He had lived like a beast and he would die rationally,
like a man.
As a matter of fact, he died of pneumonia; and on the night of his death sent
over a grubby note asking me to come and help him to die.
The native woman was weeping by the side of the bed. McIntosh, wrapped in a
cotton cloth, was too weak to resent a fur coat being thrown over him. He was
very active as far as his mind was concerned, and his eyes were blazing. When
he had abused the Doctor who came with me so foully that the indignant old
fellow left, he cursed me for a few minutes and calmed down.
Then he told his wife to fetch out "The Book" from a hole in the wall. She
brought out a big bundle, wrapped in the tail of a petticoat, of old sheets of
miscellaneous note-paper, all numbered and covered with fine cramped writing.
McIntosh ploughed his hand through the rubbish and stirred it up lovingly.
"This," he said, "is my work--the Book of McIntosh Jellaludin, showing what he
saw and how he lived, and what befell him and others; being also an account of
the life and sins and death of Mother Maturin. What Mirza Murad Ali Beg's book
is to all other books on native life, will my work be to Mirza Murad Ali
Beg's!"
This, as will be conceded by any one who knows Mirza Ali Beg's book, was a
sweeping statement.
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