Fancies and Goodnights

ROPE ENOUGH

Henry Fraser, well assured that almost everything is done by mirrors, was given a job in India. No sooner had he set foot on shore than he burst into a horse-laugh. Those who were meeting him asked in some alarm the cause of this merriment. He replied he was laughing at the mere idea of the Indian Rope Trick.

He emitted similar startling sounds, and gave the same explanation, at a tiffin where he was officially made welcome; likewise on the Maidan, over chota peg, in rickshaws, in bazaars, in the Club, and on the polo ground. Soon he was known from Bombay to Calcutta as the man who laughed at the Indian Rope Trick, and he gloried in the well-deserved publicity.

There came a day, however, when he was sitting in his bungalow, bored to death. His boy entered, and, with suitable salaams, announced that a mountebank was outside, who craved the honour of entertaining the sahib with a performance of the Indian Rope Trick. Laughing heartily, Henry consented, and moved out to his chair upon the veranda.

Below, in the dusty compound, stood a native who was emaciated to a degree, and who had with him a spry youngster, a huge mat basket, and a monstrous great sword. Out of the basket he dragged some thirty feet of stout rope, made a pass or two, and slung it up into the air. It stayed there. Henry chuckled.

The boy then, with a caper, sprang at the rope, clutched it, and went up hand over hand, like a monkey. When he reached the top he vanished into thin air. Henry guffawed.

Soon the man, looking upwards with an anxious expression, began to hoot and holler after the boy. He called him down, he ordered him down, he begged him down, he began to swear and curse horribly. The boy, it seemed, took no notice at all. Henry roared.

Now the black, clapping his abominable great scimitar between his teeth, took hold of the rope himself, and went up it like a sailor. He, also, disappeared at the top. Henry's mirth increased.

Pretty soon some yelps and squeals were heard coming out of the empty air, and then a blood-curdling scream. Down came a leg, thump onto the ground, then an arm, a thigh, a head and other joints, and finally (no ladies being present) a bare backside, which struck the earth like a bomb. Henry went into fits.

Then the black came sliding down, holding on with one hand, fairly gibbering with excitement. He presented to Henry, with a salaam, his reeking blade for inspection. Henry locked in his chair.

The black, seemingly overwhelmed with remorse, gathered up the fragments of his little stooge, lavishing a hundred lamentations and endearments upon each grisly member, and he stowed them all in the giant basket.

At that moment Henry, feeling the time had come for a showdown, and willing to bet a thousand to one they'd planted the whole compound full of mirrors before calling him out there, pulled out his revolver, and blazed away all six chambers in different directions, in the expectation of splintering at least one of those deceiving glasses.

Nothing of that sort happened, but the black, doing a quick pirouette in alarm, looked down in the dust at his feet, and held up a villainous little snake, no thicker than a lead pencil, which had been killed by one of Henry's stray bullets. He gave a gasp of relief, touched his turban very civilly, turned round again, and made a pass or two over the basket. At once, with a wriggle and a frisk, the boy sprang out, whole, alive, smiling, full of health and wickedness.

The black hastily hauled down the rope, and came cringing up to Henry, overflowing with gratitude for having been saved from that villainous little snake, which was nothing more nor less than a krait — one nip and a man goes round and round like a Catherine wheel for eleven seconds; then he is as dead as mutton.

«But for the Heavenborn,» said the black, «I should have been a goner, and my wicked little boy here, who is my pride and delight, must have lain dismembered in the basket till the sahib's servants condescended to throw him to the crocodiles. Our worthless lives, our scanty goods, are all at the sahib's disposal.»

«That's all right,» said Henry. «All I ask is, show me how the trick is worked, or the laugh will be on me from now on.»

«Would not the sahib,» said the blade diffidently, «prefer the secret of a superb hair-restorer?»

«No. No,» said Henry. «Nothing but the trick.»

«I have,» said the black, «the secret of a very peculiar tonic, which the sahib (not now, of course, but in later life) might find —»

«The trick,» said Henry, «and without further delay.»

«Very well,» said the black. «Nothing in the world could be more simple. You make a pass, Like that —»

«Wait a minute,» said Henry. «Like that?»

«Exactly,» said the black. «You then throw up the rope — so. You see? It sticks.»

«So it does,» said Henry.

«Any boy can climb,» said the black. «Up boy! Show the sahib.»

The boy, smiling, climbed up and disappeared.

«Now,» said the black, «if the sahib will excuse me, I shall be back immediately.» And with that he climbed up himself, threw down the boy in sections, and speedily rejoined Henry on the ground.

«All that,» said he, scooping up legs and arms as he spoke, «all that can be done by anyone. There is a little knack, however, to the pass I make at this juncture. If the sahib will deign to observe closely — like that.»

«Like that?» said Henry.

«You have it to perfection,» said the black.

«Very interesting,» said Henry. «Tell me, what's up there at the top of the rope?»

«Ah, sahib,» said the black with a smile, «that is something truly delightful.»

With that he salaamed and departed, taking with him his rope, his giant basket, his tremendous great scimitar, and his wicked little boy. Henry was left feeling rather morose: he was known from, the Deccan to the Khyber Pass as the man who laughed at the Indian Rope Trick, and now he could laugh no more.

He decided to keep very quiet about it, but this unfortunately was not enough. At tiffin, at chota peg, at the Club, on the Maidan, in the bazaar, and at polo, he was expected to laugh like a horse, and in India one has to do what is expected of one. Henry became extremely unpopular, cabals were formed against him, and soon he was hoofed out of the Service.

