Listen now! I am neither mad nor drunk!
That book will make you famous."
I said, "thank you," as the native woman put the bundle into my arms.
"My only baby!" said McIntosh with a smile. He was sinking fast, but he
continued to talk as long as breath remained. I waited for the end: knowing
that, in six cases out of ten the dying man calls for his mother. He turned on
his side and said:--
"Say how it came into your possession. No one will believe you, but my name, at
least, will live. You will treat it brutally, I know you will. Some of it must
go; the public are fools and prudish fools. I was their servant once. But do
your mangling gently--very gently. It is a great work, and I have paid for it
in seven years' damnation."
His voice stopped for ten or twelve breaths, and then he began mumbling a
prayer of some kind in Greek. The native woman cried very bitterly. Lastly, he
rose in bed and said, as loudly as slowly:--"Not guilty, my Lord!"
Then he fell back, and the stupor held him till he died. The native woman ran
into the Serai among the horses and screamed and beat her breasts; for she had
loved him.
Perhaps his last sentence in life told what McIntosh had once gone through;
but, saving the big bundle of old sheets in the cloth, there was nothing in his
room to say who or what he had been.
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