Kitabı oku: «Hilda Wade, a Woman with Tenacity of Purpose», sayfa 15
The brethren asked, through the medium of our interpreter, the cook, where these pictures had been made. We explained as well as we could by means of the same mouthpiece, a very earthen vessel, that they came from ancient Buddhist buildings in India. This delighted them still more, though I know not in what form our Ghoorka retainer may have conveyed the information. At any rate, they insisted on embracing us again; after which the chief Lama said something very solemnly to our amateur interpreter.
The cook interpreted. “Priest-sahib say, he too got very sacred thing, come from India. Sacred Buddhist poojah-thing. Go to show it to you.”
We waited, breathless. The chief Lama approached the altar before the recess, in front of the great cross-legged, vapidly smiling Buddha. He bowed himself to the ground three times over, as well as his portly frame would permit him, knocking his forehead against the floor, just as Hilda had done; then he proceeded, almost awestruck, to take from the altar an object wrapped round with gold brocade, and very carefully guarded. Two acolytes accompanied him. In the most reverent way, he slowly unwound the folds of gold cloth, and released from its hiding-place the highly sacred deposit. He held it up before our eyes with an air of triumph. It was an English bottle!
The label on it shone with gold and bright colours. I could see it was figured. The figure represented a cat, squatting on its haunches. The sacred inscription ran, in our own tongue, “Old Tom Gin, Unsweetened.”
The monks bowed their heads in profound silence as the sacred thing was produced. I caught Hilda’s eye. “For Heaven’s sake,” I murmured low, “don’t either of you laugh! If you do, it’s all up with us.”
They kept their countenances with admirable decorum.
Another idea struck me. “Tell them,” I said to the cook, “that we, too, have a similar and very powerful god, but much more lively.” He interpreted my words to them.
Then I opened our stores, and drew out with a flourish—our last remaining bottle of Simla soda-water.
Very solemnly and seriously I unwired the cork, as if performing an almost sacrosanct ceremony. The monks crowded round, with the deepest curiosity. I held the cork down for a second with my thumb, while I uttered once more, in my most awesome tone, the mystic words: “Hokey—pokey—winky—wum!” then I let it fly suddenly. The soda-water was well up. The cork bounded to the ceiling; the contents of the bottle spurted out over the place in the most impressive fashion.
For a minute the Lamas drew back alarmed. The thing seemed almost devilish. Then slowly, reassured by our composure, they crept back and looked. With a glance of inquiry at the abbot, I took out my pocket corkscrew, and drew the cork of the gin-bottle, which had never been opened. I signed for a cup. They brought me one, reverently. I poured out a little gin, to which I added some soda-water, and drank first of it myself, to show them it was not poison. After that, I handed it to the chief Lama, who sipped at it, sipped again, and emptied the cup at the third trial. Evidently the sacred drink was very much to his taste, for he smacked his lips after it, and turned with exclamations of surprised delight to his inquisitive companions.
The rest of the soda-water, duly mixed with gin, soon went the round of the expectant monks. It was greatly approved of. Unhappily, there was not quite enough soda water to supply a drink for all of them; but those who tasted it were deeply impressed. I could see that they took the bite of carbonic-acid gas for evidence of a most powerful and present deity.
That settled our position. We were instantly regarded, not only as Buddhists, but as mighty magicians from a far country. The monks made haste to show us rooms destined for our use in the monastery. They were not unbearably filthy, and we had our own bedding. We had to spend the night there, that was certain. We had, at least, escaped the worst and most pressing danger. I may add that I believe our cook to have been a most arrant liar—which was a lucky circumstance. Once the wretched creature saw the tide turn, I have reason to infer that he supported our cause by telling the chief Lama the most incredible stories about our holiness and power. At any rate, it is certain that we were regarded with the utmost respect, and treated thenceforth with the affectionate deference due to acknowledged and certified sainthood.
