Upton Sinclair - "The Second Story Man"

Various - "Georgian Poetry 1911 12"

Bernard Mandeville - "An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War"

Edith Wharton - "Crucial Instances"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Great Amulet

M >> Maud Diver >> The Great Amulet




But Lenox, knowing well that hardships and perils loom larger in an
easy-chair than on the slope of a glacier, had asked for little, beyond
permission to depart, and that speedily.

A few days at Pindi had sufficed for the collecting of stores and
equipment. Then he had pushed northward in earnest, picking up his
escort of Gurkhas from their station in the foot-hills: and so on
through Kashmir, where spring had already flung her bridal veil over
the orchards, and retreating snow-wreaths had left the hills carpeted
with a mosaic of colour,--primula, iris, orchid, and groundlings
innumerable: over the Zoji-la Pass, into the shadeless, fantastic
desolation of Ladak; and on, across stark desert and soundless
snow-fields, to Leh, the terminus of all caravans from India and
Central Asia. Here Lenox had spent two days with one Captain Burrow of
the Bengal Cavalry, who, with a handful of half-starved Kashmiri
soldiers, upheld the interests of the British Raj on this uttermost
edge of Empire. Here also he found a letter from Quita; read and
re-read it, and stowed it away in his breast-pocket, trying not to be
aware of a haunting ache deep down in him, which must perforce be
ignored. The old charm of the Road, the 'glory of going on,' that
works like madness in the blood, was strong upon him as ever. But
whereas, in former journeyings, he had been one man, he was now two.
The whole-hearted ecstasy of travel would never again be his. He had
given a part of himself into a woman's keeping; and let him put the
earth's diameter between them, she would hold him still. Every week,
every day that drew him farther from her did but bring home to him more
forcibly the mysterious, compelling power of marriage, its large
reserves of loyalty, its sacred and intimate revelations, its
inexorable grip on life and character.

But meanwhile, there was the Road before him; a rough road, full of
vicissitudes and anxieties, of interests and anticipations that left
him small leisure for the communings of his heart.

Before leaving Leh, hill camels and ponies had been added unto him;
besides twenty-one decrepit Kashmir soldiers,--a type extinct since
they have been handled by British officers. These were to be deposited
by Lenox at his so-called 'base of operations,' by way of guarding the
trade route so grievously troubled by the brigand state.

Followed two more weeks of marching,--rougher marching this
time,--through the core of the lofty mountains that divide India from
Central Asia; across the terrible Depsang Plains, seventeen thousand
feet up; and over four passes choked with snow; till they came upon a
deserted fort, set in the midst of stark space, and knew that here,
indeed, was the limit of human habitation. Next day the work of
exploration had begun in earnest. Week after week, with unwearying
persistence, they had pushed on, upward, always upward, through regions
sacred to the eagles and the clouds; working along streams that cut
their way through hillsides steep as houses, or along tracks that ran
to polished ledges of rock and dropped sheer to unimaginable depths;
clambering over formidable ranges by any chance opening that could be
dignified by the name of a pass; the eternally cheery Gurkhas solacing
themselves with rum; the Pathans with opium; the Scot with rare nips of
brandy, on the bitterest nights. Still more rarely,--at wider and
wider intervals of time,--he drew from his breast-pocket a pill-box,
like the one still locked in his writing-table drawer at home. Its
contents were running very low by now; and, once gone, they would never
again be replenished. That he knew; with a knowledge born not of
arrogance, but of faith that somehow, somewhen the right must prevail.

And to-night,--as he sat alone by the fire, watching the greyness of
death quench spark after spark of living light, while a late moon
sailed leisurely into view, overlaying the steely hardness of ice and
snow with a veil of shimmering silver,--he took out the box, and opened
it. He knew it held two pellets; no more. Why not take them at once,
and so break the last link of the devil's chain? He turned them into
his palm, . . and paused, while the enemy within whispered words of
seduction hard to be withstood. But now a second voice spoke in him
also: a voice of mingled authority and pleading. Why not fling away
both box and pellets, foregoing the final degradation, the final
rapture, that every nerve in him clamoured for more imperatively than
he dared admit even to himself.

For some reason the suggestion brought Desmond vividly to his
mind:--Desmond, with his characteristic assertion: "Of course you will
succeed. You have won His great talisman." Yes. He was right!--'the
great talisman.' Surely if marriage were worth anything, if it meant
more to a man than mere domesticity, and material satisfaction, it
ought by rights to act as a talisman to protect him from the evils of
his baser self.

