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Title: The Taming of the Jungle
Author: Dr. C. W. Doyle
Release Date: March 21, 2011 [EBook #35644]
Language: English
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THE TAMING OF THE JUNGLE
BY DR. C. W. DOYLE
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
Preface
For a better understanding of this story, it will be necessary to say a
few words concerning the people of the Terai,--the great tract of jungle
that skirts the foothills of the Himalayas, in the Province of Kumaon.
They are a simple, primitive folk, and migratory in their ways:
inhabiting the interior valleys of the hills in the hot weather and the
monsoon, and the foothills and the Terai during the winter.
In official reports they are described as "low-caste Hindoos;" but they
are as far removed from the low-caste Hindoos of the plains, on the one
hand, as they are from the high-caste Rajpoots, who are the gentry of
Kumaon, on the other. The monstrous Pantheism of the Brahmin is unknown
to them, and the ritual and severe limitations of caste that shackle the
former in all the relations of life have no influence on the Padhans of
Kumaon. Tending their flocks and their herds, and cultivating their
terraced fields in the summer and their patches of rye and corn in the
winter, they pass lives of Arcadian simplicity among scenes that surpass
Ida and Olympus in beauty, and which vie with the glades of Eden, as
Milton and Tennyson described them.
"Me rather, all that bowery loneliness,
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,
And bloom profuse, and cedar arches charm."
Tennyson might have written that of the Terai in midwinter. And its
people conform, as might be expected, to their environment. Life among
them is found at first hand: their loves and hates are ingenuous, and
present social aspects that must vanish before the march of
civilization.
The critics may object to the manner of the courtship of Tara, as not
being in accord with the marriage customs of the natives of India. To
them I would reply, that the experience of a dozen years spent in
intimate relations with, and in close observation of, the Kumaon
Padhans, has satisfied me that these children of nature are guided
strongly by their natural feelings; and that, in the selection of their
wives, they are as often swayed by their affections as we are.
C. W. DOYLE.
SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, January, 1899.
_Contents_
I. A JUNGLE VENDETTA
II. HASTEEN
III. THE HUNTING OF CHEETA DUTT
IV. THE SPOILING OF NYAGONG
V. THE WOMAN IN THE CARRIAGE
VI. FOR THE TRAINING OF BIROO
VII. CHANDNI
VIII. ONE THOUSAND RUPEES REWARD
IX. THE ROPE THAT HANGED BIJOO
X. COELUM, NON ANIMUM MUTANT
XI. THE LAME TIGER OF HULDWANI
XII. HOW NANDHA WAS AVENGED
XIII. AN AFFRONT TO GANNESHA
XIV. A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS
XV. "ICH LIEBE DICH"
XVI. THE SMOKING OF A HORNETS' NEST
CHAPTER I
_A Jungle Vendetta_
"This was the way of it," said Ram Deen to a circle of listeners sitting
round a fire by the side of the jungle road near Lal Kooah. Ram Deen
drove the mail-cart in its final stage to Kaladoongie, and with his
relay of fresh horses was awaiting the arrival of the mail. He was, next
to the Assistant Superintendent of the Forest Department of the
District, a power on the road, and his audience, accordingly, listened
to him with due respect. "This was the way of it: I owed Bheem Dass one
rupee and six annas for flour and pulse and ghee, and my donkey fell
sick, so that he could not be forced by goad, nor by the lighting of a
fire beneath him, to rise; and I could not convey my earthenware to
Moradabad and sell it, and so remove the galling of Bheem Dass's tongue.
"Then the Thanadar came, and read script to me that was written on
government paper, whereof I understood but little, save that the words
were Urdu, and sounded very terrible to me, who speak Gamari only, and
am a poor man. And he took my potter's wheel from me, and bade his
chuprassi beat me then, and daily thereafter at noon--twelve strokes
each day--till I made restitution to Bheem Dass.
"Brothers, we be all poor men here, and ye know that God hath not given
us understanding save to suffer stripes like beasts of burden, and to
sleep and eat when we can, and beget children to succeed to our blows."
There was a deep "humph" of assent when he had ceased speaking. The
little man who freighted village produce from Kaladoongie to Moradabad
by bullock-cart said, as he handed Ram Deen the hookah that was circling
round the fire, "A knife-thrust in the dark has settled heavier scores
than thine;" and one suggested a blow from a weighted bamboo club, and
another the evil eye; but Ram Deen smoked in silence, and after they
had all had their say he passed the hookah to his neighbor and went on:
"Whenas my back smarted shrewdly that night from the blows of the
chuprassi's shoe, so that I could not sleep, I took the oil from my
chirag and anointed my back therewith. As soon as the false dawn blinked
in the east I made a fire and light, without waking my son--my babe,
Buldeo, and he without a mother--and I made store of chupattis with all
the flour that was left, putting the remainder of the ghee on the first
batch. Then I dug up three rupees and two annas that I had buried under
the hearth, and waking Buldeo I fed him; and whilst he ate I made a
bundle of such things as even a poor man has need of,--a blanket, a
hookah and lotah, and shoes to wear through the villages, and the food I
had prepared.
"And ere the village cocks waked or the minas and crows and green
parrots opened council in the peepul trees, Buldeo and I were footing
the jungle path to Nyagong, he holding his hand over his head to reach
mine, for he was but three years in age.
"And when we had proceeded a mile or twain into the jungle Buldeo spake
and said, 'Thy man-child is tired.' And I set him on my shoulder, and so
carried him until the sun began to shoot slant rays from the west.
Whereon we stopped and ate; and, after, I fastened him with my waistband
in the fork of a tree, saying, 'Son of mine, bide here till I return,
and be not afraid.'
"Then, collecting grass and scrub, I made a circle of fire round the
tree, and sped back to the village; and as the bell tolled the hour of
ten that night a flame leaped up from the hut of the bunnia, Bheem Dass,
to whom I owed money.
"Ere I returned to the jungle path I could hear Bheem Dass shout as a
man being beaten, 'ram dhwy! ram dhwy!' and the smart on my back waxed
easier."
By this time the hookah had made the round of the circle and once more
reached Ram Deen, and as he paused again to "drink tobacco" his
listeners made comment:
"Wah! coach-wan ji," said the little carrier, "knives may be blunt and
clubs cracked, but fire loveth stubble and thatch. Ho, ho!"
And Ram Deen smiled grimly as he passed the hookah to his neighbor, who
said as he took it, "And what of thy man-child, Buldeo?"
Ram Deen tucked the ends of his parted beard under his turban, and
spitting bravely into the fire to conceal the tremor in his voice, he
said, "As the dawn broke I reached the tree whereon I had fastened my
son. When I came near a pack of jackals that had been worrying something
under the tree slunk away. The child was not to be seen, but the bark of
the tree was scored with the talons of a leopard, and at its foot was a
small red cap and a handful of fresh bones."
