Venus in India/Volume 1

The war in Afghanistan appeared to be coming to a close when I received sudden orders to proceed, at once, from England to join the First Battalion of my regiment, which was then serving there. I had just been promoted Captain and had been married about eighteen months. It pained me more than I care to express to part with my wife and baby girl, but it was agreed that it would be better for all of us, if their coming to India were deferred until it were certain where my regiment would be quartered, on its return to the fertile plains of Hindustan, from the stones and rocks of barren Afghanistan. Besides, it was very hot, being the height of the hot weather, when only those who were absolutely forced to do so went to India, and it was a time of year particularly unsuitable for a delicate woman and a babe to travel in so burning a climate. It was also not quite certain whether my wife would join me in India, as I had the promise of a staff appointment at home, but before I could enter upon that I had of necessity to join my own battalion, because it was at the seat of war. Thus it was annoying to have to go, all the same, as it was clear that the war was over, and that I should be much too late to participate in any of its rewards or glories, though it was quite possible I might come in for much of the hardship and experience of the sojourn, for a wild, and not to say rough and inhospitable country is Afghanistan; besides which it was quite possible for an Afghan knife to put an end to me, and that I might fall a victim to a common murder instead of dying a glorious death on the battlefield.

Altogether my prospects seemed by no means of a rosy color, but there was nothing for it but to submit and go, which I did with the best grace possible but with a very heavy heart.

I will spare the readers the sad details of parting with my wife. I made no promise of fidelity, the idea seemed never to occur to her or to myself of there being any need for it, for although I had always been of that temperament so dear to Venus, and had enjoyed the pleasure of love with great good fortune before I married, yet I had, as I thought, quite steadied down into a proper married man, whose desires never wandered outside his own bed; for my passionate and loving spouse was ever ready to respond to my ardent caresses with caresses as ardent; and her charms, in their youthful beauty and freshness, had not only not palled upon me, but seemed to grow more and more powerfully attractive the more I reveled in their possession. For my dearest wife, gentle reader, was the life of passion; she was not one of those who coldly submit to their husbands' caresses because it is their duty to do so, a duty however not to be done with pleasure or joyfully, but more as a species of penance! No! With her it was not, “Ah! no! let me sleep tonight, dear. I did it twice last night, and I really don't think you can want it again. You should be more chaste, and not try me as if I were your toy and plaything. No! take your hand away! Do leave my nightdress alone! I declare it is quite indecent the way you are behaving!” and so forth, until, worn out with her husband's pertinacity, she thinks the shortest way, after all, will be to let him have his way, and so grudgingly allows her cold slit to be uncovered, unwillingly opens her ungracious thighs, and lies a passionless log, insensible to her husband's endeavors to strike a spark of pleasure from her icy charms. Ah! no! With my sweet Louie it was far different; caress replied to caress, embrace to embrace. Each sweet sacrifice became sweeter than the one before, because she fully appreciated all the joy and delight of it! It is almost impossible to have too much of such a woman, and Louie seemed to think it quite impossible to have too much of me! It was, “Once more my darling! Just one little more! I am sure it will do you good! and I should like it!” and it would be strange if the manly charm which filled her loving hand, were not once more raised in response to her caresses, and once again carrying rapturous delight to the deepest, richest depths of the trembling voluptuous charm, for the special benefit of which it was formed, a charm which was indeed the very temple of love.

Ah! My beloved Louie! Little did I think the last time I withdrew from thy tender passionate embrace, that between thy throbbing sheath and my sword there were waiting for me, in glowing India, all unknown and unsuspected, other voluptuous women, whose beautiful naked charms were to form my couch, and whose lovely limbs were to bind me in ecstatic embrace, before I should once more find myself again between thy tender, loving thighs! It is best too that thou should'st not know that so it was, for who is there that does not know the dire effects of green-eyed jealousy? Thanks be to tender Venus for having raised an imperious cloud, and hidden my sportings with my nymphs, as in olden days Great Jupiter was hidden from the sight of the Gods and men, when he reveled on the green mountain sides, with the lovely maidens, human or divine, whose beauteous charms formed the object of his passion.

But it is time to descend to earth again and to tell my tale in a manner more befitting this common-place world. Already, dear reader, I have, I fear, trespassed in so far that I have perhaps shocked your modest eyes with the name of that sweetest of feminine charms, which neither sculptor or painter will produce in their works, and which is seldom mentioned in public, except by the low and vulgar; yet I must crave your pardon, and beg you to permit me to offer it here of my pen, else I shall feel it difficult to describe, as I hope to all the full joys I so happily reveled in during the five happy years I spent in Hindustan. If you are wise, if you love to have your senses sweetly tickled, if the usually hidden scenes and secrets of delicious combats of love, of the fulfillment of hot desire, of the happy lovers, have any delight for you then simply imagine that your moist eyes see the charm, but not the name or action, and not the words by which I find it necessary to describe it.

It was in the middle of August when I landed in Bombay, that queenly capital of Western India. The voyage had been unimportant. Our passengers had been few and stupid, chiefly old Indian Civilians and officers returning unwillingly to the scenes of their labors in the hot country, after a short spell of life in England. It was not the season of the year when sprightly young ladies go out to India, each one with the fine hope in her heart that her rounded, youthful charms, her cheeks glowing with health, and her freshness might captivate a husband. We were a staid party: some like myself had left young wives at home: others were accompanied by theirs; all were of an age when time had softened down the burning ardors of passion, and when perhaps the last thought to enter their heads, on retiring at night to rest, was to take advantage of the ruined remains of beauty which reposed by their sides. Presently I landed feeling that all love, passion, desire and affection were left behind me, with my darling little wife in England, and that the all but naked, graceful charms of native girls carrying their water pots, could not but strike my eye when I first landed, no spark of desire for a moment made my blood run quicker, nor caused me for a moment to think that I could ever seek enjoyment in the embraces of any woman much less of a dusky maiden! And yet within only ten short days! Verily, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak! But let us put it thus, the spirit may be willing, but when the flesh rises in all its vigorous power its strength is indomitable! or, so I found it to be! And now, gentle reader, I am sure you are curious and anxious to know who it was who raised my flesh, and whether I made that resistance of its impervious demands which a husband of such a Louie as mine, should, by right have made.

Having ascertained from the Adjutant General, that my destination was Cherat, a small camping ground, as I heard, on the top of a range of mountains forming the Southern Limit of the Valley of the Peshawar, and having received railroad warrants, via Allahabad, for the temporary station of Jhelum, and dak warrants from the spot to Cherat itself. I made my preparations for the long journey which still lay before me, and amongst other necessaries for mind and body I purchased some French novels. One of these was that masterpiece of drawing-room erotic literature, Mademoiselle de Maupin, by Theophile Gautier. But for the burning pictures of love and passion, drawn in the wonderful prose poem, perhaps I might have escaped from the nets in which love entangled me, for of a surety Mademoiselle de Maupin was a tempting bait which summoned my passions from the lethargy into which they had fallen since I had parted with my beloved, yet virtuous little wife, my adored Louie! I declare, dear reader, that I thought I had sown my wild oats, that I had become what the French call “range” and that it lay not in the power of women to seduce me from the path of virtue, along which it seemed to me, and I believed firmly, that I was treading with certain steps, to the road to sanctity and heaven! So long as I had the protecting aegis of the beautiful and lovely charms of my darling little wife, I was, no doubt, quite safe, for frankly, now that I come to look over the past, I quite see why the tempter's darts fell all unheeded by me. Where could I find another girl, clothed or naked, who could compare with my Louie? She simply eclipsed all others. Like the full moon, shining on a cloudless night, she put out the light of the stars! Alas! when she was absent, the stars began to shine again to find places in my heart for admiration and adoration. I had not thought of this! Had my Louie? And oh! how tender, how passionately voluptuous had the last few weeks of my sojourn at home been! How many times had the fervent protestations of love and faith in one another's unspottable purity of affection been sealed by the rapturous blissful sacrifice, when clasped in one another's arms our bodies became as one, and the fountains of inexpressible bliss, set gushing by our voluptuous enlacements, we inundated one another with seas of enjoyment. These sacrifices, so exquisite, so full of fire and action, had undoubtedly, their aftereffects on me, for some few weeks Louie had, by the power of her never-dying charms, exhausted me of my present stock of that manly strength, that essence of my heart's blood, that marrow of my body, without which physical love is impossible, and it seemed to me that on leaving her I had left that power behind me; that all my desires, together with my manly vigor, were deposited for safe keeping in her exquisite grotto, and that I should not find them again until, once more with her I might seek them between her beloved thighs.

So I bought Mademoiselle de Maupin not caring whether it treated of passion or not, and all alone in my railway carriage I read Mlle. de Maupin, but alas! of human frailty! Desire, hot and burning desire, the power, and floods of hot, hot feeling came back to me! I drank the delicious poison of that matchless book, and as I drank I burnt! and yet I would not own to myself that in my deepest heart it was “woman” I felt a raging thirst for. At present desire simply assumed the shadowy form, a kind of image of a woman the nearest approach to which was to be found in far off England, in the body of my own adored and beautiful little wife!

The route from Bombay via Allahabad to Peshawar runs almost entirely through a country as flat as a table. At the season of year, August, when I traversed it, the land dry, parching weather had apparently not been tempered by the rains, which usually fall between June and September. Here and there green waving crops, contrasted with the otherwise generally brown, burnt up soil, and there were few stretches of country which formed such attraction for the eyes as to call for mental appreciation, in comparison with the charms of the beautiful Mlle. De Maupin, especially as painted by Theophile Gautier, in that glowing chapter where she appears in all her glowing beauty, naked, and burning with tormenting desire, before the eyes of her enraptured lover! oh! Theophile! Why did you not allow your pen to describe, with a little more freedom, those undraped beauties? Why did you not permit us to do more than fancy the exquisite pleasures which the panting lovers experienced on their voluptuous couch? I felt that such minute painting was what was wanted to complete the rapturous sensations raised by that marvelous romance, and, gentle reader, I pray you not to exclaim and cry out, for in these pages I endeavor to avoid the one fault I find with Gautier. May Venus guide my pen and Eros hold the inkstand, and mayest thou, shade of the illustrious French poet and author, assist in these compilations of my reminiscences of the happy five years I spent in India.

Only once on this journey, about which I fear I may become so tedious did the tempter accost me, and then so clumsily as quite to prostrate his well-meant intentions. I had to make a few hours stay in Allahabad and to pass that away pleasantly I wandered about, examining the tombs of the kings and princes, who reigned in past times over the banks of the Ganges and the Jumna, and in seeing such sights as I could find to amuse and interest me.

As I was returning to my hotel a native accosted me in very good English.

“Like to have woman, Sahib? I got one very pretty little half-caste in my house, if master like to come and see!”

Oh! dear Mademoiselle de Maupin! I felt no desire to see the pretty little half- caste! I put this self-abnegation down to virtue, and actually laughed, in my folly, at the idea that there existed, or could exist, a woman in India, who could raise even a ghost of desire in me!

The station beyond Jhelum is reached, I having but one mighty river to pass before I leave the bounds of India proper and tread the outskirts of Central Asia, in the valley of the Peshawar. But it took some two or three days and nights of continuous travel, in a dak gharry, before I reached Attock. The dak gharry is a fairly comfortable mode of conveyance, but one becomes tired of the eternal horizontal position which is the only one which gives any comfort to the weary traveler. Crossing the Indus in a boat rowed over a frightful torrent with the roar of the waters breaking on the rocks below the ferry, was a very exciting incident, especially as it happened at night, and the dark gloom added to its magnifying effect, to the roar of the suspected danger. Then again another dak gharry into which I got, lay down and went to sleep, not to waken until I reached Nowshera.

Ah! Mademoiselle de Maupin! What a lovely girl! Who can she be! She must I fancy, be the daughter of the Colonel commanding here, out for her morning walk, and perhaps, judging from the keen expectant glance shot in at me through the half-open sliding door of the gharry, she's expecting somebody, perhaps her fiancé; perhaps that is why she looked so eager and yet so disappointed!

Oh, dear reader! just as I opened my eyes I saw, through the half-open door a perfect figure of feminine beauty! A girl clothed in close fitting grey colored dress with a Teria hat archly sloped on her lovely and well-shaped head! That beautiful face! How perfect the oval of it! Truly she must have aristocratic blood in her veins to be so daintily formed! What a rosebud of a mouth! What cherry lips! God! Jupiter! Venus! What a form! See those exquisite rounded shoulders, those full and beautiful arms, the shape of each can be so plainly seen so close does her dress fit her: and how pure, how virgin like is that undulating bosom! See how proudly each swelling breast fills out her modest but still desire-provoking bodice! Ah! The little shell-like ears, fitting so close to the head! How I would like to have the privilege of gently pressing those tiny lobes! What a lovely creature she looks! How refined! How pure! How virginal! Ah! My Louie, like you this girl is not to be tempted, and long and arduous would be the chase before she could be compelled to own that her failing strength must yield her charms to the hands and lips of her panting pursuer! No! That girl, of all girls I have seen, struck me as one not to be seduced from the path of purity and honor.

And all these impressions flashed through my mind from a glimpse, a very vivid glimpse it is true, that I had of this lovely girl which I caught of her as my gharryman was urging his jaded steeds to a smart gallop, so that the Sahib might enter Nowshera in proper grand style!

The vision so short and so rapid, appeared to make but little impression on me, or rather, I should say, my sensations did not go beyond the sensations I have given above. Hot desire did not set my blood boiling or my heart and sense afire. I think it was rather the other way. I admired, indeed, as I might also admire a perfect Venus in marble. Shape and form pleased my eyes, and although the idea, that this lovely girl might be possessed some day by someone, did enter my head, it only entered in the same way as that the marble Venus might become flesh and blood and form the happy delight of some fortunate mortal. In other words, she seemed absolutely and completely removed from ordinary mankind, and I never dreamt that I should ever see her mound, as, according to my ideas, I was going to change horses at Nowshera, and proceed immediately to Cherat.

But on arriving at the post office, which was also the place for changing horses, the post master, a civil spoken Baboo, told me that he could give me horses only as far as Publi, a village about halfway between Nowshera and Peshawar, and that from that place I must make the best of my way to Cherat, for there was no road along which dak gharries could be driven, and my good Baboo added that the said interval between Publi and Cherat was dangerous for travelers, there being many lawless robbers. Moreover, he added, that the distance was a good fifteen miles. He advised me to put up at the Public Bungalow at Nowshera, until the Brigade Major could put me in the way of completing my journey.

This information was a great surprise and a great damper to me! How on earth was I to get to Cherat with my baggage if there was no road? How could I do fifteen miles under such circumstances? To think I had gone so many thousand miles, since I had left England, to be balked by a miserable little fifteen. However, for the present there seemed nothing to be done but to take the excellent Baboo's advice, put up at the Public Bungalow and see the Brigade Major.

The Public Bungalow stood in its own compound, a little distance from the high road, and to get back to it I had to drive back part of the road I had traveled. I dismissed my driver, and called the Khansamah, who informed me that the bungalow was full, and that there was no room for me! Here was a pretty state of affairs! but whilst I was speaking to the Khansamah, a pleasant looking young officer, lifting the chick which hung over the entrance to his room, came out into the verandah, and told me that he had heard what I was saying, that he was only waiting for a gharry to proceed on his journey down country, and that my coming was as opportune for him, as his going would be for me. He had, he said, sent at once to secure my dak gharry, and if he could get it, he would give up his room to me, but anyhow, I should, if I did not dislike the idea, share his room which contained two bedsteads. Needless to say I was delighted to accept his kind offer, and I soon had my goods inside the room, and was enjoying that most essential and refreshing thing in India, a nice cool bath. My new friend had taken upon himself to order breakfast for me, and when I had completed my ablutions and toilet, we sat down together. Officers meeting in this manner, very quickly become like old friends. My new acquaintance told me all about himself, where he had been, where he was going to, and I reciprocated. Needless to say the war, which was now practically over, formed the great topic of our general conversation. Getting more intimate, we of course fell, as young men, or old too do, for the matter of that, to discussing about love and women, and my young friend told me that the entire British Army was just simply raging for women! That none were to be got in Afghanistan, and that, taking it as a general rule, neither officers nor men had a woman for at least two years.

“By George!” he cried as he laughed, “the Peshawar Polls are reaping a rich harvest! As fast as a regiment arrives from Afghanistan, the whole, boiling, rush off to bazaars, and you can see the Tommy Atkins waiting outside the knocking shops, holding their staffs in their hands, and roaring out to those having women to look sharp!”

This was of course an exaggeration, but not to so great an extent as my gentle reader may suppose.

We had just finished our cheroots after breakfast, when the young officer's servant drove up in the same dak gharry which had brought me in from Attock, and in a few minutes my cheerful host was shaking hands with me.

“There's somebody in there,” he said, pointing to the next room, “to whom I must say good-bye, and then I'm off.”

He was not long absent, again shook my hands, and in another minute a sea of dust hid him and the gharry from my sight.

I felt quite lonely and sad, when he was gone, for, although the bungalow was full, I was left in a small portion of it walled off from the rest, so that I didn't see any of its other occupants, though I might occasionally hear them. I had forgotten to ask who my next door neighbor was, and indeed I did not much care. I was so bothered, wondering how I should get up to Cherat. It was now nearly ten o'clock, the sun was pouring sheets of killing rays of light on the parched plain in which Nowshera is situated, and the hot wind was beginning to blow, parching one up, and making lips and eyes quite sore as well as dry. I did not know what to do with myself. It was much too hot to think of going to the Brigade Major's, so I got another cheroot, and taking my delightful Mademoiselle de Maupin out of my bag, I went and sat behind a pillar on the verandah, to shelter myself from the full force of the blast and try to read; but even this most charming damsel failed to charm, and I sank back in my chair and smoked listlessly whilst my eyes wandered over the range of lofty mountains which I could just distinguish quivering through hot yellow-looking air. I did not know at the moment that I was looking at Cherat, and had I had a prescience of what was waiting for me there, I should certainly have gazed upon these hills with far greater interest than I did.

Reader dear, do you know what it is to feel that somebody is looking at you, though you may not be able to see him, nor are aware for a fact that somebody is looking at you? I am extremely susceptible to this influence. Whilst sitting thus idly looking at the most distant thing my eyes could find to rest upon, I began to feel that someone was near, and looking intently at me. At first I resisted the temptation to look round to see who it was. What with the hot wind, and what with the circumstances of the sudden halt I was compelled to make, I felt so irritable, that I resented, as an insult, the looking at me which I felt certain was going on; but at last this strange sensation added to my unrest and I half-turned my head to see whether it was reality or feverish fancy.

My surprise was unbounded when I saw the same lovely face, which I had caught a glimpse of that morning, looking at me from behind the slightly opened chick of the room next to mine, I was so startled that instead of taking a good look at the lady I instantly gazed on the hills again, as if turning my head to look in her direction had been a breach of good manners on my part; but I felt she was still keeping her eyes fixed on me, and it amazed me that anyone of the position which I imagined she held, for I was firmly convinced that I was right as to my surmise that my unknown beauty was a lady, and a Colonel's daughter, she should be guilty of such bad manners as to stare at a perfect stranger in this manner. I turned my head once more, and this time I looked at this lovely but strange girl a little more fixedly. Her eyes, large, lustrous, most beautiful, seemed to pierce mine, as though trying to read my thoughts. For a moment I fancied she must be a little off her head, when, apparently satisfied, with her reconnaissance, the fair creature let the chick fall once more against the side of the door and so was lost to my sight. From that moment my curiosity was greatly aroused. Who was she? Was she alone? Or was she with the unknown Colonel in that room? Why was she staring at me so hard? By Jove! There she is at it again! I could stand it no longer. I jumped up and went into my own room and called the Khansamah.

“Khansamah: who is in the room next to mine?” and I pointed to the door which communicated with the room the lady was in, and which was closed.

A Mem Sahib! Now I had been in India before, this was my second tour of service in the country, and I knew that a Mem Sahib meant a married lady. I was surprised, for had anyone asked me, I should have said that this lovely girl had never known a man, had never been had, and never would be had, unless she met the man of men who pleased her. It was extraordinary how this idea had taken root in my mind.

