The Lagoon

by Ruskin Bond

  ‘“Yes. Let us be off,” said my brother. “We are cast out and this boat is our country now—and the sea is our refuge.” He lingered with his foot on the shore, and I entreated him to hasten, for I remembered the strokes of her heart against my breast and thought that two men cannot withstand a hundred. We left, paddling downstream close to the bank; and as we passed by the creek where they were fishing, the great shouting had ceased, but the murmur of voices was loud like the humming of insects flying at noonday. The boats floated, clustered together, in the red light of torches, under a black roof of smoke; and men talked of their sport. Men that boasted, and praised, and jeered—men that would have been our friends in the morning, but on that night were already our enemies. We paddled swiftly past. We had no more friends in the country of our birth. She sat in the middle of the canoe with covered face; silent as she is now; unseeing as she is now—and I had no regret at what I was leaving because I could hear her breathing close to me—as I can hear her now.’

  He paused, listened with his ear turned to the doorway, then shook his head and went on.

  ‘My brother wanted to shout the cry of challenge—one cry only—to let the people know we were freeborn robbers that trusted our arms and the great sea. And again I begged him in the name of our love to be silent. Could I not hear her breathing close to me? I knew the pursuit would come quick enough. My brother loved me. He dipped his paddle without a splash. He only said, “There is half a man in you now—the other half is in that woman. I can wait. When you are a whole man again, you will come back with me here to shout defiance. We are sons of the same mother.” I made no answer.

  ‘All my strength and all my spirit were in my hands that held the paddle—for I longed to be with her in a safe place beyond the reach of men’s anger and of women’s spite. My love was so great, that I thought it could guide me to a country where death was unknown, if I could only escape from Inchi Midah’s spite and from our Ruler’s sword. We paddled with fury, breathing through our teeth. The blades bit deep into the smooth water. We passed out of the river; we flew in clear channels amongst the shallows. We skirted the black coast; we skirted the sand beaches where the sea speaks in whispers to the land; and the gleam of white sand flashed back past our boat, so swiftly she ran upon the water. We spoke not. Only once I said, “Sleep, Diamelen, for soon you may want all your strength.” I heard the sweetness of her voice, but I never turned my head. The sun rose and still we went on. Water fell from my face like rain from a cloud. We flew in the light and heat. I never looked back, but I knew that my brother’s eyes, behind me, were looking steadily ahead, for the boat went as straight as a bushman’s dart, when it leaves the end of the sumpitan. There was no better paddler, no better steersman than my brother. Many times, together, we had won races in that canoe. But we never had put out our strength as we did then—then, when for the last time we paddled together! There was no braver or stronger man in our country than my brother. I could not spare the strength to turn my head and look at him, but every moment I heard the hiss of his breath getting louder behind me. Still he did not speak. The sun was high. The heat clung to my back like a flame of fire. My ribs were ready to burst, but I could no longer get enough air into my chest. And then I felt I must cry out with my last breath, “Let us rest!”

  ‘“Good!” he answered; and his voice was firm. He was strong. He was brave. He knew not fear and no fatigue… My brother!’

  A rumour powerful and gentle, a rumour vast and faint; the rumour of trembling leaves, of stirring boughs, ran through the tangled depths of the forests, ran over the starry smoothness of the lagoon, and the water between the piles lapped the slimy timber once with a sudden splash. A breath of warm air touched the two men’s faces and passed on with a mournful sound—a breath loud and short like an uneasy sigh of the dreaming earth.

  Arsat went on in an even, low voice.

  ‘We ran our canoe on the white beach of a little bay close to a long tongue of land that seemed to bar our road; a long wooded cape going far into the sea. My brother knew that place. Beyond the cape a river has its entrance. Through the jungle of that land there is a narrow path. We made a fire and cooked rice. Then we slept on the soft sand in the shade of our canoe, while she watched. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard her cry of alarm. We leaped up. The sun was halfway down the sky already, and coming in sight in the opening of the bay we saw a prau manned by many paddlers. We knew it at once; it was one of our Rajah’s praus. They were watching the shore, and saw us. They beat the gong, and turned the head of the prau into the bay. I felt my heart become weak within my breast. Diamelen sat on the sand and covered her face. There was no escape by sea.

