Novelist.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2680, 14 September 1889, Page 5 (Supplement)

Novelist.

13Y JAMES Gil A NT. Author of " The Komancn of War," " The f JMuck " Watch," " Fairer than ( • j a Fairy," &c., &c. I

[ai.l Kioirrs kesfkvjsu.] Love's labour Won: ; AX EVENTFUL STORY.

CHAPTER XXXVII.— I THE Sxok- t MINO OF MINIILA. J The waning moon of the cool early j morning was tipping with its pale 8 silvery light the wondorful arabesque carvings of the great Shoe J Dagon Pagoda that towered above the soft shimmering mist exhaled £ from marsh and atroam, and from ( the damp clumps of heavy man- I groves that drooped into both, t when Lonsdale and Montressor left i their quarters in the cantonmonts , at Itangoon to join, the river expedition against Minlila. ( The thoughts of the former wero , atill full of his strango and un- . pleasant dream of Melanie Talbot, ! and of that time in London when, amid tho crush of a prosaic "West End ballroom, there had come into the hearts of both the one great dawn of passion that can never return again, when each was drawn to tho other by an an irresistable power, though the word " love" had been unuttered; and when Melanie felt hersolf face to face with her own heart, and knew, like Lonsdale, that she had met herfate and then came tho memory of their parting hour. In the morning wind the golden leaves attached to tho cornices of the vast pagoda were moving, and

thero, too, woro tossing and ringin tho sweetly-toned bolls that luin among tho rich golden work c tlioso wonderful leavos, Strang features of a face, built in an ag unknown, and which, when viowc by moonlight, seoms the abode o magic and mystery, surrounded b winged monsters with solemn conn tenancos, tranquil mien, and pant ing lips. Thoughts of a more practica nature camo to Lonsdale wheD th dawn broke quickly on the rive and its wooded banks, and ho ro fleeted that happen what might, a, tlio Floritta steamed up tho muddj Irawaddy, tlio people at homo, 'si many thousand miles away, wouh know all about it—who wore tin wounded and who wore tho slair —oro, perhaps, twolvo hours wore over. It was the morning of tho 17th November when tho vessels with the Liverpool Regiment—as the old 8 tli, or King's, is now grotosquoly namod, —tho 21st and 25th Madras Native Infantry, both in scarlet, the former faced with buff, tho lattor with dark green, some sappers, and a Royal Artillery mule battery, were landed at tho village of Patnago, five miles below a fort, which was to be carried by assault; but the trouble of doing so was obviated by the garrison " levanting," as soon as our troops came in sight, after undergoing some brilliant shelling, however. A point was thus turned and won with ease, and other troops came on —to wit—the 2nd and 11th Bengal Infantry, under Colonels Baker and Norris, and the 12th Madras ; and then the march began inland, in the direction of Minlila, near which was the most formidable defense find barrier of the river, the Kuai[;on Fort, a mile below the town. Being ordered to ride forward md reconnoitre, Lonsdale, after some scouts had been fired on and Iriven in, saw that it stood on an solated hill, about three hundred ? eet high, on a bend of tho river, md that its guns commanded a long tnd straight reach of the latter. The slope, which was defended by hree lines of earthworks faced with >rick, was gentle, but there were ither defences, formed of huge teak ogs, backed up by earth and brick amparts, so solid as to defy our ,rtillery, and, as he reported to the ;eneral, any attempt to carry them ly assault would occasion much loss •f life.

More than two thousand men were supposed to be crowded into these works at Kudigon, and by his field glass, Lonsdale could see them in their ranks—if ranks they could be called, as the Burmese are alike without drill or discipline—chewing betel, smoking and gesticulating mildly, with their red pennons and gilt umbrellas ; all with papier mache helmets wobbling about on their topknots in a comically embarrassing manner; and all clad in gorgeous garments, bright red tunics, blue trousers, and variegated facings, while the booming of gongs,

the clash of cymbals, and the blare of doleful trumpets, all meant to inspire courage, made up a hideous volume of sound.

