unfortunate man, who, so far as is known, had no personal enemies in the district, must inevitably have perished of cold and exposure, but that by some extraordinary stroke of good-fortune his brother happened to be passing through the wood at the time and came upon the miscreants and their victim before the former were able to decamp. With great intrepidity this man-who, we understand, is an ex-soldier and fought with much gallantry in the late war, in which he was severely wounded, winning the D.C.M.-attacked his brother's assailants and actually beat them off. He then lost no time in summoning the police, and with their aid conveyed his brother back to his home, where he lies suffering from shock. The ooourrence has caused considerable excitement in the distriot. It is conjectured that the fact that Flynn had his soldier brother living with him recently, incurred for him the enmity of the local branch of Sinn Fein, which is very strong in this part of the country; or it may have been one of the usual raids in search of arms, as the raiders-who, however, could find no weapons of any sort left the house in much disorder. Some articles of furniture have been broken or damaged, and some are missing, notably a large featherbed. . . . Interviewed by our representative to - day, the rescuer, who is the D.C.M. hero already mentioned, was modestly reticent about his own prowess, though there is no doubt whatever that his brother owes his life to his brave intervention. As usual, no arrests have been made....' ,, When I next met our Flynn I inquired for his brother, who was reported to be still "dawny," an adjective signifying weakness or tardy recovery. "It was a queer business," I ventured. He looked at me with very open gaze. "It's the Curse workin', that's what it is": his accents were grave. "Ye can never defeat a Curse, an' annywan that tries-God help them!..." VOL. CCVIII.-NO. MCCLVII. E THE DREAMERS. "If you can dream and not make dreams your master, If you can think, yet not make thought your aim." I. THE SUBALTERN. "A SORT of glorified jump, Manning, that's really all it is." The speaker, a tall, thin, soldierly-looking man, with sparse grey hair and keen blue eyes, fumbled in his pooket for a match to relight the cheroot which he had carelessly allowed to go out in the heat of the discussion. An eminently practical man, typical of his years and service, Colonel Smythe had little use or sympathy for dreamers, as he stigmatised people like the subaltern opposite to him, who, sprawling at full length in the ruined arohway, was watching the evolutions of a pair of white vultures below them, drifting steadily backward and forward, level with the battle ments. They had driven out from Delhi to look over the old ruins to the south, and the evening found them ensconced in a corner of the walls of Purana Qila, as Humayon's Fort at Indrapat is called locally, while Patricia Smythe manœuvred with the tea-basket. "But, sir, the gliders have been held in the air for over twenty seconds." "Only owing to the momentum they started with. It's just like a rifle bullet. If you give enough way to any pro -KIPLING. jectile it will keep up a certain distance in the air. But that's got no relation to bird's flight at all." "But surely it's the same thing: a plane launched into the air, and gliding through it just like a bird. If only one could keep up the momentum by some means, one could go on indefinitely like the bird does." "Yes, but you can't, and never will be able to. Man wasn't meant to fly, or he'd have been made differently." "I don't agree, sir: I think he was meant to do everything in time; the question is, how near we've got to the time for flying. Personally, I think we're just on it." He stopped thoughtfully. "And when we do stumble on it, it's going to revolutionise things a bit.' "Pass me the teapot, please, Mr Manning: the kettle's just boiling." The girl's clear voice broke in on the discussion, and Manning, sitting up, pulled the teabasket towards him. "Here you are, Miss Smythe; I'm sorry for not assisting, I was so busy arguing." "Oh, you'll never convince Dad. Dad. I've tried, and it's no go. He's certain men weren't made for flight, and so that settles it for good and all, You never dream dreams, do you, Dad?" "Lucky for you I don't, Pat. One wants some praetioal brains in a family of hopeless dreamers like you and your mother." "All the same, you wouldn't like us if we didn't dream, Dad: think of Mum's becoming practical-Heavens!" She poured the boiling water into the teapot and stirred it, while Manning passed over the milk and sugar-a slim slip of a girl in a biscuitcoloured tussore frock, with heavy coils of auburn hair gleaming under the shady brim of the white panama splashed with the vivid green of a silk veil twisted round it. Such a fresh dainty-looking girl, with nice, clear, honest, hazel eyes and a rather adorable mouth, thought Manning, as he watched her pouring out the tea, sitting up in the shade of the old stone archway which looked out through the thickness of the walls on to the sunkissed panorama of dome and minaret and yellow soil. A charming picture, with the light falling on face and straight well-poised neck, a shaft of sunlight from a crevice just catching the heavy jade and gold earring. She passed over a eup to Manning and one to Colonel Smythe, and helped herself to a piece of cake. "Why are you such an unbelieving Jew, Daddy? Why shouldn't men be beginning to fly, as Mr Manning says they are?" "Because, my dear, it's theoretically and practically impossible. Man's not constructed for it: he's meant to move about on the earth." "What about the sea? He manages to move about on and under that all right, Dad." "That's different: he's not acting against gravity there, whereas to fly, except in some form of balloon, he's got to counteract gravity, and