It began to strike us now, however, that we had almost overshot the mark in this matter of sanctity. We had made ourselves quite too holy. The monks, who were eager at first to cut our throats, thought so much of us now that we grew a little anxious as to whether they would not wish to keep such devout souls in their midst for ever. As a matter of fact, we spent a whole week against our wills in the monastery, being very well fed and treated meanwhile, yet virtually captives. It was the camera that did it. The Lamas had never seen any photographs before. They asked how these miraculous pictures were produced; and Hilda, to keep up the good impression, showed them how she operated. When a full-length portrait of the chief Lama, in his sacrificial robes, was actually printed off and exhibited before their eyes, their delight knew no bounds. The picture was handed about among the astonished brethren, and received with loud shouts of joy and wonder. Nothing would satisfy them then but that we must photograph every individual monk in the place. Even the Buddha himself, cross-legged and imperturbable, had to sit for his portrait. As he was used to sitting—never, indeed, having done anything else—he came out admirably.
Day after day passed; suns rose and suns set; and it was clear that the monks did not mean to let us leave their precincts in a hurry. Lady Meadowcroft, having recovered by this time from her first fright, began to grow bored. The Buddhists’ ritual ceased to interest her. To vary the monotony, I hit upon an expedient for killing time till our too pressing hosts saw fit to let us depart. They were fond of religious processions of the most protracted sort—dances before the altar, with animal masks or heads, and other weird ceremonial orgies. Hilda, who had read herself up in Buddhist ideas, assured me that all these things were done in order to heap up Karma.
“What is Karma?” I asked, listlessly.
“Karma is good works, or merit. The more praying-wheels you turn, the more bells you ring, the greater the merit. One of the monks is always at work turning the big wheel that moves the bell, so as to heap up merit night and day for the monastery.”
This set me thinking. I soon discovered that, no matter how the wheel is turned, the Karma or merit is equal. It is the turning it that counts, not the personal exertion. There were wheels and bells in convenient situations all over the village, and whoever passed one gave it a twist as he went by, thus piling up Karma for all the inhabitants. Reflecting upon these facts, I was seized with an idea. I got Hilda to take instantaneous photographs of all the monks during a sacred procession, at rapid intervals. In that sunny climate we had no difficulty at all in printing off from the plates as soon as developed. Then I took a small wheel, about the size of an oyster-barrel—the monks had dozens of them—and pasted the photographs inside in successive order, like what is called a zoetrope, or wheel of life. By cutting holes in the side, and arranging a mirror from Lady Meadowcroft’s dressing-bag, I completed my machine, so that, when it was turned round rapidly, one saw the procession actually taking place as if the figures were moving. The thing, in short, made a living picture like a cinematograph. A mountain stream ran past the monastery, and supplied it with water. I had a second inspiration. I was always mechanical. I fixed a water-wheel in the stream, where it made a petty cataract, and connected it by means of a small crank with the barrel of photographs. My zoetrope thus worked off itself, and piled up Karma for all the village whether anyone happened to be looking at it or not.
The monks, who were really excellent fellows when not engaged in cutting throats in the interest of the faith, regarded this device as a great and glorious religious invention. They went down on their knees to it, and were profoundly respectful. They also bowed to me so deeply, when I first exhibited it, that I began to be puffed up with spiritual pride. Lady Meadowcroft recalled me to my better self by murmuring, with a sigh: “I suppose we really can’t draw a line now; but it DOES seem to me like encouraging idolatry!”
“Purely mechanical encouragement,” I answered, gazing at my handicraft with an inventor’s pardonable pride. “You see, it is the turning itself that does good, not any prayers attached to it. I divert the idolatry from human worshippers to an unconscious stream—which must surely be meritorious.” Then I thought of the mystic sentence, “Aum, mani, padme, hum.” “What a pity it is,” I cried, “I couldn’t make them a phonograph to repeat their mantra! If I could, they might fulfil all their religious duties together by machinery!”
Hilda reflected a second. “There is a great future,” she said at last, “for the man who first introduces smoke-jacks into Tibet! Every household will buy one, as an automatic means of acquiring Karma.”
“Don’t publish that idea in England!” I exclaimed, hastily—“if ever we get there. As sure as you do, somebody will see in it an opening for British trade; and we shall spend twenty millions on conquering Tibet, in the interests of civilisation and a smoke-jack syndicate.”
