ABSTRACT
The two British Music Hall comic monologues about doctors and hospitals which were included in Mould’s Medical Anecdotes were well received and consequently a further two have been placed in this volume. This time the monologues concern that favourite topic of comedians—Death. Many are set in exotic places such as India and the Far East, such as this example of ‘The Pigtail of Li-Fang-Fu’ which involves opium addiction. The second example (p. 155) is just called ‘Suicide’, but it is far from morbid! ‘The Pigtail’ was written by Sax Rohmer and T W Thurban in 1919. They speak of a dead man’s vengeance; they whisper a deed of hell ‘Neath the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. And this is the thing they tell. In a deep and a midnight gully, by the street where the goldsmiths are, ‘Neath the Mosque of Mohammed Ali, at the back of the Scent Bazaar, Was the House of a Hundred Raptures, the tomb of a thousand sighs; Where the sleepers lay in that living death which the opium-smoker dies. At the House of a Hundred Raptures, where the reek of the joss-stick rose From the knees of the golden idol to the tip of his gilded nose, Through the billowing oily vapour, the smoke of the black chandu, There a lantern green cast a serpent sheen on the pigtail of Li-Fang-Fu. There was Ramsa Lal of Bhiwâni, who could smoke more than any three, A pair of Kashmiri dancing girls and Ameer Khân Môtee; And there was a grey-haired soldier too, the wreck of a splendid man; When the place was still I’ve heard mounted drill being muttered by ‘Captain Dan’. Then, one night as I lay a-dreaming, there was shuddering, frenzied screams; But the smoke had a spell upon me; I was chained to that couch of dreams. All my strength, all my will had left me, because of the black chandu, And upon the floor, by the close-barred door, lay the daughter of Li-Fang-Fu. ‘Twas the first time I ever saw her, but often I dream of her now; For she was as sweet as a lotus, with the grace of a willow bough. The daintiest ivory maiden that ever a man called fair, And I saw blood drip where Li-Fang-Fu’s whip had tattered her shoulders bare! I fought for the power to curse him—and never a word would come! To reach him—to kill him—but opium had stricken me helpless—dumb. He lashed her again and again, until she uttered a moaning prayer, And as he whipped so the red blood dripped from those ivory shoulders bare. When crash! went the window behind me, and in leapt a greyhaired man, As he tore the whip from that devil’s grip, I knew him: ‘twas Captain Dan! Ne’er a word spoke he, but remorseless, grim, his brow with anger black. He lashed and lashed till the shirt was slashed from the Chinaman’s writhing back. And when in his grasp the whip broke short, he cut with a long keen knife. The pigtail, for which a Chinaman would barter his gold, his life— He cut the pig-tail from Li-Fang-Fu. And this is the thing they tell By the Mosque of Mohammed Ali—for it led to a deed of hell. In his terrible icy passsion, Captain Dan that pig-tail plied, And with it he thrashed the Chinaman, until any but he had died— Until Li-Fang-Fu dropped limply down too feeble, it seemed, to stand. But swift to arise, with death in his eyes—and the long keen knife in his hand! Like fiends of an opium vision they closed in a fight for life, And nearer the breast of the Captain crept the blade of the gleaming knife. Then a shot! a groan—and a wisp of smoke. I swooned and knew no more— Save that Li-Fang-Fu lay silent and still in a red pool near the door. But never shall I remember how that curtain of sleep was drawn And I woke, ‘mid a deathly silence, in the darkness before the dawn. There was blood on the golden idol! My God! that dream was true! For there, like a slumbering serpent, lay the pigtail of Li-Fang-Fu. From the House of a Hundred Raptures I crept ere the news should spread That the Devil’s due had claimed Li-Fang-Fu, and that Li-Fang-Fu was dead. ‘Twas the end of that Indian summer, when Fate—or the ancient ties— Drew my steps again to the gully, to the Tomb of a Thousand Sighs; And the door of the house was open! All the blood in my heart grew cold. For within sat the golden idol, and he leered as he leered of old! And I thought that his eyes were moving in a sinister vile grimace When suddenly, there at his feet I saw a staring and well-known face! With the shriek of a soul in torment, I turned like a frenzied man, Falling back from the spot where the moonlight poured down upon ‘Captain Dan’! He was dead, and in death was fearful; with features of ghastly hue— And snakelike around his throat was wound the pigtail of Li-Fang-Fu!
