“‘I can’t! I can’t!’ she answered.
“Over went the fourth bag, and I began to think she would beat me, after all; for I did not like the idea of going much higher. I would not give in just yet, however. I whistled for a few moments, to give her time for reflection, and then said:
“‘Fanny, they say that marriages are made in Heaven—if you do not take care, ours will be solemnised there.’
“I took up the fifth bag.
“‘Come,’ I said, ‘my wife in life, or my companion in death! Which is it to be?’ and I patted the sand-bag in a cheerful manner. She held her face in her hands, but did not answer. I nursed the bag in my arms, as if it had been a baby.
“‘Come, Fanny, give me your promise!’
“I could hear her sobs. I’m the most soft-hearted creature breathing, and would not pain any living thing, and, I confess, she had beaten me. I forgave her the ducking; I forgave her for rejecting me. I was on the point of flinging the bag back into the car, and saying: ‘Dearest Fanny: forgive me for frightening you. Marry whomsoever you will. Give your lovely hand to the lowest groom in your stables,—endow with your priceless beauty the Chief of the Panki-wanki Indians. Whatever happens, Jenkyns is your slave—your dog—your footstool. His duty, henceforth, is to go whithersoever you shall order,—to do whatever you shall command.’ I was just on the point of saying this, I repeat, when Fanny suddenly looked up, and said, with a queerish expression upon her face:
“‘You need not throw that last bag over. I promise to give you my hand.’
“‘With all your heart?’ I asked, quickly.
“‘With all my heart,’ she answered, with the same strange look.
“I tossed the bag into the bottom of the car, and opened the valve. The balloon descended.
“‘Gentlemen,’ said Jenkyns, rising from his seat in the most solemn manner, and stretching out his hand, as if he were going to take an oath; ‘Gentlemen, will you believe it? When we had reached the ground, and the balloon had been given over to its recovered master,—when I had helped Fanny tenderly to the earth, and turned towards her to receive anew the promise of her affection and her hand,—will you believe it?—she gave me a box on the ear that upset me against the car, and running to her father, who at that moment came up, she related to him and the assembled company what she called my disgraceful conduct in the balloon, and ended by informing me that all of her hand that I was likely to get had been already bestowed upon my ear, which she assured me had been given with all her heart.’
“‘You villain!’ said Sir George, advancing towards me with a horse-whip in his hand. ‘You villain! I’ve a good mind to break this over your back.’
“‘Sir George,’ said I, ‘villain and Jenkyns must never be coupled in the same sentence; and as for the breaking of this whip, I’ll relieve you of the trouble,’ and, snatching it from his hand, I broke it in two, and threw the pieces on the ground. ‘And now I shall have the honour of wishing you a good morning. Miss P, I forgive you.’ And I retired.
“Now I ask you whether any specimen of female treachery equal to that has ever come within your experience, and whether any excuse can be made for such conduct?”
“As I said before, it’s like the sex,’ said the second Marine.
“Yes, all mankind is sejuiced by woman,’ said the third Marine.
“It’s just my case over again,’ said the first Marine. ‘After drawing me on in that way,—after gaining my affections in that treacherous manner, by Jove! sir, she goes and marries Blubber!”
Well, it does sound improbable, certainly—very improbable. But, I said before I began, that I would not guarantee the truth of it. Indeed, if you ask my candid opinion, I do’nt think it is true, but yet the Marines believed it.
HOW THE RAINS COME UPON US IN INDIA.
Hotter, hotter, hotter still! till everything is burnt and parched and scorched, and every pond is dried up, and the great Ganges is little more, in some places, than a moderate sluggish stream, and the wide plains have nothing green about them, covered only with drifting beds of sand and dust; man and beast sunk into languor and sickness, as though a plague were upon them; hardly a sound in camp or city at mid-day, when all are gasping in their tents and houses; while the hot wind tears in fiery blasts over us—great gusts of heat against which few constitutions can bear up, and before which many go down, while the rest heave to and weather them as best they may; the dazzling, glowing atmosphere glitters like a thin Scotch mist of diamond dust, except when darkened now and again by the dense clouds of heated sand which are borne along; and the ground sparkles back impatiently, but feebly, the sun’s rays, as if it were weary of them.
Hotter, hotter still! When will the rains come? It is time they were here—time that those dark banks of clouds, which for days have been rolling portentously over head, discharged their burdens, and that the masses of vapour which hang so tantalisingly above us streamed down to quench this deadly drought and cool this heavy heat.
Faugh! It is worse than ever to-night, as I lie tossing restlessly upon my bed, watching the punkah swinging with a slow, heavy motion above me, drinking in gratefully the whiffs of cool air which it sets in motion, and listening irritably to the strong metallic ring of the mosquitoes’ song as they buzz savagely around.
A stifling, dreadful night! Heavy rumblings of thunder; uncouth masses of black cloud sailing one after the other across the moon: I watch them languidly through the opened windows, till they look like armies of shadowy spirits with mantles across their faces, fleeing uneasily from this fiery land. Oh, weary time! Will the night never pass? Oh, dreary monotone of the swinging punkah!
It is a little cooler,—or is it only the punkah