How long we might have stopped at the monastery I cannot say, had it not been for the intervention of an unexpected episode which occurred just a week after our first arrival. We were comfortable enough in a rough way, with our Ghoorka cook to prepare our food for us, and our bearers to wait; but to the end I never felt quite sure of our hosts, who, after all, were entertaining us under false pretences. We had told them, truly enough, that Buddhist missionaries had now penetrated to England; and though they had not the slightest conception where England might be, and knew not the name of Madame Blavatsky, this news interested them. Regarding us as promising neophytes, they were anxious now that we should go on to Lhasa, in order to receive full instruction in the faith from the chief fountainhead, the Grand Lama in person. To this we demurred. Mr. Landor’s experiences did not encourage us to follow his lead. The monks, for their part, could not understand our reluctance. They thought that every well-intentioned convert must wish to make the pilgrimage to Lhasa, the Mecca of their creed. Our hesitation threw some doubt on the reality of our conversion. A proselyte, above all men, should never be lukewarm. They expected us to embrace the opportunity with fervour. We might be massacred on the way, to be sure; but what did that matter? We should be dying for the faith, and ought to be charmed at so splendid a prospect.
On the day-week after our arrival time chief Lama came to me at nightfall. His face was serious. He spoke to me through our accredited interpreter, the cook. “Priest-sahib say, very important; the sahib and mem-sahibs must go away from here before sun get up to-morrow morning.”
“Why so?” I asked, as astonished as I was pleased.
“Priest-sahib say, he like you very much; oh, very, very much; no want to see village people kill you.”
“Kill us! But I thought they believed we were saints!”
“Priest say, that just it; too much saint altogether. People hereabout all telling that the sahib and the mem-sahibs very great saints; much holy, like Buddha. Make picture; work miracles. People think, if them kill you, and have your tomb here, very holy place; very great Karma; very good for trade; plenty Tibetan man hear you holy men, come here on pilgrimage. Pilgrimage make fair, make market, very good for village. So people want to kill you, build shrine over your body.”
This was a view of the advantages of sanctity which had never before struck me. Now, I had not been eager even for the distinction of being a Christian martyr; as to being a Buddhist martyr, that was quite out of the question. “Then what does the Lama advise us to do?” I asked.
“Priest-sahib say he love you; no want to see village people kill you. He give you guide—very good guide—know mountains well; take you back straight to Maharajah’s country.”
“Not Ram Das?” I asked, suspiciously.
“No, not Ram Das. Very good man—Tibetan.”
I saw at once this was a genuine crisis. All was hastily arranged. I went in and told Hilda and Lady Meadowcroft. Our spoilt child cried a little, of course, at the idea of being enshrined; but on the whole behaved admirably. At early dawn next morning, before the village was awake, we crept with stealthy steps out of the monastery, whose inmates were friendly. Our new guide accompanied us. We avoided the village, on whose outskirts the lamasery lay, and made straight for the valley. By six o’clock, we were well out of sight of the clustered houses and the pyramidal spires. But I did not breathe freely till late in the afternoon, when we found ourselves once more under British protection in the first hamlet of the Maharajah’s territory.
As for that scoundrel, Ram Das, we heard nothing more of him. He disappeared into space from the moment he deserted us at the door of the trap into which he had led us. The chief Lama told me he had gone back at once by another route to his own country.
CHAPTER XI
THE EPISODE OF THE OFFICER WHO UNDERSTOOD PERFECTLY
After our fortunate escape from the clutches of our too-admiring Tibetan hosts, we wound our way slowly back through the Maharajah’s territory towards Sir Ivor’s headquarters. On the third day out from the lamasery we camped in a romantic Himalayan valley—a narrow, green glen, with a brawling stream running in white cataracts and rapids down its midst. We were able to breathe freely now; we could enjoy the great tapering deodars that rose in ranks on the hillsides, the snow-clad needles of ramping rock that bounded the view to north and south, the feathery bamboo-jungle that fringed and half-obscured the mountain torrent, whose cool music—alas, fallaciously cool—was borne to us through the dense screen of waving foliage. Lady Meadowcroft was so delighted at having got clear away from those murderous and saintly Tibetans that for a while she almost forgot to grumble. She even condescended to admire the deep-cleft ravine in which we bivouacked for the night, and to admit that the orchids which hung from the tall trees were as fine as any at her florist’s in Piccadilly. “Though how they can have got them out here already, in this outlandish place—the most fashionable kinds—when we in England have to grow them with such care in expensive hot-houses,” she said, “really passes my comprehension.”
She seemed to think that orchids originated in Covent Garden.
