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map by me, and am not certain that Arica is not in Chili, but it can’t make much difference; there was earthquake all along there.

Sam Baxter was with us; I think he had gone from San Francisco to make a railway, or something. On the morning of the ’quake, Sam and I had gone down to the beach to bathe. We had shed our boots, and begun to moult, when there was a slight tremor of the earth, as if the elephant who supports it was pushing upward, or lying down and getting up again. Next, the surges, which were flattening themselves upon the sand and dragging away such small trifles as they could lay hold of, began racing out seaward, as if they had received a dispatch that somebody was not expected to live. This was needless, for we did not expect to live.

When the sea had receded entirely out of sight, we started after it; for, it will be remembered, we had come to bathe; and bathing without some kind of water is not refreshing in a hot climate.

For the first four or five miles the walking was very difficult, although the grade was tolerably steep. The ground was soft, there were tangled forests of sea-weed, old rotten ships, rusty anchors, human skeletons, and a multitude of things to impede the pedestrian. The floundering sharks bit our legs as we toiled past them, and we were constantly slipping down upon the flat fish strewn about like orange peel on a sidewalk. Sam, too, had stuffed his shirt front with such a weight of doubloons from the wreck of an old galleon, that I had to help him across all the worst places. It was very dispiriting.

Presently, away on the western horizon, I saw the sea coming back. It occurred to me then that I did not wish it to come back. A tidal wave is nearly always wet, and I was now a good way from home, with no means of making a fire.

The same was true of Sam, but he did not appear to think of it in that way. He stood quite still a moment with his eyes fixed on the advancing line of water; then turned to me, saying, very earnestly:

“Tell you what, William; I never wanted a ship so bad from the cradle to the grave! I would give m-o-r-e for a ship!—More than for all the railways and turnpikes you could scare up! I’d give more than a hundred, thousand, million dollars! I would—I’d give all I’m worth, for—just—one—little—ship!”

To show how lightly he could part with his wealth, he lifted his shirt out of his trousers, unbosoming himself of his doubloons, which tumbled about his feet, a golden storm.

By this time the tidal wave was close upon us. Call that a wave! It was one solid green wall of water, higher than Niagara Falls, stretching as far as we could see to right and left, without a break in its towering front! It was by no means clear what we ought to do. The moving wall showed no projections by means of which the most daring climber could hope to reach the top. There was no ivy; there were no window-ledges. Stay!—there was the lightning rod! No, there wasn’t any lightning rod. Of course, not!

Looking despairingly upward, I made a tolerably good beginning at thinking of all the mean actions I had wrought in the flesh, when I saw projecting beyond the crest of the wave a ship’s bowsprit, with a man sitting on it reading a newspaper! Thank fortune, we were saved!

Falling upon our knees with tearful gratitude, we got up again and ran—ran as fast as we could, I suspect; for now the whole fore-part of the ship budged through the water just above our heads, and might lose its balance any moment. If we had only brought along our umbrellas!

I shouted to the man on the bowsprit to drop us a line. He merely replied that his correspondence was already very onerous, and he hadn’t any pen and ink.

Then I told him I wanted to get aboard. He said I would find one on the beach, about three leagues to the south’ard, where the “Nancy Tucker” went ashore.

At these replies I was disheartened. It was not so much that the man withheld assistance, as that he made puns. Presently, however, he folded his newspaper, put it carefully away in his pocket, went and got a line, and let it down to us just as we were about to give up the race. Sam made a lunge at it, and got it. I laid hold of his legs, the end of the rope was passed about the capstan, and as soon as the men on board had had a little grog, we were hauled up. I can assure you that it was no fine experience to go up in that way, close to the smooth, vertical front of water, with the whales tumbling out all round and above us, and the sword-fishes nosing us pointedly with vulgar curiosity.

We had no sooner set foot on deck, and got Sam disengaged from the hook, than the purser stepped up with book and pencil—“Tickets, gentlemen.”

We told him we hadn’t any tickets, and he ordered us to be set ashore in a boat. It was represented to him that this was quite impossible under the circumstances; but he replied that he had nothing to do with circumstances—did not know anything about circumstances. Nothing would move him till the captain, who was really a kind-hearted man, came on deck and knocked him overboard. We were now stripped of our clothing, chafed all over with stiff brushes, rolled on our stomachs, wrapped in flannels, laid before a hot stove in the saloon, and strangled with scalding brandy. We had not been wet, nor had we swallowed any sea-water, but the surgeon said this was the proper treatment. It is uncertain what he might have done to us if the tender-hearted captain had not thrashed him into his cabin, and told us to go on deck.