While thinking, he had mechanically returned the pellets to the box,
closing it firmly, crushing it between his hands; and now, with a wide
sweep of his arm, he flung it far from him, into the blue-black mystery
of a ravine that swooped past the camping-ground to the valley below.

"Thank God _that's_ done with!" he muttered; though as yet the pain
rather than the elation of conquest prevailed. Then, lifting Brutus in
his arms, as though he had been a child, he slipped, dog and all, into
his sheep-skin bag, and slept without dreams.

An hour later, a sudden gust from the north swept down the ravine.
Battalions of cloud blotted out the stars; and a host of snow-flakes
whirled above the sleeping camp, like spirits of fairies, incapable of
doing harm.


The chill discomfort of snow melting on their faces woke the men, one
by one, at an unearthly hour, to find their whole world shrouded in
white, and a mist of snow-dust still falling. But Lenox, undismayed,
ordered tea and biscuits, and lost no time in setting out.

A stiff climb up the ravine into which he had flung his pill-box lay
ahead of them; but since the side nearest the camp was unbroken
glacier, it seemed wisest to hack their way across it before attempting
the ascent.

It was freezing hard: earth and sky were muffled in fine white powder,
and scudding clouds constantly hid the moon. An ice-slope overlaid
with snow is not pleasant going at the best of times; and on this one
there were ugly rents, into which men and animals slipped, to their
sore discomfort. But the way of life is by courage and persistence:
and in time the thing was done.

The farther side proved less formidable: and while they halted to
recoup their energies, a report like thunder, followed by an
unmistakable rushing sound, made every man of them catch his breath.
It was an avalanche: and its appalling crescendo was coming straight
down the hill on which they stood.

The two Pathans remained rigid, impassive,--the greater the danger the
cooler do these men become: but the Kirghiz--a creature without
self-respect--shook so violently that he dropped the bridles of his
ponies.

"Run, Sahib . . run!" he stammered. "Or we be all dead men."

But there was nowhere to run to, even had running on an ice-slope been
possible; which it was not. Neither was it possible to guess the exact
direction of the invisible annihilation that was racing down upon them
through a mist of snow. There was nothing for it but to stand
steady--till that happened which must happen. So they stood steady,
without speech or movement, like men turned to stone.

It may have been a matter of minutes. To Lenox it seemed a matter of
years. Because, in that short breathing space, fear--overmastering
fear--gripped him as it never yet had done. A year or two ago, for all
his human love of life, he would have accepted a mountaineer's death
with something of the same pride and stoicism as a soldier accepts
death in battle. But now . . now . . life meant so infinitely more to
him, that every throbbing artery and nerve rebelled against the loss of
it. For it is happiness, more than conscience, that 'makes cowards of
us all.'

Nearer and louder grew the appalling sound. Then a great cloud of
snow-dust burst in their faces, half blinding them: and, with the roar
of an express train, the avalanche sped down the ravine; burying the
ice-slope they had just crossed; and obliterating their footsteps as
man's work is obliterated by the soundless avalanche of the years.

All five men let out their breath in an audible murmur.

"_Burra tamasha_,[2] Hazur," Yusuf Ali remarked gravely. "Never before
have I seen the like."

But for the moment Lenox had lost his voice. Ten minutes' delay in
starting, and they had been swept out of life, without a struggle or a
cry. It is this significance of trifles in determining large issues
that at times staggers faith and reason.

"The Sahib still goes forward?" the Pathan added presently, as one who
merely asks for orders: and the Sahib nodded.

But this was too much for the Kirghiz. Emboldened by terror, he flung
himself on the ground.

"I who speak am as dust beneath the feet of the Heaven-born. But
consider, Hazur, there will be many more such before the pass can be
reached."

"It is possible," Lenox answered unmoved. "It is also possible that,
like this one, they will keep out of our path. Make no more fool's
talk. Go back to the ponies."

The Kirghiz was not mistaken. There were 'many more such' during the
next few days. But Lenox was not mistaken either: for none of them
came their way. Only the muffled thunder of their descent broke the
stillness of a world whose mystery and grandeur surpassed anything
Lenox himself had ever seen.

For on the second night, a night without wind or cloud, they camped in
the heart of the great glacier: and all about them,--touched to
ethereal unreality by the light of moon and stars,--were unnumbered
crests and pinnacles, fantastically carven; black mouths of caverns,
shaggy with icicles; sudden fissures and vast continents of shadow,
like ink-stains on unsullied purity; and over-arching all, the still
wonder of the sky, pierced with points of flame.

