suppose I can’t die like a gentleman?’ He
turns to Peachey—Peachey that was crying
like a child. ‘I’ve brought you to this,
Peachey,’ says he. ‘Brought you out of
your happy life to be killed in Kafiristan,
where you was late Commander-in-Chief of
the Emperor’s forces. Say you forgive me,
Peachey.’ ‘I do,’ says Peachey. ‘Fully and
freely do I forgive you, Dan.’ ‘Shake
hands, Peachey,’ says he. ‘I’m going now.’
Out he goes, looking neither right nor left,
and when he was plumb in the middle of those
dizzy dancing ropes, ‘Cut, you beggars,’ he
shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell,
turning round and round and round, twenty
thousand miles, for he took half an hour to
fall till he struck the water, and I could see
his body caught on a rock with the gold
crown close beside.

“But do you know what they did to
Peachey between two pine-trees? They
crucified him, sir, as Peachey’s hands will
show. They used wooden pegs for his hands
and his feet; and he didn’t die. He hung
there and screamed, and they took him
down next day, and said it was a miracle
that he wasn’t dead. They took him down
—poor old Peachey that hadn’t done them
any harm—that hadn’t done them any…”