“Is the Sahib with her?”

“No, Sahib!”

“Where is he?”

“I don't know, Sahib.”

“When did the Mem Sahib come here, Khan?”

“A week or ten days ago, Sahib!”

“Is she going away soon?”

“I don't know, Sahib!”

It was plain I could get no information from this man, only one more question and I was done.

“Is the Mem Sahib quite alone, Khan?”

“Yes, Sahib: she has no one with her, not even an Ayah.”

Well! this is wonderful! How well did my young friend, who had only gone away this morning, know her? You, gentle reader, with experience, have no doubt your suspicions are that all was not right, but for the life of me I could not shake off the firm notion that this woman was not only a lady, but one exceptionally pure and highly connected.

I went back to my seat on the verandah, waiting to be looked at again, and I did not wait long. A slight rustle caught my ear, I looked around and there was my lovely girl showing more of herself. She still looked with the same eager gaze without the sign of a smile on her face. She appeared to be in her petticoats only, and her legs and feet, such lovely, tiny, beautiful feet, and such exquisitely turned ankles, were bare; she had not even a pair of slippers on. A light shawl covered her shoulders and bosom, but did not hide either her full well-shaped, white arms, her taper waist or her splendid and broad hips. These naked feet and legs inspired me with a sudden flow of desire, as much as her lovely face and its wonderful calm, yet her severe expression, had driven all such thoughts from my mind. Jacques Casanova, who certainly is a perfect authority on all that concerns women, declares that curiosity is the foundation on which desire is built, that, but for that, a man would be perfectly contented with one woman, since in the main all women are alike; yet from mere curiosity a man is impelled to approach a woman, and to wish for her possession. Something akin to this certainly influenced me. A devouring curiosity took possession of me. This exquisite girl's face inspired me to know how she could possibly be all alone here at Nowshera, in a public bungalow, and her lovely naked feet and legs, made me wonder whether her knees and thighs corresponded with them in perfect beauty, and my imagination painted to my mind a voluptuous motte and delicious slit, shaded by dark locks corresponding to the color of the lovely eyebrows, which arched over those expressive orbs. I rose from my chair and moved towards her. She instantly withdrew and as instantly again opened the chick. For the first time I saw a smile wreathe her face. What a wonderfully different expression that smile gave it! Two lovely dimples appeared in her rounded cheeks, her rosy lips parted and displayed two rows of small perfectly even teeth, and those eyes which had looked so stern and almost forbidding, now looked all tenderness and softness.

“You must find it very hot out there in the verandah!” said she, in a low, musical voice, but with a rather vulgar, common accent which at first grated on my ear, “and I know you are all alone! Won't you come into my room and sit down and chat? You will if you are a good fellow!”

“Thank you!” said I smiling and bowing, as I threw away my cheroot and entered whilst she held the chick so as to make room for me to pass. I caught the chick in my hand, but she still kept her arm raised, and extended; her shawl fell a little off her bosom which was almost entirely bare, and I saw not only two most exquisitely round, full and polished globes of ivory, but even the rosy coral marble which adorned the peak of one of them. I could see that she caught the direction of my glance, but she was in no hurry to lower her arm, and I judged, and rightly, that this liberal display of her charms was by no means unintentional.

“I have got two chairs in here,” said she, laughing such a sweet sounding laugh, “but we can sit together on my bed, if you don't mind!”

“I shall be delighted,” said I, “if sitting without a back to support you won't tire you!”

“Oh!” said she, in the most innocent manner, “you just put your arm round my waist, and then I won't feel tired.”

Had it not been for the extraordinary innocent tone with which she said this, I think I should at once have lain her back and got on top of her, but a new idea struck me; could she be quite sane? And would not such an action be the very height of blackguardism?

However, I sat down, as she bade me do, and I slipped my left arm around her slender waist and gave her a little hug towards me.

“Ah!” she said, “that's right! Hold me tight! I love being held tight!”

I found that she had no stays on at all. There was nothing between my hand and her smooth skin but a petticoat body, and a chemise of very light muslin. She felt so awfully nice! There's something so thrilling in feeling the warm, palpitating body of a lovely woman in one's arms, that it was only natural, that not only did my blood run more quickly, but I began to feel what the French call the “pricking of the flesh.” There she was, this really beautiful creature, half-naked and palpitating, her cheeks glowing with health, though paler than one is accustomed to see in our more temperate Europe, her lovely shining shoulders and bosom almost perfectly naked, and so exquisite! The nearer I got my eyes to the skin the better did I see how fine was its texture. The bloom of youth was on it. There were no ugly hollows to show where the flesh had receded and the bones projected. Her beautiful breasts were round, plump and firm looking. I longed to take possession of those lovely, lovely bubbies! To press them in my hand, to devour them and their rosy tips with my mouth! Her petticoats fell between her slightly parted thighs and showed their roundness and beautiful form perfectly as though to provoke my desire the more, desire she must have known was burning me, for she could feel the palpitating of my agitated heart, even if a glance of her eyes in another and lower direction did not betray to her the effect her touch and her beauty had on me, she held out one and then the other of her fairy feet, so white and perfect, as though to display them to my eager eyes. The soft and delicious perfume which only emanates from woman in her youth, stole in fragrant clouds over my face, and her abundant wavy hair felt like silk against my cheek. Was she mad? That was the tormenting thought which would spring up between my hand and the glowing charms it longed to seize! For some few moments we sat in silence. Then I felt her hand creep up under my white jacket and toy with the buttons to which my braces were fastened behind. She undid one side of my brace and as she did so said.

“I saw you this morning! You were in a dak gharry and I just caught a glimpse of you.”

Her hand began to work at the other button. What the deuce was she up to?

“Oh yes!” I said, looking into her small eyes and returning the sharp glances which shot from them, “and I saw you too! I had been fast asleep, and just as I opened my eyes my sight fell upon you! and I...”

She had unbuttoned my braces behind, and now stole her hand round and laid it, back up, on the top of my thigh.

“And you what?” said she, gently sliding her extended fingers down over the inside of my thigh: she was within a nail's breadth of the side of my rod which was now standing furiously!

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “I thought I had never seen such a lovely face and figure in the world!”

The fingertips actually touched Johnnie! She slightly pressed them against him, and looking at me again with the sweetest smile, said:

“Did you really! Well! I'm glad you did, for do you know what I thought, when I saw you lying inside the gharry?”

“No, dear!”

“Well! I thought that I would not mind if I had been traveling with such a fine looking, handsome young man! ”

Then after a short pause she continued, ” So you think me well made?” And she glanced down proudly on her swelling breast.

“Indeed then I do!” I exclaimed, quite unable to restrain myself any longer. “I don't know when I ever saw such a lovely bosom as this, and such tempting, luscious bubbies!” and I slipped my hand into her bosom and seized a glowing globe and as I pressed it gently and squeezed the hard little nipples between my fingers, I kissed the lovely upturned mouth which was presented to me.

“Ah!” she cried, “who gave you leave to do that? Well! Exchange is no robbery and I will have something nice of yours to feel for myself too!”

Her nimble fingers had my trousers unbuttoned, my braces undone in front too, and with a whisk of her hand she had my shirt out, and with it my burning, maddened stallion, of which she took immediate and instant possession.

“Ah!” she cried, “Ah! oh! what a beauty! How handsome! bell topped! and so big! Isn't he just about stiff! He's like a bar of iron! and what fine big eggs you've got! My beautiful man! Oh! How I would like to empty them for you! Oh! you'll have me now! Won't you? do! do! oh! I feel that I could come so nicely if you only would!”

Would I have her? Why! Gods in Heaven! how could mortal man brimful of health, strength, youth and energy like myself, resist such an appeal to his ears and senses, and not comply, even if the fair petitioner were not half nor a quarter as beautiful as this lascivious and exquisite creature, whose hands were manipulating the most tenderly sensitive parts which man possesses! For all reply I gently pulled her on her back, she still kept a firm but voluptuous hold on her possessions, and I turned up her petticoat and chemise, and gliding my burning hand over the smooth surface of her ivory thigh, up to, I think, the most voluptuous bush I had ever seen or felt in my life! Never had my hand reposed on so voluptuous and full a motte! Never had my fingers probed a charm so full of life and so soft outside, so smooth and velvety inside as it did now, that this most perfect place, and the domain around and above it, were in my possession! I was eager to get between her lovely thighs, and to snatch my almost painfully strained organ from her hands, and bury it up to its hilt, and further, in this melting charm, but she stopped me. With her face and bosom flushed, her eyes dancing in her head, and a voice choked with the greatest excitement she cried:

“Let us put on our skins first!”

I was standing before her, my sword at an angle of at least seventy degrees, my sack and groin arching, for the most vigorous action had set in, and my reservoirs had already been filled to the utmost they could hold. I felt, I must either have this beautiful wild girl or burst!

“What do you mean?” I gasped.

“I'll show you! See!”

And in a moment she had, as it were, jumped out of her clothes, and stood, all naked and glowing, and radiant with beauty, real by all that is voluptuous and erotic before me.

In a moment or perhaps a little longer, for I had boots and socks as well as coat, shirt and trousers to take off, but at all events, in a brace of shakes, I was as naked as she! I can shut my eyes now and there before me I see this exquisitely formed creature, surely, quite the equal of the beautiful Mademoiselle de Maupin, standing in all her radiant nudity before me. That form so purely perfect, so inimitably graceful, those matchless limbs! That bosom with its hills of living snow topped with rosy fire and that more than voluptuous motte, a perfect “hill of Venus,” clothed with the richest dark bushes of curly hair, sloping rapidly down, like a triangle standing on its point, until its two sides, folding in, form the deep soft-looking and inside line, which proclaimed the very perfection of a Goddess. The only thing which slightly marred this perfect galaxy of beauty was the occurrence of some slight wrinkles, which like fine lines crossed the otherwise perfect plain of her fair belly, that exquisite belly with its dimpling navel!

Gods! I rushed at this lovely creature, and in another moment I was on top of her, between her wide-opened thighs and resting on her beautiful bosom. How elastic did her beautiful bubbies feel against my chest! and how soft, how inexpressibly delicious, did her cavern feel, as inch by inch I buried Johnnie in it, until my motte jammed against hers, and my eggs hanging, or rather squeezed, against her lovely white bottom. I could get in no further. And what a woman to have! Every movement of mine brought forth an exclamation of delight from her! To hear her you would have imagined it was the very first time her senses had been powerfully excited from their very foundation! Her hands were never still, they promenaded over me, from the back of my head to the intimate limits of my body to which they could reach. She was simply perfect in the art of giving and receiving pleasure. Every transport of mine was returned with interest, every mad thrust met with a corresponding buck which had the effect of taking my engine into its extreme root! And she seemed to do nothing but “come” or “spend”! I had heard of a woman “coming” thirteen or fourteen times during one session, but this woman seemed to do nothing else from beginning to end. But, it was not until I had arrived at the exciting, furious, ardent, almost violent short digs, that I knew to what an intense degree my Venus enjoyed pleasure! I thought she was in a fit! She almost screamed! She gurgled in her throat! She half-crushed me in her arms, and putting her feet on my behind, she pressed me to her motte, at the end, with a power I should never have thought she possessed. Oh! the relief! the exquisite delight of the spend on my part! I inundated her, and she felt the spouting torrents of my love darting in hot, quick jets, and striking against the deepest part of her almost maddened cleft! She seized my mouth with hers, and shot her tongue into it as far as she could, touching my palate, and pouring her hot, delicious breath down my throat whilst her whole body from head to heel literally quivered with the tremendous excitement she was in! Never in my life had I such a fling! Oh! why are there no better words to express what is really heaven upon earth?

The tempest past, we lay in one another's arms; tenderly gazing into one another's eyes. We were too breathless to speak at first. I could feel her belly heaving against mine, and her throbbing cunnie clasped my tool as though it had been another hand, whilst her motte leaped and bounded! I looked into that angelic-looking face, and drank in the intense beauty of it, nor could I believe it could be an abandoned woman, but rather Venus herself, whom I held thus clasped in my arms, and whose tender and voluptuous thighs encircled mine! I could have wished that she held her peace and let me dream that I was the much desired Adonis, and she my persistent, longing Venus, and that I had at length won her amorous wishes, and found the heaven in her arms of which, before I entered her matchless cleft, I had no notion. But my airy fancies were dispelled by her saying :

“You are a good poke and no mistake! Oh! You know how to do it! No fellow ever rams like that without he has been taught!”

“Yes!” I said, pressing her in my arms and kissing the ruby lips which had just spoken so coarsely but truly, and pointedly, “I have been well trained! I had good lessons in my boyhood, and I have always tried to practice them as often as possible!”

“Ah! ” she said. “I thought so! You do the heel-and-toe better than any man I've ever had, and I've had, I dare say, many more men than you've had women!”

Frank and how!

“What do you mean by heel-and-toe, my pet!”

“Oh! Don't you know? You do it at any rate! And splendid! Heel-and-toe is to begin each stroke at the very beginning and end it at the very end. Just give me one long stroke now!”

I did so. I withdrew until I was all but out of her panting orifice, and then gently but firmly drove it home; as far and as deep as I could, and then I rested again on her belly.

“There,” she cried, “that's it! You almost pull it out, but not quite, and never stop short in your thrusts, but send it home, with a sharp rap of your cods against my bottom! and that's what's good!”

And she appeared to smack her lips involuntarily. At length I withdrew, and my fairest nymph at once commenced a most minute examination of that part of me and its appendages which had pleased her so much. Everything was, according to her, absolutely perfect, and if I were to believe her there had not passed under her observation so noble and handsome an organ, and such beautiful, well balanced stones as I had and she was the mistress of! My stones especially pleased her! She said they were so big! She was sure they must be full of spend, and she intended, she told me, to empty them before she would consent to my leaving Nowshera!

This first sacrifice simply whetted our appetites, and still more inflamed with the minute examination of one another's charms, we fell to again, and writhed in the delicious agonies of another amorous combat! It was about two o'clock before I left her, and we had not been at any one time more than ten minutes “out of action.” The more I had of this exquisite creature, the more I longed to have her. I was fresh, young, strong, vigorous, and it was nearly two months (a long time for me) since I had last indulged in the delights of Cyprian pleasures. No wonder my Venus was pleased with me, and called my performances a perfect feast.

They say that love destroys appetite for food. Perhaps it does when it is love unrequited, but I give you my word, dear reader, that I was ravenous for my tiffin after my morning's work. I was really glad to get something to eat, for what with the heat of the combats I had been through, and the parching effect of the terrible hot wind blowing, I was dried up, as far as my mouth was concerned, though far from being so as regards the proceeds of my sack. I never felt so fit for woman as I did that day, and I never probably have had so much joy with so little loss of physical force. Doubtless my steady married life with its regular hours, regular meals, and regular, never-excessive sacrifices on the altar of Venus had much to do with the steady power I felt so strong in me, but over and above that, was the fact of my new lady love being extraordinarily beautiful, and voluptuously lascivious, and the erotic excitement raised in me, was, of course, great in proportion to the cause which gave birth to it. In spite of my hunger for food, I would certainly have remained with her on that most genial of beds, and have reveled on in her joyous arms, and filled her with quintessence of my manly vigor, but she told me she always slept in the afternoon, was hungry herself, and, doubting my power, she wished me to reserve some good portions of my force to be expended between her lovely thighs that night and for the solace of her liveliest of crannies.

Whilst the Khansamah was laying the table I saw a note addressed to me, leaning against the wall, on the mantelpiece, (for in Northern India the winters are sharp enough to render a fire not only pleasant but sometimes quite necessary), and taking it and opening it, wondering who the writer could be, as I was perfectly unknown in this part of the world, I found it to be from my young officer friend who had quitted Nowshera this morning, it ran thus:

“Dear Devereaux:—In the room next to yours is one of the loveliest of women and best of pokes!

Yours,

J.C.

P.S.—Don't offer her any rupees or you will offend her mortally, but if you are inclined to have her, and I think you will on seeing her, just tell her so and you won't have to ask twice.”

Ah! Dear young chap, now I understand why you were so reticent this morning and did not like to tell me that I had a lady for my next door neighbor! Well! Poor girl! I am afraid that you must be put down as one of the “irregulars,” although it is a shame to think ill of one who has given me the first few hours of real delight since I left home!

These thoughts naturally brought my beloved little wife into my recollection and I was somewhat staggered to feel I should so completely have forgotten her and my marital vows! But I was altogether too full of desire. Desire only just whetted and crying for more! More! I was in fact half mad with what some call lust and others love and, wife or no wife, nothing short of death would, or should, prevent my poking that heavenly girl again, and again, until I really could not raise a stand. I longed for evening. I burnt for night. I ate my tiffin like a ravenous tiger, hungry for food, but thirsting for the sweet savour of the blood of a victim he knew to be within easy reach. Tiffin put away, I lit a cheroot, and began wandering round and round my room, balancing impatiently at the door which closed the communication between it and that of my supposedly now sleeping Venus, and like Wellington wished and prayed for night or—not Blucher—her awakening! Suddenly it struck me as very funny that—supposing some catastrophe were to separate this girl and me, neither would be able to say who the other was! We had not exchanged names. My young friend the officer who signed his initials “J.C.” had not told me. I did not even know his name, though he knew mine, probably from seeing it painted on my baggage. Of a surety this lovely Venus must have a history, and I resolved to try and get her to give me her version of it, from which no doubt I could make out what was true and what was invention, for that she would tell me the exact truth I hardly expected. Oh! when would she awake?

Should I go and peep and see? By Jupiter, I would... Throwing away the fresh cheroot I had lighted I crept, in my stocking feet, to her chick, and pulled it slightly open, and there on the bed fast asleep, I saw my lovely enslaver. She had simply put on a petticoat and was lying on her back, with her hands clasped under her shapely head, her arms, bent in a charming position opened out, showing the little growth of hair under the arm pit next to me; hair the same in tint, but not so rich in color, as that magnificent bush I had moistened so liberally, aided by her own offerings this morning; her bosom bare and naked, with its two priceless breasts, so beautifully placed, so round, polished and firm, and her entire body down to her slender waist, quite nude! One knee, that next to me, was bent, the small graceful foot planted on the bed clothes, each gem of a toe straight and just separated from its neighbor, a foot that would have charmed the most fastidious sculptor that ever lived, whilst the other leg, bare almost from the groin downwards, was extended at full length, the lovely foot, which terminated it, resting against the edge of the bed, so that her thighs, those lovely voluptuous and maddening thighs, were parted! Gods! could I remain outside while so much beauty was freely displayed, on which I could feast my burning eyes whilst its lovely owner slept? I went gently and noiselessly in, and passing round to the other side of the bed, so that my shadow might not fall on that exquisite form, and hide the light, already softened by the chick, from it, and gazed in silence on the beautiful girl who had made me enjoy the bliss of Mahomet's heaven in her voluptuous embraces that forenoon. How lovely was her sleep! Who, looking on that face so pure in all its lines, so innocent in all its expressions, could imagine that in that soul there burnt the fire of an unquenchable Cytherian furnace. Who, looking on those matchless breasts could imagine that lovers innumerable had pressed them with lascivious hand or lip and been supported by them when they trembled in the agonies and the delight of having her?

The fair broad plain of her belly was still hidden by the upper portion of her petticoats, but the fine lines, which I had noticed when she “put on her skin,” had told me the tale, that perhaps more than once it had been the breeding place of little beings, who, cast in such a beauteous mold, must needs be as beautiful as their lovely mother! I, who, looking at those virginal breasts which seemed as if they had never been disturbed by pent-up milk, and whose rosebud-like nipples seemed never to have been sucked, by the cherry lips of babies; who gazing in the girlish face, could connect such charms with the pains, the caress, and duties of maternity? No! surely, like the fair Houris of Mahomet's paradise, she must have been created for the fulfillment of the pleasure only, not for the consequences of the kiss of love! But the wrinkles told a different tale, and I should like to examine them more closely. It would be easy to do, if only they were naked, all but a small portion near the groin, and all that I had to do was to lift, gently, so as not to disturb her sleep, the part of her petticoat which still hid her there, and lay the garment back upon her waist.

