. Mother said that John needed waking up and so we did all we could to wake him up. Mother came over to stay with me a good deal and in the evenings we generally had a little music or a game of cards. About this time another difficulty began to come into my married life which I suppose I ought to have foreseen. I mean the attentions of other gentlemen. I have always called forth a great deal of admiration in gentlemen but I have always done my best to be polite and to discourage it in every possible way. I had been innocent enough to suppose that this would end with married life and it gave me a dreadful shock to realize that such was not the case. The first one I noticed was a young man who came to the house at an hour when John was out for the purpose so he said at least of reading the gas meter. He looked at me in just the boldest way and asked me to show him the way to the cellar. I don't know whether it was a pretext or not but I just summoned all the courage I had and showed him to the head of the cellar stairs. I had determined that if he tried to carry me down with him I would scream for the servants but I suppose something in my manner made him desist and he went alone. When he came up he professed to have read the meter and he left the house quite quietly but I thought it wiser to say nothing to John of what had happened. There were others too. There was a young man with large brown eyes who came and said he had been sent to tune the piano. He came on three separate days and he bent his ear over the keys in such a mournful way that I knew he must have fallen in love with me. On the last day he offered to tune my harp for a dollar extra but I refused and when I asked him instead to tune Mother's Mandolin he said he didn't know how. Of course I told John nothing of all this. Then there was Mr. McQueen who came to the house several times to play cribbage with John. He had been desperately in love with me years before. At least I remember his taking me home from a hockey match once and what a struggle it was for him not to come into the parlor and see Mother for a few minutes when I asked him and though he was married now and with three children I felt sure when he came to play cribbage with John that it meant something. He was very discreet and honourable and never betrayed himself for a moment and I acted my part as if there was nothing at all behind. But one night when he came over to play and John had had to go out he refused to stay even for an instant. He had got his overshoes off before I told him that John was out and asked him if he wouldn't come into the parlor and hear Mother play the mandolin but he just made one dive for his overshoes and was gone. I knew that he didn't dare to trust himself. Then presently a new trouble came. I began to suspect that John was drinking. I don't mean for a moment that he was drunk or that he was openly cruel to me to act so queerly and I noticed that one night when by accident I left a bottle of raspberry vinegar on the sideboard overnight it was all gone in the morning. Two or three times when McQueen and John were to play cribbage John would fetch home two or three bottles of Bevo with him and they would sit sipping all evening. I think he was drinking Bevo by himself too though I could never be sure of it. At any rate he often seemed queer and restless in the evenings and instead of staying in his den he would wander all over the house. Once we heard him I mean Mother and I and two lady friends who were with us that evening quite late after ten o'clock apparently moving about in the pantry John I called is that you? Yes men he answered quietly enough I admit what are you doing there? I asked looking for something to eat he said John I said you are forgetting what is due to me as your wife fed at six go back he went but yet I felt more and more that his love must be dwindling to make him act as he did I thought it all over wearily enough and asked myself whether I had done everything I should to hold my husband's love I had kept him in at nights I had cut down his smoking I had stopped his playing cards what more was there that I could do so at last the conviction came to me that I must go away I felt that I must get away somewhere to think things out at first I thought of Palm Beach but the season had not opened and I felt somehow that I couldn't wait I wanted to get away somewhere by myself and just face things as they were so one morning I said to John John I think I'd like to go off somewhere for a little time just to be by myself dear and I don't want you to ask to come with me or follow me but just let me go John said all right men when are you going to start the cold brutality of it cut me to the heart and I went upstairs and had a good cry and looked over steamship and railroad folders I thought of Havana for a while because the pictures of the harbor and the castle and the queer Spanish streets look so attractive but then I was afraid that at Havana a woman alone by herself might be simply persecuted by attentions from gentlemen they say the Spanish temperament is something fearful so I decided on Bermuda instead I felt that in a beautiful quiet place like Bermuda I could think everything all over and face things and it set on the folder that there were always at least two English regiments in garrison there and the English officers whatever their faults always treat a woman with the deepest respect so I said nothing more to John but in the next few days I got all my arrangements made and my things packed and when the last afternoon came I sat down and wrote John a long letter to leave on my Boudoir table telling him that I had gone to Bermuda I told him that I wanted to be alone I said that I couldn't tell when I would be back that it might be months or it might be years and I hoped that he would try to be as happy as he could and forget me entirely and to send me money on the first of every month well it was just at that moment that one of those strange coincidences happened little things in themselves but which seemed to alter the whole course of a person's life I had nearly finished the letter to John that I was to leave on the writing desk when just then the maid came up to my room with a telegram it was for John but I thought it my duty to open it and read it for him before I left and I nearly fainted when I saw that it was from a lawyer in Bermuda of all places and it said that a legacy of two hundred thousand dollars had been left to John by an uncle of his who had died there and asking for instructions about the disposition of it a great wave seemed to sweep over me and all the wicked thoughts that had been in my mind were driven clean away I thought how completely lost poor old John would feel if all his money came to him and he didn't have to work anymore and had no one at his side to help and guide him in using it I tore up the wicked letter I had written and I hurried as fast as I could to pack up a valise with John's things my own were packed already as I said then presently John came in and I broke the news to him as gently and as tenderly as I could about his uncle packed him the money and having died I told him that I had found out all about the trains and the Bermuda steamer and had everything all packed and ready for us to leave at once John seemed a little dazed about it all and kept saying that his uncle had taught him to play tennis when he was a little boy and he was very grateful and thankful to me for having everything arranged and thought it wonderful I had time to telephone to a few of my women friends and they just managed to rush round for a few minutes to say goodbye I couldn't help crying a little when I told them about John's uncle dying so far away with none of us near him and I told them about the legacy and they cried a little to hear of it all and when I told them that John and I might not come back direct from Bermuda but might take a run over to Europe first they all cried some more we left for New York that evening