On the Madras and Bengal columns forming a junction, a village was approached, about a mile and a half from Minhla—which had a population of about five thousand —and there advanced files of the

12 th Madras Native Infantry opened a fire upon some scattered horsemen.

Proceeding a little further

through ajungly and densely-wooded district, these files were suddenly greeted by a heavy volley, the smoke of which, with the hissing bullets, poured through the foliage in front and filled tho place with obscurity. At this crisis, owing to the density of the jungle, the ragged palen«ra leaves and cactus hedges, our advancing force was in a long column, as if proceeding through a narrow lane, the flanking parties being quite invisible.

This fire was found to come chicfly from a village on our left flank.

"It must be carried at once j" was the order of the general. On this duty Lonsdale dashed forwerd with a party of tho 12th—■ or old Bth Madras—Regiment, and promptly drove out the enemy at the bayonet's point, but not before Major MacNeill, staff officer with the force was wounded, yet he gallantly kept the field till hit again at the storming of a pagoda. In a hand to hand fight, the Burmese, who love athletic sports, are both active and strong ; but now their olive-complexioned faces were distorted by rage and fear. When their helmets fell off their coarse black hair it was seen twisted into top-knots, and their foreheads were mean and narrow, when contrasted with their great cheek bones. After the village was carried, and the Burmese, all save the killed and wounded, had lied with the cooking pots, choppers and mats—-which form the field kit—another sharp, but ragged volley smote the head of the column from enemies hidden in j the jungle in front ; but the Madrasees closed gallantly up, briskly returning the fire ; and then the troops found themselves face to face with one of those fortifications formed by Caruotto, and other Italian engineers who served King Theebaw —a large and strangelypalisaded enclosure containing many pagodas, and flanked on two sides by a great tank and an earthwork twelve feet in height.

It was attacked on two points by the 11th Bengal Infantry, under

:>• Drury and Stuart. Tho latter went * gallantly storming over the stockf ades, but the first named ollicer, 0 Lieutenant Ashton Drury, a fir.e e young subaltern of tlie South Wales 1 Borderers (attached to the Bengal f corps), fell dead—the first officer >' killed in the new campaign—while • Lieutenant Sellory, of the Innis- ■ killcys, similarly attached, was wounded along with several Sc--1 poys. 3 Lonsdale, whom the Bengalees r followed closely, for, discipline apart, he had tho air of a man born ' to command, had a narrow escaoe in this wretched jungle warfare, as ' a wounded Burmese, in his death agony, half raising himself from tho 1 blood-slippery grass, with his sharp dao, or chopper, made a savage stab at him. A Bengalee parried tho thrust with his rifle, and then blew out the creature's brains. Charlie Dan vers also had on escape. Blinded by tho smoke of some blazing bamboo houses, he lost his way, and fell among some Burmese skirmishers, but he was too much of an Englismaii not to be equal to tho occasion. He cut down two, emptied his revolver among the rest, but stumbled and fell, when a heap of others were piled over him,killed and wounded, whose blood plastered him from head to foot, to his groat disgust. Between gore and grime he presented a very terrible appearance, and emerged from under them with a very wry sree, for Charlie was a natty and vain young fellow—vain of the whiteness of his hands, his strawcoloured moustache, and somewhat vapid countenance. The attack had lasted three- 1 quarters of an hour, during which 1 the shot from rifled brass guns of ' the Burmese rang incessantly ' through the dense leafy jungle, shredding away the foliage into ' flakes, till our storniers swept over 1 the place, and the village, with all its painted pagodas, was given to 1 the flames ; and amid a sheet of J these the bamboo houses burned 1 fiercely, the roar of the conflagra- ' tion almost drowning the fiendish 1 yells of the Burmese. c " Forward !" was now the order, s and the troops, full of fervour, pressing over some open ground beyond advanced against the Fort of Minha I into which the Katheleen from the 1 river was throwing her shells with £ beautiful precision. The works were girt by thick J jungle, and full of armed Burmese J . ... n

