The Phantom Rickshaw | Page 4

as mixed
as the metaphors in this sentence.
Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever was, and his invariable
prescription to all his patients is, "lie low, go slow, and keep cool." He
says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this
world justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died
under his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to
speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crack
in Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and
pressed him to death. "Pansay went off the handle," says Heatherlegh,
"after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have
behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that
the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he
took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & O. flirtation. He
certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off
the engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense
about ghosts developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and
killed him poor devil. Write him off to the System--one man to take the
work of two and a half men."
I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes when
Heatherlegh was called out to patients, and I happened to be within
claim. The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low,

even voice, the procession that was always passing at the bottom of his
bed. He had a sick man's command of language. When he recovered I
suggested that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to
end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little
boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have
chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature.
He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder
Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterward
he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently
needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit,
he preferred to die; vowing at the last that he was hag-ridden. I got his
manuscript before he died, and this is his version of the affair, dated
1885:
My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is not
improbable that I shall get both ere long--rest that neither the
red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, and change of air
far beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In
the meantime I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in flat defiance of
my doctor's orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You shall
learn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and shall, too,
judge for yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary
earth was ever so tormented as I.
Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts
are drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear,
demands at least attention. That it will ever receive credence I utterly
disbelieve. Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the
man who had dared tell me the like. Two months ago I was the happiest
man in India. Today, from Peshawur to the sea, there is no one more
wretched. My doctor and I are the only two who know this. His
explanation is, that my brain, digestion, and eyesight are all slightly
affected; giving rise to my frequent and persistent "delusions."
Delusions, indeed! I call him a fool; but he attends me still with the
same unwearied smile, the same bland professional manner, the same
neatly trimmed red whiskers, till I begin to suspect that I am an
ungrateful, evil-tempered invalid. But you shall judge for your-selves.
Three years ago it was my fortune--my great misfortune--to sail from
Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes

Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in
the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be
content with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she
and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another.
Heaven knows that I can make the admission now without one particle
of vanity. In matters of this sort there is always one who gives and
another who accepts. From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I
was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant,
and--if I may use the expression--a purer