and after we had been to Bermuda and arranged about a suitable monument for John's uncle and collected the money we sailed for Europe all through the happy time that has followed I like to think that through all our trials and difficulties Affliction brought us safely together at last End of John and I or How I Nearly Lost My Husband by Stephen Leacock read by Patty Cunningham for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org According to his passport he was called Max Z but as it was stated in the same passport that he had no special peculiarities about his features he preferred to call him Mr. N plus 1 he represented a long line of young men who possess wavy disheveled locks straight, bold and open looks well formed in strong bodies and very large and powerful hearts all these youths having loved and perpetuated their love some of them have succeeded in engraving it on the tablets of history like Henry IV others like Petrarch have made literary preserves of it themselves for that purpose of the newspapers wherein the happenings of the day are recorded and where they figured among those who had strangled themselves shot themselves or who had been shot by others still others the happiest and most modest of all perpetuated their love by entering it in the birth records by creating posterity the love of N plus 1 was as strong as death as a certain writer put it as strong as life he thought was firmly convinced that he was the first to have discovered the method of loving so intensely, so unrestrainedly so passionately and he regarded with contempt all who had loved before him still more he was convinced that even after him no one would love as he did and he felt sorry that with his death the secret of true love would be lost to mankind but being a modest young man he attributed part of his achievement to her, to his beloved not that she was perfection itself but she came very close to it as close as an ideal can come to reality there were prettier women than she there were wiser women but was there ever a better woman did there ever exist a woman on whose face was so clearly and distinctly written that she alone was worthy of love of infinite pure and devoted love Max knew that there never were and that there never would be such a woman in fact he had no special peculiarities just as Adam did not have them just as you my reader do not have them beginning with Grandmother Eve and ending with the woman upon whom your eyes were directed before you read these lines the same inscription is to be clearly and distinctly read on the face of every woman at a certain time the difference is only in the quality of the ink a very nasty day set in it was Monday or Tuesday and Max noticed with a feeling of great terror that the inscription upon the dear face was fading Max rubbed his eyes, looked first from a distance then from all sides but the fact was undeniable the inscription was fading soon the last letter also disappeared the face was white like the recently whitewashed wall of a new house but he was convinced that the inscription had disappeared not of itself but that someone had wiped it off no Max went to his friend, John N he knew and he felt sure that such a true disinterested and honest friend there never was and never would be and in this respect too as you see Max had no special peculiarities he went to his friend for the purpose of taking his advice concerning the mysterious disappearance of the inscription and found John N exactly at the moment when he was wiping away that inscription by his kisses then that the records of the local occurrences were enriched by another unfortunate incident entitled An Attempt at Suicide it is said that death always comes in due time evidently that time had not yet arrived for Max for he remained alive that is he ate, drank, walked borrowed money and did not return it and altogether he showed by a series of psychophysiological acts that he was a living being possessing a stomach and a will and a mind but his soul was dead or to be more exact it was absorbed in lethargic sleep the sound of human speech reached his ears his eyes saw tears and laughter but all that did not stir a single echo a single emotion in his soul I do not know what space of time had elapsed it may have been one year it may have been ten years for the length of such intermissions in life depends on how quickly the actor succeeds in changing his costume one beautiful day it was Wednesday or Thursday Max awakened completely a careful and guarded liquidation of his spiritual property made it clear that a fair piece of Max's soul the part which contained his love for woman and for his friends was dead like a paralysis-stricken hand or foot but what remained was nevertheless enough for life that was love for and faith in mankind then Max having renounced personal happiness started to work for the happiness of others that was a new phase he believed all the evil that is tormenting the world seemed to him to be concentrated in a red flower in one red flower it was but necessary to tear it down and the incessant heart-rending cries and moans which rise to the indifferent sky from all points of the earth like its natural breathing would be silenced the evil of the world he believed lay in the evil will and in the madness of the people they themselves were to blame for being unhappy and they could be happy if they wished this seemed so clear and simple that Max was dumbfounded in his amazement at human stupidity humanity reminded him of a crowd huddled together in a spacious temple and panic-stricken at the cry of fire instead of passing calmly through the wide doors and saving themselves the maddening people with the cruelty of frenzy beasts cry and roar crush one another and perish not from the fire for it is only imaginary but from their own madness it is enough sometimes when one sensible firm word is uttered to this crowd the crowd calms down and the imminent death is thus averted let then a hundred calm rational voices be raised to mankind showing them where to escape and where the danger lies and heaven will be established on earth if not immediately then at least within a very brief time Max began to utter his word of wisdom how he uttered it you will learn later the name of Max was mentioned in the newspapers shouted in the market places blessed and cursed whole books were written on what Max N plus one had done what he was doing and what he intended to do he appeared here and there and everywhere he was seen standing at the head of the crowd commanding it he was seen in chains under the knife of the guillotine in this respect Max did not have any special peculiarities either a preacher of humility and peace a stern bearer of fire and sword he was the same Max Max the believer but while he was doing all this time kept passing on his nerves were shattered his wavy locks became thin and his head began to look like that of Elijah the prophet here and there he felt a piercing pain the earth continued to turn like-mindedly around the sun now coming nearer to it now retreating coquettishly and giving the impression that it fixed all its attention upon its household friend the moon the days were replaced by other days and the dark nights by other dark nights with such pedantic German punctuality and correctness that all artistic natures were compelled to move over to the far north by degrees where the devil himself would break his head endeavoring to distinguish between day and night when suddenly something happened to Max somehow it happened that Max became misunderstood he had calmed the crowd by his words wisdom many a time before and had saved them from mutual destruction but now he was not understood they thought that it was he prior with all the eloquence of which he was capable he assured them that he was exerting all his efforts for their sake alone that he himself needed absolutely nothing for he was alone childless that he was ready to forget the sad misunderstanding and serve them again with faith