With a hand trembling with excitement, I did so! lo! my nymph almost as naked as she was born! God of Gods! What a blaze of exciting beauty! I had uncovered the sweet belly to look at the wrinkles, but my eye was captured before it lifted its gaze so high! As the bird is caught in the snare surrounding the luscious bait exposed for it, so were my eyes entangled in the meshes of that glorious hair, which from the forest-like bush growing on that voluptuous motte, and shading the slit, the like of which for freshness, beauty, and all that excites desire, could not have existed in that to anybody but that of the great Mother of love, Venus herself. It seemed to me impossible that this beauteous portal to the realms of bliss, could have been invaded by so many worshippers as her speech of the morning had led me to believe. It looked far from having been hard used. What grand full lips it had. How sweetly it was placed. How pretty did the fine dark hairs, which crossed it look against the whiteness of the skin, whose foldings formed that deep and perfect line. What a perfect forest overshadowed it, and how divine were the slopes of that glorious hill, the perfect little mountain, which led up the sweet descent to the deep vale between her thighs, and ended in that glowing grotto in which love delighted to hide his blushing head, and shed the hot tears of his exulting joy.

But what is that? What is that little ruby tip I see beginning to protrude, near the upper meeting of those exquisite lips? She moves. See! I think she must be dreaming! She slightly closes her bent leg towards that one outstretched! It is her most sensitive clitoris, as I live! See! It grows more and more! And by the Gods! it actually moves in little jerks, just like an excited stem standing stiff, and mad at the thoughts of hot desire!

I gazed at the tranquil face of the sleeping beauty, her lips moved and her mouth opened slightly showing the pearly teeth! Her bosom seemed to expand, her breasts to swell, they rose and fell more rapidly than they had been doing before this evident dream of love fulfilled or about to be, invaded the soft heart of this perfect priestess of Venus! Ah! Her bubbies do move! Their rosebuds swell out, they stand, each like an eager sentinel perched on the snowy tip of his own mountain, watching for the loving foe who is to invade this dreaming girl to the soft, and sharp and hot encounter.

Again those thighs close on one another. Heaven! again they open to show the domain of love, excited, moving, leaping, actually leaping! That glittering ruby clit is evidently striving to feel the manly staff of which my charmer dreams. Why not turn the dream into a sweet and luscious reality?

I do not hesitate. I swiftly strip and in a moment I am as naked as I had been that morning, but I would like to see whether, as when I raped my cousin Emily, my second love, I could actually get into this sleeping girl, before she woke to find me in her glowing orifice. So I gently got over her thigh next me, and with knees between hers I supported myself upon my hands, one on each side of her and stretching out my legs backward, kept my eyes fixed on the sweet and burning cranny I intended to invade. I lowered my body until I brought the head and point of my agitated and jerking tool exactly opposite its lower half, and then I maneuvered it in!

Gods! The voluptuousness of that moment! I could see myself penetrating that seat of love and luxury! I could feel the cap fall back from the tingling head of my member and fold behind its broad purple shoulder! For a moment I glanced at her face to see if she had perceived the gallant theft I was making of her secret jewel! No! She was asleep, but in the excitement of an erotic dream! Little by little I pressed further and further in, only withdrawing, to give her more pleasure. I am nearly all in—her thick and lofty bush hides the last inch or so of my spear from my eyes, our hairs co-mingle, my eggs touch her, and she wakes with a start!

In a moment her eyes met mine with that keen, almost wild glance, which had so impressed me when I saw her out of the gharry, but in a moment they changed and beamed with pleasure and affectionate caresses.

“Ah! Is it you?” she cried, “I was dreaming of you! You darling man to wake me so sweetly!”

Some burning kisses, some close, close hugs, some little exclamations of delight, and then breast to breast, belly to belly, mouth to mouth, we play for the ninth or tenth time. I really don't know which, that same excited tune which had sounded all that morning so melodiously to our ravished senses. Heel-and-toe! as she called it: delicious movements mingling in every part, hot, quick, thrilling short digs, and then the torrents of two volcanoes of love burst forth simultaneously and mingled their lava floods in the hot recesses buried below the sylvan slopes of the Hill of Venus.

The gong on which the non-commissioned officer of the guard sounds the hour of the day in India, rang five o'clock. We had been in intense action nearly a whole hour, and my charming beauty was for the fifteenth time examining what she called, my “wonderful” member and stones, wonderful, because the first showed no symptoms of fatigue, and the second no signs of exhaustion or depletion.

“I don't believe this can be a proper tool at all!” said she feeling it, pressing it, and kissing its impudent looking head, first on one side and then on the other.

“Why?” I asked laughing.

“Because it's always stiff as a poker—always standing!”

“That is because it admires your delicious cranny so much, my darling, that it is always in a hurry to get back into it after it has been taken out!”

“Well! I never saw one like it before! All other men that I have had always grew soft and limp, after the second go at any rate, and generally took a good deal of coaxing to get to stand again, unless one gives them lots of time! But yours! I never, never, met one like it! It will give me a lot of trouble. I can see, to take all the starch out of it!”

“Oh! but I can assure you my most lovely girl, that with ordinary women I am just as you describe the men you have known. I can assure you it must be your extraordinary beauty which has such a powerful effect upon me! Come!” I continued opening my arms and thighs. “Come and lie on top of me and let me kiss you to death!”

Enraptured by the lavish, but not unmerited, praise of her beauty, she threw herself, with a cry of delight, on top of me, and my manhood found a sweet resting place between our respective bellies. She took and gave me the sweetest kisses, murmuring little words of love and passion like a cat purring, until I was just going to propose that she should put her thighs outside mine, and let me have her a la St. George, when a sudden idea seemed to strike her. She raised herself on her hand and asked me:

“I say! Have you reported your arrival to the Station Staff Officer?”

What an idea! Fancy talking of such common-place things just as I was about to propose the most delicious thing a woman can have from man, the very poetry of life and love! I could not but think of Mrs. Shandy asking her husband when he was in the middle of that operation which resulted in Tristram nine months later, whether he had wound up the clock.

“My dear girl!” I cried. “Bother the Station Staff Officer and all his reports. Come! I am hungry for another sweet go! I want this!” and I slipped my hand under her belly and between her thighs, and my middle finger into her palpitating cavern.

“No!” she said, forcibly pushing my invading hand away. “No! Not one more until you have gone and reported yourself! Ah! you don't know the regulations, I see! But I do! I have not been in India all these years without learning what they are, and Major Searles, the Brigade Major here, is a perfect beast and devil! You may depend upon it he knows you are here, and he would be only delighted to get a chance of sitting on you, and he will be able to do so if you don't report yourself before dark—mind! you got here early this morning!”

I tried to convince her that I did not care a fig for Major Searles and all the Bengal regulations to boot! I said I was on duty and the post of honor being between her lovely thighs, and my Johnnie anxious to go his rounds of her, I did not think I could properly quit my duty in her body, to go and perform another which would do quite well enough tomorrow, by which time, in all probability, Johnnie would have come off guard, and would require a rest from his labors! But it was of no use: she declared I did not know my man, she told me a great deal more, from which it was very plain that something unpleasant had occurred between herself and Major Searles, and that it really did matter very much, to herself if not to me, that I should report my arrival, and do so at once.

Never did man more unwillingly do anything than I did when, in obedience to my lovely tyrant's commands, I dressed and walked out to find the house of the Brigade Major. I know men will not believe me, and none give me credit when I say, that I felt as if I had not one single lay since I left England. That my groin ached and I had all the sensations of a man who is soon about to have the joust he has most looked forward to, for which he has lived chastely and in reserve, in order to enjoy it more and for which he burns, I can only state the fact and let others believe or not as they like. Certain it is, that there are times when either from length of time, or the way in which a woman affects him, a man exhibits far greater power in the fields of Venus than at other times. Let me imitate Theophile Gautier, and request my readers, male and female, to remember that especial time, when the former had that splendid night, and the latter when she had the active, strong, big lover, the best of all she ever had, as far as love making goes.

In this state I walked over to the bungalow which was pointed out to me as that of the Brigade Major. I was so fortunate that I met him just as he was going out, with his smooth English terrier, for a walk before dinner.

“May I ask are you Major Searles, the Brigade Major, sir?”

“Yes, I am!”

“I should have come earlier to report my arrival, sir, but I have traveled so far in dak gharries that I have been lying down all day, and it was so very hot when I got up that I have deferred my coming to report myself until now.”

“And who may you be sir?”

“I am Capt. Charles Devereaux, of the First East Folk Regiment of Infantry, and I am on my way to Cherat to join my Battalion on promotion.”

“Oh! indeed! How do you do, Capt. Devereaux! I am sorry that I did not know you at first! Will you come in or are you inclined for a little stroll? Will you come over to Mess of the 130th and let me introduce you to the officers? I am afraid you won't get to Cherat quite so soon as you may wish; every blessed machine with wheels has been ordered for a week to come, so that if I were offered lakhs of rupees I could not get you a conveyance here—besides which the road from Publi to Shakkote, at the foot of the hill is Kacha and bad for anything heavier than an ekkha and you would have to ride up the hill when you get there.”

The whole manner of the man was changed when he found I was an officer and what was more a captain, i.e., just one grade below himself in rank. Had I been a subaltern, he might have kept up a higher degree of hauteur.

At first I thought my new acquaintance rather an agreeable man. He spoke affably and pleasantly. Asked me about my voyage, my stay in Bombay, and journey up country. He spoke about the war which would practically come to an end when the Kandahar expedition had blown Ayoob Khan and the conquerors of the ill-fated Maiwand to the four winds of Heaven; then returned to the subject of Nowshera, the Dak Bungalow, its inmates, and turning to the subject of my well-known, as far as her most secret charms were concerned, but perfectly-unknown mistress, and soon he commenced a series of very subtle questions, which, from their very guardedness, showed me that there was one person, and one circumstance, which he was approaching, like a cunning cat stalking a sparrow, taking every cover as a guard as he crept up to it. I remembered the evident repugnance my new love had shown when speaking of Major Searles, and I fenced his questions, until he at last asked me openly:

“Have you seen a woman, a rather lady-like person, in the Bungalow?”

“I have seen one lady,” I replied, “but there may be more than that for all that I know, in the house, I have not been over it, so I cannot tell if the one I have seen is the person you refer to.”

“Well!” said he, “let me warn you that the woman I refer to is the wife of a non- commissioned officer—she is very pretty, and, I regret to say, about the most abandoned woman in India, if not in the whole world. She must be suffering from nymphomania, for she cannot see a man without she asks him to have her, and as she is really lovely to look at, it is quite in the cards that if she asks a young man, fresh out from England like you, he might accept the proposition, and think that he had fallen in with a very good thing indeed—but—pardon me—let me finish—the penalty for adultery with a European woman, in India, is two years imprisonment and a fine of two thousand rupees and expulsion from India of the woman herself. Already the woman I speak of has rendered herself liable to expulsion, hundreds of times, but no one has as yet informed against her, but her conduct at Peshawar has been so scandalous, and indecent, that proceedings will most likely be taken against her. A strict watch of which she is not aware is being kept on her, and some unfortunate fellow, say yourself, for you are young and no doubt do not dislike the ladies, ha! ha! ha! might find himself a victim of her lust, for lust it is and nothing else.”

“Well! Major Searles,” I replied, “I am a married man and so I hope less liable to temptation from the part of duty than the unfortunate bachelor. Many thanks, however, for your timely warning, for of course I know that, married or single, a man may become the victim of his passions especially when taken off his guard by a pretty woman!”

“Ah! You speak truly!” he replied, “and I can tell you that this wretched creature is as lovely as an Houri, and as lustful as the most able whore in Babylon.”

I had not lived so long a life of the worship of Venus without having seen a good deal of the hidden springs of men's minds, and I came to the conclusion that this tirade of friend Major Searles was not altogether spoken on the side of virtue, or caution, but that it was a kind of warning—“don't you touch that woman, she is my preserve, and no one hunts in the forest between her thighs but myself!”

The arrival at the Mess brought our conversation to a close. Like most Messes of Regiments, which have been some time in India, this one was composed of a nice set of generally hospitable officers, but who were more or less languid from a long residence in a hot and unhealthy climate. They were also too much accustomed to seeing new faces, through the men going to or returning from Afghanistan, to be very greatly interested in men, but they were cordial and kind, made me drink a couple of “pegs,” asked me to dinner the next night, which happened to be their “guest” night, and begged me to consider myself an honorary member of their Mess so long as I should remain in Nowshera.

I would willingly have been excused from accepting their kind invitation to dinner, because I was so infatuated with my charming girl in the Dak Bungalow, that the thought of being out of reach of her brilliant charms was purgatory to me and my senses, but Major Searles was there, and his eyes were on me and I felt that if my Surmises as to the relations between himself and “ my ” lovely woman were correct, I had better ward off suspicion on his part, by cordially accepting the invitation, which I accordingly did with all the warmth I could muster. This seemed to relieve the Major, for he turned and chatted with another officer. They asked Searles whether he would come and meet me at dinner but he said he had some work to do tomorrow evening, but if he could find time he would gladly come and rattle the balls about at a game of billiards later in the evening.

After waiting a decent time I said I would go and have a look about whilst daylight lasted, and Searles proposed to accompany me. The man bored and bothered me, and I wished him in hell, for my ideas about him began to become very jealous. I thought it extremely likely that he had had my charmer, indeed, I was certain he had, but I could not suffer him to do so whilst I was in Nowshera. I meant to keep her delicious sex for myself, she had offered it to me and I was its present master and entitled to remain so! I knew of the law and of the fine of which he had spoken and they did not frighten me as like all Draconian laws, it was seldom it was put in force, but I could not hide from myself that a jealous man, if he is at all a brute, would be able to very sadly interfere with such a liaison as I had now on hand, and make it very uncomfortable for the woman too. I had the sense, however, to try and keep my feelings under control, and be as agreeable as possible. Our walk was a very simple and short one, for it was straight from the Mess to the Oak Bungalow, where Searles, as if unconsciously, led the way. I offered him a 'peg', but he declined, as he said the liquor in the Bungalow was vile, which was true, and they had no ice. Neither had the Mess then. Ice was unknown beyond Jhelum. But the Mess had the simple means, so easily used whilst the hot, dry winds last, of cooling liquids by placing bottles in baskets of wet straw, in a position where the wind blows upon them, the rapid evaporation soon causes the temperature of the bottles to fall very low, and ice is not wanted. I did not know or had forgotten this, but I soon had it put in practice by the Khansamah, and that very night and every day following I had cool drinks.

We sat in the verandah until it was dark. The gallant Major never referred to my connection, whose brilliant and piercing eyes I felt darting their rays at us from behind the chick, and whose ears I was sure were drinking in every word. Then Searles went, only referring to his important conversation by the warning words: “Don't forget what I told you!”

“All right! Major! Many thanks! Good night!”

When it was certain that he was gone, my lady glided into the verandah and occupied the chair that Searles had sat in.

“What has that brute been telling you about me?” asked she, her voice quivering with passion.

I gave her an exact account of all that had passed between us, and when I told her, though in much softened language, of the way he had spoken of her, she strode to her feet and walked up and down the verandah in a towering rage like an infuriated tiger.

“The black livered blackguard!” she exclaimed, “oh! truly a nice man to preach continence and virtue. I should like to know who drove his wife to the hills to become the real whore she is! Yes! she is a whore if you like! She asks money from her men! It's five hundred rupees a night to have her, it is! I never yet asked a man for a piece, and I would not take one, or a million, as payment! If I do play, I play for pleasure, and because I like my lover! But I hate a cad! and if ever there was a cad in this world it's Major Searles,” and she spat on the ground in token of her detestation for him!

I used all my arts of gentle persuasion to try to calm her down, and at length succeeded. She told me that Searles had never had her with her permission. He had sent her message after message begging to be allowed to come and pay his “respects” but she had persistently refused all reply. I never got exactly the reason she abhorred him so much, but evidently there had been some circumstance which had raised a wall of hatred and aversion between them. She said that Searles was a man no woman could trust, and that supposing he could get the two thousand rupees for betraying her as a reward, and evade the punishment of the imprisonment, he was just the man who would get her to have him and then report the circumstance! It was evident that she hated him with more than ordinary hate, and I must confess I was glad to hear it, for I feared Searles had some right over her, and I, that I should have the mortification of knowing that he was reaping the indescribable bliss in her arms, whilst I was raging in silent torture in my room and I felt that such a thing would be perfectly unbearable.

Lizzie, for such at last I found was her name, dined with me that night and before we retired to bed she told me part of her history. I propose, but not just at present, to take you, my patient readers into my confidence, and tell you what were the adventures of her amorous love, but before doing so I must explain how the abhorred attentions of Major Searles were put a complete end to, and Lizzie Wilson ridded herself of a man who had been her plague for some years.

The fatigue caused by several continuous day and night travels in a dak gharry, the excitement caused by the glorious and wholly unexpected bonne fortune which had thrown me a most willing though surprised victim, into Lizzie's fair arms, and no doubt the excessive ardor with which I had fought the lovely foe, all combined to make me very tired, and after I had manfully resisted the heavy hand of sleep and had come out victorious with flying colors and standard still borne aloft, from two desperate encounters, I could no more, but sank by Lizzie's side into the most complete, and indeed refreshing sleep, which I had since I left Bombay. My readers will not be surprised to hear that when I awoke the next day, I had become what Lizzie called a “common man” i.e. the almost supernatural force which had sustained me the day before, had yielded up its extreme strength and like a second but far sweeter Delilah, she had shorn me of my source of strength, in so far that after the first morning sacrifice my proper weapon assumed the posture of repose and it required the titillations of Lizzie's fair fingers, now toying with and caressing my eggs, now wandering along my groin now running the scale along my staff, and bringing that important charm into the rigid and erect state which enables it to perform its delicious duty. What a day that was! I think the alternate conditions of languor and fiery action were, on the whole, more delightful than the fierce and stormy tempest which had driven us so fiercely the day before. Lizzie too actually confessed that a second day like the first would have killed her. That her back was broken and that she felt she had indeed been grinding and been ground. So in spite of the cruel hot wind, and the savage bitings of the sand flies, terrible little pests so small that they can hardly be seen, and perfect torments to a tender skin, I passed a most delicious day. Lizzie was sand-fly proof, like some people get mosquito proof, but I, fresh from England, afforded those abominable pests the flies a feast, as rich in its way as the voluptuous bower between my Lizzie's thighs had been for me! Every rose has its thorn, my sweet girl readers, and alas! most pleasures have their drawbacks. Happy are those who make the most of the rose and the least of the thorn.