This was the more distressing as in the meantime he had married a wife, strong-featured, upstanding, well groomed, straight-eyed, a little peremptory in manner, and as jealous as a demon, but in all respects a memsahib of the highest type, who knew very well what was due to her. She told Henry he had better go to America and make a fortune. He agreed, they packed up, and off they went to America.

«I hope,» said Henry, as they stood looking at the skyline of New York, «I hope I shall make that fortune.»

«Of course,» said she. «You must insist upon it»

«Very well, my dear,» said he.

On landing, however, he discovered that all the fortunes had already been made, a discovery which very generally awaits those who visit America on this errand, and after some weeks of drifting about from place to place, he was prepared to cut his demand down to a mere job, then to a lesser job, and finally to the price of a meal and a bed for the night.

They reached this extremity in a certain small town in the Middle West «There is nothing for it, my dear,» said Henry. «We shall have to do the Indian Rope Trick.»

His wife cried out very bitterly at the idea of a memsahib performing this native feat in a Middle Western town, before a Middle Western audience. She reproached him with the loss of his job, the poor quality of his manhood, with the time he let her little dog get run over on the bund, and with a glance he had cast at a Parsee maiden at Bombay. Nevertheless, reason and hunger prevailed; they pawned her last trinket and invested in a rope, a roomy grip, and a monstrous old rusty scimitar they discovered in a junk-shop.

When she saw this last, Henry's wife flatly refused to go on, unless she was given the star part and Henry took that of the stooge. «But» said Henry, drawing an apprehensive thumb down the notched and jagged edge of the grim and rusty bilbo. «But,» said he, «you don't know how to make the passes.»

«You shall teach me,» she said, «and if anything goes wrong you will have only yourself to blame.»

So Henry showed her. You may be sure he was very thorough in his instructions. In the end she mastered them perfectly, and there was nothing left to do but to stain themselves with coffee. Henry improvised a turban and loincloth; she wore a sari and a pair of ash-trays borrowed from the hotel. They sought out a convenient waste lot, a large crowd collected, and the show began.

Up went the rope. Sure enough, it stuck. The crowd, with a multiple snigger, whispered that everything was done by mirrors. Henry, not without a good deal of puffing, went up hand over hand. When he got to the top, he forgot the crowd, the act, his wife, and even himself, so surprised and delighted was he by the sight that met his eyes.

He found himself crawling out of something like a well, onto what seemed to be solid ground. The landscape about him was not at all like that below; it was like an Indian paradise, full of dells, bowers, scarlet ibises, and heaven knows what all. However, his surprise and delight came less from these features of the background than from the presence of a young female in the nearest of these bowers or arbours, which happened to be all wreathed, canopied, overgrown, and intertwined with passion flowers. This delightful creature, who was a positive houri, and very lightly attired, seemed to be expecting Henry, and greeted him with rapture.

Henry, who had a sufficiently affectionate nature, flung his arms round her neck and gazed deeply into her eyes. These were surprisingly eloquent They seemed to say, «Why not make hey hey while the sun shines?»

He found the notion entirely agreeable, and planted a lingering kiss on her lips, noting only with a dim and careless annoyance that his wife was hooting and hollering from below. «What person of any tact or delicacy,» thought he, «could hoot and holler at such a moment?» and he dismissed her from his mind.

You may imagine his mortification when his delicious damsel suddenly repulsed him from her arms. He looked over his shoulder, and there was his wife, clambering over the edge, terribly red in the face, with the fury of a demon in her eye, and the mighty scimitar gripped firmly between her teeth.

Henry tried to rise, but she was beforehand with him, and while yet he had but his left foot on the ground, she caught him one across the loins with the huge and jagged bilbo, which effectually hamstrung him, so that he fell grovelling at her feet. «For heaven's sake!» he cried. «It's all a trick. Part of the act. It means nothing. Remember our public. The show must go on.»

«It shall,» said she, striking at his arms and legs.

«Oh, those notches!» cried he. «To oblige me, my dear, please sharpen it a little upon a stone.»

«It is good enough for you, you viper,» said she, hacking away all the time. Pretty soon Henry was a limbless trunk.

«For the love of God,» said he, «I hope you remember the passes. I can explain everything.»

«To hell with the passes!» said she, and with a last swipe she sent his head rolling like a football.

She was not long in picking up the scattered fragments of poor Henry, and flinging them down to earth, amid the applause and laughter of the crowd, who were more than ever convinced it was all done by mirrors.

Then, gripping her scimitar, she was about to swarm down after him, not from any soft-hearted intention of reassembling her unfortunate spouse, but rather to have another hack or two at some of the larger joints. At that moment she became aware of someone behind her, and, looking round, there was a divine young man, with the appearance of a Maharaja of the highest caste, an absolute Valentino, in whose eyes she seemed to read the words, «It is better to bum upon the Bed of Passion than in the Chair of Electricity.»

This idea presented itself with an overwhelming appeal. She paused only to thrust her head through the aperture, and cry, «That's what happens to a pig of a man who betrays his wife with a beastly native,» before hauling up the rope and entering into conversation with her charmer.

The police soon appeared upon the scene. There was nothing but a cooing sound above, as if invisible turtle doves were circling in amorous flight Below, the various portions of Henry were scattered in the dust, and the bluebottle flies were already settling upon them.

The crowd explained it was nothing but a trick, done with, mirrors.

«It looks to me,» said the sergeant, «as if the biggest one most have splintered right on top of him.»