and truth but all in vain they would not trust him and in this respect Max did not have any special peculiarities either the sad incident ended for Max in a new intermission Max was alive as was positively established by medical experts who had made a series of simple tests thus when they pricked a needle into his foot he shook his foot and tried to remove the needle when they put food before him he ate it but he did not walk and did not ask for any loans which clearly testified to the complete decline of his energy his soul was dead because the soul can be dead while a body is alive to Max all that he had loved and believed in was dead impenetrable gloom wrapped his soul there were neither feelings in it nor desires nor thoughts and there was not a more unhappy man in the world than Max if he was a man at all but he was a man according to the calendar it was Friday or Saturday when Max awakened as from a prolonged sleep with the pleasant sensation of an owner to whom his property has been restored which had wrongly been taken from him Max realized that he was once more in possession of all five of his senses his sight reported to him that he was all alone in a place which might in justice be called either a room or a chimney each wall of the room was about a meter and a half wide and about ten meters high the walls were straight white, smooth no openings except one through which food was brought to Max an electric lamp was burning brightly on the ceiling it was burning all the time so that Max did not know now what darkness was there was no furniture in the room and Max had to lie on the stone floor he lay curled together as the narrowness of the room did not permit him to stretch himself his sense of hearing reported to him that until the day of his death he would not leave this room when he reported this his hearing sank into inactivity for not the slightest sound came from without except these sounds which Max himself produced tossing about or shouting until he was hoarse until he lost his voice Max looked into himself in contrast to the outward light which never went out he saw within himself impenetrable heavy and motionless darkness in that darkness his love and faith were buried Max did not know whether time was moving or whether it stood motionless the same even white light poured down on him the same silence and quiet only by the beating of his heart Max could judge that Cronus had not left his chariot his body was aching ever more from the unnatural position in which it lay and the constant light and silence were growing ever more tormenting how happy are those for whom night exists near whom people are shouting noise beating drums who may sit on a chair with their feet hanging down or lie with their feet outstretched placing the head in a corner and covering it with the hands in order to create the illusion of darkness Max made an effort to recall and to picture himself what there is in life human faces voices the stars he knew that his eyes would never in life see that again he knew it and yet he lived he could have destroyed himself for there is no position in which a man cannot do that but instead Max worried about his health trying to eat although he had no appetite solving mathematical problems to occupy his mind so as not to lose his reason he struggled against death as if it were not his deliverer but his enemy and as if life were to him not the worst of infernal tortures but love, faith and happiness gloom in the past future and infernal tortures in the present and yet he lived tell me John N where did he get the strength for that he hoped end of love, faith and hope by Leonid Andreev Magipa the Buck by H. Ryder Haggard this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Greg Marguerite Magipa the Buck by H. Ryder Haggard in a preface to a story of the early life of the late Alan Quatermain known in Africa as Makumazan which has been published under the name of Marie Mr. Curtis, the brother of Sir Henry Curtis tells of how he found a number of manuscripts left by Mr. Quatermain in his house in Yorkshire of these Marie was one but in addition to it and sundry other completed records I the editor to whom it was directed that these manuscripts should be handed for publication have found a quantity of unclassified notes and papers some of these deal with matters that have to do with sport and game or with historical events and some are memoranda of incidents connected with the career of the writer or with remarkable occurrences that he had witnessed of which he does not speak elsewhere one of these notes it is contained in a book much soiled and worn that evidently its owner had carried about with him for years reminds me of a conversation I had with Mr. Quatermain long ago when I was his guest in Yorkshire the note itself is short I think that he must have jotted it down within an hour or two of the event to which it refers it runs thus I wonder whether in the land beyond any recognition is granted for acts of great courage and unselfish devotion a kind of spiritual Victoria cross if so I think it ought to be accorded to that poor old savage Magipa as it would be if I had any voice in the matter upon my word he has made me feel proud of humanity and yet he was nothing but a nigger as so many call the kafirs for a while I the editor wondered to what this entry could elude then of a sudden it all came back to me I saw myself as a young man seated in the hall of Quatermain's house one evening after dinner with me were Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good we were smoking and the conversation had turned upon deeds of heroism each of us detailed such acts as he could remember which had made the most impression on him when we had finished old Allen said with your leave I'll tell you a story of what I think was one of the bravest things I ever saw it happened at the beginning of the Zulu war when the troops were marching into Zulu land now at that time as you know I was turning an honest penny transport writing for the government or rather for the military authorities I hired them three wagons with the necessary for loopers and drivers sixteen good salted oxen to each wagon and myself in charge of the lot they paid me well never mind how much I am rather ashamed to mention the amount the truth is that the imperial officers bought in a dear market during that Zulu war more over things were not always straight I could tell you stories of folk not all of them colonials who got rich quicker than they ought commissions and that kind of thing but perhaps these are forgotten as for me I asked a good price for my wagons or rather for the hire of them of a very well satisfied young gentleman in uniform who had been exactly three weeks in the country and to my surprise got it but when I went to those in command and warned them what would happen if they persisted in their way of advance then in their pride they would not listen to the old hunter and transport writer but politely bowed me out if they had would have been no Isandhulwana disaster he brooded while for as I knew this was a sore subject with him one on which he would rarely talk although he escaped himself quarter main had lost friends on that fatal field he went on to return to old maghipa I had known him for many years the first time we met was in the battle of Tugila I was fighting for the king's son Umbilazi the handsome in the ranks of the Tulwana regiment I mean to write all that story for it should not be lost well as I have told you before the Tulwana were wiped out of the three thousand or so of them I think only about fifty remained alive after they had annihilated the three of C. T. Weyo's regiments that set upon them but as it chanced maghipa was one who survived I met him afterwards at old king Pandas Kral and recognized him as having fought by my side whilst I was talking to him the prince C. T. Weyo came by to me he was civil enough for he knew how I chanced to be in the battle but he glared at maghipa and said