  ‘My brother laughed. He had the gun you had given him, Tuan, before you went away, but there was only a handful of powder. He spoke to me quickly: “Run with her along the path. I shall keep them back, for they have no firearms, and landing in the face of a man with a gun is certain death for some. Run with her. On the other side of that wood there is a fisherman’s house—and a canoe. When I have fired all the shots I will follow. I am a great runner, and before they can come up we shall be gone. I will hold out as long as I can, for she is but a woman—that can neither run nor fight, but she has your heart in her weak hands.” He dropped behind the canoe. The prau was coming. She and I ran, and as we rushed along the path I heard shots. My brother fired—once—twice—and the booming of the gong ceased. There was silence behind us. That neck of land is narrow. Before I heard my brother fire the third shot I saw the shelving shore, and I saw the water again: the mouth of a broad river. We crossed a grassy glade. We ran down to the water. I saw a low hut above the black mud, and a small canoe hauled up. I heard another shot behind me. I thought, “That is his last charge.” We rushed down to the canoe; a man came running from the hut, but I leaped on him, and we rolled together in the mud. Then I got up, and he lay still at my feet. I don’t know whether I had killed him or not. I and Diamelen pushed the canoe afloat. I heard yells behind me, and I saw my brother run across the glade. Many men were bounding after him. I took her in my arms and threw her into the boat, then leaped in myself. When I looked back I saw that my brother had fallen. He fell and was up again, but the men were closing round him. He shouted, “I am coming!” The men were close to him. I looked. Many men. Then I looked at her. Tuan, I pushed the canoe! I pushed it into deep water. She was kneeling forward looking at me, and I said, “Take your paddle,” while I struck the water with mine. Tuan, I heard him cry. I heard him cry my name twice; and I heard voices shouting, “Kill! Strike!” I never turned back. I heard him calling my name again with a great shriek, as when life is going out together with the voice—and I never turned my head. My own name! My brother! Three times he called—but I was not afraid of life. Was she not there in that canoe? And could I not with her find a country where death is forgotten—where death is unknown?’

  The white man sat up. Arsat rose and stood, an indistinct and silent figure above the dying embers of the fire. Over the lagoon a mist drifting and low had crept, erasing slowly the glittering images of the stars. And now a great expanse of white vapour covered the land: flowed cold and grey in the darkness, eddied in noiseless whirls round the tree-trunks and about the platform of the house, which seemed to float upon a restless and impalpable illusion of a sea; seemed the only thing surviving the destruction of the world by that undulating and voiceless phantom of a flood. Only far away the tops of the trees stood outlined on the twinkle of heaven, like a somber and forbidding shore—a coast deceptive, pitiless and black.

  Arsat’s voice vibrated loudly in the profound peace.

  ‘I had her there! I had her! To get her I would have faced all mankind. But I had her—and—’

  His words went out ringing into the empty distances. He paused, and seemed to listen to them dying away very far—beyond help and beyond recall. Then he said quietly—

  ‘Tuan, I loved my brother.’

  A breath of wind made him
shiver. High above his head, high above the silent sea of mist the drooping leaves of the palms rattled together with a mournful and expiring sound. The white man stretched his legs. His chin rested on his chest, and he murmured sadly without lifting his head—

  ‘We all love our brothers.’

  Arsat burst out with an intense whispering violence—

  ‘What did I care who died? I wanted peace in my own heart.’

  He seemed to hear a stir in the house—listened—then stepped in noiselessly. The white man stood up. A breeze was coming in fitful puffs. The stars shone paler as if they had retreated into the frozen depths of immense space. After a chill gust of wind there were a few seconds of perfect calm and absolute silence. Then from behind the black and wavy line of the forests a column of golden light shot up into the heavens and spread over the semicircle of the eastern horizon. The sun had risen. The mist lifted, broke into drifting patches, vanished into thin flying wreaths; and the unveiled lagoon lay, polished and black, in the heavy shadows at the foot of the wall of trees. A white eagle rose over it with a slanting and ponderous flight, reached the clear sunshine and appeared dazzlingly brilliant for a moment, then soaring higher, became a dark and motionless speck before it vanished into the blue as if it had left the earth for ever. The white man, standing gazing upwards before the doorway, heard in the hut a confused and broken murmur of distracted words ending with a loud groan. Suddenly Arsat stumbled out with outstretched hands, shivered, and stood still for some time with fixed eyes. Then he said—

  ‘She burns no more.’

