MEMORY OF A TRAGEDY 137 



tree from South America. I had penetrated into that 

 fort and had seen something of the snakes and birds 

 of night, but not the ghosts and demons which I was 

 assured made it their habitation by day. 



On a level place a little below the fort stood two 

 monuments, telling of the days when the Honour- 

 able East India Company maintained a "Resident" 

 at this place. Here he lived in proud solitude, up- 

 holding the British flag. But his wife and the little 

 one on whose face he had not yet looked were on 

 their way from Bombay in a native " pattimar " to 

 join him, and as he stood gazing over the sea at the 

 red setting sun one 5th of October, he thought of 

 the glad to-morrow and the end of his dreary lone- 

 liness. It fell to him to put up one of these monu- 

 ments, with a sorrowful inscription to all that was 

 left to him on the following morning, the " memory " 

 of a beloved wife and an infant thirty-one days old, 

 drowned in crossing the bar on October 6, 1853. 



We have strewed our best to the weeds unrest, 

 To the shark and the sheering gull. 

 If blood be the price of admiralty. 

 Lord God, we ha' paid in full. 



I carried my gun and rifle with me in my yacht. 

 They served to keep up my character as a sportsman, 

 and did not often require to be cleaned. So the 

 morning calm of my mind was lashed into an un- 

 wonted tempest of excitement when my jolly skipper, 

 Sheikh Abdul Rehman, came in and told me briefly 

 that a "bag" (which word does not rhyme with 