why Makumazan is not this man one of the dogs with which you tried to bite me by the Tugila not long ago he must be a cunning dog also one who can run fast for how comes it that he lives to snarl when so many will never find a man ow if I had my way I would find a strip of hide to fit his neck not so I answered he has the king's peace and he is a brave man braver than I am anyway prince seeing that I ran from the ranks of the Tulwana while he stood where he was you mean that your horse ran Makumazan well since you like this dog I will not hurt him and with a shrug he went his way yet soon or late he will hurt me said maghipa when the prince had gone Ussitiweyo has a memory long as the shadow thrown by a tree at sunset more over as he knows well it is true that I ran Makumazan though not till all was finished and I could do no more by standing still you remember how we had eaten up the first of Citiweyo's regiments the second charged us and we ate that up also well in that late I got a tap on the head from a carry it struck me on my man's ring which I had just put on for I think I was the youngest soldier in that regiment of veterans the ring saved me still for a while I lost my mind and lay like one dead when I found it again the fight was over and Citiweyo's people were searching for our wounded that they might kill them presently they found me and saw that there was no hurt on me here is one who seems dead like a stink cat said a big fellow lifting his spear then it was that I sprang up and ran who was but just married and desired to live he struck at me but I jumped over the spear and the others that they threw missed me then they began to hunt me but Makumazan I who am named the buck because I am swifter on foot than any man in Zululand outpaced them all and got away safe well done Magipa I said still remember the saying of your people at last the strong swimmer goes with the stream and the swift runner is run down I know it Makumazan he answered with a nod and perhaps in a day to come I shall know it better I took little heed of his words at the time but more than 30 years afterwards I remembered them such was my first acquaintance with Magipa now friends I will tell you how it was renewed at the time of the Zulu war as you know I was attached to the center column that advanced into Zululand by Rork's Drift on the Buffalo river before war was declared or at any rate before the advance began while it might have been and many thought it would be averted I was employed transport-riding goods to the little Rork's Drift station that which became so famous afterwards and incidentally in collecting what information I could of C.T. Weyo's intentions hearing that they crawl a mile or so the other side of the river of which the people were said to be very friendly to the English I determined to visit it you may think this was rash but I was so well known in Zululand where for many years by special leave of the king I was allowed to go wither I would quite unmolested and indeed under the royal protection that I felt no fear for myself so long as I went alone accordingly one evening I crossed the Drift and headed for a cliff in which I was told the crawl stood. Ten minutes ride brought me inside of it it was not a large crawl there may have been six or eight huts and a cattle enclosure surrounded by the usual fence the situation however was very pretty a knoll of rising ground backed by the wooded slopes of the cliff as I approached I saw women and children running to the crawl to hide and when I reached the gateway for some time no one at length a small boy appeared who informed me that the crawl was empty as a gourd quite so I answered still go and tell the headman that Makumazan wishes to speak with him the boy departed and presently I saw a face that seemed familiar to me peeping round the edge of the gateway after a careful inspection its owner emerged he was a tall thin man of indefinite age perhaps between sixty and seventy with a finely cut face a little grey beard kind eyes and very well shaped hands and feet the fingers which twitched incessantly being remarkably long greeting Makumazan he said I see you do not remember me well think of the battle of the Tugila and of the last stand of the Tulewana and of a certain talk at the crawl of our father who is dead that is King Panda and of how he who sits in his place he meant Citi Weyo told you that if he had his way he would find a hide rope to fit the neck of a certain one ah I said I know you now you are my Gipa the Buck so the runner has not yet been run down no Makumazan not yet but there is still time I think that many swift feet will be at work air long how have you prospered I asked him well enough Makumazan in all ways except one I have three wives but my children have been few and are dead except one daughter who is married and lives with me for her husband too is dead he was killed by a buffalo and she has not yet married again but enter and see so I went in and saw my Gipa's wives old women all of them also at his bidding his daughter whose name was Gita brought me some mass curdled milk to drink she was a well formed woman very like her father but sad faced perhaps with a prescience of evil to come clinging to her finger was a beautiful boy of something under two years of age who when he saw my Gipa ran to him and threw his little arms about his legs the old man lifted the child and kissed him tenderly saying it is well that this toddler and I should love one another Makumazan seeing that he is the last of my race all the other children here are those of the people who have come to live in my shadow where are their fathers I asked patting the little boy who his mother told me was named Sinala upon the cheek an attention that he resented they have been called away on duty answered my Gipa shortly and I changed the subject then we began to talk about old times and I asked him if he had any oxen to sell saying that this was my reason for visiting the crawl nay Makumazan he answered in a meaning voice this year all the cattle are the kings I nodded and replied that as it was so I had better be going where on as I half expected my Gipa announced that he would see me safe to the drift so I bade farewell to the wives and the widowed daughter and we started as soon as we were clear of the crawl my Gipa began to open his heart to me Makumazan he said looking up at me earnestly before I was mounted and he walked beside my horse there is to be war Sitiwayo will not consent to the demands of the great white chief from the cape he meant Sir Bartelfraer he will fight with the English only he will let them begin the fighting he will draw them on into Zululand and then overwhelm them with his impasse and stamp them flat and eat them up and I who love the English am very sorry yes it makes my heart bleed if it were the boars now I should be glad for we Zuluz hate the boars but the English we do not hate even Sitiwayo likes them still he will eat them up if they attack him indeed I answered and then as in duty bound I proceeded to get what I could out of him and that was not a little of course however I did not swallow at all since that I suspected that Magipa was feeding me with news that he had been ordered to disseminate we came to the mouth of the clue in which the crawl stood and here for greater convenience of conversation we halted for I thought it was well that we should not be seen in close talk on the open plain beyond the path here I should add ran past a clump of green bushes I remember they bore a white flower that smelt sweet and were backed by some tall grasses elephant grass I think it was among which grew mimosa trees Magipa I said in truth there is to be fighting why don't you move over the river one night with your people and cattle and get into Natal I would if I could Makumazan who have no stomach for this war against the English but there I should not be safe since presently the king will come into Natal too or send 30,000 Asagais as his messengers