  Before his face the sun showed its edge above the treetops, rising steadily. The breeze freshened; a great brilliance burst upon the lagoon, sparkled on the rippling water. The forests came out of the clear shadows of the morning, became distinct, as if they had rushed nearer—to stop short in a great stir of leaves, of nodding boughs, of swaying branches. In the merciless sunshine the whisper of unconscious life grew louder, speaking in an incomprehensible voice round the dumb darkness of that human sorrow. Arsat’s eyes wandered slowly, then stared at the rising sun.

  ‘I can see nothing,’ he said half aloud to himself.

  ‘There is nothing,’ said the white man, moving to the edge of the platform and waving his hand to his boat. A shout came faintly over the lagoon and the sampan began to glide towards the abode of the friend of ghosts.

  ‘If you want to come with me, I will wait all the morning,’ said the white man, looking away upon the water.

  ‘No, Tuan,’ said Arsat softly. ‘I shall not eat or sleep in this house, but I must first see my road. Now I can see nothing—see nothing! There is no light and no peace in the world; but there is death—death for many. We were sons of the same mother—and I left him in the midst of enemies; but I am going back now.’

  He drew a long breath and went on in a dreamy tone.

  ‘In a little while I shall see clear enough to strike—to strike. But she has died, and…now…darkness.’

  He flung his arms wide open, let them fall along his body, then stood still with unmoved face and stony eyes, staring at the sun. The white man got down into his canoe. The polers ran smartly along the sides of the boat, looking over their shoulders at the beginning of a weary journey. High in the stern, his head muffled up in white rags, the juragan sat moody, letting his paddle trail in the water. The white man, leaning with both arms over the grass roof of the little cabin, looked back at the shining ripple of the boat’s wake. Before the sampan passed out of the lagoon into the creek he lifted his eyes. Arsat had not moved. In the searching clearness of crude sunshine he was still standing before the house, he was still looking through the great light of a cloudless day into the hopeless darkness of the world.

  THE BOX TUNNEL

  Charles Reade

  The 10.15 train glided from Paddington, 7 May 1847. In the left compartment of a certain first-class carriage were four passengers; of these two were worth description. The lady had a smooth, white, delicate brow, strongly marked eyebrows, long lashes, eyes that seemed to change colour, and a good-sized delicious mouth, with teeth as white as milk. A man could not see her nose for her eyes and mouth; her own sex could and would have told us some nonsense about it. She wore an upretending greyish dress buttoned to the throat with lozenge-shaped buttons, and a Scottish shawl that agreeably evaded colour. She was like a duck, so tight her plain feathers fitted her, and there she sat, smooth, snug, and delicious, with a book in her hand, and the soupcon of her wrist just visible as she held it. Her opposite neighbour was what I call a good style of man—the more to his credit, since he belonged to a corporation that frequently turns out the worst imaginable style of young men. He was a cavalry officer, aged twenty-five. He had a moustache, but not a very, repulsive one; not one of those subnasal pigtails on which soup is suspended like dew on a shrub; it was short, thick, and black as a coal. His teeth had not yet been turned by tobacco smoke to the colour of juice, his clothes did not stick to nor hang to him, he had an engaging smile, and, what I liked the dog for, his vanity, which was inordinate, was in its proper place, his heart, not in his face, jostling mine and other people’s who have none; in a word, he was what one often hears of than meets—a young gentleman.

  He was conversing in an animated whisper with a companion, a fellow-officer; they were talking about what it is far better not to—women. Our friend clearly did not wish to be overheard; for he cast ever and anon a furtive glance at his fair vis-a-vis and lowered his voice. She seemed completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured him.