I had hired a native servant as my factotum, when I stayed at Lahore en route for my destination at Cherat, a capable man he was, and one who had an eye to business, for whether he was married or not I do not know, but he brought a very fine young native woman with him, and as the reader will hear her talents were not thrown away at Cherat on others, though I had far finer game to follow than was afforded by Mrs. Soubratie's brown skin and somewhat mellow charms, for though no more than twenty she had gone the way of almost all Indian women, and her bosom had begun to flow, and her bubbies otherwise fine and plump, hung in a despondent manner, defects however so common that they are little heeded by the British officers or soldiers, who whet their appetites on the fine, juicy slits, rather than on the personal graces of the dames who afforded them pleasure. Soubratie, hearing I was going to Mess, got out my nice, new, clean white mess clothes, and adorned himself also gorgeously, and armed with a lantern, saw me safely across the compound, ankle deep in the dust road, to the Mess of the regiment, where I was going to partake of the generous hospitality of the generous 130th. Is it any use to describe the anteroom, with its swinging punkahs, chairs, tables and pictures, carpets, books, newspapers: trophies of the chase, etc., etc. Shall I tell how the staff and important Adjutant welcomed me in a proper and decent style, the Colonel with an “inspection” looked at me; the other officers whom I had not yet met, with a polite and “glad to see you” from their lips and “I wonder what the devil kind of a fellow you are,” glance of their eyes. Most regiments are alike: when you have seen one you have seen all. The English officer is undoubtedly a fearful “stick” and of all weary humdrum lives, Mess life is the most dreary. Along with the air of ennui and boredom there is a more good, naughty, wicked, devil-may-care current, which forms the pit of an officer's life, and I knew well that when a good dinner had been eaten, a good share of fairly good wine drunk, and cigars and “pegs” had become the evening fare, I should hear a good deal more than I was likely to at the dinner table, where propriety and stiffness more or less ruled the roost, accordingly, as I was now. I heard the old stories of the war, tales of savagery, cowardly cruelty on the part of the Afghans, with an occasional growl at the generals and authorities who, it seemed, must have been incompetent to a degree or far greater results would have occurred from the valor of the British troops. I knew how to discount all this; and listened with interest, more or less affected, to my new friends' commiserations and views. But the “cloth off the table" brought a subject which is always congenial to the front. Woman, lovely woman, began to be discussed. My young acquaintance J. C.'s statement as to the complete absence of women from Tommy Atkins' quarters in Afghanistan, and the consequent immense demand for love on his return to civilization and comfort was immediately confirmed. In those days, (it has been very recently altered) the regulations obliged a certain number of native girls to be especially engaged for the services of each regiment, and these ladies of the camp accompanied their regiment wherever they marched in India, just as much a part and parcel of them as the colonel, adjutant, quartermaster. But Tommy likes variety, as well as other people, and in every place where there is a “bazaar” or shops, there are establishments for ladies of pleasure, these latter earn a good many four anna bits which should by rights find their way into the pockets of the proper regimental whores. The recent influx of troops into Peshawar from Afghanistan had created an enormous demand for willing girls and Nowshera, Attock, even Rawal Pindi, Umballa and other places had been denuded of “Polls” who gathered like birds of carrion where the carcass lay. This was the great grievance for the officers of the gallant 130th, who were almost as badly off for women as they had been when they were at Jellabad, and at Lundi Kotal, at which latter place a Goorki soldier, who had got a bad clap from some native woman, was universally spoken of as the “Lucky Goorki!” Not because of the clap, bien entendu, but because, though he suffered afterwards, he had managed to secure for himself a pleasure so uncommon under the circumstances, that it seemed like water a thousand miles distant to a traveler lost in the great Sahara!

Once the subject of love and women was started rolling the tongues of those who had been most reticent during dinner were set wagging, and I found a most entertaining host in the fat, pudgy, double-chinned major, who seemed to take a fancy to me. He proposed that we should adjourn outside where the band of the regiment was performing some operatic airs, and lively dance music, and there we sat, in those voluptuous Madras long arm chairs, enjoying whatever coolness there was in the air, the sounds of the suggestive music and the brilliancy of the myriad of bright stars which glittered over head, literally like “diamonds in the sky.”

“Searles, our Brigade Major, said he would come this evening,” said the Major, “but I rather think he won't.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he is struck with a very pretty little woman in the Dak Bungalow.”

This I guess was a shot at me.

“Indeed! Well! I hope he will succeed and get his greens! Poor chap!”

“Oh! Do you! Well! We are all saying that it was a damned shame, because we had made up our minds that you were surely in her good graces yourself, and we thought it mean of Searles to try and cut in whilst you were out! ha! ha! ha!”

“Oh!” I said quietly, “but I am a married man, Major! and have just left my wife, and do not go in for that sort of thing! So, as far as I am concerned, Major Searles is welcome to the lady if he can persuade her to grant him her favors.”

“Well! But Searles is a married man himself, Devereaux!”

“Oh! I dare say! I don't mean to imply that a married man is impervious to the charms of other women because he is married. I am not strait-laced, and I dare say I should be quite as liable as anybody else to have a woman who was not my wife, but you know I have not been married long enough to be tired of my wife, and I have not been long enough away from her to feel any inclination to commit adultery yet!”

“Well! Searles is a Major—but he's a brute! Yet I somehow pity the poor devil too! I don't know how it is, but he and his wife, a devilish fine woman, a perfect Venus in her way, don't get on altogether well; in fact she has left him!”

“Oh! my! do you say so?”

“Yes! Now mind you Devereaux, you must not give me as your authority, but I can tell you that he treated that poor woman like a brute, half-killing her with a blow from the side of his hair brush; devilish—nearly smashed her skull, you know, and after that she left him, and went and set up on her own account at Ranikhet.”

I am sure my dear readers are amused at my assuming the air of a thoroughly moral young husband still contented with the breasts of his spouse, as Solomon, I think it is, tells us we ought to be, but of course I was not going to amuse my new friend or indeed any others, with tales which somehow spread so wonderfully quickly, and in rapidly widening circles, until they reach the ears of those we would least wish to hear them. Really and truly, my heart and conscience pricked me when this conversation brought to mind my beloved little Louie, and I thought of her in her lovely bed, perhaps weeping in sad silence as she prayed for the safety, welfare and quick return home, of him whom she loved so dearly, who made her joyous by day, and gave her rapturous fun at night, her husband, and the darling father of her angel baby girl. But alas! the spirit is willing and the flesh weak, as I have remarked before; and the weakness of the flesh exceeds the strength of the spirit in importance.

But the conversation was bearing directly on a subject which was becoming interesting to me since I had seen Searles and heard Lizzie's indignant remark that his wife was a regular whore, whose price for her charms was, however, uncommonly high. I did not mind what my fat major said about Searles' designs on Lizzie that evening, because Lizzie would have to have been a most unaccountably stupid deceiver, if she had merely expressed abhorrence of him to blind me! No, I felt certain the abhorrence was real and true, and I had no fear that I should find that she had afforded him a retreat, either hospitable or the reverse in her sweetest nook, when I got home to her again.

“How do you mean setting up on her own account, Major?” said I.

“Oh! hum! well! look here; bend your head a little nearer to me! I don't want to talk too loudly! Well! she is—that is any fellow almost, who cares to give her a cool five hundred rupees, can have her.”

“Ah! bosh! Major, I can't believe that! Surely you are mistaking some ill-natured gossip for facts!”

“Oh no! I'm not!” replied my pudgy friend, speaking with great gusto. “By God! Sir! If seeing is believing I can swear to it! I can swear to the fact!”

“What!” said I in well effected incredulous tones, “you want to persuade me that an officer's wife, a lady like Mrs. Searles must be, has actually done a monstrous, not to say such an idiotic thing, as not only to leave her husband, a thing I cannot understand, and to set up as a whore, and in such a place as Ranikhet, a thing I cannot understand! Surely, Major, you are mistaken! Remember! we are told to believe nothing we hear and only half what we see!”

“I know! I know!” said he, still as calmly as if he were Moses laying down the law, “but look here Devereaux, you won't tell me I am a liar if I say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that my proof of what I say is that I, Jack Stone, have had Mrs. Searles, and paid for my game! Yes sir! Rupees five hundred did Jack Stone pay Mrs. Searles for a night in Mrs. Searles' bed.”

“Goodness, and you have actually—”

“I have actually had her, sir! and had her well! and a damned fine poke she is too, I can tell you, and well worth the five hundred she asks for the fun. Such a damned fine poke is she that Jack Stone, who is not a rich man but must lay up for a rainy day, has put three times five hundred rupees away in the bank of Simla, and means to lodge them some day soon in the bank of Ranikhet, Mrs. Searles banker and sole proprietress, which bank is her voluptuous slit, between her voluptuous thighs. Did you mark that, young man!”

“And does Searles know this?” I asked, still incredulous.

“What? that I have had his wife?”

“No, not that you in particular have had her, but that she is had by other men, and for money paid down on the nail.”

“Know it! of course he does! It's her way of paying him off for his brutal conduct to her, to give him nuts by writing and telling him how nicely she is dragging his name through the mud.”

“Then why does he not divorce her?” I cried, indignantly, for I felt that it was monstrous that a wife, no matter what her grievance might be, should behave in such an outrageous manner.

“Ah!—but sink your voice a little lower, Devereaux, not that all this is not perfectly well known by our fellows, but about the divorce. Well you see if what I have heard is true, a divorce is the last thing Searles can get, or would care to ask for, no matter how much he might wish it could be managed.

“Certain little things would come out at the trial, and he might find himself not only minus a wife whom he hates, and also minus his liberty and what remains of his honor, and I don't think anyone would care to become a convict even to rid himself of his wife!”

“What was it?” asked I, quite bitten with curiosity.

“Oh! Searles was a long time in Persia before he married, and he got the Persian taste for boys! I wig! sodomy! you know!” And the modest major sank his voice to a whisper. “Sodomy! he tried to get Mrs. Searles to acquire a taste for it herself, but she, like a proper woman, indignantly refused to comply. It might have stopped there, but one night Searles, full of zeal and brandy, actually ravished his poor wife's—hem—hem—well!—bum! and from that day she hated him—quite naturally, I think! Then of course she gave him the nag, nag, rough side of her tongue, until he nearly killed her, as I told you, in his passion. Then she went and set up at Ranikhet.”

“But,” said I, horrified to hear such a disgusting story, so loathsome on either side, “how is it she can demand such enormous sums for which I expect equally good returns can be got almost anywhere in India!”

“Oh! but you don't know. First of all, Mrs. Searles is in society—she is, I suppose, the most beautiful woman in India, if not in all Asia!”

“In society!”

“Yes! bless you! you don't understand. Now come! You, who have seen the world at home! Have you not heard how Mrs. So-and-So is suspected of poking, and yet you have met her every night at the best houses? Have you not seen common or fast women, who dare to do what your own wife or sister dare not, and nobody says more than that they are fast? Do you suppose you know what women actually do poke, and those who only get the credit for it? It is just the same with Mrs. Searles. She lives in a pretty little bungalow, some three miles deep in the hills of Ranikhet, she calls it Honeysuckle Lodge, but the funny fellows call it Cunnie-Fuckle Lodge; Ha! ha! ha! and she has named the hill it is on Mount Venus; she stays there all the hot weather, in the cold weather she goes to Lucknow or Meerut, or Agra, or Benares, or wherever she likes. No fellow has her without an introduction. The Viceroy is damned spoony on her, and that is sufficient to keep the fashionable people quiet. People suspect, people know, but people only pretend to think it possible for the quiet lady, living in a little bungalow, away from all the world, minding her garden and her flowers, is anything but a poor, persecuted wife whose husband is a brute!”

“Oh! that is it! So to have her you must get an introduction?”

“Yes! Without that you might as well cry for the moon!”

“And how is it to be managed?” I asked out of simple curiosity, for I had no notion of having Mrs. Searles, but I was interested in this curious story, of which I did not know how much to believe or how much to discredit.

“Ha! ha! ha! Devereaux! I fancy you are beginning to think whether you can find five hundred rupees for yourself, eh?”

“Not a bit!” said I indignantly, “I have no idea of such a thing, but simply asked out of curiosity!”

“Well!” said the pudgy little major, puffing his cheroot hard as it had nearly gone out, “no harm to tell you, any how! You can get an introduction from any man who has had her! I could give you one for instance. See! This is how I had her. I had heard of Mrs. Searles and had, like everybody else, heard funny reports about her, which, like I see you do now, you only half believe. Well! I did not then know she lived at Ranikhet, but chance made me pitch upon that place to spend three weeks leave in during the hot weather of '75. The Viceroy and his staff were spending the time there also, and everybody was wondering why he chose Ranikhet instead of Naini Tal. There is reason in everything and Mrs. Searles was his reason, no doubt. However, I must not be too long winded. I met Lord Henry Broadford, the Assistant Military Secretary, you know. Broadford had been at school with me, and is a damned good fellow. One day, soon after I went to Ranikhet, I was standing talking to Broadford, when the finest, handsomest woman I had ever seen walked by, and Broadford took off his hat and smiled, and she bowed. She looked full at me as I took off my hat and by George sir! she made my heart thump in my bosom, she was so lovely. When she was out of earshot I said, 'Harry, who is your friend? By God, she is a clinker and no mistake!'”

“'Don't you know,' says he, 'why, that is the famous Mrs. Searles.'

“'Is it,' says I, and then I asked him if he knew whether it was true she poked, as people said. Broadford looked at me and grinned and said:

“'Would you like to know for certain, Stone?' and I said, 'Yes.'

“'Well,' says he, 'the most certain way is to poke her yourself, for you might not believe me if I told you that I was in bed with her up to five o'clock this morning!”

“'I don't believe you, you beggar!' said I, 'you are laughing at me.'

“'All right!' says he, 'have you five hundred rupees to lose on a bet?'

“'Well!' I hesitated, five hundred is a large sum and the subject was not worth it. Seeing me hesitate, he said. 'Well, would you give five hundred rupees to have Mrs. Searles yourself, Jack?'

“'Yes,' said I, plump as could be.

“'Then come along with me,' said Broadford.

“Well, we went to my hotel, and there Broadford made me write a cheque, and get five one-hundred rupee notes from the native banker, new and crisp, in exchange. Then he made me write a letter addressed to Mrs. Searles, in which I asked her might I come and take dinner with her on such and such a day, naming the day. I was more than half afraid the fellow was humbugging me, but he pulled out a case from his pocket, and showed me a lovely photo in it of a naked, stark naked lady, bush and all complete, and, says he, Mrs. Searles gives one of these to each of her lovers, and she gave me this this morning, see, her name, date and the number of times I had her last night! Well, I looked at the photo, and sure enough there was no mistaking it was the lady I had just seen, besides which I remembered having seen photos of her taken in the plains.

“By God! sir! the sight of such lovely charm settled my hash. I told Broadford that he would have to bear the brunt if anything went wrong. He swore all would be right, and after I had signed my name to the note to Mrs. Searles, he added his initials and W. T. B. P.

“'What does that mean?' I asked.

“'Will there be pokes? of course!' Well, this done, I put the five good crisp notes in the letter, and we went to the post office, registered it, and then I began to think I had been made a fool of. But it was all right. The day afterwards I got a registered letter. It was from Mrs. Searles. In it were my five notes. She said she was very sorry, but that she did not think she could have the pleasure of my company at dinner for another ten days, would I write again in about a week's time, if that would suit me, and she would be sure not to disappoint me. I rushed off, found Broadford, and nearly had a fit of apoplexy from excitement. By his advice I waited some eight days, then sent another letter, and again enclosed the notes, and I added on my own hook, W. T. B. P. Next came a letter by hand. It said 'my dear Jack' this time. It invited me to dine the next evening at eight, and ended with Matilda Searles. W.T.B.P.'

“And did you go?”

“Oh! What a question! Of course I did. By God, Sir! I was simply bursting. Even now I can hardly tell my story with any degree of quiet! Well, I went; I was received by her in an awfully pretty little drawing room, most beautifully furnished, and bristling with knick-knacks, mirrors, pictures and everything that can make a room handsome and elegant. The floor was covered with carpet into which one's feet sank as one walked on it. Mrs. Searles was sitting reading when I arrived, and as soon as the bearer had gone out of the room she came and took my hand, shook it, and then kissed me! I was so excited, I felt such a sense of false shame, that at first I was like a stuck pig! But she quickly put me at my ease, sat on the sofa, made me sit next her, jammed her knee against mine, and whilst asking me where, how and when I had known Lord Henry Broadford, she showed off her splendid shoulders and magnificent bosom. I was awfully randy in my way, I had been randy all the days I had been waiting for her, but I was so knocked over by the elegance I saw, on my first arrival, that I declare, if the truth were told, I felt inclined to run away. But little by little, as I got to see the woman I was going to have, as I began to hear her talk as if we were quite old chums, and as she talked, her hand playing with mine, to say nothing of some kisses from time to time which she gave me, I began to pluck up courage. So by the way of showing her I was no fool, but expected something, I just made the offer to put my hand on her bosom, and take hold of one of the glorious bubbies, of which I saw nearly half over her dress. But she laughed and said it was not time for that yet, that when we had dined, and I had had my smoke, we would go to bed, where I should find her all I could wish for, and where I should have the fullest liberty, so long as I did not exceed the bounds which every honest man observed who had a woman. Well! I kissed her and begged her pardon. I had a rose bud in my button hole, and she took it out and said, see, I place your rose where you shall be! and she put it between her bubbies and said, there it is, a rose among the lilies, but that is all of you I can allow at present to be there. Well, sir! we had a splendid dinner. In spite of my love I did wire into a rattling good feed, and afterwards she made me smoke a cigar, and when it was nearly done she said she would go and undress, and that, when I heard a little bell ring, I was to go to her bedroom which she had already pointed out. Soon I heard the bell and I went. Oh! I was delighted! By God, sir! I had had many fine women, but I never saw one who was a patch to Mrs. Searles when undressed. She had on a quite transparent kind of nightgown, which covered her from neck to heels. It had no sleeves, and her arms were something splendid. Her bubbies looked more enticing covered with this transparent stuff, than when I saw them bare. Her nipples looked like strawberries, red and luscious. I would have been able to see her mound, but all the whole of the way, from her chin to her feet, there was a broad rose-colored ribbon, which fell exactly over it, so that I could only see the fringe of hair on either side, where it passed over her bush. I declare, Devereaux, I cannot describe the night I had with her, for it would drive you wild and you would be trying to slip into that woman at the Dak Bungalow, and it would never do, you being as you say, a married man, but I never—never—never had such a glorious poking in my life. It is true I was five years younger than I am now, and as I keep a pretty little piece of brown meat, and have my regular greens twice a week, I might not be able to do as good a turn now, as I did then, but I had that woman eight solid times, sir, seven times before I went to sleep, and once in the morning. She said herself that she did not expect it of me at first sight, as she said I was too fat, and fat men were bad pokes as a rule. When I went away after breakfast she gave me a case like the one Broadford showed me, and told me not to open it until I got home, and she told me she relied on me not to show it to any one, unless I thought him a fit fellow for her to have. I'll show it to you now! Ha! Bearer! Khitmatgar! koi, hai!” and the excited major shouted to the servants, one of whom came. By his orders the major's bearer brought a little writing dispatch box, and from this he took a small case, some six inches by four in size, and then, giving me a nudge, he walked to the anti-room of the Mess, which was deserted, showed me a very well-executed photo of a perfectly naked woman. On the back of the photo was written—from M. Searles to Jack Stone—15 June 1875,— 8.

“Now!” said the Major, “any time you would like to have that woman you drop me a line and I will give you the necessary introduction.” I thanked him heartily, but I must say I did not feel tempted to give five hundred rupees for the favors of any woman, just then, and mentally I made comparisons between my Lizzie and Mrs. Searles, which were not favorable to the latter, though according to the photo, she was certainly a fine woman.

Then, after smoking another cigar, and drinking a couple of more pegs and talking Mrs. Searles and poking generally, I left to go home, and I looked forward to finding Lizzie, and getting rid of some of the hot blood which was running in a desperately excited manner through my throbbing veins, for the little major's conversation had been the reverse of cooling.

It was very nearly midnight when I reached the bungalow and there was not a light in the place. The stars had shown in the road fairly well, but the verandah and rooms, on my side at least, were pitch dark. I imagined that Lizzie must have grown tired of waiting up for me and had taken the opportunity of getting a good sleep before I came home, as it would not be wonderful, if, after a good mess dinner and full of generous wine, I were rather lively and put her in that condition too.

Full of this idea, and determined if possible to give her second sweet awakening, by getting into her whilst she slept, I stole on tip toe towards my room, to undress there and then join her in her “naked bed.” But as I crossed the verandah something white gleamed on one side, and on looking, I saw it was Lizzie, sitting in my easy chair, apparently, from her position, asleep. I stole up behind her and bending over her I kissed her soft cheek, at the same time stealing my hand into her glorious bosom, and caressing her firm, swelling, elastic bubbies, which always gave me such delight to feel. Oh! What nice things good bubbies are to feel!

“Ah! is that you, Charlie, dear! I must have been half asleep,” she said.

“Yes! darling!” I said softly, still pressing the delightful globes in my hand, one after the other, and kissing the sweet mouth turned up towards me.