By this time the ship was passing the town of Arica, and we were about to go astern and fish a little, when she grounded on a hill-top. The captain hove out all the anchors he had about him; and when the water went swirling back to its legal level, taking the town along for company, there we were, in the midst of a charming agricultural country, but at some distance from any seaport.

At sunrise next morning we were all on deck. Sam sauntered aft to the binnacle, cast his eye carelessly upon the compass, and uttered an ejaculation of astonishment.

“Tell you, captain,” he called out, “this has been a direr convulsion of nature than you have any idea. Everythin’s been screwed right round. Needle points due south!”

“Why, you lubber!” growled the skipper, taking a look, “it p’ints d’rectly to labbard, an’ there’s the sun, dead ahead!”

Sam turned and confronted him, with a steady gaze of ineffable contempt.

“Now, who said it wasn’t dead ahead?—tell me that. Shows how much you know about earthquakes. ’Course, I didn’t mean just this continent, nor just this earth: I tell you, the whole thing’s turned!”

ETCHINGS: JEANNETTE

(French of George Le Faure: I. S: For Short Stories.)

Every day there came down to the long stone wharf a smiling fair-haired girl of seven, followed by an old, old man.

The child carried a spy-glass, hugging it in her arms as if it were a doll, and she skipped along gaily till she reached the end of the pier. Then she handed the long glass to her companion, and resting her chubby little hands on the cold stone coping, looked wistfully out to sea.

With the soft breeze blowing her hair about her shoulders, and her eyes fixed searchingly on the horizon she stood perfectly silent until a tiny white speck appeared in the far distance where sea and sky seemed to mingle.

“A sail, a sail!” she cried, and the old man sat down and laid the spy-glass upon his arm.

Breathless and eager, the child grasped the brass tube with both hands and peered through it without speaking. After a few minutes, however, she said with a sigh of disappointment: “Not yet, grandpa,” and returning patiently to her post resumed the watch until another sail appeared.

This was kept up hour after hour, and when the sun, a golden ball, had slipped behind the rising billows, and a soft mist rose from the sea, the child turned round, her little face saddened, and walked away slowly at the old man’s side.

One day I spoke to an old sailor and asked about the child.

“That is Jeannette,” he said, taking his short clay pipe out of his mouth, “her father was killed eighteen months ago; the mast of his boat fell on him, and since the day his body was carried home, she has never been the same. She does not think that he is dead, and every afternoon her grandfather has to bring her down here to watch for him.”

He tapped his head expressively, and, as a merry laugh sounded, a smile of tenderness softened his rugged features.

I looked up and saw Jeannette coming as usual, carrying the telescope, and skipping gleefully before the old man.

“How sad, how sad!” I murmured with a sigh, but the old sailor shook his head; putting his pipe into his mouth hastily he puffed out a cloud of smoke to hide the tears that had gathered in his eyes, and answered softly—“God is good. She will never know, and so she will never cease to hope.”

IN THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO

(Rudyard Kipling: Collected Sketches.)

A stone’s throw out on either hand
From that well-ordered road we tread,
And all the world is wild and strange;
Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite
Shall bear us company to-night,
Wherein the Powers of Darkness range,
—From the Dusk to the Dawn.

The house of Suddhoo, near the Taksali Gate, is two-storied, with four carved windows of old, brown wood, and a flat roof. You may recognize it by five red handprints arranged like the Five of Diamonds on the whitewash between the upper windows. Bhagwan Dass, the bunnia, and a man who says he gets his living by seal-cutting, live in the lower story with a troop of wives, servants, friends, and retainers. The two upper rooms used to be occupied by Janoo and Azizun and a little black-and-tan terrier that was stolen from an Englishman’s house and given to Janoo by a soldier. To-day, only Janoo lives in the upper rooms. Suddhoo sleeps on the roof generally, except when he sleeps in the street. He used to go to Peshawar in the cold weather to visit his son, who sells curiosities near the Edwards’ Gate, and then he slept under a real mud roof. Suddhoo is a great friend of mine, because his cousin had a son who secured, thanks to my recommendation, the post of head messenger to a big firm in the Station. Suddhoo says that God will make me a Lieutenant-Governor one of these days. I daresay his prophecy will come true. He is very, very old, with white hair and no teeth worth showing, and he has outlived his wits—outlived nearly everything except his fondness for his son at Peshawar. Janoo and Azizun are Kashmiris, Ladies of the City, and theirs was an ancient and more or less honorable profession; but Azizun has since married a medical student from the Northwest and has settled down to a most respectable life somewhere near Bareilly. Bhagwan Dass is an extortionate and an adulterator. He is very rich. The man who is supposed to get his living by seal-cutting pretends to be very poor. This lets you know as much as

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