  At last the two soldiers came down to a whisper (the truth must be told); the one who got down at Slough, and was lost to posterity, her ten pounds to three that he who was going down with us to Bath and immortality would not kiss either of the ladies opposite upon the road. ‘Done, done!’

  Now, I am sorry, a man I have hitherto praised should have lent himself, even in a whisper, to such a speculation; ‘but nobody is wise at all hours,’ not even when the clock is striking five-and-twenty; and you are to consider his profession, his good looks, and the temptation—ten to three.

  After Slough the party was reduced to three; at Twyford one lady dropped her handkerchief; Captain Dolignan fell on it like a lamb; two or three words were interchanged on this occasion.

  At Reading, the Marlborough of our tale made one of the safe investments of that day, he bought Times and Punch; the latter full of steel-pen thrusts and wood-cuts. Valour and beauty deigned to laugh at some inflamed humbug or other, punctured by Punch. Now laughing together thaws our human ice; long before Swindon it was a talking-match—at Swindon who so devoted as Captain Dolignan? He handed them out—he souped them, he tough-chickened them, he brandied and cochinealed one, and brandied and burnt-sugared the other; on their return to the carriage, one lady passed into the inner compartment to inspect a certain gentleman’s seat on that side of the line.

  Reader, had it been you or I, the beauty would have been the deserter, the average one would have stayed with us till all was blue, ourselves included; not more surely does our slice of bread and butter, when it escapes from our hand, revolve it ever so often, alight face downward on the carpet.

  But this was a bit of a fop, Adonis, dragoon—so Venus remained tole-it-fete with him. You have seen a dog meet an unknown female of the species; how handsome, how impresse, how expressive he becomes; such was Dolignan after Swindon, and to do the dog justice, he got handsomer and handsomer; and you have seen a cat conscious of approaching cream—such was Miss Haythorn; she became demurer and demurer; presently our captain looked out of the window and laughed; this elicited an inquiring look from Miss Haythorn.

  ‘We are only a mile from the Box Tunnel.’

  ‘Do you always laugh a mile from the Box Tunnel?’ said the lady.

  ‘Invariably.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Why, hem! It is a gentleman’s joke.’

  Captain Dolignan then recounted to Miss Haythorn the following: />
  ‘A lady and her husband sat together going through the Box Tunnel—there was one gentleman opposite; it was pitch dark; after the tunnel the lady said, ‘George, how absurd of you to salute me going through the tunnel.’

  ‘I did no such thing.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No! Why?’

  ‘Because somehow I thought you did!’’

  Here Captain Dolignan laughed and endeavoured to lead his companion to laugh, but it was not to be done. The train entered the tunnel.

  Miss Haaythorn: Ah!

  Dolignan: What is the matter?

  Miss Haythorn: I am frightened.

  Dolignan (moving to her side): Pray do not be alarmed; I am near you.

  Miss Haythorn: You are near me—very near me, indeed, Captain Dolignan.

  Dolignan: You know my name?

  Miss Haythorn: I heard you mention it. I wish we were out of this dark place.

  Dolignan: I could be content to spend hours here, reassuring you, my dear lady.

  Miss Haythorn: Nonsense!

  Dolignan: Pweep! (Grave reader, do not put your lips to the next pretty creature you meet or you will understand what this means.)

  Miss Haythorn: Eh! Eh!

  Friend: What is the matter?

  Miss Haythorn: Open the door! Open the door!

  There was a sound of hurried whispers, the door was shut and the blind pulled down with hostile sharpness.

  If any critic falls on me for putting inarticulate sounds in a dialogue as above, I answer with all the insolence I can command at present, ‘Hit boys as big as yourself’; bigger perhaps, such as Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; they began it, and I learned it of them, sore against my will.

  Miss Haythorn’s scream lost most of its effect because the engine whistled forty thousand murders at the same moment; and fictitious grief makes itself heard when real cannot.

  Between the tunnel and Bath our young friend had time to ask himself whether his conduct had been marked by that delicate reserve which is supposed to distinguish the perfect gentleman.