river. "It looks as though the rains are pretty near," I observed. "It does," said R., "and we've still got that blessed roof to fix up. I wishbut his wish was never spoken, for from across the way came a man's cry of sheer terror. had actually torn a way through shrouded the course of the the thatch of one house to get to the folks inside. This has to be seen to be believed, but we were shown the hole in the roof where the lion had clawed through; and what is more marvellous still, had got back with a girl of some eighteen years in its mouth. We measured the distance of the leap, and I entered it in my diary as "exactly seven feet eight inches from the floor to the thatch," with a further note that "two other people were sleeping in the hut at the time but were not molested." Once more we took up our quarters in poor Gombameti's house and prepared for action. From the natives we gathered that the lion had visited the village eight nights out of the seventeen since it had made its first appearance, and in five cases had made a "kill." From this we reckoned we should not have to wait long. And we didn't! By an outrageous fortune the very next victim was the sole remaining policeman, Swalayo. He was taken the second day after our arrival, and this was the manner of it. At about a quarter to six of the morning after our arrival R. was standing in the doorway smoking a cigarette, while I was still in bed drinking my morning tea. There was a distinct chill in the air, for the sun had not yet risen above the horizon, and looking past R. through the doorway, I noticed that a thick mist VOL. COXVIII.-NO. MCCCXXI. "God above!" ejaculated R., and before I had time to get clear of the bedclothes he had reached for his rifle and fired through the doorway. A moment later he was gone. I ran to the door in my pyjamas, and away across the square, I could see R. bending over a figure on the ground. we ordered Selimani to clear the room. Once they had gone I instructed Selimani to fetch the old man who had first come to our camp when Gombameti had been taken. To this gentleman we carefully explained that it was quite true that we had sent our dogs" to the village in the first case, and that now, since all the policemen were dead, we proposed to send the dog's spirit back to Siwezi Camp. To this end it was necessary that we had one of the dead policemen upon which to work our "white man's magic," and if he would see that Swalayo were brought to us, then we, on our part, would give not only Swalayo back to the villagers but also the lion "Humph! There's something in that idea," said I dead! judiciously. "Usually is in my ideas," commented my partner airily. Presently I called Selimani. "Order the boys not to bury Swalayo but to bring him here," I said. "I expect we shall have a job to get him," prophesied R., and as events proved, we did, for no sooner had we explained the idea to the assembled villagers than a cry of pious horror rent the air. "No, this thing can never be," cried one old fellow. "To feed the lion with Swalayo would mean great trouble with the Portuguese," and the excited natives vociferously upheld him. Indeed, there seemed every likelihood of a riot until and so the spirit of Swalayo will be glad, and when the villagers dance tomorrow night around the dead lion, the spirit of" "Here, go easy!" interrupted R. in English, stopping my flood of eloquence. "Stick to facts. What are you going to do if the blighter doesn't come for him? We don't want to look bigger fools than we are-by nature!" "Shut up! up!" I retorted. "What's it matter, anyway? and turning to the old boy, who was listening with all his ears to our strange language— 66 and the spirit of Swalayo will come and dance with you, and he will drive his spear deep into the lion, and his heart will laugh with every house as the inhabitants glee and-" 66 "You said that before," interrupted R. Ask the old buffer what he intends to do about it, and stop that Rider Haggarding." (R.'s soul could never rise above the practical tin-tacks of anything.) In the end the old gentleman promised to do his best, and I flatter myself-very impressed, he left the room. He worked with such good effect upon the minds of the villagers that by the afternoon they had given in, and by half-past three the corpse of Swalayo lay at our front door. The gruesome task of filling him with arsenic fell to my lot-R. facetiously superintending the operation-and finally, we had him carried across the square. Now out side his house there was a big banana-tree, and in the shadow of this we sat him down with his back leaning against the tree. The natives having once overcome their aversion, entered into the spirit of the thing and propped his head upright in a forked stick. In In the end Swalayo, well arseniced, was sitting in the shade of his own banana-tree as naturally as ever he had done in life. That night the, by now, sadly depleted village was agog with excitement. R. was distinctly nervous about the lion not coming, while I maintained an air of masterly optimism. But our luck was in, for the lion did come, and the hour of its coming was shouted from heard it dragging at the poor corpse beneath the banana-tree. Loudest of all was the voice of the faithful Selimani who, perched aloft in the safety of an empty corn-bin, announced that the lion had made off with the body. "Then it's dead," said I, remembering the quantity of arsenic I had put into Swalayo, and smiling cheerfully into the darkness, I turned over and went to sleep. Before dawn next morning we were astir. One glance was enough to show that the bait had gone, and followed by the villagers en masse, we went along the trail. We soon found Swalayo, very little damaged by his post-death adven ture, and a little farther