Tired as he was, Lenox resented the need for shutting his eyes upon a
scene so stirring alike to the imagination and the heart: a scene that
lifted both, past Nature's uttermost sublime, to the Master-Builder,
whose mind is the Universe, and whose thoughts are its stars and
worlds, and the living souls of men. But for all that Nature had her
way with him; sealing up eyes and mind with the double seal of
weariness and the supreme content of the climber who knows that the
summit is at hand.

And upon the fourth day, in a blaze of sunlight, that set the uncharted
snow-fields glittering like dust of diamonds, they crossed the
Pass,--Lenox's own Pass, that no living man had set eyes or foot
upon,--and looked at last on that elusive 'other side,' that draws
certain natures like a magnet to the far-flung limits of earth.

And in this case the other side proved well worth the hardships endured
to reach it. After 30 many days cooped up between ice-walls and
precipitous heights, Lenox caught his breath at the magnitude of the
view outspread before him; an amphitheatre of 'the greater gods', ridge
beyond ridge, peak beyond dazzling peak, stabbing the blue, the highest
of them little lower than Everest's self: while across the rock-bound
valley a host of glaciers, like primeval monsters, crept downward from
the mountains that gave them birth.

As Lenox stood feasting his soul upon the splendour of it all, he knew
that this was one of the great days of his life: that only Quita's
inspiring presence was needed to crown the triumph of it. Even in the
first glow of achievement, his heart turned instinctively to hers for
sympathy and approval: and, could she have known it, her haunting fear
that the mountains would prove too strong for her had crumbled into
nothingness there and then. For if 'many waters cannot quench love,'
neither can many mountains dwarf it. When all is said, it is still
'the great amulet that makes the world a garden', and always will be,
while God's men and women have red blood in their veins.



[1] Big dinner.

[2] Great excitement.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

"And echo circles in the air,
Is this the end--is this the end?"
--Tennyson.


September was drawing to a close. Every day the sun fought a losing
battle against the frost and bitter winds of the Pamirs, that pierce
even through sheep-skin coats to the marrow of the bones; and every
night the thermometer fell to zero, or below it. For winter begins
betimes on the "Roof of the World."

On just such a night of keen stars, and still, penetrating cold, Lenox
sat alone in his circular tent of felt and lattice-work--the one form
of habitation used by the nomads of the district--his coat-collar
turned up, a rug round his legs, his fingers numb and blue, writing up
the official and private records of his week's work. In the middle of
the floor a fire of roots flamed and crackled cheerfully enough, the
smoke, and most of the heat, escaping through a hole in the domed roof
above. A felt rug or two, a camp chair and table, and three sheep-skin
bags, laid out for sleeping, gave an air of rough comfort to the place.
But with the thermometer at zero, fuel scarce, and provisions running
very low, actual comfort was past praying for. Lenox shifted his chair
an inch or two nearer the blaze, drawing the camp table along with him,
and disturbing Brutus, who acted as foot-warmer in return for the
privilege of sleeping under the rug.

"Sorry to shunt you, old chap," he apologised aloud. "But you're a
deal better off down there than I am."

Sundry tappings on his left foot signified grateful acknowledgment of
the fact, as Brutus settled himself afresh and dropped back into the
land of dreams, whither Lenox would gladly have followed him. For the
week had been a hard one, and he was very tired. The frost seemed to
have gripped both body and brain, and too long a spell of
mountaineering at high altitudes was beginning to tell upon his
strength; so that he had been thankful for the flat expanses of the
Pamirs, which had made riding possible and pleasant once again.

His entrance into the brigand state, and his polite, but unequivocal
ultimatum to its insubordinate chief had been carried through, not
without moments of uncertainty and danger, yet with complete success,
and throughout the past six weeks he had been enjoying his first big
tour of that strange region of raised valleys and vast, wind-swept
spaces where the boundary lines of three Empires meet.

Since the night when he had flung away the cherished pill-box that now
lay regally entombed under fifty feet of snow, he had suffered no
collapse. His gradual method of unwinding the chain had averted that
final danger and degradation. Bat there had been days when all his
training in self-discipline had been needed to restrain him from
applying to Zyarulla, whose kummerbund held a perennial store of the
precious drug,--the more so since his Ladaki 'cook'--chosen mainly for
his powers of endurance--knew rather less about the primitive
requirements of camp catering than Lenox himself; and in spite of keen
air and exercise his appetite had steadily fallen away. There were
rare days, of course, when he could have eaten camel's flesh, and that
gratefully; but there were many more when the mere man yearned towards
the luxury of plate and silver, of varied meats, and the sparkle of an
iced peg. To-night his 'dinner' consisted of a large cup of cocoa,
some native biscuits, and a lump of milk-cheese made by the Khirgiz,
whose domed huts and scattered flocks are the only signs of human life
in this dry region of snow and sun and tireless wind.