Ram Deen puffed the hookah in silence when it reached him again.
By and by, in response to the expectation of his listeners, he said,
"Bheem Dass rode after me on the mail-cart to Kaladoongie that night. I
knew he would come, and therefore I brake the telegraph wire and
fastened it across the road a foot above the ground. When the horse
stumbled over it and fell the driver was thrown on his head and killed.
But Bheem Dass lay groaning on the road with a broken thigh-bone.
"And I held a lamp taken from the cart to my face, so that he should
know me, and I spat and stamped on him; and thereafter I mounted the
mail-cart and drove it over his skull as he screamed for mercy.
"I took the mail to Kaladoongie, and it was told the sahib-log that the
mail-cart had been overturned and the coach-wan and Bheem Dass killed;
and they made me driver because the road was unsafe and I had shown them
that I was not afraid.
"Ye are poor men and know naught,--knowledge dieth suddenly!"
And the bullock driver said, "Ho, ho! coach-wan sahib, we be poor men
and know nothing, and are fain to live."
The mail-cart drove up in a few minutes out of the darkness, the horses
were rapidly changed, and Ram Deen dashed off into the jungle with a
brave tarantara.
CHAPTER II
_Hasteen_
"Ram deen," said the stout Thanadar of Kaladoongie, "it is by the order
of the sircar (government) that I question thee concerning this jungle
wanderer. Whatsoever thou sayest will be set down by the munshi and laid
before the commissioner sahib."
The "wanderer" put one hand on a tubby stomach that ill-assorted with
his attenuated limbs, and with the fingers of the other in close
apposition he pointed to his mouth, whining and saying to those round
him, "Oh, my father and my mother, we be hungry,--Hasteen and I."
He was a wee little manikin of the chamar (tanner) caste, and about six
years old. There was not a rag on him, save a sorry whisp of puggri that
made no pretence of covering the top-knot of hair which all Hindoos of
the male sex, and of whatever caste, wear on their heads as a handle
for the transportation of their souls to heaven.
He crouched in front of the fire of cowpats and grass, holding up his
little hands to the blaze, and beside him lay a huge pariah dog with its
head on his lap. One of its ears had been recently cut off close to the
skull, and it moved the bloody stump to and fro as the heat of the fire
fell on it. When any one approached the little chamar the dog growled
threateningly, and the small crowd of listeners was fain to keep at a
respectful distance.
"Thanadar ji," replied Ram Deen, the redoubtable driver of the mail-cart
to Kaladoongie, "the night air is shrewd, and it were well to feed the
little one and to put a blanket round him ere I tell you of his
finding."
"Ay, and forget not Hasteen," said the small chamar, pointing to the
dog. When the great beast heard its name it slapped its tail against the
ground.
A woman standing on the outskirt of the crowd took off her chudder and
passed it to Ram Deen, who, keeping a wary eye on Hasteen, wrapped it
round the little waif; and Tulsi Ram, the village pundit, also handed
his blanket to Ram Deen. By the time the little one was duly happed up,
Gunga Deen, the fat sweetmeat vender, returned with a tray of cates and
milk, sufficient for three grown men, and set it before the new arrival,
who, to his honor be it told, shared bite and bite with his four-footed
friend. And between mouthfuls he answered questions and told his story
to the Thanadar:
"My name, Most Honorable, is Biroo, and we be chamars of the village of
Budraon,--my father and mother, Hasteen and I. There were none others of
our family, and Hasteen and I be brothers, for we sucked the same pap,
and that my mother's, as she hath so often told me. I am the older by
three months, wherefore he mindeth me.
"Whence is Hasteen's name? How should I know, Protector of the Poor? I
am but a poor man and know naught."
Tulsi Ram, the pundit, ventured to throw some light on the derivation
of Hasteen's name. He hoped, ere he died, to pass the entrance
examination of the Calcutta University; and, after the manner of his
kind, he was preparing himself for it by the slow and steady process of
learning the prescribed text-books off by heart.
"Thanadar ji, the dog hath its name from Warren Hasteen, the great sahib
who killed the Kings of Delhi, as thou wottest, and daily fed on young
babes, whereof midwives and old women who saw him tell to this day. And,
moreover, he was a great fighter."
"Wah, Tulsi Ram!" exclaimed the Thanadar, "thou shalt yet become a baboo
in the post-office at Naini Tal."
"But there never was fighter like Hasteen," said the little chamar,
whose courage rose as his hunger abated, and rolling up a chupatti he
gave it to the dog, who made one mouthful of it. "He hath blackened the
faces of all the dogs of our village," he went on; "and last winter he
overcame a dog of fierce countenance and crooked legs, that belonged to
the sahib who camped near our village, and left it for dead on the
plain; and the sahib would have beaten me, but Hasteen rose upon him and
threw him down, and stood over him till I smote Hasteen with my bamboo
club and dragged him off the sahib. Ah, thou wicked one, thou budmash!"
and the great beast cowered before the wee man's threatening finger and
licked his feet. "And therefrom came all our woes, for our folk drave us
from Budraon, fearing trouble for the killing of the sahib's dog, and my
father would have slain Hasteen, but I restrained him. So we went to
Nyagong, and there thieves came by night and would have despoiled us of
our hides, but Hasteen prevented them; and thereafter the son of the
Jamadar of Nyagong, who was a vain fellow and wore his turban awry,
walked lame for many a day; and the bunnia (shopkeeper), who is the
Jamadar's brother, put ground glass in the raw sugar he sold us--for so
my father said--and my mother died.
"Last week my father came not home, and for three days I saw him not;
then--I looking on--they drew a man out of the village well with his
hands tied behind his back and a great stone fastened to his feet,--and
it was my father!
"And this night a flame leaped up from our hut, and Hasteen went swiftly
forth into the moonlight, his crest standing on his neck and back. I
followed with what haste I could, and thereafter I came up with Hasteen,
and he lay beside a dead man, whose eyes were wide open and on whose
lips was froth, and a sharp knife in his hand;--and it was the son of
the Jamadar!
"Thereupon I caught Hasteen by one ear and smote him on the other,--for
he had done this killing; and the hand wherewith I smote him was covered
with blood, so I saw his hurt, and that he had lost an ear.
"And the villagers waked whenas they heard the crackling of the flames
from our hut and the barking of the village dogs; and Hasteen and I ran
towards the road that leads to Kaladoongie, being more fearful of the
men of Nyagong than of the wild things of the jungle.