Lizzie seemed to enjoy my caresses, for she returned my kisses and patted my face lightly with her hand. I found that although still dressed, her clothes were loose on her, and that I could pass my hand between the band and her waist, and her beautiful skin felt so soft, so satiny, so smooth, it delighted me as though I had never felt it before; and from her bosom I descended until I reached the pretty plain of her lovely belly. Here I let my roving hand wander from side to side as it gradually crept lower and lower, until I reached the upper fringe of the glorious bush which so splendidly adorned her dome-like motte, and then I threaded my way through this pathless forest until I reached the spot where the infold formed the precious and voluptuous deep line of her delicious nectar pot. I passed my middle finger in the groove, just tipping the awakened and slippery little clitoris, until I reached the entrance to the rich depths I sought for. Lizzie said nothing; my left hand, which was over the bosom, felt the breast rise a little more tumultuously, and my arm bore a slightly increased strain, as she leaned her head back upon it, but that was all. It was so dreamy, so exquisite, that I sat in that position, caressing the warm, moist bower, kissing the cherry lips with little caresses of mine, as if I were a dove billing its mate.

Suddenly a change seemed to come over me. I was no longer in India; it was no longer Lizzie whose charms I was master of, but my own beloved little beautiful wife. I remembered how, on the third night of our blissful and heavenly honeymoon, she had preceded me to bed, how it was the month of July, and the night was warm and balmy, the scent of the blossoming lime trees filling the air with its sweet aroma. I had given my Louie ten minutes to undress and perform those necessary little acts, to make her comfortable for the night, which no young married woman likes to do in the presence of her husband, and then I had gone up to follow her into the bed, my beautiful heaven, in which I expected to find her a luscious feast for my still ardent and excited and rather uncloyed desire. But when I went to the room she was still dressed. She was seated at the open window, reclining back into her chair. There were no candles. The stars were shining brightly but softly; the heavy masses of foliage on the trees loomed dark against the skies, and there was silence outside, except the occasional rustling of the leaves as the amorous zephyr kissed the heads of the trees it loved, and the poetry of the moment filled me with a degree of tenderness and love I had not experienced in a similar manner since Louie and I had been made one at God's holy altar. Like Lizzie she had only half-turned to accept my kisses, with a little question as to whether it was myself, as though it could be anyone else, as I had glided my happy hand into her so lately virgin bosom, and caressed the swelling globes, which it had so delighted me on my wedding night to find did exist in truth and reality, beautiful, round, firm, polished, elastic and rosebud crowned; for Louie had been so jealous of those exquisite beauties, that even when I had seen her dressed for the evening, in her low-necked gown, not one line of the lovely hemispheres did she show and I had to imagine beauties to exist where my fancy painted them; and I prayed I might find she really had sweet bubbies; for alas! how often is man deceived in his expectations as to the physique of his beloved bride. Neither of us spoke; we were too happy: and over her beautiful bosom my wanton hand had descended, until, finding her waistband loosened, it had explored the sweet pastures of her silvery belly, and crossing the rough surface of the mount of Venus, and as my fingers pressed in Cupid's furrow, the lovely little clitoris, ever on the watch, had sprung up to salute it with a moist and eager kiss; a thrill, which I could feel, passed over my Louie's form, and as she felt the strong middle finger bury itself in the hot depths of her, she had pressed my face to her burning cheeks, and murmured, “My man! Oh! my beloved man!”

Full of overflowing sentiment, which this entrancing quiet and this voluptuous scene of love and passion had inspired me with, I quite forgot where I was, who it was I was caressing. I kissed Lizzie rapturously and I murmured in a voice which must have quivered with deep emotion.

“Oh! my darling! my own, own, darling.”

Lizzie started. She disengaged my hands and standing up, she exclaimed, in a voice which sounded strange to me, so different was it from her ordinary tone.

“Charlie! Charlie! Don't speak to me like that! Don't! like a good fellow!”

“Oh! Lizzie! what have I done?” I said in alarm.

“Oh! you must not speak to me like that! You know you don't love me, Charlie dear. You don't love me like you do your wife, and if you did it would only make me unhappy. Oh! Charlie! the one thing which would take away the only pleasure I have in life, would be to know that some man really and truly loved me. I could not leave my husband and live with him, and I must have a man as often as I can. You don't understand. When a woman has led the life I have she can't steady down unless some illness puts an end to all feeling of desire in her. She must go on as she is till death or decay, at least, of all her bodily powers. Confess now it was not Lizzie Wilson you were speaking to but your wife!”

“Well, Lizzie, dearest!” I said, quite thunderstruck with her vehemence and her outcry against love, “I won't tell you a lie. I did for the moment forget where I was. It was this way, but sit down darling, and I will tell you truly.”

She did so, and still standing over her, and again possessing myself of the sweet charms between her thighs, to which she admitted my full right as a true friend, but not as an earnest and passionate lover, I told her about the scene of which I have given and can give my tender girl readers only a faint notion, as regards its delicious commingling of the adoration of the heart and the worship of the senses. When I had finished Lizzie heaved a prodigious sigh and said:

“Charlie! Take my advice and don't be too long sending home for that true wife of yours! She will keep you from harm out here, and it is not right, it would be a cruel shame to condemn her to pass the life of a nun, whilst you are amusing yourself in India, poking to your heart's content, women who do not deserve such delight. For, mark my words, you are not the kind of man to go without women, nor will you find a station where there are no women, pretty and fine, who will not leave you alone—they will be as eager to have you as you will to have them. Yes! believe me, if ever a man was formed to strike a woman's fancy it is you. Send for your wife, or between you and the woman you will have, some mischief will be brewed, and you may be made to repent that you left her at home.”

These words, spoken with great earnestness, struck me very forcibly. It seemed also so like Satan rebuking sin that I could hardly help feeling amused. After a pause of a second or two, during which I gently stroked the sweet moss under my hand, I said:

“All right, Lizzie! I believe you are quite right! I will send for my wife as soon as you advise, but come in, there's a darling, and let us enjoy the fleeting hour. It seems like ages since I last had my manhood in this sweetest, softest, juiciest little place of yours!”

To this she replied, “Searles has been here tonight.”

My goodness! All my blood ran cold. I felt now as if my Louie, in answer to my prayer to come to bed, so that I might enjoy her loveliness, told me, “Too late, my dear, So-and-So has just been having me and I'm not inclined for any more!”

“Searles!” I exclaimed, snatching my hand away from under her clothes. “Searles, Oh! Lizzie! and did you let him have you?”

“I did not say that he had me, Charlie, so you need not get into a fit of jealousy, you silly boy! No! If there is one man in the world to whom I would forever say no, it is Searles, but he was here all the same.”

I breathed. Somehow Lizzie had grown dear to me, she had been so nice, such a splendid love partner, and so tender towards me in spite of her disclaimer of love.

“What did he want, Lizzie?”

“What you say you do now, Charlie! But oh! we had such a row! I declare it has given me quite a headache! Oh Scarles! you ... cursed beast!”

“And what did he do or say Lizzie? Tell me!”

“Well, you had hardly got across the road before Searles, who had apparently been watching for you to go, sneaked into the verandah around the corner, and asked if I had got his note. Now I had received a note from him which I had kept to myself, and which I had not shown you, dear, for I did not want to make you jealous, a fine production it is, too, and a very useful one for me, too, I can tell you. I think he must have been either drunk or mad when he wrote it, for he could not have written a more damning piece of evidence against himself if he had tried to do it in his sober senses. Oh! Mrs. Searles would give a cart full of her rupees to have it, for she could then get the divorce she longs for. Plenty of good fellows are ready to marry her if she could get divorced, and I know she has often said she would be glad to give up her present life, but Searles knows this, and his only revenge against her is to behave so prudently as not to give her any chance. If ever he has a woman it is so on the sly that no one knows it. Well, he has written down in black and white that he has had me and since Mrs. Searles left him, too. Let's light a candle and I'll show you the letter!”

Full of curiosity and rather astonished to find how the truth comes out, for I had certainly understood Lizzie to say that Searles had never had her, nor even should have her by her permission, I went for my candle and lit it. Lizzie then took the precious letter out of her pocket and gave it to me to read.

It commenced with prayers and entreaties to let him come and have her whilst I was at Mess. It said that he knew well that I did nothing all day and night but tumble her, that by this time she must be tired of me and at least that a little change of her accustomed diet would be agreeable. From prayers, it went to using threats. Her husband's regiment was at Peshawar, now with a newly-appointed colonel who was death on adultery and fornication, and he had given out that the first time he found any of it going on amongst the married women of his regiment, he would set the penal laws on the subject in force and that he (Searles), had plenty of evidence which would put me (Devereaux), into prison and send her out of the country branded as an unchaste woman, a whore and an adulteress, and that unless she admitted him to her embraces he would help the colonel to make good his word. Then came more prayer and more earnest entreaties—then offers of a thousand rupees (twice what his own wife charged)—jewelry, anything, if she would but consent, and then in a postscript, he boasted that he bad already had her, at Agra, on an occasion when, stunned by a fall from an overthrown gharry she had been carried into his bungalow, and seeing who she was, and determined not to lose the precious opportunity, he had raped her in her unconscious state, and enjoyed the “wealth of her voluptuous grotto,” he actually used these last words.

“The intense Blackguard,” I exclaimed, moved to great wrath by the reading of this precious epistle.

“You may say so, Charlie! But now hear what the brute did. At first he asked had I got his letter. I said yes. Then he asked me in a wheedling tone would I consent and let him have me. I said not for all the rupees in India, that he was too loathsome a brute for me to touch with the end of a barge pole, much more so than for me to take in my arms. Then he began to threaten me with our new colonel, saying that I could not get away from here now unless he, Searles, gave me an order for a gharry, that everything like a cart with wheels was engaged for the next ten days, and that long before that time was over the regiment would be on, the march from Peshawar to Muttra, and that the colonel, finding me here instead of at Muttra, where he had ordered me to go, would be furious, and he, Searles, would take the opportunity then of telling him why I stopped at Nowshera, namely, to have three separate officers who stayed here, two on their way down country, and one on his way to join his Battalion at Cherat, and he would tell who these officers were, and it would go hard on them, each of them would lose two thousand rupees or get two years imprisonment, and then they will have good reason to curse you for being a damned little bitch, for why should you condemn them to these fines and punishment, when by letting me have you for an hour or two you can prevent any harm arising, and I will keep my word if you don't—and he got more and more angry.

“I told him I would see him damned before I would let him touch me, and I dared him to report me, or you or the others, and I told him what he had said in his letter, and how completely I would cover myself, and you, and others by it, and I advised him to go away quietly or I would call the Khansamah. That put him in as complete a passion as ever I saw a man in. He rushed at me and swore he would have me. I put myself like a shot behind a chair. He stopped for a moment, unbuttoned his trousers, pulled out his member, which was in a furious state, and then rushed at me again. I shouted for the Khansamah, but Searles did not mind. He seized me around the waist, and lifted me off the floor, and ran with me into my room, dashing the chick down as he lunged into it. But I was not going to be ravished without making the best defense I could. I got my ten nails well into his cheeks, and scrawned them down as hard as I could. I could see and feel the blood spurting. Searles yelled and cursed, swore and called me the most awful, dreadful names. I gave him as good a clawing as I could, but he got me down on the bed, pulled my petticoats up to his face, and lay on top of me with all his weight, trying to get his knees between mine. But I kept my thighs locked hard, although he pounded with his knees on my thighs, and nearly choked me with his hand on my throat, he could not get between them. I could feel the tip of his spike banging against my motte like a bar of iron, but he never once got it nearer me than that. At last, finding that he could not manage to make me open my legs to him that way, he began to put his hand between my thighs, and to pinch me most frightfully. Oh! he gave me dreadful pinches. I am sure I am all black and blue, but his weight was off me now, I was able to scream; and I yelled. I called out murder! murder! help! help! as loud as I could, and at the same time I tried to get hold of his eggs, so as to smash them if I could, but he managed to keep them out of my reach, whilst he pinched, scratched and beat my thighs as though he would break them to pieces. But before my fast-failing strength left me, help came. Two young civilians came in today from Peshawar, whilst you were dressing for Mess, and got a room on the other side of the Bungalow. They at last heard my screams, and came running to see what was the matter. When Searles saw them he ordered them out of the room, saying that I was his wife, and that he had a right to treat me as he liked; but I tried to get out of his clutches, and I implored the young men to save me; and I said that Searles was not my husband; and was trying to rape me. The young men then ordered him off my bed, and as he did not obey one of them pulled him off. Then Searles went for him, for he was blind mad with rage and passion, but the young man was pretty cool, and he gave Searles a most dreadful blow in the face with his fist—oh! I was so delighted to hear it,—it made him stagger and the blood spurt from his nose. But Searles seemed really like a lunatic. He rushed again at the young man, and hit him several nasty blows, so that the second one came to his friend's assistance. I urged the two on and Searles got a thrashing. I can tell you! Still he would not quit. By this time the Khansamah, the principal coolies, Oheestres, your servant Soubratie, and everyone belonging to the Bungalow had come. I could not help continuing to scream. Everybody went for Searles, and at last he was turned out of the house, yelling and fighting like a wild beast. Some soldiers came running off the road, and at first, seeing who Searles was, wanted to help him, but the young men told them what he had done, and apparently they don't love Searles at the barracks, for these men joined in beating him, and upon my word I began to get frightened. I thought they would kill him between them all. Oh! the row was tremendous. Presently down came the pickets from the barracks; the soldiers seeing them ran away. Searles was lying on the ground; a crowd around him; some men had torches alight, and the Khansamah had got a lantern, and you never saw such a group as they formed. The young men, who had helped to save me from being ravished, explained the whole matter to the non-com of the picket, and as Searles' trousers were open, and his stem showing, though no longer stiff and standing, they understood the whole thing. Searles, though hardly able to breathe, wanted them to take the young men prisoners, but the non-com officer begged them to go away, and persuaded him to let himself be carried home, for he could not walk. Oh! Charlie! it made me so sick and ill! I don't know how I have been able to tell you so much—my head is splitting, and I feel all pounded to death by that brute.”

I leave my readers to appreciate the state of anger and disgust toward Searles which this vivid narrative of poor Lizzie produced. Oh! I had come home hoping for such a sweet night of delightful joy, but it was plain that it was out of the question, and indeed, all desire, except that for vengeance on Searles, was out of my head. Lizzie looked very ill, when I came to examine her by the light of the candle, and I begged her to go to bed.

“Yes, dear!” she said. “It is the best place for me, but oh! Charlie dear! I am afraid I cannot have you tonight! Poor boy! I am sure you came home expecting to have some grand poking, and I am so grieved to disappoint you, but I feel too sick!”

“You poor darling girl!” I cried, “I had hoped, as you say, to have some more delicious turns with you tonight, but of course it cannot come off now. Come to bed and let me help you to undress.”

She did as I asked her. I undressed her and was shocked to find the state she was in. Her throat was bruised a little, but her poor thighs were one mass of contusions, all scored by the finger nails of the monster who had attacked her. I kissed them, “to make them well,” and poor Lizzie smiled faintly and kissed me, and then lay down and begged me to leave her alone. But hardly had she put her head on the pillow than she called out that she was going to be sick.

“Oh! Charlie! Help me to my bathroom!”

But I ran and got her chillum chee, and brought it to her, and she, poor creature, was deadly sick. I held her burning forehead in my hands and did all I could to comfort her, and to assist, and at last, completely exhausted, she sank back and her whole appearance alarmed me. When I came home she was fairly cool, but now she was the color of a peony, and her skin was hot, parched and burning. I guessed she had fever and the suddenness of the attack alarmed me. All that night I tended her, keeping her well covered up to induce perspiration, and from time to time gave her water to drink for which she moaned. Nobody who has not watched a sick bed under circumstances somewhat similar, can tell how tedious, how weary, such a watch is, especially when, as in my case, the watcher is ignorant of what he ought to do, and has to go by instinct, as it were. At length, just as the morning began to break, Lizzie seemed to fall into a sound sleep. Her breathing was more regular and easy, her color was more natural, and—blessed be heaven—her skin was again cool, and moist. It was evident that the strength of the attack had passed.

A solitary crow gave vent to his rolling caw. The shrill cry of the kite sounded in the air. A squirrel began to run about and chirp, and all the sounds of night passing into day struck upon my ear. On looking outside I could see the distant mountain peak lighting up in the rays of the sun, which did not yet shine upon Nowshera. Satisfied that Lizzie was really in a healthful sleep, I got myself a cool peg, and then going back to the bedside I saw down in my chair, leaned my head against her pillow and, wearied out, fell into a sound sleep myself. How long I slept I did not know but I was at length awakened by Soubratie who touched me and murmured that sickening:

“Sa-hib! S-a-a-hib!” in my ear, with which your native servant always rouses you.

“What is it?” said I, raising my heavy head.

“Major Ish-tone, Sahib! Outside in verandah! wanting see master!” replied Soubratie who spoke English like a native.

“Major Stone! Oh! yes! all right! Tell him I will be with him in a moment, Soubratie!”

“Iss Sahib!” and exit Soubratie.

I felt desperately tired and not in a pleasant humor at having my much needed rest broken. However after a yawn or two, and an anxious glance at poor Lizzie, who seemed to have quite regained her ordinary appearance, and to be having a real sound and refreshing sleep, I tightened the strings of my pajamas, and went into the verandah, where I heard the footsteps of my friend the major, as he moved about somewhat impatiently. Seeing me come from Lizzie's room and in sleeping costume, he put up his hands in mock depreciation and said, Sotte voce:

“Oh! Oh-h-h! Captain Devereaux! Oh-h-h!” and he put on such a comical look I could not help smiling.

“Not so fast, major, please! Appearances may be against me, but I think I can give a satisfactory explanation. The lady who lives in that room was most dreadfully ill last night and I, out of pure charity, have been nurse tending her!”

“In your nightshirt and pajamas, exactly! I expect she required a little cordial administered by an enema, only in front instead of behind, and required your services and elixir! Oh! Devereaux! it won't do, my boy, but Jack Stone is not the man to peach, still he would like his friends to be frank with him, so Devereaux you may as well tell the truth and confess, that, full of my description of Mrs. Searles, and the splendid night I had between her plump white thighs, you came home and spent, I hope, as good a night with the fair lady in there! Confess now!”

“Quite wrong, Major, I can assure you! I plead guilty to having been much moved and stirred by your voluptuous narrative, and as human nature is frail. I dare say, might have spent such a night as you believe, only that the lady was, as I said, fearfully ill, and all owing to that blackguardly brute Searles, too!”

“Ah!” said the major, “that is just what I have come to inquire about. Look here, Devereaux, there is a devil of a row on. Searles was brought home last night between seven and eight o'clock whilst we were at Mess, with five or six ribs broken, his right leg broken above the ankle, his nose smashed flat, his front teeth driven down his throat, and battered, cut and bruised all over. In fact, the Doctor hardly expects him to pull through, he is so fearfully weak, and so completely smashed to bits. The corporal of the picket reports that, hearing a disturbance going on in the Dak Bungalow, he doubled his men down and caught sight of two men of the 130th running away, and heard loud voices in the Bungalow compound, he found a crowd of natives, too, two civilians, Europeans, standing round the brigade major, who was lying on the ground, all doubled up, and from what he could gather there was a woman at the bottom of it, but he could give no clear account of what had happened, or how it had happened, or anything. Well, the colonel is, of course, much put about. We none of us love Searles, who is a sulky brute, if a good officer, but a brigade major can't be half killed without a row being made about it, so he has sent me to try and find out all about it; and as I guessed you would very likely have heard something, I came first to you.”

I then gave the gallant major a succinct account of the whole business, as told me by Lizzie. I had to undergo some unmerciful chaffing from Stone, about her, and found it impossible to hide from him the truth about my relations with her. But he promised to be mum, and, as he said, there was no need for my name being mentioned at all in the business, at all events at present, and perhaps not at all, as I was not at the Bungalow when Searles was there but at Mess, luckily for me!