Early next morning I was engaged with one of my native men in lighting the fire to boil our kettle—for in spite of all misfortunes we still made tea with creditable punctuality—when a tall and good-looking Nepaulese approached us from the hills, with cat-like tread, and stood before me in an attitude of profound supplication. He was a well-dressed young man, like a superior native servant; his face was broad and flat, but kindly and good-humoured. He salaamed many times, but still said nothing.
“Ask him what he wants,” I cried, turning to our fair-weather friend, the cook.
The deferential Nepaulese did not wait to be asked. “Salaam, sahib,” he said, bowing again very low till his forehead almost touched the ground. “You are Eulopean doctor, sahib?”
“I am,” I answered, taken aback at being thus recognised in the forests of Nepaul. “But how in wonder did you come to know it?”
“You camp near here when you pass dis way before, and you doctor little native girl, who got sore eyes. All de country here tell you is very great physician. So I come and to see if you will turn aside to my village to help us.”
“Where did you learn English?” I exclaimed, more and more astonished.
“I is servant one time at British Lesident’s at de Maharajah’s city. Pick up English dere. Also pick up plenty lupee. Velly good business at British Lesident’s. Now gone back home to my own village, letired gentleman.” And he drew himself up with conscious dignity.
I surveyed the retired gentleman from head to foot. He had an air of distinction, which not even his bare toes could altogether mar. He was evidently a person of local importance. “And what did you want me to visit your village for?” I inquired, dubiously.
“White traveller sahib ill dere, sir. Vely ill; got plague. Great first-class sahib, all same like Governor. Ill, fit to die; send me out all times to try find Eulopean doctor.”
“Plague?” I repeated, startled. He nodded.
“Yes, plague; all same like dem hab him so bad down Bombay way.”
“Do you know his name?” I asked; for though one does not like to desert a fellow-creature in distress, I did not care to turn aside from my road on such an errand, with Hilda and Lady Meadowcroft, unless for some amply sufficient reason.
The retired gentleman shook his head in the most emphatic fashion. “How me know?” he answered, opening the palms of his hands as if to show he had nothing concealed in them. “Forget Eulopean name all times so easily. And traveller sahib name very hard to lemember. Not got English name. Him Eulopean foleigner.”
“A European foreigner!” I repeated. “And you say he is seriously ill? Plague is no trifle. Well, wait a minute; I’ll see what the ladies say about it. How far off is your village?”
He pointed with his hand, somewhat vaguely, to the hillside. “Two hours’ walk,” he answered, with the mountaineer’s habit of reckoning distance by time, which extends, under the like circumstances, the whole world over.
I went back to the tents, and consulted Hilda and Lady Meadowcroft. Our spoilt child pouted, and was utterly averse to any detour of any sort. “Let’s get back straight to Ivor,” she said, petulantly. “I’ve had enough of camping out. It’s all very well in its way for a week but when they begin to talk about cutting your throat and all that, it ceases to be a joke and becomes a wee bit uncomfortable. I want my feather bed. I object to their villages.”
“But consider, dear,” Hilda said, gently. “This traveller is ill, all alone in a strange land. How can Hubert desert him? It is a doctor’s duty to do what he can to alleviate pain and to cure the sick. What would we have thought ourselves, when we were at the lamasery, if a body of European travellers had known we were there, imprisoned and in danger of our lives, and had passed by on the other side without attempting to rescue us?”
Lady Meadowcroft knit her forehead. “That was us,” she said, with an impatient nod, after a pause—“and this is another person. You can’t turn aside for everybody who’s ill in all Nepaul. And plague, too!—so horrid! Besides, how do we know this isn’t another plan of these hateful people to lead us into danger?”
“Lady Meadowcroft is quite right,” I said, hastily. “I never thought about that. There may be no plague, no patient at all. I will go up with this man alone, Hilda, and find out the truth. It will only take me five hours at most. By noon I shall be back with you.”
“What? And leave us here unprotected among the wild beasts and the savages?” Lady Meadowcroft cried, horrified. “In the midst of the forest! Dr. Cumberledge, how can you?”
“You are NOT unprotected,” I answered, soothing her. “You have Hilda with you. She is worth ten men. And besides, our Nepaulese are fairly trustworthy.”
Hilda bore me out in my resolve. She was too much of a nurse, and had imbibed too much of the true medical sentiment, to let me desert a man in peril of his life in a tropical jungle. So, in spite of Lady Meadowcroft, I was soon winding my way up a steep mountain track, overgrown with creeping Indian weeds, on my road to the still problematical village graced by the residence of the retired gentleman.
