Black Mischief Read Online Free PDF

left the fort by a side door and made their way
out of the town along the coast path towards the disused sugar mills.
    And
Seth was alone.
     
     
    Another dawn. With slow
feet Mr Youkoumian trudged into Matodi. There was no one about in the streets.
All who could had left the city during the darkness; those who remained lurked
behind barred doors and barricaded windows; from the cracks of shutters and
through keyholes a few curious eyes observed the weary little figure dragging
down the lane to the Amurath Café and Universal Stores.
    Mine
Youkoumian lay across the bedroom doorstep. During the night she had bitten
through her gag and rolled some yards across the floor; that far her strength
had taken her. Then, too exhausted to cry out or wrestle any further with the
ropes that bound her, she had lapsed into intermittent coma, disturbed by
nightmares, acute spasms of cramp and the scampering of rats on the earthen
floor. In the green and silver light of dawn this bruised, swollen and dusty
figure presented a spectacle radically repugnant to Mr Youkoumian’s most
sensitive feelings.
    ‘Krikor,
Krikor. Oh praise God you’ve come … I thought I should never see you again….
Blessed Mary and Joseph…. Where have you been? … What has happened to you?
… Oh, Krikor, my own husband, praise God and his angels who have brought you
back to me.’
    Mr
Youkoumian sat down heavily on the bed and pulled off his elastic-sided button
boots. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘God, how tired I am. I could sleep for a week.’
He took a bottle from the shelf and poured out a drink. ‘I have had one of the
most disagreeable nights of my life. First I am nearly hanged. Will you believe
it? The noose was actually round my neck. Then I am made to walk out as far as
the sugar mills, then the next thing I know I am alone, lying on the beach. My
luggage is gone, my boat is gone, the damned soldiers are gone and I have a
lump on the back of my head the size of an egg. Just you feel it.’
    ‘I’m
tied up, Krikor. Cut the string and let me help you. Oh, my poor husband.’
    ‘How it
aches. What a walk back. And my boat gone. I could have got fifteen hundred
rupees for that boat yesterday. Oh my head. Fifteen hundred rupees. My feet
ache too. I must go to bed.’
    ‘Let me
loose, Krikor, and I will attend to you, my poor husband.’
    ‘No, it
doesn’t matter, my flower. I’ll go to bed. I could sleep for a week.’
    ‘Krikor,
let me loose.’
    ‘Don’t
worry. I shall be all right when I have had a sleep. Why, I ache all over.’ He
tossed off the drink and with a little grunt of relief drew his feet up on to
the bed and rolled over with his face to the wall.
    ‘Krikor,
please … you must let me loose … don’t you see? I’ve been like this all
night. I’m in such pain …‘
    ‘You
stay where you are. I can’t attend to you now. You’re always thinking of
yourself. What about me? I’m tired. Don’t you hear me?’
    ‘But,
Krikor —‘
    ‘Be
quiet, you slut.’
    And in
less than a minute Mr Youkoumian found consolation for the diverse fortunes of
the night in profound and prolonged sleep.
    He was
awakened some hours hater by the entry into Matodi of the victorious army.
Drums banging, pipes whistling, the soldiers of Progress and the New Age passed
under his window. Mr Youkoumian rolled off the bed, rubbing his eyes, and
peeped through the chink of the shutters.
    ‘God
save my soul,’ he remarked. ‘Seth’s won after all.’ Then with a chuckle, ‘What
a pair of fools Major Joab and the captain turn out to be.’
    Mine
Youkoumian looked up from the floor with piteous appeal in her dark eyes. He
gave her a friendly little prod in the middle with his stockinged foot. ‘Stay
there, that’s a good girl, and don’t make a noise. I’ll come and see to you in
a minute or two.’ Then he lay down on the bed, nuzzled into the bolster, and
after a few preliminary grunts and wriggles, relapsed into slumber.
    It was
a remarkable