The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Light That Failed, by Rudyard Kipling

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Title: The Light That Failed

Author: Rudyard Kipling

Posting Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #2876]
Release Date: October, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT THAT FAILED ***

Produced by David Reed

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

By Rudyard Kipling

CHAPTER I

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comf'y as comf'y could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three;
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot,
Because he was five and a man;
And that's how it all began, my dears,
And that's how it all began.

--Big Barn Stories.

'WHAT do you think she'd do if she caught us? We oughtn't to have it,
you know,' said Maisie.

'Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,' Dick answered, without
hesitation. 'Have you got the cartridges?'

'Yes; they're in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire
cartridges go off of their 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 the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver.

The children had discovered that their lives would be unendurable
without pistol-practice. After much forethought and self-denial, Dick
had saved seven shillings and sixpence, the price of a badly constructed
Belgian revolver. Maisie could only contribute half a crown to the
syndicate for the purchase of a hundred cartridges. 'You can save better
than 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, which the children were then on their way to test. Revolvers
did not lie in the scheme of their daily life as decreed for them by the
guardian who was incorrectly supposed to stand in the place of a mother
to these two orphans. Dick had been under her care for six years, during
which time she had mad