THE BAZAAR SERGEANT.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 224, 18 December 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE BAZAAR SERGEANT.

James Edwakd Reeby was by birth a native of Exeter, and as his red hair and name implied, of the Danish race, who held and colonised that ancient city in Saxon days. He had come out to India as a private in the Wessex Royals, and by the time he was sergeant had been through the Afghan War and lost every relative he had left in England when he enlisted. When the Wessex Royals went home. Sergeant Reeby left them on pension. He had formed a con nection with an attractive young woman of the Fusafzai tribe, and had living one daughter out of three children born to him, All the love of his heart centred round the child, He was not forty then and with a stout heart he resolved to face life in India for the sake of her. By the good offices of his colonel he obtained the post of Bazaar Sergeant, in Meerut Cantonment, where he married the Fusafzai woman. When the post of Bazaar Sergeant, with its good pay and free quarters, was abolished he left Meerut, and, after nearly a year's diro privation, he got made bazaar sanitary inspector, on 50 rupees a month, in the great cantonment of Arsenalfanj. He had by this time learnt to live on the charity of a native merchant in the city, to beg his bread by clerking for a native press, to earn money by driving a native gentleman's carriage, and to endure the scorn and insult of the reptile bunniahs who taunted the pocr px-sergeant, well aware that the old discipline and self-respect would make him prefer to endure insults than to smite thoir cowardly carcases. lie told me that in those dark days he only spoke English once during ten months, and that the decent native was a good fellow at heart, with an enormous capacity for generosity and respect for an Englishman, provided he gained izzat (reputation) by it. ■ You see, sir,' said Reeby, ' them niggers isn't already black Not the right sort. And in this country it's all nothing for nothing; and they thinks a great deal more of what folks say than even a clerk in the city of London or a corporal's wife. There's Hiwan Singh there. Well—he comes and takes a peg with me of an evening, and he acts quite respectful to my old woman at all times and never once looks at my girl. That's his gentlemanly ideas. But ho looks to me not to be too hard on him for some things, and to give him such help as comes my way now and again. Now he's the right sort. We're used to each other, and we act as such.'

Diwan Singh happened to be a rich spirit merchant of a rather loose character and somewhat, fond of the bottle, but he was remarkably honest for a native. He only lied eight times out of ten, and used to crash through his villianies instead of intriguing ad infinitum. But he was always extremely polite, especially to English ladies. He told the cantonment magistrate that to please Mom Sahib was to please the Sahib, and that all the Mem Sahibs liked him, ' What do they know, Sahib 1 Your wives are more innocent and ignorant than my babies.' Being a spirit merchant he naturally was the owner of half

the hackney carriages in the place and contractor for picnics, race meetings and public entertainments. It was just the thing in a place where one can buy boots and charcoal of the butcher, and meat and tents of the tinker.

fteeby knew his public, and they knew him. He freely walloped the army of sweepers in his charge, and if he wished to impress on any man the desirability of cleansing his drains and cesspool he used generally to hold his head in the fluid till he saw what was wanted. An Indian loves a practical lesson and forcible exposition. So Rceuy was really liked. Especially as he insisted on his sweepers salaaming every native boss, and never failed to touch his hat to him on special occasions. Nobody ever knew Reeby's influence till the end. Which was thus :

. In the dreadful year when cholera decimated Margalia the hill station just above Arsenalfanj, and filled that huge bazaar with a double population of panic stricken natives, there was a fearful outbreak of the awful disease. It came like a flash of lightning. On Sunday night 20,000 people lay down "to sleep in health and security, On Monday morning they bore out 50 corpses, and knew that the yellow fog hung over the doomed bazaar.