then what will happen to those who have left him oh if you think that I answered laughing you had better stay where you are also Makumazan the husbands of those women at my crawl have been called up to their regiments and if their wives fled to the English they would be killed again the king has sent for nearly all our cattle to keep them safe he fears lest we border Zulus might join our people in Natal and that is why he is keeping our cattle safe life is more than cattle Magipa at least you might come what and leave my people to be killed Makumazan you did not used to talk so still here can Makumazan will you do me a service I will pay you well for it I would get my daughter Gita and my little grandson Sinala into safety if I and my wives are wiped out it does not matter for we are old but her I would save and the boy I would save so that one may live who will remember my name now if I were to send them across the drifts say at the dawn not tomorrow and not the next day but the day after would you receive them into your wagon and deliver them safe to some place in Natal I have money hidden fifty pieces of gold and you may take half of these and also half of the cattle if ever I live to get them back out of the keeping of the king never mind about the money and we will speak of the cattle afterwards I said I understand that you wish to send your daughter and your little grandson out of danger and I think you wise very wise when once the advance begins if there is an advance who knows what may happen war is a rough game my Gita it is not the custom of you black people to spare women and children and there will be Zulu's fighting on our side as well as on yours do you understand oh I understand Makumazan I have known the face of war and seen many a little one like my grandson Sinala as in guide upon his mother's back very good but if I do this for you you must do something for me say my Gita the city way oh really mean to fight and if so how oh yes I know all you have been telling me but I want not words but truth from the heart you ask secrets said the old fellow peering about him into the gathering gloom still the spear for a spear and a shield for a shield as our saying runs I have spoken no lie the king does mean to fight not because he wants to but because the regiments swear that they will wash their asagais they who have never seen blood since that battle of the Tugila in which we too played a part and if he will not suffer it well there are more of his race also he means to fight thus and he gave me some very useful information that is information which would have been useful but those in authority had deign to pay any attention to it when I passed it on just as he had finished speaking I thought that I heard a sound in the dense green bush behind us it reminded me of the noise a man makes when he tries to stifle a cough and frightened me for if we had been overheard by a spy Magipa was as good as dead and the sooner I was across the river the better what's that? I asked a bush-buck Makumazad there are lots of them about here not being satisfied though it is true that buck do cough like this I turned my horse to the bush seeking an opening thereon something crashed away and vanished into the long grass in those shadows of course I could not see what it was but such light as remained glinted on what might have been the polished tip of the horn of an antelope or an asagai I told you it was a buck Makumazad said Magipa still if you smell danger let us come away from the bush though the orders are that no white man is to be touched as yet then while we walked on towards the fort he set out with great details as kafirs do the exact arrangements that he proposed to make for the handing over of his daughter and her child into my care I remember that I asked him why he would not send her on the following morning instead of two mornings later he answered because he expected an outpost of scouts from one of the regiments at his crawl that night who would probably remain there over the morrow and perhaps longer while they were in the place it would be difficult if not impossible for him to send away Gita and her son without exciting suspicion near the drift we parted and I returned to our provisional camp and wrote a beautiful report of all that I had learned of which report I may add no one took the slightest notice I think it was the morning before that whereon I had arranged to meet Gita and the little boy at the drift that just about dawn I went down to the river for a wash having taken my dip I climbed onto a flat rock to dress myself and looked at the billows of beautiful pearly mist which hid the face of the water and considered, I almost said listen to, the great silence for as yet no live thing was stirring if I had known of the hideous sounds that were destined to be heard long in this same haunt of perfect peace indeed at that moment there came a kind of hint or premonition of them since suddenly through the utter quiet broke the blood curdling wail of a woman it was followed by other wails and shouts distant and yet distinct then the silence fell again now I thought to myself that noise might have very well come from old Megipa's crawl luckily however sounds are deceptive and missed well the end of it was that I waited there till the sun rose the first thing on which its bright beam struck was a mighty column of smoke rising to heaven from where Megipa's crawl had stood I went back to my wagons very sad so sad that I could scarcely eat my breakfast while I walked I wondered hard whether the light had glinted upon the tip of a bucks horn in that patch of green bush with the sweet smelling white flowers a night or two ago or had it perchance fallen upon the point of the asagai of some spy who was watching my movements in that event yonder column of smoke and the horrible cries that preceded it were easy to explain for had not Megipa and I talked secrets together and in Zulu on the following morning at dawn I attended at the drift in the faint hope that Gita and her boy might arrive there as arranged but nobody came which was not wonderful seeing that Gita lay dead stabbed through and through as I saw afterwards she made a good fight for the child and that her spirit had gone to wherever go the souls of the brave hearted be they white or black only on the farther bank of the river I saw some Zulu scouts who seemed to know my errand for they called to me asking mockingly where was the pretty woman I had come to meet after that I tried to put the matter out of my head which indeed was full enough of other things since now definite orders had arrived as to the advance and with these many troops and officers it was just then that the Zulus began to fire across the river at such of our people as they saw upon the bank at these they took aim and as a result hit nobody a rock have fear with a rifle in my experience is only dangerous when he aims at nothing for then the bullet looks after itself and may catch you to put a stop to this nuisance a regiment of the friendly natives there may have been several hundred of them was directed to cross the river and clear the cliffs and rocks of the Zulu skirmishers who were hidden among them I watched them go off in fine style and in the course of the afternoon heard a good deal of shouting and banging of guns on the farther side of the river towards evening someone told me that our impi as he called it grand eloquently was returning victorious having at the moment nothing else to do I walked down to the river at a point where the water was deep and the banks were high here I climbed to the top of a pile of boulders went with my field glasses I could sweep a great extent of plane which stretched away on the Zulu land side till at length it merged into hills and bush presently I saw some of our natives marching homewards in a scattered and disorganized fashion evidently very proud of themselves for they were waving their asagais and singing scraps of war songs a few minutes