"When we came to the bridge over the Bore Nuddee my feet were tired, and
calling Hasteen to me for warmth I set my back to the wall of the bridge
and so fell asleep; and now that I have eaten of thy bounty I would fain
sleep again," and the little man yawned in the presence of the most
august assembly he had ever faced.
"It was thus I found him, Thanadar ji," said Ram Deen, "and I came none
too soon. A mile from the bridge I heard the hunting bay of a gray wolf,
and when I came nearer I could see in the moonlight, crouched beside the
end of the bridge, some great beast that leapt into the jungle as the
cart approached; and then the mail of the Rani (Empress) of Hindoostan
was stayed by a graceless pariah dog that guarded this jungle wayfarer,
and, frightening my horses, denied me passage over the bridge. I could
not have brought in the mail to-night had it not been for this Rustum,
who beat the dog and restrained him. Is it not so, O Terror of Nyagong?"
But the little man was fast asleep by this time, and Ram Deen, by
permission of Hasteen, who followed close at his heels, carried the
small chamar to his own hut and put him into his own bed; "for that he
was of the age," he said to himself, "of Buldeo, my son, who was lost to
me three years ago,--and he without a mother."
CHAPTER III
_The Hunting of Cheeta Dutt_
A few nights after the finding in the jungle of Biroo, the little chamar
(tanner), by Ram Deen, who drove the mail-cart from Lal Kooah, the
notables of Kaladoongie were gathered round a fire in front of the
police-station. The Thanadar (chief of police), as befitted his rank and
dignity, sat cross-legged on his charpoi, smoking gravely, whilst the
rest of the company squatted on their heels, after the manner of the
natives of India, passing a hookah round the circle and discussing in a
desultory fashion the current events of that section of the Terai.
A faint bugle-note far off in the jungle announced the approach of the
mail-cart, and soon after the distant rumble of the wheels was heard as
Ram Deen drove over the Bore bridge. When he was within a quarter of a
mile of the village he blew a brave blast, and presently dashed up at
full speed into the firelight, Biroo standing between his knees, and a
huge pariah dog bounding along by the side of the cart. Soon after Ram
Deen, followed by Biroo and the big dog, joined the circle round the
fire.
"Salaam, malakoom!" said Biroo, gravely saluting the Thanadar, and
including the rest of those assembled in his sweeping salute.
"Malakoom, salaam!" returned the Thanadar. "So thou hast brought in the
Queen's mail safely, my Rustum?"
"Hasteen and I," began the little fellow, putting a caressing hand on
the head of the great dog, who lay beside him winking at the fire,
"Hasteen and I fear nought that moveth in the jungle, save only the men
of Nyagong;--and then, too, there was Ram Deen."
This was said so seriously that the men sitting round the fire laughed
at the little man's gravity; and Ram Deen smiled as he spread an armful
of dry grass on the ground, into which he tucked the little fellow, and
wrapped him up in his blanket. Hasteen settled himself beside Biroo, and
they soon became oblivious of the circle round the fire.
"How likest thou the little jungle waif, Ram Deen?" inquired the
Thanadar.
"Thanadar ji, he is to me as mine own son, Buldeo, come back to life;
and he knoweth not fear. As we drove through the jungle yesterday and
to-night he turned his face towards Nyagong and cursed that village, and
sware that he would burn it to the ground when he had a beard; and 'tis
like as not that he will do so when he is a man grown."
"Durga aid him in his attempt!" said fat Gunga Ram, the sweetmeat
vender; "that village hath always bred rogues and budmashes, before and
since Cheeta Dutt, the son of the last Jemadar (head man of the
village), committed a deed of hell in the jungle thereby."
The silence of those who sat round the fire was a mute request to Gunga
Ram to tell the story thus prefaced.
"Brothers," he began, "'twas in the second year after the great mutiny
that a young Englishman came into the Terai to look after the sâl trees,
which always seemed a foolishness to me till I learned that sâl timber
is good for the building of the ships that cross the Black Water.
"And he had but little to do, save to shoot black partridge and spotted
deer and watch the Padhani women crossing the ford in front of his camp;
that was the evil of it.
"In those days I was but a span round the waist, and the best shikari
(hunter) and tracker in these parts; and Bonner Sahib--that was his
name--hired me to show him where game was to be found. But he soon tired
of shikar (sport), and fell to playing the songs of the Padhani women on
his cithar, the like of which I never heard before.
"One day, after he had eaten his morning meal and swam in the deep pool
above the ford of the Bore Nuddee, he lay on the grass by the stream
smoking, whilst I cleaned his guns by the side of his tent. Presently,
when I looked up, the sahib was gazing from under his hand at certain
wayfarers who came down the slope on the other side of the stream
towards the ford; and on his finger there glittered a stone that took
mine eye even at that distance. In front there rode on a hill-pony,
loaded with household goods, Cheeta Dutt, the son of the Jemadar of
Nyagong, and he wore the garments of a man who taketh his wife home for
the consummation of his marriage. Behind him walked Naringi, his wife,
the daughter of the Jemadar of Huldwani. She was well named 'Orange
Blossom;' and though I live to a thousand years, yet shall I never see
the like of her as she walked behind Cheeta Dutt with a small bundle on
her head and lifted her sari as she took the ford with her bared limbs.
"Brothers, she was but sixteen years in age, and in the budding of her
beauty; and it seemed as though the morning shed all its joys about her
feet. What wonder, then, that even a young Faringi (Englishman) should
look upon her with admiration?
"When she was half-way across the ford her foot slipped, and the bundle
she bore fell into the stream. Wullahy, but these Faringis be fools!
Eyes may look, and thoughts may fall about the face of a fair woman,
though she be another man's wife, but only a Faringi would do what
Bonner Sahib did. Kali Mai afflict the race! Women were made but to
carry burdens and bear children. Nowhere can it be shown--not even in
the Shastras, wherein I, Gunga Ram, have read--that a man should demean
himself to serve a woman; but Bonner Sahib leapt into the stream and
recovered the young woman's bundle. Worse than that, as she stood beside
her husband's horse, wringing the water out of the hem of her garment,
he put her bundle in her hand, and Cheeta Dutt scowled at him.
"'Protector of the Poor,' said I to the sahib, as I dried his feet and
changed his shoes, 'thou hast not done well.'
"'Wherefore?' he replied, sending the smoke of his cheroot skywards.
"'Because Cheeta Dutt (well is he named Hunting Leopard) may repay thee
hereafter in his own way for thy service to his wife this day. Belike,
he may render her nakti (noseless), and so send her back to her father's
house. But the sahib is a great lord, and a nakti Padhani woman more or
less concerneth him not, for they be bought and sold like cattle, and
the sahib hath the price of many such on his little finger.--But I speak
like a fool, sahib, for I am a poor man and know nothing, save how to
serve thee.'