over whose fantastic helmets eleven guns and two wall pieces, from the higher ramparts, were pouring grape despite which a small party Jed by Lieutenants Downes, of the 11th, Wilkinson, of the 12th, and other officers, including Montressor, armed with his sword and a brace of revolvers, as he was always terribly in earnest about anything he undertook to do, reached the foot of the slope, which was covered by one very formidable piece of cannon. " Waiting until the gun at the head of the rampart had discharged its periodical round of grape," wrote one who was present, "theso officers led their men to a most gallant and successful assault. They met with a sharp resistance at the top of the incline, ancl poor Wilkinson had his skull cut through with a dao, or heavy knife—a very dangerous wound. His conduct and that of Downes, who was conspicuously to to the front, deserves recognition. The Burmese were quickly massed together both on the rampart and in the courtyard below—by the fire of our breech-loaders, and as they rushed out to the river bank on the east they were met by a party under Stuart, and suffered severely ; in fact, very few escaped alive. I suppose a hundred were killed outright her, a number wounded, and one hundred and fifty, or two hundred, made prisongrs." The Burmese commander here was a ruffian who had been odiously zealous in the awful palace massacres ; and his troops were the King's marines, whose helmets were surmounted by gilt anchors, in lieu of the ordinary red-mounted dragon of the Line. The Italians in Thoebaw's service now exploded a mine from the other side of the river, by which the armed launch Kathleen had a narrow escape; but after a three hours' conflict, Minhla was ours. The whole town, including the Governor's palaces, perished in a conflagration caused by the shells from the launch. When the firing ceased, and the dead and wounded were being reckoned and lists made up for the general, Montressor and Lonsdale, on meeting each other, shook hands in congratulation that they had both escaped untouched; but a sadder sequel was in store for both ere long, when under fire again. CHAPTER XXXVIII.— Hojik. And now for a brief glance at what was then passing at Rose Cottage and Ravensbourne Hall. The days were drawing in, and the sombre gloamings came early. Many of the former were dull and sullen, with sleety showers; and the wind howled at night through the lofty and leafless trees that overhung the cottage. The swine wore rooting in the desolate cornfields among the black, or brown, decaying stubble, and the noisy ducks came, dirty and draggled, from the muddy pools, that were half choked with fallen leaves. It was towards the end of a genuine English November, when the rain raineth every day, and

; frowsy fogs, like those of Holland, envelop all the low-lying and illdrained land. The Thames was shorn of its sylvan beauty, and the try sting place, on which the memory of Lonsdale, then so far away amid tho rice swamps of the Rangoon River, dwelt so fondly, was no longer a place of rich grass, sweet flowers and sunshine, but one instinct with the deadly odour of rotting sedge and slimy waterflags; so Melane Talbot went near it no more; it seemed so gloomy and deserted, so indicative of present anxiety and future hopelessness; and if here and there a (lower lingered in the once pretty garden of the cottage, it seemed to stand, as someone says, above its dead companions like a mourner over a grave, waiting for Mother Earth to receive it also. Her brother Reginald was still at the hall, where all tho medical skill brought—-not without ulterior views and hopes—-by Bir Brisco, to bear upon his case, had failed to achieve any amendment thereof, and where, now, his visit uas drawing to a close. He longed to bo with Melanin, who never went over | to the hall, and he felt that in conscience he could stay there no longer, even at the risk of the old pressure being put upon Melanie by Mrs Chellington and Uncle Grimshaw ; and where, latterly, lie had, of a necessity, been much left to himself by Sir Brisco, after the pheasant-shooting began and the hunting season set in—as the baronet was not so old or so obese as to relinquish a little sporting, though strenuously advised to do so by his medical man. Thus Reggie had been much left to his own thoughts,

his unavailing repining about Amy Brendon, to his books, and the kindly care of old Mrs Mopps, the housekeeper. Dick's introduction of a wasp's nest into tho immcdiato vicinity of his amiable unclo's couch had neither been forgotten nor forgiven by that gentleman, who was quiotly waiting for a time to pay the boy off in revenge, and get rid of him ; and ere long the occasion came. Mr Grimshaw's postal institution, the despatch box, had never yet produced one letter from Lonsdale, in answer to tho many that Melanie had deposited therein, addressed to every available point of his outward voyage ; and now, though sho had ceased to write, in sheer despair of sho knew not what, she never failed to scan the papers for military news from India, and latterly from Burmah, and had seen full notices of tho departure of tho Bengal column to join the army of General Prondergast.

