FROM THE FOUR WINDS [Illustration] FROM THE FOUR WINDS BY JOHN SINJOHN LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE, 1897 [All rights reserved.] CONTENTS Page The Running Amok of Synge Sahib 2 Dick Denver’s Idea 26 Ashes 56 ‘Tally-ho’--Budmash 72 The Doldrums 100 The Capitulation of Jean Jacques 124 The Spirit of the Karroo 152 A Prairie Oyster 176 According to his Lights 206 The Demi-Gods 228 THE RUNNING AMOK OF SYNGE SAHIB A yellow stain is a yellow stain, Though the heart is white and the brain is white; And a lonely man is a lonely man, That’s reason eno’ for me. --Doggerel Meditations of John Hay. ‘You lucky beggars. Oh! You lucky beggars!’ The speaker rose, and stood stretching a languid length against the railing of the verandah, his tall figure outlined in its white clothes against the overhanging foliage. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Clemenson, ‘you fellows don’t seem to have such a bad time out here; only wish I were going to stay, instead of toddling back to the beautiful and salubrious climate of the British Isles which you seem to covet so much; what d’you say, Taplin?’ He waved the end of his cigarette, glowing in the dark, towards another recumbent figure. ‘Um--um,’ the second globe-trotter lay back, looking curiously at the face of the man standing, and offered no further reply. ‘I can’t stay up to see you off,’ said the first speaker--‘I should go cracked. “You can ’ear their paddles chunkin!”’--he broke into the air of ‘Mandalay,’ and shook his hand with an almost menacing gesture towards the lagoon.