"But he only laughed and stroked the yellow beard on his upper lip.
"A moon thereafter our camp was pitched near Nyagong. As ye know, the
Terai thereby is full of shikar, and I showed Bonner Sahib where to find
black partridge. One day, as we set our faces campwards,--I following
the sahib with his spare gun and the morning's kill,--the voice of a
young woman singing a Padhani song suddenly rose from a thicket near by,
and the jungle became silent to listen to her. Bonner Sahib parted the
tall grass with his hands, and I, looking over his shoulder, beheld
Naringi, the wife of Cheeta Dutt, seated on a fallen tree trunk in an
open glade, tending a flock of goats. As she sang she strung together
flaming cotton-wood flowers, whereof she had placed one behind each ear.
"When she had finished her song the sahib took it up, stepping at the
same time into the clearing; and Naringi fled like a roe hunted by
wolves.
"'The shikar is shy, Gunga Ram,' said the sahib.
"'Tis dangerous hunting, Protector of the Poor,' I replied. But the
sahib only laughed and lit a cheroot.
"And thereafter he sought the black partridge unattended by me, for he
set me morning tasks to fulfil within the camp. But, brothers, he
brought not so much as a jungle-fowl home for more than a week, and I
was fain to know what the sahib hunted.
"So I followed him unperceived one morning, and he went straightway to
the clearing wherein we had seen Naringi with the goats. When I looked
through the grass, behold! I saw Bonner Sahib seated on the fallen tree
trunk, wearing a necklace of red flowers, and Naringi sat on his knee
with an arm round his neck! Toba, toba! what fools these Faringis be,
who know not that the birds of the air carry messages when a sahib
stoops to a woman of our people."
"The jungle hath many eyes," said the Thanadar, sententiously.
After Gunga Ram had refreshed himself with the circling hookah, he went
on: "As I looked and listened there was a rustling in the grass on the
other side of the clearing, and the sahib's dog dashed into the jungle
in pursuit of something. The next moment it yelped as a dog that is
sorely stricken, but the sahib, who was toying with Naringi, heard
nothing.
"Then Naringi, stroking the sahib's golden beard, said, 'My Lord, Cheeta
Dutt beat me last night because I spake thy name in my sleep. Look,' and
she lifted the hair from her forehead, whereon was a bruise; and as she
turned her face to the sahib I saw that she had been weeping, for her
eyelids were swelled.
"'He is swine-born,' said the sahib; and as he spake his face flushed
like the morning sky. Then he folded her in his arms and saluted her
mouth after the manner of Faringis; and when she was comforted he said,
'Naringi, my Blossom, thy husband is a dog. To-night will I take thee
hence and make thee envied of the mem-sahibs of Naini Tal. Wilt thou
trust thyself with me?'
"For answer she threw herself before him and clasped his feet, but the
sahib raised her up, saying, 'Beloved, I will come for thee to-night on
the stroke of the tenth hour by the village bell. Gunga Ram--my
shikari--and I will wait for thee with a covered byli (cart) at the foot
of that tall sesame tree thou seest yonder on the open plain. And for
pledge that I shall be here, see, I set on thy finger this ring, which
all the villages in the Kumaon Terai could not buy; and if I fail to
come my punishment is in thy hands. It is a thousand years till I see
thee again, little one.' Then he folded her in his arms once more and
set his face homewards, shouting to her from the end of the glade,
'Fail me not, my Wild Rose!' For answer, she swept the ground with her
salaams.
"Hastening campwards by a path that skirted the other side of the glade,
I came across the sahib's dog. It was shorn in twain by the stroke of a
khookri, and I knew that Cheeta Dutt, The Leopard, was a-hunting.
"'What shikar?' asked I of Bonner Sahib when he returned to his tent.
"'Thou art a liar, Gunga Ram. The jungle hereabout is barren of game,
and it is in my mind to send thee with a note to the Thanadar of
Kaladoongie commending the soles of thy feet to the bamboo staff of one
of his men;' and, laughing, he threw himself into a long chair.
"'I am sorry for thee, sahib,' I said in reply, 'for not only art thou
empty handed this day, but thou hast lost the great stone that shone on
thy finger when thou wentest forth this morning. Toba, toba!'
"'Tis in my pocket, O Chattering Jay.'
"'Perchance the sahib shot his dog this morning, seeing that the game
was scarce?' I said.
"'Hath he not returned, Gunga Ram?'
"'Ere I answer thee, sahib, 'twere well to drink some brandy-pani;' and
I mixed the liquor as he had taught me.
"'It is well, Provider of the Poor,' I went on, 'it is well to be young
and well favored, and the special care of thy gods who have bestowed on
thee wealth and a moonstone that all the villages in the Kumaon Terai
could not purchase,'--hereat the sahib looked at me out of the corner of
his eye,--'but it is not well to look for partridges where great beasts
hunt. Thy dog was slain in the jungle this morning by a leopard. He
lieth outside the tent, and 'twere well the sahib should see what a
leopard can do.'
"Following him out of the tent, I uncovered the dead dog. The sahib
clutched at his throat and would have fallen, so I put my arm round him
and laid him on his bed.
"'This is the work of Cheeta Dutt, sahib. Said I not that perchance he
would hunt some one hereafter for thy service to his wife at the ford
last month?'
"Rising from the bed, the sahib drank another draught of the strong
waters. 'Cheeta Dutt's back shall smart for this,' he said.
"'And then, sahib, he will slay his wife because of thy ring in the
pocket of her bodice.'
"'Budmash, thou hast been playing the spy!' and turning upon me like a
wild boar, his face aflame, he caught me by the beard.
"'Sahib,' I said, 'I am but a poor man, and thou of consequence in the
Terai, but, man to man, thou durst not lay thy hand on my beard in the
jungle and away from thy camp. I fear not to tell thee, sahib, that I
did, indeed, watch thee this morning; but the jungle is full of eyes,
not the least keen being those of Cheeta Dutt, who slew thy dog this
morning, and who will slay the woman thou lovest, or do worse to her,
ere he sleepeth, as is his right.'
"'Gunga Ram, thou art a man, and I ask forgiveness of thee for
blackening thy face, but I am moved from myself by great fear for what
may befall the woman. Tell me what is to be done, for thou knowest the
ways of these jungle folks better than I;' and the sahib walked the
floor as one distraught.
"'Will one thousand--will ten thousand rupees save the young woman?'
asked the sahib.
"'The honor of a Brahmin is not to be appraised in money, sahib,' I
replied.
"'Will he fight, Gunga Ram, as a Faringi would under like
circumstances?'
"'He will fight, assuredly, sahib; but he will fight after the manner of
his kind, and in the dark.'
"Much talk had we, but we could only hope that Cheeta Dutt may not have
witnessed the meeting that morning."
