The Last Ditch

etals of an Emperor rose. The weave of the rug was like no other. Its folds looked heavy like raw silk, yet the fabric itself was thin. It would

Ngan-king. The yellow rug lay across the knees of the woman. The afternoon was breezy and bright. It was May, and the rice was green along the flats of the so

wn and scratched. His name was Paul and he was a stoic from much manhandling. He went to her arms in silence, and there was a b

re, but this face that he saw now had the plain earthy passion of a river-woman talking to her first-born-a love of the child's body and face and lips, the love of a woman who loves the very soil of play on her child.

cture for the sake of meeting the woman. The child was drawing away. Her dark eyes

or a noble boy. And

Hank

a young man going to Han

not like me to r

circled the little deck again, thinking of her eyes and voice. They went with th

s my f

ey forgot the peculiarity of that, in the sudden sense that she was like the blood-sister of some one he had known. At the same time flat in his consciousness was the fact that he had not known any such "some one." She was young

she sailed-the shallow problems already put from them, all decoration, convention and imitation thrust aside. The missionary and the little boy had passed. And

ay

es

f a big nature, whose sweep was from the primitive passions of birth and death, of fear and hunger, to some consummate and mysterious ambition. He could not tell what she wanted; and at the same time her thrall was stealing over him, preventing him from seeing her the same at dif

was to meet this woman, his life would have been different. He had met no one like her. She accepted his best with ease and without wonder. No man had been able to do that. She tossed a crown over the highest of his mental o

f that austere line of bone structure. She seemed the most conserved creature he had ever met, as if every excellence of life had been known to her from a child-all love and reverence and protectio

y was sure of this. Queerly enough the truth did not come to him until later. They dined toget

farthest punkah. "It is always with me. If I stay at home, or any one place many

understanding of this point-seemed wit

vy in any one place," she adde

," Romn

ave said it, but Romney spoke as if he had

y baby, too,-though

ut Romney sensed a slow pounding of agony in

s life being all-or death being all, but, oh, I was going to take him his little baby-as soon as it was

was s

as that little boy with the sill

bent drab man with his

n't permit the child t

A

f regarding her jud

five years ago. The look of her eyes had to do with the future, not with the past. At the same time there was something tremendous in the slo

the southern shore. To the north the river was crowded with small boats and the myriad lights of a

is not true. Life is too short to try to make most people understand. If I care enough to explain, I tell a different, a more real story. You are good to talk to. I think I must have been lonely when

I do feel th

erhood. I could smell and taste and see into things as never before. I was in a rage when he went away to hunt tigers. Why, he took it as a matter of mere nature-as something in the natural course of events-that I should bring his child into the world. I was growing into a real creature and he could not rise out of the annual tiger rhamadan. It is a sort of religion with his family-and couldn't be broken. And then I was smothered in his family. When th

as the final. It dawned upon him that the real truth might lie somewhere between, but there were no tangible forms to grip in this middle distance. He was

gently. "No man could understand-at

w," he

an't rest long in one place. He left me everything that the world can give, but I can't live

u search for?"

," she