On the table at his elbow, besides the steaming cocoa, were two camp
candlesticks, some closely written sheets of a letter to Quita, and her
last that had reached him outside Hunza five weeks ago. Each one he
had received showed more clearly how the mysterious influence of
absence was winning for him that volatile essence of her which had
eluded his grasp throughout six months of personal contact, and years
of unwearied devotion. Of the deeper, hidden forces at work on his
behalf, he guessed nothing. Only he was aware of subtle changes taking
place in her--of an indefinable softening and uplifting of the whole
woman, that increased tenfold his longing for a reunion which promised
to be closer, more consummate than the best that they had achieved as
yet.

But to-night, because body and spirit were flagging unawares, the miles
upon miles of inhospitable mountain country, that must be traversed
before he could regain the outposts of civilised life, overpowered his
imagination. To-night, for the first time, despondency and the ache of
desire magnified the very real dangers ahead--the lateness of the
season, the uncertainty of weather and supplies. Difficulties in
respect of transport had obliged him to cut down his commissariat,
despatching the remainder, with his heavy baggage, to await him on the
Indian side of the Darkot Pass--the last great obstacle that cut him
off from India, and from the dear woman, never dearer than at this
moment. It was a risk, of course, and a big one. But mountaineering
implies risks; and the man who is not prepared to face them and sleep
soundly on them, had better stick to his armchair and an office.

The original risk had been increased by the fact that his programme of
exploration had taken longer than he calculated, and now ominous
snow-clouds, a rapidly dwindling food supply, and his own importunate
heart, urged an immediate start for the terrible Wakhan Valley and the
Darkot Pass. It meant a race for life--that he saw plainly enough.
The chances were ten to one against the Pass being open after the 1st
of October--the earliest date by which he could hope to get across.

With a sigh, he closed his diaries, emptied the cup of cocoa at a gulp,
and took out of his breast-pocket a folded leather frame. It contained
a photo of Quita in evening dress--a photo so disturbingly alive that
in general he contented himself with the knowledge that it was there.
But now he sat looking at it long and intently, till the eyes seemed to
soften and speech hovered on the too-expressive lips. Almost the music
of her voice was in his ears, when the night's colossal stillness was
broken by voices of a very different quality--the deep tones of the two
Pathans and the interpreter, who, on this lightly-equipped expedition,
were sharing his tent; while the six little Gurkhas, packed like
sardines into a smaller one, seemed to find the experience as amusing
as they found the whole varied field of life. It takes more than mere
hardship to knock the spirits out of a Gurkha.

As the three men entered, Lenox slipped the frame back into his pocket;
and, with a few friendly words, gave them leave to retire into their
sleeping bags, while Zyarulla laid out his master's 'bed' on the
farther side of the fire. That done, he came forward, and, squatting
on his heels, held out fingers like knotted twigs to the blaze. Lenox,
under a pretence of reading, sat watching him spellbound, knowing
precisely what would happen next. Nor was he mistaken. Presently the
thawed fingers fumbled at his kummerbund, produced a discoloured twist
of paper, opened it, and taking out two familiar dark pellets, tossed
them down his throat. In the act he met his master's gaze fixed on him
with strange intensity, and at once two more pellets appeared upon his
palm.

"Will not the Sahib honour his servant by partaking also?" he asked,
proffering his treasure. "The cold increaseth every hour, and the
Heaven-born hath had too little food to-day."

It was a moment before Lenox could find his voice; not because
temptation mastered him, but because he could scarcely believe the
evidence of his brain. The sight of the forbidden thing within easy
reach no longer tormented him as it would have done two months ago.
The habit of resistance was beginning to take effect at last; and,
almost before Zyarulla had time to wonder at his silence, Lenox had
waved aside his open palm.

"No, no," he said quietly. "I have eaten enough, and thou wilt need
all and more before we set foot in a bazaar again. Opium is not for
Sahibs. For the Pathan people, who are made of wood and iron, it may
be very well; but for the white man it is poison."

The Asiatic shook his head, and a light gleamed under his grizzled
brows.

"Great is the wisdom of the Sahib; yet in this matter have I also some
knowledge. The Dream Compeller is no poison, Hazur, but Allah's
bountiful gift to man, bringing strength out of weakness, peace out of
turmoil, even as the rain draweth grass from parched earth.
Nevertheless, it is as your Honour wills."