Gunga Ram stopped to "drink tobacco" once more, whilst the little
bullock driver, who would start in the morning with freight for
Moradabad, said, "That was a poor hope, O Seller of Cates, for the
jungle hath ears and tongues as well as eyes."
"Therefore, byl-wan," rejoined Gunga Ram, "I saw to it that my gun was
properly loaded as we went in the byli that night to the place of
meeting.
"The moon was almost in mid-heaven, in an unclouded sky, when we reached
the sesame tree, and it was a time for the deeds of Kama, but Kali Mai
was abroad in the jungle that night.
"The sound of the distant village bell striking the hour of ten had
scarcely died away when there rose from the glade the voice of a young
woman singing a Padhani song.
"'Heart of my Heart, she cometh!' said the sahib. 'Oh, Gunga Ram, she is
safe!' and he lifted up his voice, singing the refrain of her song.
"He had scarcely ceased by a breath, when he was answered by the scream
of a woman who looks upon Terror and Pain hunting together.
"Like an arrow from a bow he sped across the plain and entered the
glade, I following with what haste I could. As I set foot therein there
arose a yell the like of which was never made by jungle beast, and,
brothers, my heart stood still with fear. I could hear the sahib
crashing through the underbrush, and I followed, but the glade was in
deep darkness by reason of the thick foliage of the trees overhead that
stayed the moonlight, and my pace was slow.
"Presently I saw the sahib in the open space where was the fallen tree
trunk that had served him for a seat that morning. He stopped suddenly
within a few paces of the log, like a stricken man. Falling on his knees
and clasping his hands together, he bowed his head thereon; and in that
instant a dark figure leaped upon the sahib from behind a tree, and I
saw the flash of a khookri in the moonlight.
"I raised my gun and fired as I ran, but I was too late.
"When I came up to the sahib his head lay two paces from his body.
"On the fallen tree trunk, with the sahib's moonstone glittering on its
forefinger, was the small hand of a woman that had been lopped off above
the wrist, and which still dripped blood."
CHAPTER IV
_The Spoiling of Nyagong_
Goor Dutt, the little bullock driver, who was on his way to Moradabad
with the effects of one of the clerks of the Lieutenant-Governor's
office, reached Lal Kooah long after sunset. It was his intention to
travel through the night, but he could not resist the temptation of
joining the circle round the fire in front of the bunnia's hut whilst
his bullocks ate their meal of chaff and chopped hay.
The bunnia had given up his charpoi to Ram Deen, who drove the mail-cart
to Kaladoongie, and who was a man swift of anger and dangerous to cross,
but not altogether hard. Had he not, but three days since, found and
adopted Biroo, the little chamar (tanner) waif, who lay asleep by the
fire with a huge pariah dog stretched beside him?
"Salaam, coach-wan ji," said Goor Dutt, saluting Ram Deen, "I have news
for thee: the Commissioner Sahib hath sent word to the Thanadar of
Kaladoongie that he should make inquiry concerning the finding of
Biroo's father in the well at Nyagong."
"'Tis well, Thwacker of Bullocks. And when goeth the Thanadar thither?"
inquired Ram Deen.
"Belike he is there now."
"Oh, that a man were here to take the mail to Kaladoongie to-night!"
exclaimed Ram Deen.
"The man is here," piped the little carrier, "if some one will tend my
cattle till I return."
"That will I," said the bunnia, with the stress of Ram Deen's eyes on
him.
When the mail-cart drove up Ram Deen took the reins, with Biroo, wrapped
in a blanket, between his knees, whilst Goor Dutt climbed to the back
seat. The big dog, Hasteen, ran beside the mail-cart and woke the jungle
echoes with his bark.
* * * * *
"How didst thou fare last night, coach-wan ji?" asked the bunnia, next
evening.
"As should innocence wronged, and avenging strength."
When none of those sitting round the fire spoke, Ram Deen went on: "As
we came nigh to the path leading to Nyagong, Biroo turned his face
thereto and spat vehemently; and I said, 'Son of mine, canst thou lead
me to Nyagong?' and he replied, 'Of a surety; the path is here.'
"Thereat we got down from the cart--Biroo and I; and I bore the bugle
hanging at my side and a stout bamboo club in my hand. As we picked our
way along the jungle path, Hasteen ran beside us, growling; and when the
moon gave light I saw the crest on his back bristling, and his teeth
gleamed through his lips.
"When we reached Nyagong I put an armful of grass on the fire that was
still smouldering in front of the Jemadar's house, and, as the flame
leaped up, I blew upon my bugle. Straightway the village watchman, who
had been sleeping in his hut, after the manner of his kind, came
running forth bravely; but when he saw who it was that stood by the fire
he salaamed, and whined, saying, 'Great pity 'tis that Ram Deen, Lord of
Leopards, should be put to the trouble--and at this unseasonable
hour!--to return to our village this small villain and budmash, who is
worse than the evil eye.'
"For answer, I felled him to the ground, and Hasteen stood over him. So
he dared not move.
"Then came the Jemadar and the men of the village and stood round us;
and the former said, 'Wah! Ram Deen, coach-wan, is it well to disturb
peaceful folk at night and rouse them from their sleep? What wouldst
thou with us?'
"'Justice to this little one, whose father and mother ye and your people
have slain,' I answered.
"'And what of my son, found dead, and with teeth-marks about his
throat?' he asked.
"'Jemadar Sahib,' I replied, 'Kali Mai gave thy son, her follower,
fitting end. As he lived, so he died. 'Tis well.'
"'Dog!' he exclaimed; 'darest thou to speak thus to me in front of mine
own people?' And he ran upon me.
"So I took him by the beard and laid him at my feet; and the men of
Nyagong feared to help the Jemadar, for Hasteen growled fiercely over
him.
"'Fetch the bunnia,' I demanded; 'and lose no time, O Swine of the
Terai, or I give your Jemadar to the dog.'
"They brought him trembling before me, and he folded his hands and bowed
his head in the dust at my feet, crying, 'Ram dhwy! ram dhwy! the great
and strong are ever merciful. What wouldst thou with me, coach-wan ji?'
"'The bhalee of raw sugar,' I answered, 'from which this man-child's
mother got her death.'
"'She died of Terai fever, Most Worshipful, as the old woman who was
with her will tell thee.'
"'Nevertheless, Biroo and I will go to thy shop with thee, in the matter
of that sugar, whilst the dog seeth to the Jemadar. Proceed.'
"'But, Coach-wan Bahadoor,' said the Jemadar, 'thou wilt not leave me to
be devoured by this beast?'
"'Lie very still, Jemadar Sahib, very still. The dog is a good dog, and
was never known to harm an honest man. But let no one come to thine aid,
lest there be nothing of thee left to take to the burning ghat.'