Armed with his news, and quite interested how it was that Lizzie should be after having really had such violent ill usage, and having passed through such a terrible scene as she had been through, he returned to make his report to his colonel, and about four o'clock he sent me a note, or chit as it is called in India, to say that the colonel had agreed to hush the whole matter up, and simply report Major Searles on the sick list, and him—Jack Stone—acting station staff officer. He went on by saying that the sooner the parties were out of Nowshera the better, and he advised me to prepare Lizzie for a start, he would order a dak gharry for her as soon as one could be got, and a couple of ekkhas for me, the only wheeled vehicle which could run on such a road as there was from Publi to Shakkote.

Meanwhile, after he had gone away from the Bungalow, I returned to my post by poor Lizzie. I watched her for a short time and presently she woke; seeing me still there, and neither shaven nor dressed, she rightly concluded that I had not been to bed all night.

“Oh! Charlie! how kind! how good of you! How can I ever repay you!”

“By getting well as quick as you can, my Lizzie! And then—”

“Ah! Won't I just! If I was kind before I will be doubly kind now! But I am all right! I had a bad go of fever last night, and my poor legs are stiff and sore, but I am well! If I only had some quinine, now would be the time to take it, just to keep off a second attack of fever.”

I had purchased a bottle of this invaluable powder at Bombay, and I ran and got it, and gave her the quantity she said would be right in a glass of water.

“There,” she said, having made a wry face as the bitter dose ran down her throat, “now something to eat, for I feel faint for want of food and I am hungry. You see I was bad, my Charlie, but I think it was more fright than anything else.”

I had, when I left her to go and get my peg that morning, and before I went to sleep, called Soubratie and ordered him to prepare and have ready whenever it might be called for, some strong beef tea, and this I had brought, hot and refreshing, to Lizzie, who was really moved at this additional proof of my care and devotion to her.

“Oh! Charlie! If all men were only like you!” she exclaimed, and the soft tears of gratitude rolled down her lovely cheeks. I kissed them off and she put my hand on one of her swelling breasts, saying:

“There! my Charlie! I would let you have me this morning if I could, but I feel too weak for that. I dare say when I have had another good sleep I shall be better, and then darling, we will play, won't we!”

I laughed and said we would, but put her hand in my turn, on my bunch of charms, and showed her how greatly fatigue and watching had reduced the strength and vigor of what the most ardent battles between her shapely thighs had not affected. Poor Lizzie! She looked so disappointed!

But as her little hand toyed with my limp dangle and played with my relaxed jewels, fresh life came, and to her joy she succeeded in raising a perfect standard, to be planted as soon as possible in the keeping of her fort. But both of us were wearied and tired out, and I told her she should go to sleep, and that I would go to my own bed and sleep too, for I was dead tired; and with more sweet kisses and caresses she turned on her side and was soon asleep. I then left her and going to my own room threw myself on my much needed couch, in the cool breeze of the swinging punkah, and was soon sound asleep.

Whilst Lizzie and I are thus hors de combat, it will, I think, be a good time to tell my dear readers her early history, and I will endeavor to keep her words as nearly as possible. So, gentle readers, imagine that Lizzie and I are either seated in the verandah, after our dinner, or are in, or rather, on the bed together, whilst she tells her artless tale, certain portions of which she and I illustrated by very suggestive action, when either her memory added fuel to the amorous passion which made her blood boil, and my wanton fancy stirred all the man in me.

Well, Charlie, I was born and bred in Canterbury, My earliest recollections are all associated with that dear old place, and for the first thirteen years of my life I never left it. My mother is the only parent I can remember. I really don't know if my father was living when I was born, but I know I never saw him, nor even a likeness of him, and my mother hardly ever referred to him. Who was or what he was, I don't know, but my mother wore a wedding ring and no neighbors ever hinted at her ever having been anything but most respectable, and you know neighbors, especially women, don't always agree, and when they quarrel are very apt to pick up dirt and throw it at one another. My mother was a dressmaker by trade and had a very good custom. She never seemed in want of money, whether she had work or not; on the other hand, though we had an honest plenty in our house, there were no luxuries, nothing for mere show, except perhaps in one of the rooms kept for ladies to try their dresses on, where she had some little knick knacks for appearance sake. As a child I used to think that a splendid room, and wonder if anyone else had as fine things as my mother had! So you must understand we had a sunny, warm house, good food, good plain clothes, good beds, in fact, everything which was required for real comfort, but nothing superfluous.

My mother kept no servant, that is, no one actually lived in the house as such; an old charwoman came every morning and did what scrubbing and cleansing was required. My mother and I did light dusting, made our beds, etc., and cooked our simple meals. Until I was twelve years old I went to school, and as I was pretty quick, I learnt perhaps more there than girls usually do. And then, too, I formed acquaintances among the other girls, and as our conversations were not always about lessons, and sums, apples or lollipops, I gathered some information about the relations of the sexes, about lovers and their ways which I did not repeat to my mother. However what I did learn in this way in no respect had any effect upon me or my morals. I knew I had a little cranny, and that I should have babies one of these days, and that hair would grow where none grew at present, and that I should have regular monthly illnesses. I believed that I should marry, and when I did, I believed that my husband would put his “thing” into my “little thing” and that in time I should have a child, as I saw all married women have, but although girls used to talk about these matters, there was never any reference to the vast delight to be found in love making. We were all too young to know more than something vague and undefined. But before I was thirteen my mother withdrew me from school, not only because I was growing very tall for my age, but because my bosom began to form, and two lovely little doves of breasts to push out on either side of my chest. With what pride and pleasure did I see them grow. Even my mother, when she bathed me regularly every Saturday in a tub before I went to bed, remarked on them, and said to me one day, “Lizzie, you will have a perfect bosom. I don't remember ever seeing prettier and better placed breasts, or any which looked to be so quick growing.” And I would notice her eye give a quick look down at my spot, and I guessed she was looking to see if my hair there was beginning to sprout. But my bubbies were a good bit grown before any came. However, the hair and my menses came almost together. First there was a profusion of little black looking points all over what you call my motte, Charlie, and it grew very rapidly, so quickly indeed that by the day I was thirteen I had quite a nice bush, which I could twine round my finger. My cleft, too, underwent a marked change. It seemed to grow fatter and become more formed. I can hardly explain, but I am sure you must have noticed similar changes in your engine and sack when your bush began to grow. You may say, then, that as far as outward appearances were concerned, I was quite a woman at thirteen. I had a fair amount of flesh on my bones, a lovely bosom, a nice waist, fine swelling hips, good thighs and very pretty feet and ankles. I was too well formed altogether for short dresses, and my mother made me some long ones, in which I used to admire myself in the tall glass in the trying-on room. Still although I certainly did admire myself, it never entered my head to court the admiration of men. I had not, as yet, felt the least spark of desire, and if, as I dare say she did, my mother watched to see any signs of coquetry or flirting in me, she saw none, for there was none to be seen. However I was much nearer the realization of the hidden stores of pleasure I had within me, than either she or I were aware of.

At the back of our house was a longish bit of garden, say something like fifty or sixty feet long, by thirty or forty feet wide. This garden was my mother's pride, for she raised early potatoes, and all kinds of vegetables in it for our use, besides plenty of pretty and sweet flowers, so that we always had nice vegetables for dinner, and nose-gays for our table and mantelpiece. At the end of the garden was a lane, on the other side of which was a row of stables, where the officers of the cavalry used to keep their private horses. I used to be very fond of leaning against our little wicket, and see those beautiful horses go out for exercise, all bridled and saddled, being taken to their masters. Sometimes the officers themselves came to have a look at the stables, but they paid no attention to me, so I was quite accustomed to looking on without being spoken to. About August, however, when I was a little more than three months older than thirteen, some stables, which had been empty, were taken by an officer who had three beautiful horses. I was curious to see who this officer was, for he was new and so one evening I was watching for him, hoping he would come, when I saw a tall, slight, but a fine and very handsome young officer in undress uniform, stable jacket, breeches, long boots and spurs, and his gold-laced cap well on one side and far back on his head, come walking at a smart pace down the lane, smacking his boot every now and then with his riding whip and looking right and left, as if he were taking a good look at everything and that everything was new to him.

He looked at me, too, and gave me a good stare, and then he looked at the stable beside me, muttered something to himself, looked at me again, and with a little mock salute with his whip he turned into the stable. Then I knew that that was the new officer. There was something about him which took my fancy at once. He seemed so different from the others I had seen. They had always looked so heavy and black about the face, and altogether as if nothing was worth looking at on either side of them; whilst my new officer was so trim and jaunty, so pretty and nice looking, and he had actually smiled at me, and shown me that he had seen me. I felt quite a flutter when he made his little mock salute, and half drew back from the gate I was leaning on, but I did not go away. I wanted to see him again, so I stayed. Presently out he came, talking to the groom, then the groom went back into the stable. The young officer looked up the lane, down the lane whilst he pulled on his glove, then, seeing me, he came playfully towards me, made me a little bow, smiled and saying, “Good evening, Polly. A nice evening this.” He turned and walked rapidly away. A new flutter again came into my bosom. I know I looked wistfully after him, and was delighted when, turning his head, he looked back at me from a little distance, and again waved his whip at me. Poor little fool that I was! I had fallen in love and I did not know it! But so it was!

Well, evening after evening this young officer and I met this way. Nothing more than what I have described passed between us. If an evening came and he did not appear, I used to feel so grieved. I missed him dreadfully. I found out that his name was the Hon. Charles Vincent, and that he was a captain in the Hussars. I heard the groom speak and that was how I knew; besides, all his horses had a big C. V. worked in white letters on their clothing.

Did I tell you that at the end of our garden, in the corner and next the road, was a little old shed without any door? No? Well, there was and I had planted honeysuckle and clematis and a climbing rose against it and as a school girl I used to love to learn my lessons there, when it was fine, warm weather. The honeysuckle and rose and other climbing plants had grown very well, and the dirty old shed was transformed by them into quite an elegant bower.

One evening my handsome officer did not come as usual, and I was vexed and sorry, for I did love seeing him, and he always seemed to look for me. I heard his groom talking to the men in the next stable, saying he wondered the captain did not come, and the bay mare was sick, and he had told his master of it. So I knew my hero was coming, and I went into my bower and sat down, and listened and peeped through the chink into the lane. Soon the grooms all went away but one, and that was Captain Vincent's. At last he seemed to be altogether out of patience, and I heard him swear, and talk to himself, saying he would be damned if he would stay any longer, but go and get his glass, and then he would come back. So he locked the stable and put the key into his pocket and went off. Well, I waited and waited! At last I heard the footstep I knew so well, and with a heart beating as if I had really expected and ardently wished for a lover, I went out, and stood as usual at the gate. The sun was setting and all the lane was in shadow. Captain Vincent came walking quickly, saw me, smiled as usual, saying, “Good evening, Polly!” and trying the door of his stable. Finding it locked he kicked at it, so as I knew there was no one in there, I called out, “Sir, the groom waited for you, and after a while said that he must get his glass, but that he would come back.”

“Oh! did he, Polly! Thank you my dear!” and then coming near me he went on, “how long ago was it that the groom went?”

“Oh!” said I, guessing, for the time had seemed dreadfully long to me waiting, “about three-quarters of an hour, I should say, sir.”

“Three-quarters of an hour,” the captain exclaimed, looking at his watch, “well, then he should be along soon now, I should think. And how are you Polly! I see you here every day. What a pretty hand! What a lovely girl you are, Polly! I declare I must marry you! Will you marry me, Polly, if I ask you?”

Well, of course I was a little fool, but I could not help being pleased beyond measure at his admiration and question, though it was quite plain to me that his question about marriage was only a joke.

“Oh! sir!” said I, “don't be making fun of me! You know I cannot marry you sir!”

“Well,” said he, “at any rate you could give me a kiss, child, could you not, Polly?”

I felt my face burning. It was just what I was longing for. Oh! I can not tell you how I had longed to be taken notice of by him. I looked around carefully, and seeing no one in sight, I said:

“If you are quick, sir, because someone might see and then there would be talk.”

The words were hardly out of my mouth before the gallant and eager captain had his lips to mine, and gave me such a kiss as I had never had before in my life; a kiss which seemed to go right through my body down to my very feet!

“Polly!” said he, in a low voice, “could I come into your Summer House after I have seen my horses and chat with you a little while?”

I knew there might be a little chance of mother seeing him, so I said quickly and with a palpitating heart, “Yes sir! I'll go in now and wait, and you can come in when you are ready, and please don't stand there talking to me—for fear—you know!”

“I understand,” said he, his eyes blazing as they looked into mine, and he turned away and walked a little down the lane, in the direction the groom had gone. I went into the “Summer House,” as he called it, and stood watching at the chink. Oh! how my heart beat! Would he kiss me again! How I wished the groom would come, for if I stayed out too long my mother might call for me to come in. At last the groom came, the captain and he had some little talk, but no quarrel. I think I prevented that, for I am sure Captain Vincent was angry, when he found his man had not waited for him, but now he was certainly glad. He did not stay in the stable. He and the groom came out together, and walked away down the lane. Oh! what a pang I felt! Was he not corning then? How cruel! how cruel! I could not help it, I sat down and began to cry and sob, and all of a sudden there was my lover, inside the little house. He had come back as quick as he could, and had only walked the groom out of the lane to get rid of him. I sprang up as he came in, and he saw I had been crying, and he sat down and pulled me on his knee, and with one arm around my waist and his right hand on my bosom, he gave me, oh! hundreds of kisses! He seemed quite excited, and I was simply beside myself with happiness and joy.

“Oh! Polly!” he said, “do you know I've been longing to kiss you ever since I first saw you; you are the very prettiest, loveliest girl I ever saw.”

I could only smile. It was rather dark now in the little house, but I could see him clearly enough. He kissed my face all over, and my neck too, and his hand closed over the bubbie it was nearest. I liked it too much to tell him to take it off, but I knew he ought not to have done that. All the time he was kissing me he called me his pet, his little dove, his lovely little darling, and so forth, and I stroked his hair and gave him sweet kisses too.

At last he said, “How old are you, Polly?”

“My name is not Polly, sir! it's Lizzie!”

“Well! How old are you Lizzie? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

“Sixteen! Seventeen!” I replied.

“No, sir! I am thirteen! I shan't be fourteen until next year!”

“Thirteen!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Only thirteen! Why Poll—that is, Lizzie, you must be more than thirteen! Who ever saw so fine a girl as you only thirteen?”

“Well, sir,” I said laughing, “I am really only thirteen!”

He looked at me; he put his hand on my other bubbie and gave it a delightful squeeze, as if feeling it, and then he put it on its old place on the first bubbie.

“Then,” said he, “I expect this, these rather, are only padding!”

“What?” said I.

“Why! these bub—these—what do you call them? Your bosom Poll—that is, Lizzie?”

“Indeed sir;” said I indignantly, “there is no padding about me. I do not require padding! Not I indeed!”

“Oh!” said he, laughing, “but Poll—that is, Lizzie!—I wish I could remember your name, my pet! No girl of thirteen has such fine, well-developed bubbies as these!” and he pressed them again and again. “They are much too fine for a girl of thirteen! You must be older than you think!”

“No indeed, sir! I know I am only thirteen!”

“Well! Then I don't believe these are real! They must be padding, Poll—that is, Lizzie!”

I was vexed. Why should he be so persistent? Why should he believe that my breasts were not good flesh and blood but only padding? So I said, “If you think I am only made up, sir, please don't feel them any more!”

“But,” said he, “Polly—Lizzie, I don't say that they are not real, the fact is I don't know what to think. There is a mistake somewhere, but don't be angry, my pet! Come—kiss!”

Those delicious kisses! Those delightful pressures of his hand!

“Lizzie, let me put my hand inside your dress!”

And so saying he began to pull at the front of my body which was fastened by hooks and eyes. They bothered him and he grew so dreadfully impatient that I, who was quite as anxious that he should be certain that I was not padded as he was to feel my bubbies that he found so nice through my clothes, at last pushed his too eager hands away and undid the obstinate front which opposed him.

“There! ” said I laughing, “you can get your hand in now, but there is still a petticoat body inside to unbutton.”

But the petticoat body gave him little trouble, and as if be were snatching for a prize which would escape him if he was not very quick, he thrust his strong but gentle hand between my shift and stays, and closed it over the firm little globe he found there.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, making a kind of sipping noise with his lips as if he were taking something hot to drink, “Oh! Lizzie Polly! Lizzie! what a splendid little bubbie, and what a smooth little nipple! Let me feel the other one now!”

And he reversed his hand and pushed it on to my right breast, which he went mad over like he had the other. The effect on him was wonderful. I cannot describe my sensations to you, Charlie, because you, being a man, cannot understand what a girl feels when hers are so nicely handled by a man as mine were then, but a kind of all-overish feeling came over me. I felt that I wanted to put my arms around my lover and clasp him to me! I felt that there was something more that I wanted from him; a something which I could only get by pressing my body to him as close, close as possible, but in the position I was with his arm raised up and his hand pushing at my bosom, I could not think of folding him in my embrace. All I could do I did. I put my arm round his neck and pulled his face down to mine, and kissed his mouth with a passionate energy which put him into a still greater ferment.

“Undo your collar, Lizzie! Oh! I must see and must kiss those splendid little gems of bubbies.”

O! how his voice thrilled through me! I felt as if I trembled all over and his voice trembled also. It was passion, desire, love which had seized both of us. One knew its meaning well!—the other—myself—was still in a state of ignorance very soon to be cleared away.

I did not hesitate to obey him. I undid my collar, and he, pulling my dress wide open and off my shoulders and bosom, poured a torrent of kisses on my swelling breasts, and I—oh!—I leant back, supported by his strong arm, and gave myself and my thrilling bubbies to him to do with as he liked. It was beyond description. How his mouth flew from mount to mount. How his lips climbed each hill, and his teeth seized each little ticklesome nipple in its turn, and his hot breath descended into the valley between my breasts, and swept down over my body until my waistband stopped its further progress. But oh, whilst his lips were so busy, his right hand, in my lap, pressing between my thighs, was producing ravages in another part of my body. I felt inclined at first to resist, not because I did not like it, but because I felt a feeling of shame rise in me, almost stronger than the intense sensation of pleasure his moving fingers gave me.

“Ah!” said I.

“What, darling!”

How he said that one word, “Darling,” as if his soul breathed it from his heart of hearts.

“Oh! don't put your hand there, sir!”

“Oh! yes! yes! yes! oh! my delicious Polly! Lizzie! What is your name? I must Oh! Lizzie I shall not be happy now until I have had you! You know what that means, don't you, darling? Say you will let me have you? Won't you?”

Well, I didn't know exactly, but I began to guess that love, marriage and the “putting of his little thing into my little thing,” as the girls said talking of husbands and wives, were all very intimately connected and the pleasure his fingers caused in my melting little mound made me think that the “putting” too must be something heavenly—and I was right!

I don't know whether I said “yes” or “no,” to his question, but he acted as if I had said “yes” anyhow! For he suddenly put his hand under my dress, and before I could say “Scissors!” he had it as high as it could go between my thighs, at the same time pressing me to him and kissing my mouth. My drawers, that came up to the waist in front, offered a slight obstacle, but his eager and nimble fingers found their way in! Oh! the delicious sensation of those fingers as they caressed my mossy bower! and the ravishing of one which he pushed in deep between its glad lips, I no longer attempted to prevent his doing what he liked. It was much too delicious. I opened my thighs a little more, and whilst he sucked my mouth with long burning kisses, that finger went in and out, in and out, every movement giving me more and more exquisite pleasure until at last a throb, a thrill a kind of jump seemed to pass through slit, moue, belly and all of me, and my lover exclaimed, “Ah! ah! oh! Lizzie darling! I have made you spend!”

Then for a moment he took his hand from between my thighs and I felt him doing something to himself. In a voice shaking with emotion and excitement he said, “Where is your hand, Lizzie? Give me your hand!”

He took it and put it on what felt like a great big thick stick, thicker than a broom handle, and hot and awfully hard, except for the outside, which felt like velvet, and which was loose and moveable. It was so big that I could hardly get my fingers round it. The very feel of it, however, made my brain whirl round. “What is this?” I gasped.