And Lenox, still watching the man's movements with a strange mingling
of indifference and triumph, saw the miracle-worker--of whose powers he
knew far more than the Pathan--disappear unhindered into the folds of
the man's kummerbund; saw himself once more a free man,--captain of the
soul and body given into his charge.

"Now it is time to sleep," he said, pushing back his chair, and rising
so abruptly that Brutus stumbled on to his feet, and emerged from the
folds of the rug with an injured air. "All things are in readiness for
setting out?"

"Hazur, all things are in readiness."

"It is well. Scatter ashes on the fire, and call me at dawn."

And as he slipped into the sheep-skin bag, his whole heart echoed the
words, "It is well." Let him only win his way back to the wife whose
spirit called to him across the silence and the miles, and all would be
well indeed!

Ten minutes later, the candles were put out; the glow of the fire
quenched; while outside the temperature fell steadily, and a sky heavy
with threatening cloud brooded over the sleeping camp.


Lenox woke before dawn to find a creditable snow-peak piled above his
dead fire, while flakes as large as plucked feathers whirled and
fluttered down upon it through the generous hole in the roof. The
three natives had vanished, sleeping bags and all; and the Ladaki cook,
with the astounding patience of his kind, had coaxed into life a fire
large enough to make his master a cup of tea from the few remaining
spoonfuls of the magic leaf, more priceless to the mountaineer than
brandy.

It was a bad beginning. Even the Gurkhas looked grave, and shook their
heads. The sky, low and heavy with tumbled cloud, was a study in greys
and indigoes; the earth a still, uncharted waste. No whisper of wind
or trees; no sound of life; no break of colour anywhere, from the level
plain to the galaxy of peaks and rounded shoulders tossed aloft like a
frozen tempest. Only at intervals, far up the mountain-sides, black
specks--that were grazing yaks--suggested a Khirgiz encampment
cunningly hidden in the folds of the hills. Presumably the sun was up,
though the east showed as lifeless and unpromising as any other quarter
of the heavens.

A detailed investigation of the commissariat department--revealing a
serious shortage of tea, cocoa, and rice, to say nothing of minor
essentials--proved no less discouraging than the aspect of earth and
sky. Only by the most stringent economy could the little store be
persuaded to last out four days, by which time they hoped to be over
the pass. Lenox, as usual, blamed himself.

"Extra work on siege rations is about our programme!" he remarked with
grim humour to his devoted ally the little Havildar. "We must manage
the first three marches in two days if possible. But I'm sorry to have
let you all in for a risk of this kind."

"All right, Sahib," the Gurkha answered with a brisk salute. "We be
Frontier soldiers. It is not the first time. And 'when sparrows have
picked up the grain where is the use of regret?' If there be enough
for your Honour all is well. The black man can tighten his belt, and
forget that the stomach is empty!" He tightened his own on the spot;
and went off to bid his brothers do likewise on pain of dire penalties.

Stepping down, undismayed, from the voiceless, trackless Roof of the
World, they were met by a desolating wind; the feathered snow-flakes
changed to a storm of sleet,--stinging, saturating; and only the
knowledge that twenty-four hours delay might mean a blocked pass and
another six months of isolation from his kind, induced Lenox to urge
his men forward in the teeth of it.

As it was, they pushed doggedly on over snow-sodden tracks, that were
speedily converted into drainage rivulets; trailing single file along
the 'devil's pathways' that overhang the Wakhan river,--mere ledges cut
out of the cliff's face, where a false step means dropping a hundred
feet and more into the valley beneath; scrambling up giant staircases
of rock, and glacier _debris_; zigzagging down one or two thousand
feet, by the merest suggestion of a route, only to start a fresh
climb--drenched and weary--after floundering through a local torrent,
rushing full 'spate' from the hills. Such crossings, without bridge or
boat, through streams ice-cold as the glaciers that gave them birth,
formed the most exciting episodes of the day's march. They had at
least the merit of creating a diversion, if a damp and dangerous one.
For the Kashmir baggage ponies, battling helplessly against a current
strong enough to sweep them off their feet, could only be guided and
controlled by showers of stones, and a chorus of picturesque terms of
abuse from their distracted drivers. The Gurkhas, whose irrepressible
spirits kept the rest from flagging, enjoyed these interludes to the
top of their bent; plunging waist-deep into the icy water, shaking
themselves like terriers as they scrambled out on the far side, and
shouting incessantly to each other, or to the terrified animals, till
the cliffs echoed with ghostly voices and laughter.

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