The House of the Sun [pp. 454-461]

THE HOUSE OF THE SUN.
bowls of coffee, sweetened with coarse
brown sugar and guiltless of milk; and
sat on the floor all the while, with our
legs crossed, like so many Turks and
tailors. We went to our blankets as
soon as the camp-fire had smothered itself in ashes, though meanwhile Jack,
chief of the camp, gathered himself to
windward of the flames, with his hips
on his heels and his chin on his knees,
smoking a stubby pipe and talking of
flush times in California. He was one
of those men who could and would part
with his last quarter, relying upon Nature for his bed and board. He said to
me, "If you can rough it, hang on a while
-what's to drive you off?" I could
rough it: the fire was out, the night
chilly; so we turned in under blue
blankets with a fuzz on them like moss,
and, having puffed out the candle-that
lived long enough to avenge its death in
a houseful of villainous smoke-we turned over two or three times apiece, and,
one after another, fell asleep. At the
further side of the house lay the natives,
as thick as sheep in a pen: one of them
a glossy black fellow, as sleek as a eunuch, born in the West Indies, but whose
sands of life had been scattered on various shores. This sooty fellow twanged
a quaint instrument of native workmanship, and twanged with uncommon skill.
His art was the life of that savage community at the other end of the house.
Again and again, during the night, I
awoke and heard the tinkle of his primitive harp, mingled with the ejaculations
of delight wrung from the hearts of his
dusky and sleepless listeners.
Once only was that midnight festival
interrupted. We all awoke suddenly
and simultaneously, though we scarcely
knew why; then the dog began to mouth
horribly. My blanket-fellows-beds we
had none - knew there was mischief
brewing, and rushed out with their guns
cocked. Presently the dog came in from
the brush, complaining bitterly, and one
VOL. IX.-3o.
of the miners shot at a rag fluttering
among the bushes. In the morning, we
found a horse gone, and a couple of bullet-holes in a shirt spread out to dry.
As soon as the excitement was over, we
returned to the blankets and the floor.
The eunuch tuned his harp anew, and,
after a long while, dawn looked in at the
uncurtained window, with a pale, gray
face, freckled with stars.
Kah6l6 saw it as soon as I did, and
was up betimes. I fancy he slept little
or none that night, for he was fond of
music, and especially fond of such music as had made the last few hours more
or less hideous. Everybody rose with
the break of day, and there was something to eat long before sunrise, after
which our caravan, with new vigor,
headed for the summit.
Wonderful clouds swept by us; sometimes we were lost for a moment in their
icy depths. I could scarcely see the tall
ears of my mule when we rode into those
opaque billows of vapor that swept noiselessly along the awful heights we were
scaling. It was a momentary but severe
bereavement, the loss of those ears and
the head that went with them, because I
cared not to ride saddles that seemed to
be floating in the air. What was Prince
Firouz Schah to me, or what was I to
the Princess of Bengal, that I should do
this thing!
There are pleasanter sensations than
that of going to heaven on horseback;
and we wondered if we should ever reach
the point where we could begin to descend again to our natural level, and talk
with people infinitely below us just then.
Ten thousand perpendicular feet in the
air; our breath short; our animals weak
in the knees; the ocean rising about us
like a wall of sapphire, on the top of
which the sky rested like a cover-we
felt as though we were shut in an exhausted receiver, the victims of some
scientific experiment for the delectation
of the angels. We were at the very top
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