A cloud crosses His
Honour's face, a summer cloud dissolving into sunshine. "It is the
pomade of Saul:--but it is our own glorious David whose unctuous curls
carry the Elysian fragrance." Then taking up his harp and dancing an
ecstatic measure, he sings--
"He is coming, my Gryphon, my swell;
Were it ever so laden with care,
My heart would know him, and smell
The grease in his coal-black hair."
The whole of the Punjab is astir. Deputy Commissioners, and Extra
Assistant Commissioners, and Kookas, and Sikhs, and Mazhabi-Sikhs
crowd the stations; but the Gryphon passes fiercely onwards. The light
of battle is now in his eye; he is in uniform; a political sword hangs
from his divine waist; a looking-glass poses itself before him. Life
burns wildly in his heart: time throbs along in hot seconds; Eternity
unfolds around her far-receding horizons of glory.
The train emits telegrams as it hurls itself forward: "the Gryphon is
well:--he is in the presence of his Future:--History watches him:--he
is drinking a peg:--the _Civil and Military Gazette_ has caught a
glimpse of him:--glory, glory, glory, to the Gryphon, the mock turtle
is his wash-pot, over Lyall will he cast his shoe.
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