Following the Equator by Mark Twain (best e books to read TXT) 📖

him instead of creedsto such one, every rag that shivers in the
breeze of a plague-stricken city has this sort of sublimity. If by
any terrible ordinance he be forced to venture forth, he sees death
dangling from every sleeve; and, as he creeps forward, he poises his
shuddering limbs between the imminent jacket that is stabbing at his
right elbow and the murderous pelisse that threatens to mow him
clean down as it sweeps along on his left. But most of all he
dreads that which most of all he should lovethe touch of a woman's
dress; for mothers and wives, hurrying forth on kindly errands from
the bedsides of the dying, go slouching along through the streets
more willfully and less courteously than the men. For a while it
may be that the caution of the poor Levantine may enable him to
avoid contact, but sooner or later, perhaps, the dreaded chance
arrives; that bundle of linen, with the dark tearful eyes at the top
of it, that labors along with the voluptuous clumsiness of Grisi
she has touched the poor Levantine with the hem of her sleeve! From
that dread moment his peace is gone; his mind for ever hanging upon
the fatal touch invites the blow which he fears; he watches for the
symptoms of plague so carefully, that sooner or later they come in
truth. The parched mouth is a signhis mouth is parched; the
throbbing brainhis brain does throb; the rapid pulsehe touches
his own wrist (for he dares not ask counsel of any man lest he be
deserted), he touches his wrist, and feels how his frighted blood
goes galloping out of his heart. There is nothing but the fatal
swelling that is wanting to make his sad conviction complete;
immediately, he has an odd feel under the armno pain, but a little
straining of the skin; he would to God it were his fancy that were
strong enough to give him that sensation; this is the worst of all.
It now seems to him that he could be happy and contented with his
parched mouth, and his throbbing brain, and his rapid pulse, if only
he could know that there were no swelling under the left arm; but
dares he try?in a moment of calmness and deliberation he dares
not; but when for a while he has writhed under the torture of
suspense, a sudden strength of will drives him to seek and know his
fate; he touches the gland, and finds the skin sane and sound but
under the cuticle there lies a small lump like a pistol-bullet, that
moves as he pushes it. Oh! but is this for all certainty, is this
the sentence of death? Feel the gland of the other arm. There is
not the same lump exactly, yet something a little like it. Have not
some people glands naturally enlarged?would to heaven he were one!
So he does for himself the work of the plague, and when the Angel of
Death thus courted does indeed and in truth come, he has only to
finish that which has been so well begun; he passes his fiery hand
over the brain of the victim, and lets him rave for a season, but
all chance-wise, of people and things once dear, or of people and
things indifferent. Once more the poor fellow is back at his home
in fair Provence, and sees the sundial that stood in his childhood's
gardensees his mother, and the long-since forgotten face of that
little dear sister(he sees her, he says, on a Sunday morning, for
all the church bells are ringing); he looks up and down through the
universe, and owns it well piled with bales upon bales of cotton,
and cotton eternalso much so that he feelshe knowshe swears he
could make that winning hazard, if the billiard-table would not
slant upwards, and if the cue were a cue worth playing with; but it
is notit's a cue that won't movehis own arm won't movein
short, there's the devil to pay in the brain of the poor Levantine;
and perhaps, the next night but one he becomes the 'life and the
soul' of some squalling jackal family, who fish him out by the foot
from his shallow and sandy grave."


CHAPTER XLIII.

Hunger is the handmaid of genius
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

One day during our stay in Bombay there was a criminal trial of a most interesting sort, a terribly realistic chapter out of the "Arabian Nights," a strange mixture of simplicities and pieties and murderous practicalities, which brought back the forgotten days of Thuggee and made them live again; in fact, even made them believable. It was a case where a young girl had been assassinated for the sake of her trifling ornaments, things not worth a laborer's day's wages in America. This thing could have been done in many other countries, but hardly with the cold business-like depravity, absence of fear, absence of caution, destitution of the sense of horror, repentance, remorse, exhibited in this case. Elsewhere the murderer would have done his crime secretly, by night, and without witnesses; his fears would have allowed him no peace while the dead body was in his neighborhood; he would not have rested until he had gotten it safe out of the way and hidden as effectually as he could hide it. But this Indian murderer does his deed in the full light of day, cares nothing for the society of witnesses, is in no way incommoded by the presence of the corpse, takes his own time about disposing of it, and the whole party are so indifferent, so phlegmatic, that they take their regular sleep as if nothing was happening and no halters hanging over them; and these five bland people close the episode with a religious service. The thing reads like a Meadows-Taylor Thug-tale of half a century ago, as may be seen by the official report of the trial:

"At the Mazagon Police Court yesterday, Superintendent Nolan again
charged Tookaram Suntoo Savat Baya, woman, her daughter Krishni, and
Gopal Yithoo Bhanayker, before Mr. Phiroze Hoshang Dastur, Fourth
Presidency Magistrate, under sections 302 and 109 of the Code, with
having on the night of the 30th of December last murdered a Hindoo
girl named Cassi, aged 12, by strangulation, in the room of a chawl
at Jakaria Bunder, on the Sewriroad, and also with aiding and
abetting each other in the commission of the offense.

"Mr. F. A. Little, Public Prosecutor, conducted the case on behalf
of the Crown, the accused being undefended.

"Mr. Little applied under the provisions of the Criminal Procedure
Code to tender pardon to one of the accused, Krishni, woman, aged
22, on her undertaking to make a true and full statement of facts
under which the deceased girl Cassi was murdered.

"The Magistrate having granted the Public Prosecutor's application,
the accused Krishni went into the witness-box, and, on being
examined by Mr. Little, made the following confession:I am a
mill-hand employed at the Jubilee Mill. I recollect the day
(Tuesday); on which the body of the deceased Cassi was found.
Previous to that I attended the mill for half a day, and then
returned home at 3 in the afternoon, when I saw five persons in the
house, viz.: the first accused Tookaram, who is my paramour, my
mother, the second accused Baya, the accused Gopal, and two guests
named Ramji Daji and Annaji Gungaram. Tookaram rented the room of
the chawl situated at Jakaria Bunder-road from its owner,
Girdharilal Radhakishan, and in that room I, my paramour, Tookaram,
and his younger brother, Yesso Mahadhoo, live. Since his arrival in
Bombay from his native country Yesso came and lived with us. When I
returned from the mill on the afternoon of that day, I saw the two
guests seated on a cot in the veranda, and a few minutes after the
accused Gopal came and took his seat by their side, while I and my
mother were seated inside the room. Tookaram, who had gone out to
fetch some 'pan' and betelnuts, on his return home had brought the
two guests with him. After returning home he gave them 'pan
supari'. While they were eating it my mother came out of the room
and inquired of one of the guests, Ramji, what had happened to his
foot, when he replied that he had tried many remedies, but they had
done him no good. My mother then took some rice in her hand and
prophesied that the disease which Ramji was suffering from would not
be cured