that's the secret he can't find." "How does the bird do it, sir, anyway? We know something about it. He's got to push himself through the air, and the reaction of the air on the wings holds him up. If we can make wings and push them through the air, we ought to get the same result." "Too much weight to carry in the first place. The bird weighs practically nothing at all, and is specially built for flight-for movement in its own element, the air." "We could build our flyingmachines on the same lines." "And then they'll break up and drop you with a bump." "All right, sir-you wait and see. But I'll bet you anything you like that we shall be flying within the next ten years.' Manning sat up and passed his cigarette-case over. "Cigarette, Miss Smythe?" He lit it for her, and then lighting his own, asked "Who's for climbing the gate?" "Not me, thanks, Manning," said Colonel Smythe; "I've olimbed enough broken stairs to-day." "Will you come, Miss Smythe?" asked the subaltern, turning to the girl. "Yes, love to," she said, "and Dad oan pack up the tea things." She stood up and brushed the crumbs and dust from her frook. "I utterly refuse to pack up any tea things," replied the Colonel, extending himself luxuriously. "I shall lie here in peace and comfort with a oheroot while you two young idiots go and climb impossible stairs to get exactly the same view as I get here." "It's much better higher up, sir." "Well, I'll wait till your flying-machine is going, thanks." "Be a good girl, Pat, and don't break your neck if you can help it," he added as she stepped out into the sunlight on to the broken old stone stairs leading to the upper battlements, where the rosered gate-towers of carved stone stabbed the vivid blue of the sky. Manning followed the slim figure that stepped so steadily on the very edge of nothing, until they reached the top of the high gate-towers, where two little stone "chattri" pavilions of carved red granite, still gay with inlay of blue and green tiling, lent an air af dainty finish to the massive strength of the gates rising in double tier well over eighty feet of sheer smooth-cut ashlar, topped with the warmer red of old Moghul brick. The girl olimbed into one of them, and resting one shapely arm on the red stone where the gold bracelet glinted vividly, pointed out over the wide landscape-tomb and tower and ruined palace. "Dreams of dead kings, Mr Manning. Isn't it fascinating? I wonder what the man who built this fort thought when he stood here and looked out. Do you think he pictured this lying ruined, and you and me standing here, 'strangers within the gates'?" "He must have had some dim foresight, since he had imagination enough to design this place. But I suppose he said to himself, 'It'll last my time, and his, and theirs, and the rest is with Allah.'". "Seven cities . . mur. mured the girl as her eyes swept over the plain... "and now. "Tumbledown tombs and crumbling arches," said Manning, "but, which is eternal, roses. I picked that one at Humayon's Gardens." He held out a great, heavy-scented, yellow rose. The girl took it and held it to her nostrils. "How lovely! Why do they always have such topping flowers in those old gardens?" "I sometimes think that never blows the rose so red As where some buried Cæsar bled,'" quoted Manning. "Rose-petal perfume of past grandeur. No, it's for you," he said, as she offered it him back. "Oh, thanks awfully." She pinned it into her dress with an enamel brooch. She pointed out in front. "Look at that vulture coming down wind." The great bird swept past them noiselessly, and turning into the wind, hovered over the battlements awhile and then swept back again. "That's real flight, Miss Smythe, and you and I will do it yet: do it soon now, too, I think. We shall fly over this very place with its atmosphere of dreams and lazy sunkissed hours." "You do really believe it, don't you, Mr Manning? It's not only to make Dad argue?" "Of course I do. The Wrights have shown that it's possible, and all we've got to do is to make it really practicable." "And then what is there left? We shall be like Alexander, with no more worlds to conquer." Man's "Not in reality. found out about one-millionth of what there is to be found out, and the discovery of another millionth won't finish everything. But it's going to revolutionise war when it does come." The girl looked at him. "I wish it could revolutionise it out of existence," she said. "I'm afraid it won't do that yet," he replied gravely. "But we're getting on pretty fast. Think! Three hundred years ago Humayon stood on this very gate watching his troops marching out, horse and foot and elephants, all in clinking olattering mail. You and I, perhaps, will stand on this gate and watch the troops of the future passing by, not horse and foot and elephants, The voice was full of enthusiasm, and the speaker's face held the far-off rapt look of one who gazes from the high hills over 8 new strange country, yet one which seems half familiar from being so often visualised in the lonely halts of the long upclimb. The girl looked at him in wonderment. What funny things men were. Why did they sometimes suddenly wander out into the blue like that, where you couldn't follow them? It was bad enough now with "shows" and expeditions on which they vanished periodically. If they could fly off into the skies as well, poor woman might give up trying to hold them at all. Unlesswhy not?-she should go with them, lend grace and lightness as well as lissom strength to the great wings. Why shouldn't a woman do as much as a man in that line? Surely if flight were to come, woman might claim her equal right of wings to soar above the dust and haze into the higher clearer level where legendary has always held her sphere to be. The thought fired her. Why shouldn't she try the new road with this dreamer? "Will you teach me some |