"'Go away, brothers,' wailed the Jemadar to his people; 'go away, lest
evil befall me.'
"But I said, 'Nay, not so. Stay till I return, O Village Thugs, for I
would speak with ye.'
"At the bunnia's hut Biroo pointed out the bhalee from which he had
received the portion of raw sugar whereof his mother had eaten; but the
bunnia denied, saying that he had already sold all that remained of that
bhalee. So I broke off a piece of it and gave it to the bunnia, saying,
'Eat!' Whereat he clasped my knees, begging for mercy, and I knew Biroo
had not erred.
"'Swine-born!' said I, 'set panniers on thy ass.' And when the ass was
brought to the door of the hut I made the bunnia load it with such
produce as he had, till it could scarce stand.
"'I am fain to borrow fifty rupees of thee, bunnia ji, on behalf of this
motherless child,' I said.
"Whereon he wailed, saying, 'Ram Deen, Compeller of Elephants, there is
not so much money in all the village stalls of the Terai. What I have I
will give thee;' and he laid one rupee and nine annas in my palm and a
handful of cowries.
"'He lieth, my father,' said little Biroo, drawing forth a cocoa-nut
shell from beneath the bunnia's seat,--and it was full of silver!
"'Bap re bap!' moaned the trader, ''tis all I have against mine old age;
and the men of Nyagong despoil me; and my milch cow died last week. Aho!
aho!'
"'It is a very little child, bunnia ji; and consider he hath nor father
nor mother. God will repay thee for thy kind loan to the orphan,' and I
tied the money in the corner of my waistband.
"'But, Ram Deen, Sun of Justice,' whined the bunnia, 'there be one
hundred and thirty-seven rupees, some of it in gold mohurs, in thy
waistband. Take fifty, and return the rest.'
"'Thank Nana Debi, Bunnia Sahib,' I rejoined, 'for having put it in thy
power to do so much more for the fatherless than thou didst first
intend. It will comfort thee in thy old age to think thereon.'
"'But this is robbery,' he said, desperately, 'for which I will have
thee cast in the great prison at Bareilly.'
"'There be gallows there, too,' I retorted, 'for such as put ground
glass in gur, Mea ji. Ho, ho!'
"So he said no more, but, at my command, put panniers on another ass,
which I had in mind to have loaded by the men of Nyagong.
"When we returned to the fire, the dog Hasteen and the Jemadar were as
we had left them; and the Jemadar's teeth shook in his head with fear
and cold. So I called Hasteen to me, and when the Jemadar had risen from
the ground and put his turban on, I spake:
"'O Jemadar, and ye, O men of Nyagong, I would have ye witness that I
brought this bhalee of sugar from the bunnia's stall. Is it not so, O
great mahajun (banker)?'
"And the bunnia assented. So I placed the great lump of raw sugar in a
bag which I had brought from the bunnia's shop. Then, at my bidding and
in the presence of his people, the Jemadar sealed the bag with his seal,
which was well known to the Thanadar of Kaladoongie.
"Then I spake thus to those assembled there: 'Jemadar Sahib, and men of
Nyagong, ye have brought shame on the Kumaon Terai, and, in the eyes of
all men, ye have blackened the faces of those who dwell in this paradise
of God. This child that ye see here--and he is a very little child and
hath nor father nor mother--came amongst ye but a moon since, and ye
slew those who fed and cared for him. And him--his milk-teeth still in
his mouth--ye would have burnt to death in his sleep had Nana Debi and
this dog slept, too. It were a good deed done to burn your huts about
your ears, and give your fields to the wild boar and to the Thanadar of
Kaladoongie, who is my friend and the friend of this little one, and who
would say that a jungle fire had swept your village away; but I am more
merciful than ye. Inasmuch, then, as ye took the bread from this little
one's mouth, and slew his people, it is but right that ye should feed
him, and be his father and his mother. The bunnia hath already made some
small reparation for the sudden taking off of the little one's mother.
What will ye do for him whose hut ye burnt? Or would ye that the
Thanadar of Kaladoongie should ask, or the Commissioner Sahib, he who
can put ropes round the necks of murderers, how it was that the corpse
of this child's father had its hands tied behind its back and a stone
fastened to its feet?'
"Then the Jemadar, clasping suppliant hands, whined, saying, 'Ram Deen,
Rustum of the Terai, gentle as thou art brave and strong! the child's
mother died of Terai fever, as thou knowest; and his worthy father, the
chamar, leaned too far over the edge of the well in drawing up his
lotah, and so fell in. Why speak to us, then, of slaying? We be sorry
for the little chamar, Brahmins though we be, and we would have been
father and mother to him, but he ran away, and the village mourned,
thinking he had fallen a prey to the jackals. To none else but thee
would we give up the boon of rearing him. Brothers,' he went on, turning
to those about him, 'naught can restore a child's father to him, but a
brass lotah with sufficient coin therein, and a necklace of gold and
plum-seeds, such as I will bestow upon him, may help him in time of
need, and, mayhap, resolve the Thanadar not to visit our village. Eh,
coach-wan ji? Brothers, see to it that our much-loved orphan goeth not
empty-handed from the generous village of Nyagong.'
"So it was that the other ass groaned beneath a weight of silver bangles
and toe-rings still warm from the taking off, blankets and hide-sewn
shoes, sweetened tobacco and unbleached cotton cloth, and many a purse
filled with two-anna pieces.
"And when the ass's knees shook, by reason of the load on his back, I
said, 'Men of Nyagong, perchance the Thanadar of Kaladoongie may have an
asthma to-morrow.'
"And one said, 'Of a surety he hath scant breath. Ho, ho!'
"Then I set Biroo upon the second ass; and when we had reached the Bore
Nuddee I blew upon the bugle.
"When the Thanadar of Kaladoongie came out to meet me I put my hand on
Biroo's shoulder, saying, 'Much care awaiteth thee, Thanadar Sahib, in
tending this little budmash, whose merchandise this is. Moreover, he is
a mahajun now, and hath much money to lend.'"
CHAPTER V
_The Woman in the Carriage_
When Ram Deen's bugle was heard at the Bore bridge, the munshi from the
post-office came across the road and joined the group sitting round the
fire in front of the police-station, at which only the great felt free
to warm themselves.
The munshi was struggling with "the po-ets of the In-gel-land," as he
expressed it in Baboo-English, and did not often take part in the
proceedings round the Thanadar's fire; but that night he took his place
with the assurance of one who has something to tell. A mem-sahib, in
evident distress, with a very young baby in her arms, and unattended,
had taken special passage to Moradabad on the mail-cart; and Ram Deen,
the driver, would therefore have to return to Lal Kooah that night
without any rest. Such a thing had never happened before, and beards
wagged freely round the fire in all sorts of surmisings. For once in
his life, the munshi, whom Kaladoongie had always looked upon as a mere
rhyme-struck fool, held the public eye, and moved largely and freely
among his fellows.