After two hours’ hard climbing we reached it at last. The retired gentleman led the way to a house in a street of the little wooden hamlet. The door was low; I had to stoop to enter it. I saw in a moment this was indeed no trick. On a native bed, in a corner of the one room, a man lay desperately ill; a European, with white hair and with a skin well bronzed by exposure to the tropics. Ominous dark spots beneath the epidermis showed the nature of the disease. He tossed restlessly as he lay, but did not raise his fevered head or look at my conductor. “Well, any news of Ram Das?” he asked at last, in a parched and feeble voice. Parched and feeble as it was, I recognised it instantly. The man on the bed was Sebastian—no other!
“No news of Lam Das,” the retired gentleman replied, with an unexpected display of womanly tenderness. “Lam Das clean gone; not come any more. But I bling you back Eulopean doctor, sahib.”
Sebastian did not look up from his bed even then. I could see he was more anxious about a message from his scout than about his own condition. “The rascal!” he moaned, with his eyes closed tight. “The rascal! he has betrayed me.” And he tossed uneasily.
I looked at him and said nothing. Then I seated myself on a low stool by the bedside and took his hand in mine to feel his pulse. The wrist was thin and wasted. The face, too, I noticed, had fallen away greatly. It was clear that the malignant fever which accompanies the disease had wreaked its worst on him. So weak and ill was he, indeed, that he let me hold his hand, with my fingers on his pulse, for half a minute or more without ever opening his eyes or displaying the slightest curiosity at my presence. One might have thought that European doctors abounded in Nepaul, and that I had been attending him for a week, with “the mixture as before” at every visit.
“Your pulse is weak and very rapid,” I said slowly, in a professional tone. “You seem to me to have fallen into a perilous condition.”
At the sound of my voice, he gave a sudden start. Yet even so, for a second, he did not open his eyes. The revelation of my presence seemed to come upon him as in a dream. “Like Cumberledge’s,” he muttered to himself, gasping. “Exactly like Cumberledge’s.... But Cumberledge is dead… I must be delirious.... If I didn’t KNOW to the contrary, I could have sworn it was Cumberledge’s!”
I spoke again, bending over him. “How long have the glandular swellings been present, Professor?” I asked, with quiet deliberativeness.
This time he opened his eyes sharply, and looked up in my face. He swallowed a great gulp of surprise. His breath came and went. He raised himself on his elbows and stared at me with a fixed stare. “Cumberledge!” he cried; “Cumberledge! Come back to life, then! They told me you were dead! And here you are, Cumberledge!”
“WHO told you I was dead?” I asked, sternly.
He stared at me, still in a dazed way. He was more than half comatose. “Your guide, Ram Das,” he answered at last, half incoherently. “He came back by himself. Came back without you. He swore to me he had seen all your throats cut in Tibet. He alone had escaped. The Buddhists had massacred you.”
“He told you a lie,” I said, shortly.
“I thought so. I thought so. And I sent him back for confirmatory evidence. But the rogue has never brought it.” He let his head drop on his rude pillow heavily. “Never, never brought it!”
I gazed at him, full of horror. The man was too ill to hear me, too ill to reason, too ill to recognise the meaning of his own words, almost. Otherwise, perhaps, he would hardly have expressed himself quite so frankly. Though to be sure he had said nothing to criminate himself in any way; his action might have been due to anxiety for our safety.
I fixed my glance on him long and dubiously. What ought I to do next? As for Sebastian, he lay with his eyes closed, half oblivious of my presence. The fever had gripped him hard. He shivered, and looked helpless as a child. In such circumstances, the instincts of my profession rose imperative within me. I could not nurse a case properly in this wretched hut. The one thing to be done was to carry the patient down to our camp in the valley. There, at least, we had air and pure running water.
I asked a few questions from the retired gentleman as to the possibility of obtaining sufficient bearers in the village. As I supposed, any number were forthcoming immediately. Your Nepaulese is by nature a beast of burden; he can carry anything up and down the mountains, and spends his life in the act of carrying.
I pulled out my pencil, tore a leaf from my note-book, and scribbled a hasty note to Hilda: “The invalid is—whom do you think?—Sebastian! He is dangerously ill with some malignant fever. I am bringing him down into camp to nurse. Get everything ready for him.” Then I handed it over to a messenger, found for me by the retired gentleman, to carry to Hilda. My host himself I could not spare, as he was my only interpreter.