later a mile or more away I caught the sight of a man running watching him through the glasses I noted three things first that he was tall secondly that he ran with extraordinary swiftness and thirdly that he had something tied upon his back it was evident further that he had good reason to run since he was being hunted by a number of our kafirs of whom more and more continually joined the chase from every side they poured down upon him trying to cut him off and kill him for as they got nearer I could see the asagais which they threw at him flash in the sunlight very soon I understood that the man was running with a definite object and to a definite point he was trying to reach the river I thought the sight very pitiful this one poor creature being hunted to death by so many also I wondered why he did not free himself from the bundle on his back and came to the conclusion that he must be a witch doctor and that the bundle contained his precious charms or medicines this was while he was yet a long way off but when he came nearer within three or four hundred yards of a sudden I caught the outline of his face against a good background and knew it for that of magipa my god I said to myself it is old magipa the buck and the bundle in the mat will be his grandson senala yes even then I felt certain that he was carrying the child upon his back what was I to do it was impossible for me to cross the river at that place and long before I could get round by the Ford all would be finished I stood up on my rock and shouted to those brutes of kafirs to let the man alone they were so excited that they did not hear my words at least they swore afterwards that they thought I was encouraging them to hunt him down but magipa hurt me at the moment he seemed to be failing but the sight of me appeared to give him fresh strength he gathered himself together and leapt forward at a really surprising speed now the river was not more than three hundred yards away from him and for the first two hundred of these he quite outdistanced his pursuers although they were most of them young men and comparatively fresh then once more his strength began to fail watching through the glasses I could see that his mouth was wide open and that there was red foam upon his lips the burden on his back was dragging him down once he lifted his hands as though to lose it then with a wild gesture let them fall again two of the pursuers who had outpaced the others crept up to him lank lean men of not more than thirty years age they had stabbing spears in their hands such as are used at close quarters and these of course they did not throw one of them gained a little on the other now magipa was not more than fifty yards from the bank with the first hunter about ten paces behind him and coming up rapidly magipa glanced over his shoulder and saw then put out his last strength for forty yards he went like an arrow running straight away from his pursuers until he was within a few feet of the bank when he stumbled and fell he's done I said and upon my word if I had had a rifle in my hand I think I would have stopped one or both of those bloodhounds and taken the consequences but no just as the man lifted his broad spear to stab him through the back on which the bundle lay magipa leapt up and wheeled around to take the thrust in the chest evidently he did not wish to be speared in the bag for a certain reason he took it sure enough for the asagai was wrenched out of the hand of the striker still as he was reeling backwards it did not go through magipa or perhaps it hit a bone he drew out the spear and threw it at the man wounding him then he staggered on back and back to the edge of the little cliff it was reached at last with a cry of help me makumazan magipa turned and before the other man could spear him lept straight into the deep water he rose yes the brave old fellow rose and struck out for the other bank leaving a little line of red behind him I rushed or rather sprang and rolled down to the edge of the stream to where a point of shingle ran out into the water along this I clamored and beyond it up to my middle now magipa was being swept past me I caught his outstretched hand and pulled him ashore the boy he gasped the boy is he dead I severed the lashings of the mat that had cut right into the old fellow's shoulders inside of it was little sinala sputtering out water but very evidently alive and unhurt for presently he set up a yell no I said he lives and will live then all is well makumazan a pause it was a spy in the bush not a buck he overheard our talk the king slayers came Gita held the door of the hut while I took the child cut a hole through the straw with my asagai and crept out at the back she was full of spears before she died but I got away with the boy till your kafirs found me I lay hid in the bush hoping to escape to natal then I ran for the river and saw you on the farther bank I might have got away but that child is heavy a pause give him food makumazan he must be hungry a pause farewell that was a good saying of yours the swift runner is outrun at last ah yet I did not run in vain another pause the last then he lifted himself upon one arm and with the other saluted first the boy sinala remember your promise makumazan that is how magipa the buck died I never saw anyone carrying weight who could run quite so well as he and quarter main turned his head away as though the memory of this incident affected him somewhat what became of the child sinala I asked presently oh I sent him to an institution in natal and afterwards was able to get some of his property back for him I believe that he is being trained as an interpreter end of magipa the buck by H. Rider Haggard moon face by jack london this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by greg marguerite moon face by jack london John Claverhouse was a moon faced man you know the kind cheekbones wide apart chin and far head melting into the cheeks to complete the perfect round and the nose, broad and pudgy equidistant from the circumference flattened against the very center of the face like a dough ball upon the ceiling perhaps that's why I hated him for truly he had become an offense to my eyes and I believe the earth to be cumbered with his presence perhaps my mother may have been superstitious of the moon and looked upon it over the wrong shoulder at the wrong time be that as it may I hated John Claverhouse not that he had done me what society would consider a wrong or an ill turn far from it the evil was of a deeper subtler sort so elusive, so intangible as to defy clear definite analysis in words we all experience such things at some period in our lives for the first time we see a certain individual one who is the very instant before we did not dream existed and yet at the first moment of meeting we say I do not like that man why do we not like him ah we do not know why we know only that we do not we have taken a dislike that is all and so I with John Claverhouse what right had such a man to be happy he was an optimist he was always gleeful and laughing all things were always all right curse him how it grated on my soul that he should be so happy other men could laugh and it did not bother me I even used to laugh myself before I met John Claverhouse but his laugh it irritated me, maddened me as nothing else under the sun could irritate or maddened me it haunted me, gripping hold of me it let me go it was a huge gargantuan laugh waking or sleeping it was always with me worrying and jarring across my heart strings like an enormous rasp at break of day it came whooping across the fields to spoil my pleasant morning reverie under the aching noonday glare when the green things drooped and the birds withdrew to the depths of the forest and all nature drowsed his great ha ha and ho ho rose up to the sky and challenged the sun and at black midnight from the lonely crossroads where he turned from town into his own place came his plaguey catcher nations to rouse me from my sleep and make me writhe