When you see the thin yellow ruii:t hang like a ghostly pillar of fire over city or village—flee. For cholera is there. It is the awful raiment of death in the plenitude of his majesty and power. Great and dreadful fear sat on all. But lleeby arose to fight it. Within a week the cantonment magistrate was dead, and four doctors. The General and all his staff had fled All the troops were in cholera camps. Every single white man, including the clergy, had gone either with the troops or to far distant cities where cholera was not, In the bazaar who could fly ? The villagers drove them back with staves and shot-guns. The railway trains only stopped once a day, and then the people could not get away until passed through quarantine. The new cantonment magistrate was a brave, but reckless, young captain, an I he fell dead in the bazaar of sunstroke one blazing midday at his post. Reeby was left alone practically. He seized the santitary stores from the terrified J3abu in charge, and mixed phenyle and water in buckets and empty kerosene tins. These he placed about the bazaar, and drove the people to drink from them instead of from the hydrants. In the course of the fourth week his wife died during his absence. Ho carried her out and buried her body within four hours of death. His heart sank with awful fear for his daughter, but he held on day and night. .Side by side with him ran the two Catholic fathers -one a Belgian, one an Italian. « Are you a son of the Church V asked the Italian.

' I'm a bit of a callythumpian, your reverence,' said Reeby. ' You do your duty and let God do His will". I haven't time for much else just now.' So they let him alone and headed the sweepers cleaning drains, tearing down vacant houses, burning diseased bedding anil clothes, pouring remedies down terrified and dying men's throats. At last tho Belgian fell dying in the mouth of the main drain, and won his crown of martyrdom. The Italian and Reeby buried him and stood alone, the only two white men, to face the King of Terrors amid a maddened and smitten race of aliens, who prayed to them and looked to them for aid. In the end of the fifth week the pestilence was at its height. One night, at the hour between dark and dawn.-Reeby heard his daughter cry. He ran to her. He had only just laid down in his clothes, dead beat with fatigue, for an hour or two of sleep. By the light of the flickering lamp he saw her sunken eyes and blue lips. He knew his doom was on him. The dense air seemed to choke him, but he rose to tight for all he loved and all he had. The Italian priest came in by chance and aided him. The girl was beyond help- She sank rapidly in spite of all they could do. Then Reeby went mad. The fierce Berserk rage of his ancestors get hold of him. He bore the dving girl in his arms into the market-square, where the earliest broath of dawn was first felt. The lurid sun rose in the yellow misc. A thick bank of dark cloud hung over the sky almost to the eastern horizon. No air came. Reeby did not pray nor fight. He sat on the ground with his darling's head on his breast. The priest continued his prayers. Suddenly the darkness of the clouds intensified and a- dull noise like tho roar of a far-off cascade came down from tho ghastly sky. " Kiss me, dear father, I am going." moaned tho thin, ghos'like voice of tho dying girl. A cry of terror and sympathy arose from the thiong of terrified natives who witnessed Reeby's awful anguish. Roeby strained her in a close,, burning embrance. She lay breath ing very slowly and feebly. Then he laid her on the ground and rose. • Hear me, you people !' he cried. ' If she dies, then it is the last death. God has taken the best,' And then in mad English, roaring ill his fury, with his hard, sinewy

arms upraised to the black clouds rolling over the rising sun* he shouted :

' God ! take all these bloody niggers. Save my girl ! If you kill her may you and I bo for ever damned !' The Italian started in horror at the blasphemy. In that instant there came a crash of thunder and a flash of lightning on the wings of a mighty wirlwind. The market building was struck and set on fire. Flash after flash followed, and peal after peal of thunder. The flames caught on to the bazaar. Heedless of the torrents of rain, the conflagration spread, driven by the wind. Amid the horrors of that fearful morning even Death fled, aghast at his last work. The cholera was gone. But the Italian priest bent in prayer and fear over the bodies of the* Bazaar Sergeant and his daughter, blasted by the first stroke of the tempest.

To this day the tomb of the Bazaar Sergeant is worshipped by the natives as that of a brave English saint who sacrificed himself and his child to save their lives. But in fair Sorrento there dwells a pious priest who falls on his knees and prays in English whenever he hears the roll of thunder; in the hope that his good deeds and prayers will atone for the mad blasphemy of the exiled and heart-broken Englishman, the Bazaar Sergeant. —' St. James's Budget.'