In a couple of hours we had improvised a rough, woven-grass hammock as an ambulance couch, had engaged our bearers, and had got Sebastian under way for the camp by the river.
When I arrived at our tents, I found Hilda had prepared everything for our patient with her usual cleverness. Not only had she got a bed ready for Sebastian, who was now almost insensible, but she had even cooked some arrowroot from our stores beforehand, so that he might have a little food, with a dash of brandy in it, to recover him after the fatigue of the journey down the mountain. By the time we had laid him out on a mattress in a cool tent, with the fresh air blowing about him, and had made him eat the meal prepared for him, he really began to look comparatively comfortable.
Lady Meadowcroft was now our chief trouble. We did not dare to tell her it was really plague; but she had got near enough back to civilisation to have recovered her faculty for profuse grumbling; and the idea of the delay that Sebastian would cause us drove her wild with annoyance. “Only two days off from Ivor,” she cried, “and that comfortable bungalow! And now to think we must stop here in the woods a week or ten days for this horrid old Professor! Why can’t he get worse at once and die like a gentleman? But, there! with YOU to nurse him, Hilda, he’ll never get worse. He couldn’t die if he tried. He’ll linger on and on for weeks and weeks through a beastly convalescence!”
“Hubert,” Hilda said to me, when we were alone once more; “we mustn’t keep her here. She will be a hindrance, not a help. One way or another we must manage to get rid of her.”
“How can we?” I asked. “We can’t turn her loose upon the mountain roads with a Nepaulese escort. She isn’t fit for it. She would be frantic with terror.”
“I’ve thought of that, and I see only one thing possible. I must go on with her myself as fast as we can push to Sir Ivor’s place, and then return to help you nurse the Professor.”
I saw she was right. It was the sole plan open to us. And I had no fear of letting Hilda go off alone with Lady Meadowcroft and the bearers. She was a host in herself, and could manage a party of native servants at least as well as I could.
So Hilda went, and came back again. Meanwhile, I took charge of the nursing of Sebastian. Fortunately, I had brought with me a good stock of jungle-medicines in my little travelling-case, including plenty of quinine; and under my careful treatment the Professor passed the crisis and began to mend slowly. The first question he asked me when he felt himself able to talk once more was, “Nurse Wade—what has become of her?”—for he had not yet seen her. I feared the shock for him.
“She is here with me,” I answered, in a very measured voice. “She is waiting to be allowed to come and help me in taking care of you.”
He shuddered and turned away. His face buried itself in the pillow. I could see some twinge of remorse had seized upon him. At last he spoke. “Cumberledge,” he said, in a very low and almost frightened tone, “don’t let her come near me! I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.”
Ill as he was, I did not mean to let him think I was ignorant of his motive. “You can’t bear a woman whose life you have attempted,” I said, in my coldest and most deliberate way, “to have a hand in nursing you! You can’t bear to let her heap coals of fire on your head! In that you are right. But, remember, you have attempted MY life too; you have twice done your best to get me murdered.”
He did not pretend to deny it. He was too weak for subterfuges. He only writhed as he lay. “You are a man,” he said, shortly, “and she is a woman. That is all the difference.” Then he paused for a minute or two. “Don’t let her come near me,” he moaned once more, in a piteous voice. “Don’t let her come near me!”
“I will not,” I answered. “She shall not come near you. I spare you that. But you will have to eat the food she prepares; and you know SHE will not poison you. You will have to be tended by the servants she chooses; and you know THEY will not murder you. She can heap coals of fire on your head without coming into your tent. Consider that you sought to take her life—and she seeks to save yours! She is as anxious to keep you alive as you are anxious to kill her.”
He lay as in a reverie. His long white hair made his clear-cut, thin face look more unearthly than ever, with the hectic flush of fever upon it. At last he turned to me. “We each work for our own ends,” he said, in a weary way. “We pursue our own objects. It suits ME to get rid of HER: it suits HER to keep ME alive. I am no good to her dead; living, she expects to wring a confession out of me. But she shall not have it. Tenacity of purpose is the one thing I admire in life. She has the tenacity of purpose—and so have I. Cumberledge, don’t you see it is a mere duel of endurance between us?”
