Prev | Current Page 786 | Next

Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"From Mine Own People"

Mister Gubernatis or Max Muller could tell you more about it than I.
You will say that all this story is made up. Very well. If ever you come across
a little silver, ruby-studded box, seven-eighths of an inch long by three-
quarters wide, with a dark-brown wooden fish, wrapped in gold cloth, inside it,
keep it. Keep it for three years, and then you will discover for yourself
whether my story is true or false.
Better still, steal it as Pack did, and you will be sorry that you had not
killed yourself in the beginning.

THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS.
"If I can attain Heaven for a pice, why should you be envious?"
--Opium Smoker's Proverb.
This is no work of mine. My friend, Gabral Misquitta, the half-caste, spoke it
all, between moonset and morning, six weeks before he died; and I took it down
from his mouth as he answered my questions so:--
It lies between the Copper-smith's Gully and the pipe-stem sellers' quarter,
within a hundred yards, too, as the crow flies, of the Mosque of Wazir Khan. I
don't mind telling any one this much, but I defy him to find the Gate, however
well he may think he knows the City. You might even go through the very gully
it stands in a hundred times, and be none the wiser.


Pages:
774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798