and clench my nails into my palms I went forth privily in the night time and turned his cattle into the fields and in the morning heard his whooping laugh as he drove them out again it is nothing he said the poor dumb beasties are not to be blamed for straying into fatter pastures he had a dog he called Mars a big splendid brute part deerhound and part bloodhound and resembling both Mars was a great delight to him and they were always together but I bided my time and one day when opportunity was ripe lured the animal away and settled for him with strict nine and beef steak it made positively no impression on John Claver House his laugh was as hearty and frequent as ever and his face as much like the full moon as it had always been then I set fire to his haystacks and his barn but the next morning being Sunday he went forth blithe and cheerful where you going I asked him as he went by the crossroads trout he said and his face beamed like a full moon I just don't on trout was there ever such an impossible man his whole harvest had gone up in his haystacks and barn it was uninsured I knew and yet in the face of famine and the rigorous winter he went out gaily in the quest of a mess of trout forsooth because he doted on them had gloom but rested no matter how lightly on his brow or had his bovine countenance grown long and serious and less like the moon or had he removed that smile but once from his face I am sure I could have forgiven him for existing but no he grew only more cheerful under misfortune I insulted him he looked at me in slow and smiling surprise I fight you why he asked slowly and then he left you are so funny you'll be the death of me what would you do it was past endurance by the blood of Judas how I hated him then there was that name clover house what a name wasn't it absurd clover house merciful heaven why clover house again and again I ask myself that question I should not have minded smith or brown or jones but clover house I leave it to you repeat it to yourself clover house just listen to the ridiculous sound of it clover house should a man live with such a name I ask you no you say and no said I but I be thought me of his mortgage what of his loan and barn destroyed I knew he would be unable to meet it so I got a shrewd close mouth tight-fisted money lender to get the mortgage transferred to him I did not appear but through this agent I forced the foreclosure and but few days no more believe me than the law allowed were given John clover house to remove his goods and chattels from the premises then I strolled down to see how he took it for he had lived there upward of 20 years but he met me with his saucer eyes and the light glowing and spreading in his face till it was as a full moon risen he laughed the funniest type that youngster of mine did you ever hear of the like let me tell you he was down playing by the edge of the river when a piece of the bank caved in and splashed him oh papa he cried a great big puddle flew up and hit me he stopped and waited for me to join him in his infernal glee I don't see any laugh in it I said shortly and I know my face went sour he regarded me with wonderment and then came the damnable light glowing and spreading as I have described it till his face shone soft and warm like the summer moon and then the laugh that's funny you don't see it hey he doesn't see it why look here you know a puddle but I turned on my heel and left him that was the last I could stand it no longer the thing must end right there I thought curse him the earth should be quit of him and as I went over the hill I could hear his monstrous laugh reverberating against the sky now I pride myself on doing things neatly and when I resolved to kill John Claverhouse I had it in mind to do so in such fashion that I should not look back upon it and feel ashamed I hate bungling and I hate brutality to me there is something repugnant in merely striking a man with one's fist it is sickening so to shoot or stab or club John Claverhouse oh that name did not appeal to me and not only was I impelled to do it neatly and artistically but also in such manner that not the slightest possible suspicion could be directed against me to this end I bent my intellect and after a week of profound incubation I hatched a scheme then I set to work I bought a wooderspaniel bitch five months old and devoted my whole attention to her training had anyone spied upon me they would have remarked that this training consisted entirely of one thing retrieving I taught the dog which I called Belana to fetch sticks I threw into the water and not only to fetch but to fetch at once without mouthing or playing with them the point was that she was to stop for nothing but to deliver the stick in all haste I made a practice of running away and leaving her to chase me with this stick in her until she caught me she was a bright animal and took to the game with such eagerness that I was soon content after that at the first casual opportunity I presented Belana to John Claverhouse I knew what I was about for I was aware of a little weakness of his and of a little private sinning of which he was regularly and inveterately guilty now he said when I placed the end of the rope in his hand no you don't mean it he grinned wide and he grinned all over his damnable moon face I kind of thought somehow you didn't like me he explained wasn't it funny for me to make such a mistake and at the thought he held his sides with laughter what is her name he managed to ask between paroxysms Belana I said he he he he tittered what a funny name I gritted my teeth for his mirth put them on edge and snapped out between them she was the wife of Mars you know then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face until he excluded with that was my other dog well I guess she's a widow now he he he he he whooped after me and I turned and fled swiftly over the hill the week passed by and on Saturday evening I said to him you go away Monday don't you he nodded his head and grinned then you won't have another chance to get a mess of those trout you just doed one but he did not notice the sneer oh I don't know he chuckled I'm going up tomorrow to try pretty hard thus was assurance made doubly sure and I went back to my house hugging myself with rapture early next morning I saw him go by with a dip net and gunny sack and Belana trotting at his heels I knew where he was bound and cut out by the back pasture and climbed through the underbrush to the top of the mountain keeping carefully out of sight I followed the crest along for a couple of miles to a natural amphitheater in the hills where the little river raced down out of a gorge and stopped for a breath in a large and placid rock bound pool that was the spot I sat down on the crew of the mountain where I could see all that occurred and lighted my pipe air many minutes had passed John Claverhouse came plotting up the bed of the stream Belana was ambling about him and they were in high feather her short snappy barks mingling with his deeper chest notes arrived at the pool he threw down the dip net and sack and drew from his hip pocket what looked like a large fat candle but I knew it to be a stick of giant for such was his method of catching trout he dynamited them he attached the fuse by wrapping the giant tightly in a piece of cotton then he ignited the fuse and tossed the explosive into the pool like a flash Belana was into the pool after it I could have shrieked aloud for joy Claverhouse yelled at her but without a veil he pelted her with clods and rocks but she swam steadily on till she got the stick of giant in her mouth when she whirled about and headed for shore then for the first time he realized his danger and started to run as foreseen and planned by me she made the bank and took out after him oh I tell you it was great as I have said the pool lay in a sort of amphitheater above and below the stream could be crossed on stepping stones and around and around up and down and across the stones raced