THE MAN WHO WAS
The Earth gave up her dead that tide,
Into our camp he came,
And said his say, and went his way,
And left our hearts aflame.
Keep tally - on the gun-butt score
The vengeance we must take,
When God shall bring full reckoning,
For our dead comrade's sake.
Ballad.
Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful
person till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he is charming.
It is only when he insists upon being treated as the most easterly
of western peoples instead of the most westerly of easterns that
he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The
host never knows which side of his nature is going to turn up
next.
Dirkovitch was a Russian - a Russian of the Russians - who
appeared to get his bread by serving the Czar as an officer in a
Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a Russian newspaper with a
name that was never twice alike. He was a handsome young Oriental,
fond of wandering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he
arrived in India from nowhere in particular. At least no living
man could ascertain whether it was by way of Balkh, Badakshan,
Chitral, Beluchistan, or Nepaul, or anywhere else. The Indian
Government, being in an unusually affable mood, gave orders that
he was to be civilly treated and shown everything that was to be
seen.
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