Beauty in distress appeals even to the "heathen in his blindness," and
the munshi drove round to the dâk-bungalow to receive and translate the
lady's final instructions to Ram Deen. Not that there was any occasion
for his services, for the lady with the fair hair and blue eyes used
excellent Hindustani; her soft "d's" and "t's" showed that she had been
born in India, and that she had spoken Nagari before she acquired
English.
She was waiting on the veranda with her baby in her arms when the
mail-cart drove up; and, ignoring the fussy little munshi, from whom no
help could be looked for in the troubles that beset her, she spoke to
Ram Deen, who soon won her confidence, for he showed himself to be
thoughtful and a man of resource.
"The mem-sahib must be well wrapped up to-night," he said, "and the
little one too, for it will be exceedingly bitter as soon as we pass
through the timber and arrive at the tall grass. And the babe seemeth
very young from its cry."
"It is but two weeks in age, coach-wan, and we are well wrapped up; but
make haste, oh, make haste!"
When Ram Deen had lifted her on to the seat, he fastened her to the back
of it with his waistband, and wrapped her feet up in his own blanket.
"There be ruts and stones on the road," he explained, "and the mem-sahib
will have to hold the little one with both arms, and very close to her
to keep it warm."
By the time they had reached the level plateau beyond the Bore Nuddee,
the horses, at her urgent and repeated request for more speed, were
being driven as fast as Ram Deen dared to drive, seeing there were ten
miles to be covered by the same team.
As they proceeded, the lady showed her distress by an occasional deep
sigh; and once, when Ram Deen looked at her face, dimly illuminated by
the lamps of the mail-cart, he saw the gleam of a tear on her eyelashes.
He was glad when she spoke and gave him an opportunity of trying to
distract her mind.
"Sawest thou any travellers on the road to-day, coach-wan?" asked the
lady, timidly.
"Yea, Most Worshipful. A carriage, with a sahib and an English woman,
stopped by the well at Lal Kooah this evening; and the sahib warmed
himself at the bunnia's fire and bought milk, whilst his man-servant
made preparation for their evening meal."
"What manner of man was he, coach-wan; and didst thou learn his name?"
"The servant told me that the sahib's name was Barfield,--Captain
Barfield,--mem-sahib, and that he was going to Meerut to join the
regiment to which he belongs. Moreover, he said that the woman in the
carriage was not his master's wife--but, toba, toba! what am I saying?
This is shameful talk for the mem-sahib to hear, and I ask the
forgiveness of the Provider of the Poor for my stupidity."
"Go on, go on, coach-wan," she said, eagerly, laying a hand on his arm.
And as he talked, she fell aweeping bitterly, and Ram Deen knew not how
to comfort her, for he had never spoken to a mem-sahib before. So he
blundered into speech again.
"What manner of man, Most Worshipful, was the sahib? As he stood by the
fire, I saw that he was nearly as tall as I,--and I am a span higher
than most men; the beard on his upper lip was very fair, and his face
showed red in the firelight; furthermore, he smelled of strong waters.
He stood awhile, unmindful of those about him, twitching his beard and
digging his nails into the palms of his hands; and he looked as a man
who hath a new sorrow."
"Oh, coach-wan! that is the first good word I have heard this day. It
shall enrich thee by ten rupees ere the sun rise."
"Presently," resumed the driver, "as the sahib stood before the blaze,
the woman in the carriage began to sing, and it was as the song of one
who hath smoked opium or bhang. Then the sahib stamped his heel on the
ground, and with an oath--such I took it to be, for it sounded
terrible--he went towards the carriage; and the woman, opening the door
thereof, put forth her head, and we saw that her hair was unloosed and
hung about her shoulders.
"She fell to scolding the sahib, who thrust her back into the carriage,
so that we should not look upon her disorder. Then he fastened the
doors, so that she could not open them. Whereon she fell to screaming
and beating on the sides of the carriage like a wild beast newly caged.
"So the sahib, being shamed, gave orders, and his horses, which were
already spent, were again yoked to the carriage; they departed slowly
into the darkness, and we could hear the woman scolding long after they
had passed out of sight."
"What time was it when they left Lal Kooah, coach-wan?"
"About the seventh hour, and now some two hours ago, mem-sahib."
"Oh, make haste, make haste, coach-wan! Twenty rupees to thee if we
overtake them ere they reach Moradabad!"
"Fear not, mem-sahib. We shall come up with them or ever they get to the
next chowki, where fresh horses await the mail-cart."
"Oh, coach-wan, it is my husband we follow! The woman with him is of
those who steal men's senses from them and rob women of their husbands.
Oh, make haste, make haste!"
They flew along the road. And when the light of the wayside fire at Lal
Kooah gleamed in the distance the lady said, "Thou wilt not leave me
here to another driver, coach-wan?--Thou art a man, and I may need a
man's services to-night."
"Mem-sahib, I am thy servant even as far as Moradabad if it be
necessary."
"God reward thee!" she exclaimed.
And then Ram Deen woke the jungle echoes with a brave blast.
The hostler at Lal Kooah had fresh horses ready by the time the
mail-cart drove up, and in less than five minutes Ram Deen and his
charge were speeding along the level road.
The jungle had now ceased, and they were in the region of the tall
plumed grass. The stars twinkled frostily, for the night was bitterly
cold, and the clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard road rang out
sharply.
"The little one,--is it well wrapped up, mem-sahib?" asked Ram Deen.
"It is asleep, and quite warm, coach-wan. Proceed."
When they had left Lal Kooah two or three miles behind them, Ram Deen's
keen eye caught the glimmer of a fire through the tall grass that came
up to the edge of the road where it curved.
"We have found those ye seek, mem-sahib," said Ram Deen, bringing his
horses to a stand-still.
Through the quiet night came the voice of a drunken woman singing a
ribald barrack-room ditty interspersed with fiendish laughter and oaths:
"I'm the belle of the Naini Tal mall.
Houp la!
Not a colonel nor sub at the mess
But makes love when he can to sweet Sal.
To their wives do they dare to confess
That I'm belle of the Naini Tal mall?
Yes, I'm belle of the Naini Tal mall.
Houp la!"
Then the singer called aloud, "Captain! Captain Barfield!" But, getting
no response, she beat a furious tattoo on the wooden panels of the
carriage, shouting at the top of her voice, "Pretty sort of a jaunt to
Moradabad this is! You're a liar, captain! But I'll tell your doll-faced
wife how you treated her when her baby was only two weeks old." She then
swore a round of torrid oaths, and wound up with a scream that might
have been heard a mile off.
