The Storyteller.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 278, 23 April 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Storyteller.

A MAN IN A MILLION * CHAPTER I. I HAVE SET MY HEART OS HILDA. ‘HeigiioT said John McGregor, shutting up a great dusty old ledger, and stowing it away on a bookshelf close to the tabic at which he had been writing for some time. ‘ lleigho !’ ho said, stretching himself and yawning, “ how time does fly, to be sure ! My d iughter will be of age to-morrow, Clements.” ‘ Will she now T said Clements, a gaunt-looking, closely-shaven man of about fifty, who sat scribbling at a table, about two yards to the right of the first speaker. It was indeed a strange room in which they were seated. Any one coming straight in out of the tropical glare of sunshine could have seen nothing at first, except the two figures of the men at work. The light that streamed in through one long open slit above each of them was caught by reflectors and oast upon their desks beneath. All the rest of the room was dark—dark. Bub by-and bye, as a visitor’s pupils got dilated and his vision more like that of the bat, ho would have been able to descry one black figure crouched in a corner, pulUng away at punkah-string, and another tall black fellow busy at a table, mixing iced fruit drinks. With the exception of the writ-ing-tables and a huge case on which stood a few sample bottles of juices, gum, and spices, there was not anotherarticle of furniture in the whole room, But had the visitor remained in this room for fifteen minutes, then all his sun-blindness would have disappeared, and everything would then have been distinct enough. The great punkah, waving from the lofty roof; the horn'd spiny geckho lizards, crawling up the walls, and stalking moths; cockroaches, as big as small pincushions, zigzagging about the floor; huge crickets, with feelers as long as penholders giving side long digs at the nigger-boy’s naked feet ; and a daft-looking kitten in a corner, smacking a tame snake’s head every time he popped it out of a hole. ‘ Ah, Clements, she’ll bo of age to-morrow. She’ll bo fifteen, sir; and, dear girl, she is so like now what her sainted mother was when I married her. Dear girl!’ repeated Mcgregor, looking up at the reflector in the rays from which his splen- ' did beard gleamed like a bank of snow. 1 Dear lassie ! she will soon be getting married and leaving me.’ ‘ By-the-bye, partner,’ said Clements, “lam thinking of getting married myself.’ ‘ Indeed ! What, you V ‘Yes; why shouldn’t I have a wife, oh 1 Tell me that.’ Clements was beginning to look animated now. ‘No reason why you shouldn’t have a wife,” said his partner, ‘ Certainly there isn’t,’ replied Clements ; “ there is no reason on earth why I shouldn’t marry. I am rich enough to support a wife, John, and there is no law against it ev»>n in this island of Zanzibar, funny and all as it is.’ ‘No; you are right—quite right —there, Clements.’ ‘ But, McGregor, I do not want to marry anybody, you know , and come to think of it, now, I’d just as soon marry your little girl as not.’ ‘ Ha ! ha ! ha ! Ho ! ho ! ho !’ roared McGregor. He looked at Clements half a moment semi-seri-ously, and then went off again into another fit of laughing, with a ‘ Ho ! ho ! ho ! ’ and a ‘ Ha ! ha ! ha,’ till the vault-like room rang agiin. “ Come now,’ he said at last, ‘ you’re not really serious, are you Clements V ‘ That I am,’ was the reply ; ‘ and look here, partner, you and I will fall out if you treat my proposal again with such another chime of guffaws. There, I tell you straight.’ ‘ But you don’t love ray daughter, Clements..’ ‘Love? Well, perhaps not. But I’d make her a good husband. There now, I offer myself as a suitor again. Don’t grin like a baby baboon ; speak out like a man, sir.’ John McGregor sat silently nib filing his quill for long minutes, his handsome face turned upwards against the light, his great beard still sparkling in the rays of the reflector like snow with the sun on it. Clements leant his chin on his hand and watched him eagerly. McGregor was thinking of a good many things just then. His mind wont far away back into the past, to begin with, and he seemed to see himself on a bright spring morning, walking arm-in-arm from church with his bonnie young bride ; walking along a lane in dear old Devonshire, the banks bedecked with sweet-scented primroses and many a wild-flower besides; the hedges all along clothed in silken leaves of tenderost green, and starred over with bloom a lark singing high in the air, a morlo fluting on a spray of eglantine; neither of the birds a bit more happy than he. Thinking next of ship that sailed away froi^^ymouth waters, bearing him and his bride to a land beyond the sea, in the far south of the Dark Continent ; of all his happiness and deep joy, during that idyllic voyage ; of their landing at last in Natal with hearts full of hope, and life and fortune all before

