She by H. Rider Haggard (read an ebook week .TXT) đ
- Author: H. Rider Haggard
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Beautiful in strength.
[+] The Kallikrates here referred to by my friend was a
Spartan, spoken of by Herodotus (Herod. ix. 72) as being
remarkable for his beauty. He fell at the glorious battle of
PlatĂŠa (September 22, B.C. 479), when the LacedĂŠmonians
and Athenians under Pausanias routed the Persians, putting
nearly 300,000 of them to the sword. The following is a
translation of the passage, âFor Kallikrates died out of the
battle, he came to the army the most beautiful man of the
Greeks of that dayânot only of the LacedĂŠmonians
themselves, but of the other Greeks also. He when Pausanias
was sacrificing was wounded in the side by an arrow; and
then they fought, but on being carried off he regretted his
death, and said to Arimnestus, a PlatĂŠan, that he did not
grieve at dying for Greece, but at not having struck a blow,
or, although he desired so to do, performed any deed worthy
of himself.â This Kallikrates, who appears to have been as
brave as he was beautiful, is subsequently mentioned by
Herodotus as having been buried among the ጰÏáœłÎœÎ”Ïâ
(young commanders), apart from the other Spartans and the
Helots.âL. H. H.
He paused a while, his head sunk upon his hand, and then continuedâ
âMy marriage had diverted me from a project which I cannot enter into now. I have no time, HollyâI have no time! One day, if you accept my trust, you will learn all about it. After my wifeâs death I turned my mind to it again. But first it was necessary, or, at least, I conceived that it was necessary, that I should attain to a perfect knowledge of Eastern dialects, especially Arabic. It was to facilitate my studies that I came here. Very soon, however, my disease developed itself, and now there is an end of me.â And as though to emphasise his words he burst into another terrible fit of coughing.
I gave him some more whisky, and after resting he went onâ
âI have never seen my boy, Leo, since he was a tiny baby. I never could bear to see him, but they tell me that he is a quick and handsome child. In this envelope,â and he produced a letter from his pocket addressed to myself, âI have jotted down the course I wish followed in the boyâs education. It is a somewhat peculiar one. At any rate, I could not entrust it to a stranger. Once more, will you undertake it?â
âI must first know what I am to undertake,â I answered.
âYou are to undertake to have the boy, Leo, to live with you till he is twenty-five years of ageânot to send him to school, remember. On his twenty-fifth birthday your guardianship will end, and you will then, with the keys that I give you nowâ (and he placed them on the table) âopen the iron box, and let him see and read the contents, and say whether or no he is willing to undertake the quest. There is no obligation on him to do so. Now, as regards terms. My present income is two thousand two hundred a year. Half of that income I have secured to you by will for life, contingently on your undertaking the guardianshipâthat is, one thousand a year remuneration to yourself, for you will have to give up your life to it, and one hundred a year to pay for the board of the boy. The rest is to accumulate till Leo is twenty-five, so that there may be a sum in hand should he wish to undertake the quest of which I spoke.â
âAnd suppose I were to die?â I asked.
âThen the boy must become a ward of Chancery and take his chance. Only be careful that the iron chest is passed on to him by your will. Listen, Holly, donât refuse me. Believe me, this is to your advantage. You are not fit to mix with the worldâit would only embitter you. In a few weeks you will become a Fellow of your College, and the income that you will derive from that combined with what I have left you will enable you to live a life of learned leisure, alternated with the sport of which you are so fond, such as will exactly suit you.â
He paused and looked at me anxiously, but I still hesitated. The charge seemed so very strange.
âFor my sake, Holly. We have been good friends, and I have no time to make other arrangements.â
âVery well,â I said, âI will do it, provided there is nothing in this paper to make me change my mind,â and I touched the envelope he had put upon the table by the keys.
âThank you, Holly, thank you. There is nothing at all. Swear to me by God that you will be a father to the boy, and follow my directions to the letter.â
âI swear it,â I answered solemnly.
âVery well, remember that perhaps one day I shall ask for the account of your oath, for though I am dead and forgotten, yet I shall live. There is no such thing as death, Holly, only a change, and, as you may perhaps learn in time to come, I believe that even that change could under certain circumstances be indefinitely postponed,â and again he broke into one of his dreadful fits of coughing.
âThere,â he said, âI must go, you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you.â
I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak.
He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. âFood for the worms,â he said. âCurious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and coldâthe journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in loveâat least, mine has not been; but the boy Leoâs may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!â and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go.
âLook here, Vincey,â I said, âif you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor.â
âNo, no,â he said earnestly. âPromise me that you wonât. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone.â
âI donât believe that you are going to do anything of the sort,â I answered. He smiled, and, with the word âRememberâ on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest?
The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep.
As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was broad daylightâeight oâclock, in fact.
âWhy, what is the matter with you, John?â I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. âYou look as though you had seen a ghost!â
âYes, sir, and so I have,â he answered, âleastways Iâve seen a corpse, which is worse. Iâve been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead!â
IITHE YEARS ROLL BY
As might be expected, poor Vinceyâs sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctorâs certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vinceyâs decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friendâs remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly.
Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into
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