Claverhouse and Belana I could never have believed that such an ungainly man could run so fast but run he did Belana hot footed after him and gaining and then just as she caught up he in full stride and she leaping with nose at his knee there was a sudden flash a burst of smoke a terrific detonation and where man and dog had been the instant before there was not to be seen but a big hole in the ground death from accident while engaged in illegal fishing that was the verdict of the coroner's jury and that is why I pride myself on the neat and artistic way in which I finished off John Claverhouse there was no bungling no brutality nothing of which to be ashamed in the whole transaction as I'm sure you will agree no more does his infernal laugh go echoing among the hills and no more does his fat moon face rise up to vex me my days are peaceful now and my nights sleep deep End of Moon Face by Jack London The Other Man by Rudyard Kipling This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org When the earth was sick and the skies were grey and the woods were rotted with rain the dead man rode through the autumn day to visit his love again old ballad Far back in the 70s before they had built any public offices at Simla and the Brogd road round Jaco lived in a pigeonhole in the PWD hovels her parents made Miss Gowry marry Colonel Schreiderling He could not have been much more senior and as he lived on 200 rupees a month and had money of his own he was well off he belonged to good people and suffered in the cold weather from lung complaints in the hot weather he dangled on the brink of heat apoplexy but it never quite killed him Understand I do not blame Schreiderling he was a good husband according to his lights and his temper only failed him when he was being nursed which was some 17 days in each month and that for him was a concession still Mrs. Schreiderling was not happy they married her when she was this side of 20 and had given all her poor little heart to another man I have forgotten his name but we will call him the other man he had no money and no prospects he was not even good looking and I think he was in the commissariat or transport but in spite of all these things she loved him very madly and there was some sort of an engagement between the two when Schreiderling appeared he wished to marry her daughter then the other engagement was broken off washed away by Mrs. Gowery's tears for that lady governed her house by weeping over disobedience to her authority and the lack of reverence she received in her old age the daughter did not take after her mother she never cried not even at the wedding the other man bore his loss quietly and was transferred to his badest station as he could ever find perhaps the climate consoled him he suffered from intermittent fever and that may have distracted him from his other trouble he was weak about the heart also both ways one of the valves was affected and the fever made it worse this showed itself later on then many months passed and Mrs. Schreiderling took to being ill she did not pine away like people in story books but she seemed to pick up every form of illness that went about a station from simple fever upwards she was never more than ordinarily pretty at the best of times when the illness made her ugly Schreiderling said so he prided himself on speaking his mind when she ceased being pretty he left her to her own devices and went back to the lairs of his bachelordom she used to trot up and down Simla Mall in a forlorn sort of way with a gray tarai hat well on the back of her head and a shocking bad saddle under her Schreiderling's generosity stopped at the horse he said that any saddle would do for a woman as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling she never was asked to dance because she did not dance very well and she was so dull and uninteresting that her box very seldom had any cards in it Schreiderling said that if he had known that she was going to be such a scarecrow after her marriage he would never have married her he always prided himself on speaking his mind did Schreiderling he left her at Simla one August and went down to his regiment then she revived a little but she never recovered her looks I found out at the club that the other man was very sick on an off chance of recovery the fever in the heart valve had nearly killed him she knew that too and she knew what I had no interest in knowing when he was coming up I suppose he wrote to tell her they had not seen each other since a month before the wedding and here comes the unpleasant part of the story a late call kept me down at the Dov Del Hotel till dusk one evening Mrs. Schreiderling had been flitting coming up along the cart road a Tonga passed me and my pony, tired with standing so long set off at a canter just by the road down to the Tonga office Mrs. Schreiderling dripping from head to foot was waiting for the Tonga I turned uphill as the Tonga was no affair of mine and just then she began to shriek I went back at once and saw under the Tonga office lamps Mrs. Schreiderling kneeling in the wet road by the back seat of the newly arrived Tonga screaming hideously then she fell face down in the dirt as I came up sitting in the back seat very square and firm with one hand on the awning stanchion and the wet pouring off his hat and moustache was the other man dead the sixty mile uphill jolt had been too much for his valve I suppose the Tonga driver said the Sahib died two stages out of Solon therefore I tied him with a rope lest he should fall out by the way pointing to the other man should have given one rupee the other man sat with a grin on his face as if he enjoyed the joke of his arrival and Mrs. Schreiderling in the mud began to groan there was no one except us four in the office and it was raining heavily the first thing was to take Mrs. Schreiderling home and the second was to prevent her name from being mixed up with the affair the Tonga driver received five rupees to find a bizarre rickshaw for Mrs. Schreiderling he was to tell the Tonga Babu afterwards of the other man and the Babu was to make such arrangements as seemed best Mrs. Schreiderling was carried into the shed out of the rain and for three-quarters of an hour we too waited for the rickshaw the other man was left exactly as he had arrived Mrs. Schreiderling would do everything but cry which might have helped her she tried to scream as soon as her senses came back and then she began praying for the other man's soul had she not been as honest as the day she would have prayed for her own soul too I waited to hear her do this but she did not then I tried to get some of the mud off her habit lastly the rickshaw came and I got her away partly by force it was a terrible business from beginning to end but most of all when the rickshaw had to squeeze between the wall and the Tonga and she saw by the lamp light that thin yellow hand grasping the on extension she was taken home just as everyone was going to a dance at Weiseriegel Lodge it was then and the doctor found that she had fallen from her horse that I had picked her up at the back of Jacko and really deserved great credit for the prompt manner in which I had secured medical aid she did not die men of Schreiderling stamp marry women who don't die easily they live and grow ugly she never told of her one meeting since her marriage with the other man and when the chill and cough following the exposure of that evening allowed her abroad she never by word or sign concluded to having met me by the Tonga office perhaps she never knew she used to trot up and down the mall on that shocking bad saddle looking as if she expected to meet someone round the corner every minute two years afterwards she went home and died at Bournemouth I think Schreiderling when he grew maudlin at mess used to talk about my poor dear wife he always set great store on speaking his mind he did Schreiderling end of The Other Man by Rudyard Kipling read by Sean Michael Hogan St. John's Newfoundland Canada