Then came tidings of tho capture of Minhla, tho first brief despatch received at the India Office from His Excellency the Viceroy, to the effect that the barrier part of the river had been captured, after three hours' conflict, with thirteen guns ; that " the town had been accidentally burned down; that a steam launch had boon capsized, and that the casualties would follow."

The casualties !

"What a bitter pang thoso two words gave her heart! But how hopefully and proudly it beat -wlieD, a day or two after, camo fuller details that included a notice of how gallantly Captain Montague Lonsdalo, A.O. (on special service with tho 12th Native Infantry), had reconnoitored tho enemy's works within rifle-shot, and at the head of a detachment had stormed, at tho point of a bayonet, a fortified village on the right flank of the position. Tidings with which, in a tumult of thought, she rushed to the Vicarage, to share with hor friend and gossip, little Amy Brendon.

Amy had become her own joyous, active and bright self again, with her thick, rippling hair, and dark, laughing eyes. With renewed lightness of spirits, her naturally splendid health had come back to her, and among her father's old parishioners she had, as formerly, plenty of occupation whereby to kill the time till Horace Musgrave should return to Stokencross, as his letters —though his illness was protracted —now assured her he was hourly longing to do.

His kinsman's wife—the same kinsman whose initials had created such confusion and consternation— the fair and flirty Hilda, who had reduced the art of coquetry to a science, as her spouse was fast discovering now, had also assured her that Horace was recovering certainly, but slowly, " he had got such a deuce of a shaking and pounding in that awful spill at the hurdle race;" thus more than the ten brief days he had alloted co himself would have to elapse ere he was fa.irly on his legs again, and fit for duty or travelling ; so, meanwhile, the marriage was still delayed — a fact ominous of disaster, as all old ladies alleged—and Reginald Talbot, sooth to say, cared not how long the delay was ; yet thought, meanwhile, that his emotions on the subject were somewhat akin to those of the dog in the manger.

Then Amy, in the excess of her revulsion of spirits, after discovering that her lover was true, was tempted to be more than usually kind and effusive in her bearing to the unfortunate young sailor, when she met him abroad in his wheel chair, among the shady lanes near the hall, and this new manner of her's, all unconscious as she was of it, seemed but to tantalise and torture—though it did not deceive — him.

"All," said lier mother, as one

I da} 7 , with fond and caressing eyes, she watched Amy, while the lattor stood before a mirror over the mantel-board, tilting her piquant hat backward and forward to suit tho light and shadow, or arrangement of hor rich, soft, curly fringe, "I think the greatest vocation a girl can havo is to be a clergyman's wife, and whou I trained you, my little one, up for it—or thought I did "

" Yes, thought you did, mamma ; but a Hussar camo, and there was an end of the vocation," interrupted tho old vicar, laughingly. Tho small, but happy, circle at tho secluded Vicarage shared to tho full tho satisfaction and ploasure with which Melanie had at last, oven through tho prosaic medium of tho public prints, hoard of her funice, and tho laudation his courago had won.

Of tho non-arrival of lottors in answer to thoso sent, mail after mail, by Melanie, Aunt Chillington, when occasion offered, and Uncle Grimshaw in particular, never ceased to make tho most in urging upon her tho folly of deeming that her engagement still existed, and to expatiate, as usual, on the advantages offered by tho proposal of Sir Brisco; and once, when compelled to listen to all that hor uncle could say, a gust of grief, dismay, almost shame, but certainty mortification, shook the unhappy girl.

"Lonsdalo," said Uncle Grimshaw, sneeringly, " knows, no doubt. ' Tho girl I left behind me,' and has ridden—or rather sailed away—in this instance, as in many others, and thought no moro about her. It is a way thoy have in the army, I believe; thero, sentimentality is wisely deemed an absurdity."

