A BAYARD FROM BENGAL
CHAPTER I
FROM CALCUTTA TO CAMBRIDGE OVERSEA ROUTE
At sea the stoutest stomach jerks,
Far, far away from native soil,
When Ocean's heaving waterworks
Burst out in Brobdingnagian boil!
THE waves of Neptune erected their seething and angry crests to incredible altitudes; overhead in fuliginous storm-clouds the thunder rumbled its terrific bellows, and from time to time the ghastly flare of lightning illuminated the entire neighbourhood. The tempest howled like a lost dog through the cordage of the good ship Rohilkund (Captain O. Williams), which lurched through the vasty deep as though overtaken by the drop too much.
At one moment her poop was pointed towards celestial regions; at another it aimed itself at the recesses of Davey Jones's locker; and such was the fury of the gale that only a paucity of the ship's passengers remained perpendicular, and Mr Chunder Bindabun Bhosh was recumbent on his beam end, prostrated by severe sickishness, and hourly expecting to become initiated in the Great Secret.
Bitterly did he lament his hard lines in venturing upon the Black Water, to be snipped off in the flower of his adolescence, and never again to behold the beloved visages of his relations!
So heartrending were his tears and groans that they moved all on board, and Honble Mr Commissioner Copsey, who was returning on leave, kindly came to inquire the cause of such vociferous lachrymation.
"What is the matter, Baboo?" began the Commissioner in paternal tones. "Why are you kicking up the shindy of such a deuce's own hullabaloo?"
"Because, honble Sir," responded Mr Bhosh, "I am in lively expectation that waters will rush in and extinguish my vital spark."
"Pooh!" said Mr Commissioner, genially. "This is only the moiety of a gale, and there is not the slightest danger."
Having received this assurance, Mr Bhosh's natural courage revived, and, coming up on deck, he braved the tempest with the cool composure of a cucumber, admonishing all his fellow-passengers that they were not to give way to panic, seeing that Death was the common lot of all, and, though everyone must die once, it was an experience that could not be repeated, with much philosophy of a similar kind which astonished many who had falsely supposed him to be a pusillanimous.
The remainder of the voyage was uneventful, and, soon after setting his feet on British territory, Mr Bhosh became an alumnus and undergraduate of the Alma Mater of Cambridge.
I shall not attempt to relate at any great length the history of his collegiate career, because, being myself a graduate of Calcutta University, I am not, of course, proficient in the customs and etiquettes of any rival seminaries, and should probably make one or two trivial slips which would instantly be pounced upon and held up for derision by carping critics.
So I shall content myself with mentioning a few leading facts and incidents. Mr Bhosh very soon wormed himself into the good graces of his fellow college boys, and his principal friend and fidus Achates was a young high-spirited aristocrat entitled Lord Jack Jolly, the only son of an earl who had lately been promoted to the dignity of a baronetcy.
Lord Jolly and Mr Bhosh were soon as inseparable as a Dæmon and Pythoness, and, though no nabob to wallow in filthy lucre, Mr Bhosh gave frequent entertainments to his friends, who were hugely delighted by the elegance of his hospitality and the garrulity of his conversation.
Unfortunately the fame of these Barmecide feasts soon penetrated the ears of the College gurus, and Mr Bhosh's Moolovee sent for him and severely reprimanded him for neglecting to study for his Littlego degree, and squandering his immense abilities and talents on mere guzzling.
Whereupon Mr Bhosh shed tears of contrition, embracing the feet of his senile tutor, and promising that, if only he was restored to favour he would become more diligent in future.
And honourably did he fulfil this nudum pactum, for he became a most exemplary bookworm, burning his midnight candle at both ends in the endeavour to cram his mind with belles lettres.
But he was assailed by a temptation which I cannot forbear to chronicle. One evening as he was poring over his learned tomes, who should arrive but a deputation of prominent Cambridge boatmen and athletics, to entreat him to accept a stroke oar of the University eight in the forthcoming race with Oxford College!
This, as all aquatics will agree, was no small compliment—particularly to one who was so totally unversed in wielding the flashing oar. But the authorities had beheld him propelling a punt boat with marvellous dexterity by dint of a paddle, and, taking the length of his foot on that occasion, they had divined a Hercules and ardently desired him as a confederate.
Mr Bhosh was profoundly moved: "College misters and friends," he said, "I welcome this invitation with a joyful and thankful heart, as an honour—not to this poor self, but to Young India. Nevertheless, I am compelled by Dira Necessitas to return the polite negative. Gladly I would help you to inflict crushing defeat upon our presumptuous foe, but 'I see a hand you cannot see that beckons me away; I hear a voice you cannot hear that wheezes "Not to-day"!' In other words, gentlemen, I am now actively engaged in the Titanic struggle to floor Littlego. It is glorious to obtain a victory over Oxonian rivals, but, misters, there is an enemy it is still more glorious to pulverize, and that enemy is—one's self!"
The deputation then withdrew with falling crests, though unable to refrain from admiring the firmness and fortitude which a mere Native student had nilled an invitation which to most European youths would have proved an irresistible attraction.
Nor did they cherish any resentment against Mr Bhosh, even when in the famous inter-collegiate race of that year from Hammersmith to Putney, Cambridge was ingloriously bumped, and Oxford won in a common canter.