“It is me! Lizzie! it's me. It is my—my—my manhood! Don't you know darling, darling, Lizzie—that is what fits in here!” He had his finger moving in my cunnie again, setting me wilder still. “Let me put it in, darling Lizzie! It would kill me if you said no!”

“Oh!” I gasped, for I could hardly speak, “you can't do it sir! It is much, much too big!” and as I spoke I felt the curious, soft and elastic head which crowned his powerful weapon.

For all reply my lover put me off his knee on to the seat, jumped up, undid his braces, pulled down his trousers, pulled up his shirt and I had an astonished glimpse of what looked like an enormous white bar, with a red tip, growing out of a perfect forest of black hair.

Before I could either speak or resist my impatient Charles, as he made me call him, pulled up my dress, petticoats and all, and pulled me on his knees, so that I had one leg on either side, then, whilst he drew the lower part of my body towards him, he made me lean back. I had bend my knees to do so, and stand on the tips of my toes, whilst he was seated on the very edge of the seat. Oh! what a shock of delicious pleasure I received, and how astonished I was when I felt that he had pulled me right on what called his manhood, and that with a little kind of pop it had gone right into my cleft.

Except quickly over and over again, “my darling! my darling!” he said nothing, and as for me I was too much in heaven to think of speaking. To support myself, however, I had to put my arms around his neck, and I hung back so as to give myself to him as nature taught me to do.

Charles did not make any attempt to take my maidenhead then. He wished to allure me by giving me nothing but pleasure, and oh! he succeeded! He pushed his big staff in until my maidenhead prevented further ingress, a then he pulled it back until it was almost out, and each time he did so I felt my grotto open and its lips slip over its vast head, as it had when it closed in front of it. Again I felt that exquisite spasm, and Charlie cried out that he had made me “spend" again, but soon he got powerfully agitated, his movements grew quicker and quicker, his thrusts more energetic, until all of a sudden he crushed me to his bosom, keeping his weapon in me, as deep as he could, and I felt that he was pouring something in hot, quick jets into me! It made me “spend” again, and then I felt something hot running all down my thighs, inside my drawers, and that all my bush and that part of me was inundated with something which had come from him. I felt almost inclined to faint with the inexpressible pleasure I felt, when all of a sudden I heard, “Lizzie! Liz-zzie!”

“Who is calling you?” said Charles, quickly putting me off him and pushing my clothes down whilst at the same time he jumped up, tucked away that thrilling thing of his, and arranged his clothes as best he could.

“Oh!” I cried, feeling dreadfully guilty and frightened. “It's mother!”

“Well,” said Charlie, giving me a hurried kiss, “don't be frightened—fasten your dress—call out that you are coming!”

“I'm coming, mother!” I cried.

“Come then child!” was the answer as my mother went indoors. My lover could see through the tangled honeysuckles which hung over the hole I called my “window” and saw her go in. Then he took me in his arms and hugged and kissed me, and taking my left hand he put it on his stiff, big, huge thing, which was standing inside his drawers all up to his belly, under the front buttons of his drawers, and put his right hand between my thighs, and pressing my throbbing mound, he kissed me again and again, and begged me to meet him again the next evening at the same time, but to be careful not to let my mother notice anything strange in my behavior and appearance now. I promised, gave his delightful tool one more tender squeeze, and ran happy, but still nervous, to the house.

Mother only wanted me because she had some sewing for me to do. The candles were lighted but she did not seem to notice if I had more color than usual, nor if I trembled, and I, at first I felt my face burning, my bosom palpitating and my bubbies as though they would burst my dress. I still had the sensation of Charlie's dear hand and thigh, and as for my cleft, it seemed to have gone mad! It beat! It tickled! and my wet bush and my wet thighs stuck to my drawers! How nice it was! Oh! What sweet, sweet pleasure I had had! And tomorrow night I would have more! And fancy this grand, handsome gentleman thinking so much of poor me! A little girl like myself, not fourteen years old, with a real lover a lover with—oh—such a glorious weapon! Such a pleasure-giving poke! and fancy! I had no idea one's nook was so full of sensation as mine had proved to be! Oh! when he began those quick movements! When he began to spend! How he breasted! His “Oh my God!”

“My little darling!” showed what intense pleasure he felt too, my thoughts ran on that way, whilst my fingers mechanically worked the needle.

After I had gone up to undress for the night I made a minute examination of my naked self. So I was beautiful, was I? I had better bubbies than most other girls, and my little cave was a perfect gem! If only Charles could come to me in bed! How perfect it would be! He would do to me all night long what he had in the Summer House! But he was coming again next evening! I would try to get to sleep as fast as I could and dream of him.

But sleep would not come. I was too excited. I found myself putting my finger into myself as deep as I could, and pushing it in and out, as Charlie did his, but his finger was so much bigger than mine, it had given me more pleasure, and as for his manhood, oh! was it possible so huge a thing could by any possible means all fit in my slit? I could not believe it and yet he had told me it could. Why did it not all go in then this evening? Perhaps it was because he was so hurried! It might require more time. It was ever so long before I did sleep, and then, alas, I was disappointed! I did not dream of my lover or anything else.

Well, the next day did seem long! But I took the greatest pains to seem quite myself, though I felt I had undergone a tremendous change. I did not feel like the little girl who only looked for her admired young officer to be happy at the bare sight of him. I now expected, wanted, desired much more! And I got it! For, although when he came and found me seated in the little house, he at first did nothing more than kiss me, and feel my bubbies and cranny through my dress, because as he said my mother was so near it would be dangerous if I were in such a state of undress that I could not run out at once when she called, and meet and divert her from the Summer House, yet, little by little, he grew more and more excited; he did not, indeed, open the bosom of my dress, but he put his hand under my petticoats, and caught hold of my secret place and set it mad with his caressing fingers, and I, in my turn, felt his iron-stiff weapon, until at last he said, “I think Lizzie, we must have just one poke,” and he asked me would I like to get his “man" out. Oh! would I not! I at once commenced unbuttoning his trousers and I got my hand in and pulled away his shirt and oh! the delight of getting that splendid big, hot thing in my grasp! and Charlie, delighted too, told me to be careful but to feel his jewels, telling me how to get at them and I did! The darlings! How nice they felt! Like two fine eggs in a bag of velvet! and then he pulled down his drawers and again took me on his knees, and I had the same delight of feeling his tool just popping its big hard head in and out of me and of spending, and the quick thrusts and his almost groans of pleasure, and the hot quick jets of spend he poured into and all over my excited cleft! This time we were not interrupted by my mother, and whilst he held me, still with his manhood in me, he asked me, “Lizzie, will you come and sleep with me? It would be so grand to be both in our skins in a nice warm bed! and then I could have you properly. I can't do it here. All of me ought to go inside you, but I cannot get half nor a quarter of it in.”

“Oh! I should like it, but how can I ever sleep with you, my dear Charlie?”

“Oh! you must of course come with me! Come tomorrow! Meet me here and I will take you to Dover. We will spend a week there! Will you come, Lizzie?”

It seemed impossible. The idea of running away from home was so new to me and at first I could hardly bear the thought of it, but Charlie easily persuaded me; but what his persuasive voice said in words, his still more persuasive staff said in eloquent silence to my eager little slit! Oh! my slit was on Charlie's side.

I said I would do whatever he liked, and just what he told me. So, still keeping me in this delicious position, on him, he told me to get what little things I required, and to bring them during the next day, when I could best do so unobserved by my mother, and put them in the Summer House, and to be sure to have my best dress and best hat, and to bring all I had best, because I should travel as his wife, and I must look very nice indeed as his wife should. Then he said he would not come for me before nine o'clock, and I must manage to be quite ready. He wanted to know whether I should find it difficult to get out of the house so late, as if so, we must make another plan. But I knew I could do it easily, and I did so long, long for the time to come. I assured him I would be quite ready, and as nicely dressed as he could wish for, my mother being a dressmaker and I being a good “model” she always had me dressed, saying I was her walking advertisement. Then after many more sweet kisses and caresses, but no more—what might I call it? Well, make-believe poking, I left my adored lover and went into my sewing and my thoughts. Now I might as well say that although I afterwards repented bitterly of this escapade, and my heart reproached me dreadfully for running away from my mother in this cruel manner, especially as I had not the remotest cause or grievance against her but quite the contrary, yet I could not help it. None of those who, like myself, are endowed with passions of overwhelming force, can tell what a resistless power temptation is. I was indeed maddened with unfulfilled desires. I hungered for a blood feast. I had been as a, hungry tigress sniffing the exquisite prey, forgetful of all but the sight of her craving, ravening wants. I knew I was going to do infinite, perhaps irreparable wrong, but I was not mistress of my own will. My hitherto hardly-noticed or thought-of little slit had suddenly emerged from its obscurity, and captured and made me prisoner. In fact I fully think had Charlie been in Hell itself, I would have jumped in, to be in his arms and obtain his love.

So, after what seemed hours of waiting, and after a night of almost complete sleeplessness, the fated hour came. I carried out Charlie's instructions, I took, bit by bit, the things I required, and hid them in the Summer House, and when Charlie came he found me dressed and ready. I had changed my clothes and left those I usually wore every day on the seat, where my mother found them a few hours later. I was in such a ferment of mind and body that I have a most indistinct recollection of how we left the little Summer House. I left it a virgin, not quite a chaste one it is true, and when I came back I was one no more! Heigh oh!

Well, I remember things more distinctly from the time Charlie put me into a first-class carriage, and followed me when he had seen my portmanteaus into the baggage van. There was only one other occupant, an old gentleman, who had evidently traveled from London. He took off his spectacles to look at me, and seemed so satisfied that I was worth looking at that he hardly once took his eyes off me until we reached Dover. It irritated me more than I can tell, being so stared at, but it amused Charlie immensely, who gave me sly little nudges from time to time and whispered in my ear that I had made a new conquest.

However I kept quiet, though I would have loved to say something pert to the old gentleman. The fact was that my nerves were strung to such a pitch of excitement that I often wonder my brain was not turned. We went to the “Ship Hotel,” which, of course, you know is close to the pier at Dover, and Charlie took a private sitting room and a double-bedded sleeping room, and put himself down in the visitors' book as Captain Charles Vincent, and me as his wife with the Honorable before our names.

I felt very nervous indeed. Everyone seemed to look very hard at me. In my heart I said to myself, “They know I am not his wife!” I was so young, so inexperienced, I fancied that others could see into my heart and mind as easily as I could myself! I was—oh—so glad when we at last went upstairs to our sitting room. There Charlie took me in his arms and gave me, as he said, all the kisses and fond caresses and passionate embraces he would have given me in the train had not the horrid old gentleman been there. He took off my hat and cloak and went back a few steps and admire me, as he said, and when he had looked me over for a moment he ran up and again clasped me in his arms, saying, “Oh! Lizzie! I have never seen you so well-dressed before. You look as perfect a lady as could be, and only thirteen, my darling. This swelling bosom, these lovely bubbies and those splendid hips don't belong to a child of thirteen, but to one of nineteen or twenty; and your beautiful, really beautiful face, though delightfully young looking, is by no means that of a child!” and he kissed and petted and fondled me, and put his naughty, delightful hand between my thighs, and I began to lose all the nervousness I had, and leaned against him with a heart brimful of love and affection; and desire made me throb all over.

Charlie insisted on our having some supper, and we had a bottle of champagne. I did not feel in the least hungry and I told him so, but he said he was certain I had eaten nothing all day. He confessed it had been the same with him, and unless we ate and drank we should have no strength to support us during the night, for, said he, “If you think you are going to get a wink of sleep before four o'clock, and perhaps at all tonight, you are vastly mistaken, my Lizzie darling” and his eyes poured forth volumes of dazzling light into mine.

Before we had our supper brought Charlie had given me two rings. I have them both now. Here they are where he first put them. A wedding ring and a keeper with pearls, diamonds and rubies. This was my mock marriage and real honeymoon. I was afterwards really married with the same ring and that marriage was followed by a mock honeymoon. It was well he did this, for we were waited on by a handsome and pert maid, and several times I noticed her eyes fixed on my hands as if to see whether I carried the outward and respectable mark of matrimony. I wonder how many similar rings Charlie had given to other girls? He was a great ravisher of maidens. A great hand at seduction in all its phases—a perfect hunter after women—and I was only one of a great number who had passed from virginity to womanhood through the gates of his arms; for, like my last Charlie, my first Charlie began slit-hunting very young and being like you, handsome, well furnished with the necessary weapons, and rich, he scored far more successes than failures. He always said I was the gem of all he had had, and that he found me by accident. Certainly he had no trouble with me, for, like a ripe peach, I fell the moment his fingers touched me.

Well! after supper the maid wanted to know whether she should assist me to undress when I went to bed, and Charlie answered for me, saying that I was obliged, but I should not require her services that night, and he added that we were not to be disturbed in the morning, as we had come a long journey, and would probably sleep it out. The girl, I could see, struggled to suppress a smile. I was too plainly very recently married, if married at all, and I think she saw well enough that our night would not be passed in sleep! I know I blushed! I could not help it. As she left the room I caught her running her eye over Charlie, and unless I am mistaken, she thought she would willingly change places with me, and take her chances of getting any sleep in Charlie's bed.

And now I am very near the end of the life of my poor little maidenhead which died before I was fourteen. Few perish quite so early, but I am afraid, at least in that class of life in which I was born, few survive fifteen or sixteen. There are too many opportunities for such girls to get rid of these little pests!—but I did not know I had one at all. I was soon to learn it for the first time, but to know I had one only to see, or rather to feel it disappear forever.

Charlie, as soon as the maid was gone, begged me to go to bed! Now it is strange but true, and I think it is natural, that, eager as I was to be had, delighted at the idea of being in bed with him, knowing the pleasure I had already had from his sweet organ, but the “Bed” rather alarmed me. I would willingly have put it off, but Charlie begged and besought me not to delay his happiness and mine too, and feeling a little like a real virgin bride, no doubt, I suffered him to lead me to our room. There was the altar of love on which the sacrifice was to be offered! A fine, big, wide bed such as I had never seen before. The room was large; there were two tables, with basins, etc., a splendid wardrobe with a door made of a mirror at least six feet high, on the walls were nice pictures of landscapes in oils, and on the floor a carpet which deadened every footstep. I had never been in such a magnificent bedroom in my life. I was dumbfounded with admiration and wonder. It all looked so much too splendid for me.

“Now darling! darling!” cried Charlie. “I must go and take half a dozen whiffs of a cigar, and see who are in the house, so as to find out if there is anyone I had better keep you hidden from. I won't be long. You unfasten your clothes but don't take them off. I will be your maid tonight—and—your man too!”

“Oh! Charlie! don't be long! Don't leave me all by myself!”

“No one will come and eat you, my pet! Besides,” said he smiling, “you may like to find yourself alone for a few minutes.”

I understood. I did require it very much, and I said no more to detain him. I saw the necessary article, and in my mind I thanked my Charlie for his kind thought. It seemed so delicate of him, too, and I felt my heart bound towards him.

Before I followed his instructions and loosened my clothes, I peeped out of the window and saw a lovely sight. You know Dover, I dare say. The view of the Esplanade, with its lamps all lighted, the lights in the castle, and in the houses along the beach glittering like so many stars, was a sight I had never seen anything like before. The murmur of the waves splashing on the shore and against the pier, came softened to my ears, and made me feel a dreamy happiness which I cannot describe. Then suddenly remembering what I had to do, I let the blind fall from my hands and set to work unhooking my dress, and unbuttoning and loosening the strings and whilst doing this my Charlie came in, with quick, eager steps, catching me in his arms, putting his thigh between mine and exclaiming, “All right, my Lizzie! No one here that knows me or who I know. Now! my pet! let me undress you! We will put our skins on and have a lovely—oh, a lovely night in that heavenly bed.”

Oh! he was quicker at taking off my clothes than my experience in the Summer House at home would have made me believe possible. In a brace of shakes he had me naked, all but my chemise, stockings and boots. I thought he would leave me my chemise, but you will see. Taking off my boots and stockings, he made me sit down on a chair, and his naughty hands kept on pushing up my chemise, to be out of his way, higher up my thighs than was at all required, and somehow my mound would come (as he said) in his way. It was lovely! He tickled me so, he made me laugh—he excited me so, that to pay him out I put my now naked foot between his thighs. At once he took it, and put the sole of it on to his beautiful stiff weapon and a thrill like electricity shot all through me. My touch made him hurry up too. Both stockings were off now, and I was going to rise off the chair, when he pushed me back and said he must see my shoulders and bosoms and bubbies bare! In a moment he had my chemise off my shoulders, so it lay round my middle, all above that was perfectly naked. With a cry of delight he fell with his mouth on my bosom, kissing, biting, nibbling, whilst he pressed between my thighs and stroked them beneath my chemise with his hands. Then, suddenly rising, he caught me in his arms, pulled me straight up, and my chemise falling to the floor, he lifted me up, kicked it away, and put me down in front of him as naked as I was born.

“Oh! Charlie!” I exclaimed, “how could you! Let me have my chemise!” and I put my hands, naturally, over my motte, for I felt shame glowing all over me, to be so dreadfully naked in the presence of a man!

“Oh! my lovely, my beautiful Lizzie! I cannot let you cover up that lovely form and those exquisite charms! Look girl! Here! Come look at yourself in this glass, and say did you ever see anything prettier in your life!”

And he half pushed, half carried me, a most unwilling victim at that moment, before the high cheval glass in the wardrobe, of which I have spoken.

Oh! I can hardly tell you what an impression my own reflection made on me! The moment before I felt as if I were crimson all over, from shame at being completely naked in the presence of Charlie, but now I was so struck with what I saw before me, that all feelings of shame vanished, and were replaced by a flood of pleasure. I had never seen myself, as a whole, naked in the glass, for I had no such mirror in my own little bedroom at home, and it never struck me to strip myself and see what I was like, when clothed in nothing but my naked charms, by the assistance of the cheval glass in mother's trying-on room. Besides all the surroundings were in favor of my seeing myself to the highest advantage now. The wallpaper of the room was dark, and reflected light badly, so that my figure in the mirror stood out against a dark background and showed up with dazzling whiteness. I could not but admire myself. Mother had often said I was a well-made girl, but she never expatiated much on my figure or my charms. Here I had them all before me, and I was amazed and delighted at the revelation! You, Charlie, have seen me naked, and know what I am like now. Well! I was nearly as rounded in form and full in figure, and shape of my limbs as now. What perhaps struck me first, most of all, was what a nice unblemished skin I had. Next, how lovely my shoulders and bosoms were, how slender my waist, and how beautifully my hips gradually expanded until they were wider than my chest. My pretty little bubbies, well separated, each looking a little away from the other, each perfectly round where it sprang from my bosom, and both tapering in lovely curves until they came to two rosebud-points, next caught my delighted eyes. I had never seen them look so lovely as they did now, as they gleamed and shone, apparently whiter than the body from which they grew, as the light flashed upon them. My belly, smooth, broad and dimpled in the centre with a sweet little navel, like a perfect plain of snow which appeared the more dazzling from the thick growth of hair which curled in dark rich brown locks on the triangle of my moue, gradually growing thinner and less close as it tapered to that point which receding between my rounded thighs, divided at the spot where my pretty, demure little slit commenced to form. I could not see the whole of my grotto, when I stood upright, for it turned in between my thighs too quickly, so to say, as if it felt that it should hide itself until love demanded it to be displayed by the action of opening my legs. My thighs, knees, legs, ankles and feet next came in for their share of inspection, and by the time I had looked myself over from head to feet, I came to the conclusion that Charlie was right, and that a lover should be permitted to gaze with enraptured eyes on charms of no common class of beauty. Don't think me vain, but I have been too often told that I am beautiful to believe that every man who has seen me naked is and has been a liar.

Well, whilst I was thus intoxicating myself with my own reflection Charlie was not idle. He had completely stripped himself, and came eagerly up, as naked as myself. He put his arm round my neck, and stood beside me, adding his masculine beauty to the picture I saw in the glass before me.