After a pause, during which ho eyed hor grimly, her uncle said :

" I can never cease to condemn enough the selfishness of this fellow, who lured you into a promise to wait for him—-him, and what more 1 What have you gained f The love of a good and bravo man," replied Melanie.

"And that is all you think of ! Will this love pay rent and taxes and tradesmen's bills 1 So, how about money—the sinews of man, as your precious Lonsdale will no doubt call it f

Her shoulders heaved ; her face was turned from him and buried in the back of an easy-chair, and one arm, white as snow and beautifully revealed by a loose sleeve, an arm of rarest and tempting form, rested in relief upon a dark velvet cushion; but lie eyed her pitilessly—her beauty had no effect on him—with a triumphant twinkle in his sharp, pale eyes, while rasping up his side tufts, which looked like Satanic horns, especially when added to the expressions of his Saturnine visage. But artfully ceasing to taunt now, he sought to soothe, apparently.

" Thus it is that I am anxious— more than ever anxious, Melanie," he continued, "to see you comfortably, happily, and even splendidly married—for the sake of your two brothers, as well as yourself. My means are limited, my life uncertain ; the offers of Sir Brisco we cannot hope to have constantly repeated, and, in pique, he may marry some one else."

" I wish, oh I wish he would." " I don't! He is devoted to you as yet." "He is awfully old, uncle, for me or any other girl." "Not so very old, though his title is old enough—dates from King James," replied Uncle Grimshaw, a little irrelevantly, but hoping that she was actually beginning to consider the matter. "He is entirely devoted to you, I repeat, and his settlements, as your aunt constantly says, will be splendid !"

Melanie shivered — winced, in fact—with disgust, at this selfish, but oft-repeated argument of her two senior relations.

"As the mistress of Ravensbourne Hall," resumed Mr Grimshaw, eyeing her now through his pinc<i-n<iz, " you would hold the highest position iu the county, and more. Can you wonder then, Melanie, that we are grieved you should reject it; and are justly exasperated with the causc—a lover who has too evidently cast you forgotten you, and ignores your many letters with contempt, it may be with mockery and laughter, among his licentious friends and ribald brsther officers ! My God, girl, have you no proper pride left, that you cling to such an evil shadow, and trifle with such offers as those of Sir Brisco Braybrooke 1"

" I do not trifle with them."

" Reject them, then, apparently." " I do not reject them," replied Melanie, unsteadily, as a cruel sense of her strange and duteous position with regard to the absent and silent Lonsdale began, despite the wishes of her heart to force itselt upon her. " Then what in heaven's name do you want 1" " Time; only time to think," she answered. "Time? You have had months now." "Do not hurry me; do not say more," urged the poor girl, desperately. " I would be the last man in the world to hurry you in so serious a matter as this," continued Uncle Grimshaw, conveniently affecting to forget all his angry and bitter pressure in the past time, while beginning to gather heart greatly at this change, or new phase of bearing in Melanie, "but I am not ashamed

to add that your worthy Aunt Chillington and I will be heartily glad when we find you asserting yourself —find you rising superior to the cold and insulting neglect of one whom you have trusted so unwisely and implicitly, and for whom you were so foolisldy relinquishing so much. And how happy we shall be, when the engagement with Sir Brisco is duly announced and made public, so. that there can be no withdrawal, with honour, on either hand."

A pause now ensued, a pause broken only by an occasional bitter sigh on tho part of Melanie, while he anxiously waited for a reply, which she gavo hiui with an unsteady voico and a face that was painfully drawn and pallid. " Yory well, Uncle Grimshaw, if I do not hoar by tho noxt mail from Burmah or Calcutta, it may bo as you wish " " Only may ? " She attempted to say moro, but hor voico failed her, and ho was fain to bo content with her response, which ho lost no time in commnnicating, in a somewhat florid manner, to Sir Brisco. "Was Melanie yielding at last to conviction, or under influence, even as dropping water wears out the stone it falls on ? {To be continued.)