The Light That Failed
Rudyard Kipling
Paperback
(Independently published, Aug. 14, 2020)
“What do you think she’d do if she caught us? We oughtn’t to have it, you know,” saidMaisie.“Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,” Dick answered, without hesitation. “Haveyou got the cartridges?”“Yes; they’re in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off oftheir own accord?”“Don’t know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.”“I’m not afraid.” Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in theair. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver.The children had discovered that their lives would be unendurable without pistolpractice. After much forethought and self-denial, Dick had saved seven shillings andsixpence, the price of a badly constructed Belgian revolver. Maisie could only contributehalf a crown to the syndicate for the purchase of a hundred cartridges. “You can save betterthan I can, Dick,” she explained; “I like nice things to eat, and it doesn’t matter to you.Besides, boys ought to do these things.”Dick grumbled a little at the arrangement, but went out and made the purchase, whichthe children were then on their way to test. Revolvers did not lie in the scheme of theirdaily life as decreed for them by the guardian who was incorrectly supposed to stand in theplace of a mother to these two orphans. Dick had been under her care for six years, duringwhich time she had made her profit of the allowances supposed to be expended on hisclothes, and, partly through thoughtlessness, partly through a natural desire to pain,—shewas a widow of some years anxious to marry again,—had made his days burdensome onhis young shoulders.