onthe lion. The "lion proved to be a lioness, and very old and very mangy it was, too. R. came to the conclusion that the younger lion we had shot was this one's son, and had learnt his raiding from his decrepit mother. This I leave to better informed authorities to judge; but in any case, right or wrong, after the death of this old lioness Mitimoni was never troubled again during the time we were camped in those parts. Our reputation was sky-high after this last episode, and wherever the story was told, no decent-minded native ever doubted for one single moment but that the Bwanas were working hand in glove with the lions. BEN JONSON, THE MAN. BY CHARLES WHIBLEY. IT is difficult to think of Ben Jonson separately from Shakespeare. And it is the difference between the two men rather than their resemblance that arrests us. The contrast which the instinctive beauty of Shakespeare's works presents to the conscious accomplishment of Jonson's is plain for all to see. The contrast is even greater between the impressions which their lives made upon their own and succeeding ages. Shakespeare troubled himself very little concerning the opinions which his contemporaries held of him. He wrote his plays and kept himself sternly detached from the controversies of the hour. The little that we know of him has been wrested with strenuous toil from the past. The inquiry does not cease nor grow cold, and the result is always incommensurate with the labour. The mere letters of his name, written upon a piece of parchment, excite our curiosity if they leave it unsatisfied. In the encounter with Death we have not had the good fortune of Hercules. Ben Jonson, on the other hand, seems to thrust himself upon us. He made or published the materials of his biography as he went on. He preferred to live openly in the bright sunshine, or even in the dark He shadows of the world. strove, and was ever crying. It was not for him to say that none was worth his strife. The stage was not merely his delight, it was his battlefield also, where he might fight with his fellows for the mastery, and defend at the sword's point his creed of art and morals. The result was that while Shakespeare lives only in his works, Jonson still belongs somewhat boisterously to the world of gossip and scandal. There is, indeed, all the difference in the world between the two temperaments - the one, Shakespeare's, indifferent to or shrinking from the public gaze; the other, Jonson's, seeking publicity at all hazards, and not caring vastly whether he be attacked, so long as he can retaliate and give instant proof of his valour. If of Shakespeare we know little, of Ben Jonson a great deal, it is the fault of each. For true it is that every man is his own biographer. This one is diligent in suppressing such facts as may help the worshipper in some far distant age to make a portrait. That other so assiduously relates or comments upon his own adventures that the work of painting is easily achieved. While Shakes peare carefully covered up his footsteps as he went trium phantly through the world, gospel." At his father's death, Jonson put on his heavy boots, Ben Jonson's mother, from and strode forth to fight his whom it is clear that he inenemies with the best will in herited his militant temper, the world. The Sonnets' of married a master bricklayer, Shakespeare, if indeed they are and in the altered circumstances autobiographical, are still an he was but poorly brought up. unpierced mystery. In his Happily a friend, said to have 'Underwoods' and 'Epigrams been the illustrious Camden, Jonson tells us plainly whom he to whom he said he owed " all loved and whom he hated, and that he had in arts, all that he takes us into an indiscreet knew," took pity upon him, confidence whether we will or and sent him to Westminster not. School, where he laid the foundation of that erudition, wide and deep, which served him in good stead throughout his turbulent life. When he left Westminster, he made an attempt upon Cambridge, but, means failing him, he was put to the trade of his stepfather. Aubrey, the gossip, says that Messrs Herford and Percy Simpson, the authors of 'Ben Jonson' (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press), have taken full advantage of the many documents which lay to their hand, and have given us a picture of Ben Jonson, the man, which is neither blurred nor indistinct. Their judgment matches their erudition; and when their work is complete we shall have such an edition of Ben Jonson's plays and poems as will be an enduring credit to English scholarship. Meanwhile, if we put aside for the moment the plays of Jonson, we shall find in the pages of Messrs Herford and Simpson all the materials of a biography. Ben Jonson was born, it is said of border blood, in 1572. His father, in the religious tumult of the time, lost his estate, was even cast into prison, and became, in the happier reign of Queen Elizabeth, "a grave minister of the he wrought some time with his father-in-law, and particularly on the garden wall of Lincoln's Inn, next to Chancery Lane, and that . . . a knight, a bencher, walking thro', and hearing him repeat some Greek verses out of Homer, discoursing with him, and finding him to have a wit extraordinary, gave him some exhibition to maintain him at Trinity College." That this legend is true seems unlikely, but it may express the general truth that his learning was accidentally discovered, and procured him such preferment in the world as he needed. Before he commenced play 1 It may seem ungracious to find fault with so deeply learned a work, but the date of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy' is 1621, not 1612; and is it not as foolish to speak of Duplessis and Mornay as to speak of Ovidius and Naso? |