them ; of golden dreams tint were not realised on those wooded shores ; of hope still telling a flattering tale, and of their long voyage to romantic Zanzibar in a dhow, and of all their struggles in this city of the Sultan. Then tho lifepicture darkening ; of the firm of McGregor going down, down ; of baby's birth—one bright ray of joy ami I the gloom—of years soing by,"and baby being able to walk and talk ; then of his wife, his heart's idol, sickening and pining, and of his returning home one dreary day in monsoon season, and realising for the first time that he was alone in the world that all he loved or cared for was asleep in that lonesome churchyard where the wind whispers through the aloetrees, and the waves make dreary moan on the silvery sands. He remembered how he had sunk into the rocker—her chair—and wept like a child. Ho remembered how a tiny form came toddling to his knee and tried to pull his hands from his tear-bedewed face, and how he had heard and lisped these words —' I'll be zoor rauzzer now.' He remembered registering a vow to work for her alone. He thought too of a younger man landing one day when his fortune seemed at its lowest ebb, when the house of McGregor was tottering on its foundations, and of this younger man coining to his aid, and saving the firm by becoming partner. Yes, and they—he and Clements—had flourished ever after. Oh, dear me, it seemed a long time since all this happened, and now Hilda was fifteen—that means 'of age ' in the tropics—and this partner had proposed for her han I ! 1 Well, partner, I'm not going to gainsay you,' he said, ' but there is one other view of the matter to take ' Mcgregor paused. ' Go on, John.' ' Well, partner, there is you, and there is young Irvine, and there i 3 my daughter Hilda ' • Go on, John.' 'Well, partner, you're a staid man of the world ' ' All tho better for Hilda,' said Clements. ' Perhaps ; you've been so long in Zanzibar among Arabs, and Parsees, and Hindoos, and what-not, that you've come to look upon marriage a 3 a mere legal ceremony. But, partner, it is different, I can tell you, with Irvine, and with Hilda too, and I reckon the lass likes the lad a little. Now, though I don't want to dictate to you—wouldn't the wealthy widow Webber be a more suitable match for you, Clements 1 and thus you could leave the young pair to joy along life's journey hand-in-hand like. We have to thank him too for one or two kind and brave actions.' ' I don't forget that, John ; and I'm willing to make him branch partner, if he'll live at our house in Seyschelles. No, John, I wouldn't do an unkind action to young Irvine for all the ivory and copal in the market; but, John, I've set my heart on Hilda, and if she won't or can't marry me, or you refuse your consent —why, I'll just sell out here and go right away to Bombay, and settle there.' ' Come, come, Clements !' cried McGregor more cheerfully, as he got up and placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. 'We can't afford to lose you. After all these years that we've been one-as-one, why, I should pine and die. There's my hand, old man, you shall be my son-in-law. Between us two we'll manage Hilda, and young Irvine too And now let us get the badane and sail away round to our bungalow at 800-boo-boo, and dine together. How beautiful the woods will look to-day, old friend !' •Hi ! Yacoob,' he continued, ' come out of that dark corner, you black rascal !' ' Y r es, sah ! I'se standin' here, right in de front of your nose, sah !' 1 Run, then, and tell your wife I want to speak to her here a once. Tell her to look alive. If she doesn't float in here in less than five minutes, I'll kick your shin 3in earnest.' ' You kickee my shins, sah 1 I surprise, sah ! Dat am not British justice. You kickee my wife's shins mooch as you please, sah, but not dis niggers's. But on this ' tickler ' 'casion, sah,' continued Yacoob, seizing a bamboo cane, ' if my wife not run quick, 1 smooth her down, sir. Yay ! yah !' 1 Off with you, Yacoob. Run, you sunny dog, you :' In less than the stipulated five minutes there was the sound of soft fleet footsteps outside in the passage, next moment the curtain was hastily pulled aside, and, followed by Yacoob and the bamboo cane, in rushed a little, very fat, pleasantfaced, yellow lady. She wo.re a white gilted turban around her wealth of jetty hair ; her neck, one arm, her feet, and both legs as far as the knees, or nearly, were bare ; all the rest of her body was gracefully draped in a web of crimson silk. She wore bangles on her ankles and bracelets on her wrists, long jewelled earrings, and a gold snake in the left ala of her nose. The snake lay curled up flat against her cheek, and had eyes of some precious stone that sparkled blue and crimson, like sunshine on a dew-drop. ' Ah ! Mrs Yacoob,' said McGregor, ' I wanted to see you. I want to send you a message. To-morrow is my daughter's birthday, and ' ' And what shall 1 buy, sah, for your sweet leetle cherub missie V

' You'll go bo the market, and buy the cherub a slave—a young girl slave. You understand ! As soon as she enters my house she will be a slave no longer. But you must buy her, all the same, because you won't get one for nothing, you know. Well, Mrs Yacoob, she must not bo more than ten —very very pretty, bat not too fat, omul. Take her home with you to-night, and give her a bath. Then go to tho bnzaar to-morrow, and buy her a pretty Arab dress. Are you listening, Mrs Yacoob? ' I'se a listening, sah, for true.' ' Well, Mrs Yacoob, a little, tiny, straw-gilt skull-cap, green silk Arab trousers, and vest with gold braid, and a robe of crimson silk. Get bracelets for her, and bangles also ; you understand !' ' Certainlee. sah.' ' Stain her nails with henna, and put just a suspicion—ami barely that -of kohl on the edge of the eyelids ' 'Ye 3, sah ; just a 'spicion, and barely dat. Stain de teeth V * No, no, no. Teeth like pearl.' 1 Anyding in de nose, sah V ' No, Mrs Yacoob, nothing in the nose,' ' Deu to-morrow, sah, what I do T ' To-morrow, Mrs Yacoob, you will hire a palanquin, with two of tho biggest and blackest niggers you can get, and bring her out to my country house. Now you have all your orders.' And away rushed little fatty (her real name was Fatima). Away she rushed, and away she ran, but in less than a minute the curtain was once more drawn aside, and Mrs Yacoob re-appeared in the doorway. ' I twite fordot, sah. : she said. ' What did you quite forget Mrs Yacoob V ' Why, de leetle niggah's name, for shuah.' ' Oh, yes,' said McGregor musingly. ' She must have a name. What's in a name 1 Suggest a name, Clements ; you're clever at that sort of thing. We'll call her Katinka.' Next minute the curtain was pulled aside, and Irvine groped his way into the room, laughing, for he knew that though he could see nobody, anybody inside could see him. [To be Continued.)