Then everything was quiet, and she called on Frank to leave his mare and walk
up. But Frank did not answer. He was underneath the mare, nine hundred feet
below, spoiling a patch of Indian corn.
As the revellers came hack from Viceregal Lodge in the mists of the evening,
they met a temporarily insane woman, on a temporarily mad horse, swinging
round the corners, with her eyes and her mouth open, and her head like the
head of the Medusa. She was stopped by a man at the risk of his life, and
taken out of the saddle, a limp heap, and put on the bank to explain herself.
This wasted twenty minutes, and then she was sent home in a lady's 'rickshaw,
still with her mouth open and her hands picking at her riding-gloves.
She was in bed through the following three days, which were rainy; so she
missed attending the funeral of the Tertium Quid, who was lowered into
eighteen inches of water, instead of the twelve to which he had first
objected.
A WAYSIDE COMEDY
Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery
of man is great upon him.
--Eccles. viii. 6.
Fate and the Government of India have turned the Station of Kashima into a
prison; and, because there is no help for the poor souls who are now lying
there in torment, I write this story, praying that the Government of India may
be moved to scatter the European population to the four winds.
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