“Now Lizzie! is not that a perfect picture? Don't we make a real handsome couple?”

I could only respond by putting my arms around his waist and pressing him to my side. His warm body sent a thrill through me, as I felt it in this delicious close contact, and I saw a little ruby and shining point suddenly protrude between the upper lips of my excitable little mound. Oh! Charlie looked splendid! I took my eyes off myself to gaze at him in wonder and admiration. He looked so powerful, yet so lithe. His shoulders were as broad as mine were narrow, and his hips as narrow as mine were broad. His deep and manly chest contrasted with my more graceful but completely feminine bosom. His arms, long and muscular, seemed perfect models in marble, and every movement on his part showed the firm muscles move under the skin beneath which there was little of that soft fat or flesh which made my limbs and body so pliant and smooth. But naturally, it was his long, stiff, straight, grand-looking tool and the big rough bunch, which formed his handsome jewels underneath, in their velvety wrinkled bag, which chiefly attracted my burning eyes, for there it was, that truly stalwart staff, pointing up at my face! It seemed a formidable weapon indeed, so strong, so conquering, so irresistible. Its head, of a more or less rosy color with a suspicion of violet at the edges, was half uncovered, and its almost impudent look amused me, as it seemed to scan me with its slit-like little eye on its top. I could see that this splendid weapon grew broader and thicker at its base, where it sprang from a forest of hair which clothed my lover's moue, and slightly tapered until it reached its head, where it suddenly widened in again to taper quickly off to a rounded blunt point, here its “eye” was. Charlie took my hands and when he put one on his sack, and the other on his manhood, and he made me feel and press them for a moment. I almost fainted with the thrilling emotion this feeling of him sent through me, and clasping me to him, he pressed me against himself, so that his mighty spear-like weapon was closed in between his belly and mine. I could feel its point high above my navel, and I remember wondering whether supposing he could get it in I should feel it up inside me as far as that! At the same time I felt certain that to get so huge a volume as that into my tight and small cranny would be impossible. I was convinced of that.

After a few more thrilling caresses on the part of each of us Charlie said, “Now Lizzie!” lifted me up in his great strong arms, and carrying me like a baby to the other side of the bed, he laid me down on my back, pulling the sheets down. Oh! I was inclined to have him! My whole body panted for him! My bubbies seemed to be swelling as if they would burst and the little red nipples on them were as hard as peas and tickling me! As for my sheath, it was raging! Such a throbbing as went on in it I had never felt before, not even when he had half had me at Canterbury. I expected him between my thighs, which I opened for him, but instead of taking his own place there at once, my irritating lover commenced kissing me on the mouth, cheeks, eyes, ears, throat and all of that part, whilst his hand wandered over my bosoms from bubbie to bubbie, which he tenderly felt and pressed. He did not seem to be in half the hurry I was. If his intentions were to drive me half frantic with desire, to raise up all that was lascivious in my senses, he certainly succeeded to perfection! But really he was right. I always think a good preliminary engagement of hands and lips makes a poke much more delicious than when one comes to close quarters without any at all. Charlie's lips descended from my lips to my bosom. He laid his head between my breasts, and turning it from side to side kissed either bubbie as his lips encountered its warm, rounded sides, and whilst so doing his naughty hand crept, crept, crept over my belly, down my groin, down my thighs, up again, all round my motte, then skimmed my bush with finger tips, then just touched, but no more, the line of my sweet tunnel until I could hardly endure the almost agonizing pleasure he caused me! Then suddenly he took a firm bite of one breast, and in went his strong finger, right up to the knuckle, with a bang against me, and this he repeated, biting, but not hurting, my other bubbie, and then with repeated kisses his mouth rove over my belly, down the groin, down one thigh, up the other, just like his finger had done, until suddenly he brought it up right to my quivering spot, which he almost burnt with his kisses! I could feel his tongue darting at my agitated, excited lips, and at last, unable to bear it any longer, I almost screamed to him to leave off that, and give me what I craved for. He turned a dreamy look at me, when he suddenly seemed to wake up, as it were.

“Oh! I nearly forgot!” said he as he ran to the mantelpiece and brought from it what looked like a pot of pomatum.

“This is cold cream, my Lizzie! As you have never had all me inside you yet, and your delicious little cave is as tight as can be, some of this will help us both! Hold the pot darling, and let me anoint your sheath, Queen of my sword!”

He took fingerful after fingerful of the cream, and put so much of its cool substance inside me I thought he meant me to have it all. It was so sweet and cool and pleasant, I liked it for its own sake, as much as for the sake of feeling his finger push it as far in as it could.

“Now,” said he, “anoint my King of your sweetest sheath, my Lizzie!” and he turned that awful mad looking weapon towards me. I took it, close to the root, by my left hand, and with my right I anointed its head as I stroked the cream down, its hood slipped right off, and gathered behind its spreading shoulders, and here Charlie made me put a great lot of it. Then with both hands I, by his directions, put all that remained in the pot on his shaft, until it shone as though dipped in oil! Oh! the feeling of that organ! I am sure you remember the excitement you must have felt the first time you had a good free and complete “feel” of a girl, Charlie? Well! think of what I experienced, for this grand rod, those glorious eggs, all mine, to press and caress in perfect freedom for the first time.

Charlie made me wipe my hands on his curly hair and then, with a triumphant, “Now Lizzie, open your thighs! Now for heaven and bliss and all that is delicious,” he pushed me on to my back, and was between my willingly opened arms and thighs before I could wink! He made me introduce himself into my cunnie, then he put one hand under my head, and the other under my hips and with a slight pressure forced, or rather easily slid his weapon in as far as it had ever gone before. At first, as if careful not to raise any doubts in my mind, he contented himself with toying in and out, as he had done at Canterbury, giving me delicious pleasure, but suddenly he gave a thrust which stopped my breath, and he kept up such a fearful pressure that it began to hurt me not a little, but a good deal, I can tell you.

“Oh! Charlie!” I cried out, “Don't darling, you are hurting me dreadfully.”

He said nothing, but gave me a kiss; then laid his cheek to mine, and gathered me more firmly than ever in his arms, and again seemed to violently burst away into my inside!

I almost screamed, but Charlie would not listen to my entreaties! Again and again did he batter, and at last, with a sickening sensation of rending and tearing, I felt that the obstacle, whatever it was, had gone before his dreadful poke, and that each stroke, each thrust, was carrying it deeper and deeper into my inside! I really feared he had burst my poor little nook, and that I should die in consequence; but, before I could express myself in words, I felt that every atom of that awful machine was buried in me, for I could feel Charlie's sack against me distinctly, and as for our bellies, they were completely pressed together, as well as our mottes! Then Charlie relaxed that tremendous grip on me, and raising his face looked eagerly into mine, and smiled and kissed me and said, “Ah! Lizzie darling! I hope I don't hurt you very much! You had such a dreadfully tough little maidenhead, and your little cave is a tight one—so much the better! for you will have the more pleasure! Do I hurt you now darling?” and he kissed me tenderly.

“Not now! but oh, Charlie! you don't know how much you did hurt me! I hope you have not done me any harm!”

“Not a bit,” said he laughing. “I am glad it does not hurt you! But now for pleasure, my Lizzie! You lie quite still and let me play with you quietly and you will see whether you won't forget any pain I gave you.”

Then commenced those splendid, exciting, thrilling, long strokes. Even that very first time I felt great pleasure from them, and afterwards when all soreness had completely disappeared, I remember, as it were plunging into the new world! My cranny was like a violin, and Charlie's instrument like the bow, and every stroke raised the most ravishing melody on the senses that could be experienced or imagined! Oh! I am sure he was right when he said that never was there a girl so plainly brought into the world for poking and poking only, as myself! I adore it! I can't live without it! And at times I cannot imagine how any man or woman can pass a day without having it at least once or twice.

That was how I lost my maidenhead before I knew I had one! Ah! That week at Dover will always be remembered by me as the most exquisite in my life. Charlie was never done! He was so kind too! He took me out for long drives—showed me the castle—took me out boating; laid perfect fairy plans for our future. I was to be his own pet love! I was to live in a sweet little house in London, to have my carriage and servants and all that I could want, and I should be his darling mistress, almost his wife. Not once did I remember my poor mother, or my duty to her as a child. I declare it seems most terribly selfish—but oh! I was ravished with my lover, and the whole world seemed centered in him! And yet when the test of that burning love came to be applied, you will see how it stood.

Yes! Yes! It was an exquisite dream! Such a dream as I have often wished to have again but never in my happiest moments since have been able to approach!

Well, it was all settled. Charlie's leave would be up now that our six-days honeymoon was spent. We were to have one more blissful night in one another's arms, and oh! how I had learned to love being well poked! How I had come to appreciate its ravishing joys, its indescribable delights! We were, I say, to have one more night at Dover, and then Charlie was to take me to London, leave me in a hotel for a day, get more leave, and come and hunt up a nice little house for me, etc., etc., as he had planned, and I was to be his kept mistress. The idea of returning to Canterbury to my mother had completely faded from my mind. From her arms I had been snatched away to quite another, and perfectly different life, and like the brilliant fly, I could no longer think of resuming my life as a grub. The thing was impossible, so impossible that I never gave it a single thought.

But, ah! there are a good many “buts” in the world, which like stones in the road are apt to upset the steadiest and most courageous—but, the last evening of our stay in the Ship Hotel, a note was brought to me, just as I was going to take off my things. Charlie and I had been for a long drive over to the camp at Shorncliffe. A glance at the writing showed me it was from my mother! I dropped on to a chair and Charlie, seeing me look as if I should faint, ran up in alarm.

“What is it, my darling? Who is this from?”

“Oh! Charlie,” I ejaculated, “it is from my mother!”

“The devil! What does she want? What business is it of hers, I should like to know, to come interfering?” cried poor Charlie, who forgot that she had every possible business to do so.

“What does she say?” he went on impatiently, for I had not the courage to open the note but held it in my shaking hand. “Here, girl! give it to me! Let me see what the old—h'm—old lady says.”

“Lizzie, your mother is on the pier and asks you to come out for a moment to see her, or she will come in and see you here! You had better go, darling! It would not do to have her kick up a row in here. Will you go with her if she asks you, Lizzie? Tell me! God damn and blast it all! What an unfortunate thing! Lizzie, Lizzie! You must not leave me! I can't live without you! I must have you! Do you hear?”

I was drowned in tears and my bosom was torn with sobs. I loved Charlie! Oh! I did! What girl would not love a lover who had adored, worshipped and poked her as Charlie had me? But on the other hand I loved my mother too. How dearly I did not know until now. The two affections, the old and the new, wrestled within me. I was at the parting of the ways, and if it had been possible I would have liked to have walked on each of the roads.

“Oh! Charlie!” I cried, as I threw myself in his arms, “I cannot say! I cannot say! Perhaps mother will tell me that after what I have done she won't have me home again!”

“And then!” cried poor Charlie eagerly. “And then of course, I would come with you, Charlie.”

“That means if your mother—confound her!—says come home, Lizzie, you will leave me?”

“Can't I go home with her if she will have me and come to you another time, Charlie dearest?” said I.

“Well!” he cried, “now let us get rid of this uncertainty, Lizzie! Though it rests with you, I fancy! If you had any pluck at all you would send her word that you could not see her!”

“Then she would come in here, Charlie. You don't know my mother! She is very kind, but if she says she will do a thing, she does it!”

“By Jove! Yes! I forgot! She would come in here and then there would be a devil of a row! Run! Lizzie! run, and keep her out like a good girl!”

I dried my eyes and quickly went down stairs, and out of the hotel, and on to the pier, along which I walked, straining my eyes in the fast gathering darkness to see where my mother could be. At last I saw a figure standing just in front of the recess, and I recognized my mother and flew to her. She received me with open arms, folding me tightly to her bosom, and there we both stood clasped together, and both sobbing as if our hearts would break.

Charlie, I can't go into the details of that sad meeting. You must spare me and let me only say that my mother did not say one word of upbraiding or scolding; she told me that she had nearly died of fear and sorrow when she found me gone and keeping her wits about her she spread no report, asked nobody about me, but putting two and two together came to the conclusion that if I had gone with anybody it would probably have been an officer of the Hussars. Then she found out that Captain Vincent had his stables behind our house and that he had gone on leave from the very day I had disappeared, and accidentally she saw his name and that of his wife in one of the Dover papers, as being at the “Ship.” She had found out that he was not married, had come straight to Dover, on a chance had sent the note, hoping that the Hon. Mrs. Vincent might be myself, as indeed it was! She said that whatever mischief had been done had been done, and that the only thing to do was not to make it worse by raising a scandal. She told me to go back to Charlie, to stay with him for the night, to manage to return home after dark to Canterbury, where she would meet me and have a cab ready outside the station. Our reserved and quiet way of living had prevented our neighbors noticing my absence, and unless some future event happened nobody need know anything about it.

All my dreams of a little house in London came to an end. I loved my Charlie, it is true, but it was slit love more than that of the heart, and my mother easily prevailed on me to give him up. Charlie, poor fellow, was overjoyed when he saw me return. He fancied I was coming back for good, and his disappointment was intense and bitter when he knew that I had firmly resolved to return to my own home, and not to go to London with him; but presently when the first bitter draught was swallowed, he said that of all wonderfully wise women he had ever heard of, my mother beat all in letting me back to him for the night. There was and could be no scandal, and he thought that a girl possessed of such lively senses as myself could never go back to such a humdrum life as mine had been before he taught me what a heaven was to be found in his arms and from his God-like and splendid staff! We made the most of that night! I, because I firmly believed I should never have Charlie again, and he, because he did not know when he should be able to have me again, though he quite believed our separation would be but a short one.

So I returned home. Oh! what a wonderful woman my mother was! Not one word of reproach did she utter! She left that to my own heart, and I can tell you that my self-upbraidings were infinitely more painful to me than anything she could have said! But what she did do was to point out the awful dangers I had run. She told me how easy it was to lose one's good name and reputation, and how infinitely difficult it was to get anything like that back again. She gave me instance after instance of girls who, commencing by being what I was to have been, the petted mistress of a rich and handsome gentleman, ended as common whores in a brothel, dying of disease and drink before many years, if their unhappy lives had not driven them to put an end to themselves by suicide. One thing kept both of us uneasy for a while. There was every prospect that my loves with Charlie might result in a baby, but that terrible event, terrible for a girl like me and a mother like mine, did not come off. I had no child by Charlie that time, though one of those I had afterwards may have been his, and I used to like to think it was.

Ah! well! I had a quiet and not altogether unhappy life with my mother until I was fifteen. The Hussars had left Canterbury and though I naturally often thought of Charlie. I was rather indignant that he never apparently once tried to see me again. He told me afterwards that he had done all he could think of to get letters to me. Perhaps my mother intercepted them. I never got any of them. I hate the next episode in my life. One day I met a sergeant, dressed in the old and beloved Hussar uniform, I got talking to him, and from talking, I got to walking, and from walking to love making, and from love making to poking! I could not help it! I wanted a man most dreadfully, and all my old fires came back at sight of the Hussar uniform. Of course I acted deceitfully, and hid all from my mother, who hoped by trusting me fully, to prevent all such action on my part. My new lover was only on furlough. He had not been gone long before I found I was, this time, let in for a baby. My distraction nearly killed me, and all the more because I feared to tell my mother. But time told her. My figure lost its elegant shape and I had to confess—the awful, awful pain of that confession. But true to herself, my mother lost none of her wits. She found out my second seducer, went and saw him, found him to be the master tailor of the regiment, told him what an excellent dressmaker I was, proposed marriage, held out the promise of a fair dowry, her savings for many years—poor mother!—and I was married to Sergeant Thomas Wilson in time to save the legitimacy of my baby. But we did not live happily.

One day when my husband was out, Charlie came to see me. Oh! I was glad to see him. We had a long explanation and it all ended on his having me on my husband's bed! I was had again—joyful thought—by the darling man who had taught me what a sweet thing it was! But hardly had Charlie gone than in came Tom. Going from room to room he saw his own bed tumbled, and then he grinned! He accused me of having had Charlie whom he had met, and of whom he had heard about, goodness knows how, and there and then he made me an offer which I accepted. It was that to bring him custom, I should let myself be—admired. He would hear nothing, see nothing, know nothing! I was too unhappy with him not to jump at an offer which would give me back Charlie! All that had to be done was that a suit of clothes should be ordered from time to time, and Charlie ordered at least a dozen. Some other suits of clothes were ordered by other officers, and my husband had them all, every one, from Colonel to Junior Lieutenant, on his books, and I had them all as my lovers. I had several children. I only know the father of one, for certain, and that was my husband. I think the second was Charlie's but I am not sure. None lived.

That is my story, a sad mixture of happiness and misery, folly on my side and wisdom on my mother's. I know I am no better than I ought to be, but I cannot help it! There! Let us say no more about it!

Poor Lizzie! As I would gaze at her beautiful face in which nothing but purity, chastity and great power and self-control could be seen by the eye of one who had not the same means of knowing what her real nature was, I could not but wonder how it could be that such a sweet countenance could be the seat of a Temple in which Venus reigned, not only to the exclusion of all other Gods and Goddesses, but with more than ordinary power. I must leave my gentle readers to form their own conclusions of this lovely wanton, but that there was much good in her I became convinced the more I knew her. At all events it is not for me to throw the stone of condemnation at her. To enjoy a woman and then run her down is not my motto. Lizzie must have had a yearning for a purer and a better life, for she was constantly urging me to send for my beloved Louie, warning me that if I did not I should most certainly constantly wander from the path of virtue, and also saying that it was not fair to any woman, especially one who loved her husband, in every sense of the expansive word, to leave her to pine alone. Well, it was my hope that either I should rejoin my Louie in England, or that she should come out to me in India, but the fates were against it; and Venus herself, who may have considered that one so fit as myself to be her high priest, should not be restricted to only one Temple in which to offer up the sacrifice of incense so dear to her, but should have his delightful duties extended to worship of her in other shrines, of which so many were either already consecrated, or ready to be opened, for that holy and voluptuous rite.

During the remainder of my stay in Nowshera, I enjoyed my tender Lizzie in all tranquility and my tender girl readers may be sure that every opportunity was taken, and none lost, of procuring both for her and for myself the most complete pleasure which our active senses could expect. Her poor thighs were still marked by the violence of the brutal Searles when I last saw them, but the sweet, sweet mound between them lost neither beauty nor attraction on that account. To this day I look back upon that week of ardent love making with regretful delight. I have never yet succeeded in regretting having sinned against heaven and my dearest wife, in having broken the seventh commandment with Lizzie. Stolen waters are sweet, saith Solomon, and I, Charles Devereaux, say to that Amen, Amen, verily that is true.

Our new station staff officer, my good friend Major Stone, got a dak for Lizzie and two ekkhas for me, and we started off on our respective routes on the same day; Lizzie started in the morning and I in the evening, she making for India proper, and I for Shakkote, at the foot of the hills on which Cherat is situated. It was not without a pang on each side that we parted, and we exchanged locks of hair, pulled from our respective bushes. I have hers still and never look at its now somewhat faded curl but that the delicious days and nights I spent in her fair arms at Nowshera, come back to my memory with a force that if she only knew it, adds to the happiness I feel every time I seek the joys I experience so keenly, between my Louie's delightful and voluptuous thighs, and my Louie does not lose, I can assure you, by my having been unfaithful with Lizzie!

I took Soubratie with me, leaving “Mrs. Soubratie” to look after my luggage for which her husband was to return when he had seen me safe as far as Shakkote. I heard that she formed the delight of the gallant officers at Nowshera during her husband's absence, and that she brought a big bag full of rupees with her to Cherat, where her charms enabled her to add a good many more to the stock earned by her active and diligent grotto.

Of my journey, of my arrival at Cherat, and the two lovely maidens I found there who as yet had not known man, but to whom it was my most happy privilege to communicate the thrilling sensations of soft desire and voluptuous sentiment, I must tell my readers in my second series.