"Mem-sahib," said Ram Deen, "bide here with the hostler till I have
tamed that she-devil, and then I will take thee to the captain sahib.
The little one,--is it warm?"
"Quite warm, and still asleep, coach-wan. Go, and God advance thee!"
Ram Deen found the captain seated on a log in front of a blazing fire.
With his elbows on his knees, the captain pressed a finger to each ear
to escape the tirade of the terrible woman in the carriage. A touch on
his shoulder made him start to his feet, and as he turned round Ram Deen
salaamed gravely.
"I thought the sahib slept. No? Her speech galled thee," pointing to the
carriage, "and thou wast fain not to hear it?"
The captain nodded assent. He was worn with the trying position his
folly had placed him in, and, at another time, he might have resented
the touch on his shoulder, but the tall native in front of him spoke
with dignity and a quiet assurance indicative of a large fund of reserve
force,--and he might be helpful.
"Where are thy servants, sahib?"
"They fled when she cursed them. May the devil take them!"
"I am the driver of the mail-cart on this road, sahib, as thou mayest
see," said Ram Deen, pointing to his badge and bugle, "and this woman's
tongue stayeth the Queen's mail; for on my cart, which I have left
behind the bend of the road yonder, is a mem-sahib who perchance knoweth
thee, for she, too, cometh from Naini Tal, and 'twere well she should
not hear thy name on this woman's lips. She must not be kept waiting
long, sahib, for the babe in her arms is but two weeks in age" (the
captain started), "and the night is exceedingly bitter. Have I the
sahib's permission to drive his carriage beyond the hearing of those who
are fain to pass?"
"Drive her to Jehandum, coach-wan, so she come to no hurt."
Thereupon Ram Deen approached the carriage, and tapped on the door,
saying, "Woman, it is not meet that the worthy traffic of the Queen's
highway should be disturbed by thy unseemly conduct."
For answer he received a volley of curses in broken Hindustani, such
curses as are in vogue in the barracks of English regiments in India;
and the woman in the carriage wound up with a request for more brandy.
"Nay, it is not brandy thou shouldst have, but water,--cold water to
cool thy hot tongue," and mounting the carriage Ram Deen urged the jaded
horses into a trot.
Two hundred yards farther on the road crossed the Bore Nuddee, now a
sluggish river about four feet deep. Leaving the road Ram Deen drove
down the bank and into the stream. When the woman in the carriage heard
the splashing of the horses, and felt the water rise to her knees, she
screamed with fear and became suddenly sober.
"Hast had water enough to cool thy tongue?" asked Ram Deen, tapping on
the roof of the carriage.
"Stop, stop!" she entreated, frantically. "I will do whatever you wish."
"Canst thou forget Captain Barfield's name, or must I drive into deeper
water?"
"I know not whereof you speak."
"'Tis well! And who is thy husband?"
"A soldier whose regiment is at Delhi, whither I go."
"Thou must be true to him hereafter.--Ho there, horse! the alligators
cannot swallow thee!"
"Alligators! Are there alligators in this river?" whined the woman in
the carriage.
"There is scarce room for them within its banks."
"Oh, sahib, I am fain to go to my husband, whom alone I care for.
Proceed, for the love of God!"
So Ram Deen drove her through the stream and up the opposite bank on to
the road. When he had tied the horses to a tree by the highway, he
said, "There will be travellers going thy way presently, and they will
drive thee to Moradabad. Remember, I may have business in Delhi very
soon. Salaam, Faithless One."
And the woman responded in a very meek tone, "Salaam."
* * * * *
"Come, mem-sahib," said Ram Deen, as he resumed his seat on the
mail-cart; "the captain sahib awaits thee."
When they were abreast of the fire, she called in a faint, tremulous
voice, "Harry, Harry, my dear husband! I am very tired, and very cold.
Won't you come to me?"
Leaving the hostler in charge of the mail-cart, Ram Deen followed the
captain as he carried his wife to the fire.
Seating her on the log, Captain Barfield knelt beside his wife, chafing
and kissing her hands.
"Thank God, you found me!" he sobbed.
"The ayah told me a few hours after you left me that that--that woman
had been seen to join you beyond Serya Tal; so I and the baby came to
help you. You still love us, dearest?" she asked, pleadingly.
"My beloved, I am not worthy of you! There is a sword in my heart!" And
he bowed his head on her lap and wept, whilst she stroked his hair with
a slender hand.
"God has been very good to me to-night," she said, softly.
Soon after, removing the shawl from the little one's face, she said,
"Kiss your baby, Harry."
His lips touched the little face.--It was very cold. He started back,
and, taking the child from its mother's arms, he held it near the
firelight.--It was dead!
As they looked across the little limp body into each other's eyes with
speechless agony, Ram Deen bent over them and took the little one
tenderly from the captain's hands.
"Attend to the living, sahib; I will see to thy dead," he said, softly.
He turned away his face from the sorrow that was too sacred to be
witnessed by any one save God.
As Captain Barfield folded his young wife in his arms, a deep groan
rent his breast at the thought of his folly and its consequence.
"Thou wert very tender--a mere blossom--and the frost withered thee,"
said Ram Deen very gently, composing the baby's limbs.
CHAPTER VI
_For the Training of Biroo_
"Ah, small villain, budmash! must I send thee back to Nyagong, thee and
thy dog, to learn respect for thy betters? The Thanadar's son hath the
ordering of thee, and thou hast beaten him,--toba, toba!"
"My father," replied Biroo, respectfully, to Ram Deen, "Mohun Lal took
my kite, and when I strove to hold mine own he smote me, whereon I
pulled his hair; and 'twas no fault of mine that it lacked strength and
remained in my hand. So he set his dog on me; but Hasteen slew it.
Wherein have I offended, my father?"
And the Thanadar laughed, saying, "Ram Deen, Mohun Lal but received his
due." To the "defendant in the case" he said, "Get thee to sleep, Biroo;
and be brave and strong; so will Nana Debi reward thee." Then turning
to those who sat round the fire, he went on, "Brothers, 'tis late, and I
would have speech with Ram Deen. Ye may take your leave."
When they were by themselves, the Thanadar spoke. "The man-child waxeth
fierce and strong, my old friend; 'twere well he were restrained. He
will be wealthy by thy favor, and the favor of Nyagong, when he cometh
to man's estate, and 'twere pity that he should lack courtesy when he is
a man grown."
"Thanadar ji, thou art his father as much as I am. Thou shouldst correct
him with strokes whenas I am on the road and carrying the Queen's mail."
"Blows but inure to hardness, and--Gunga knoweth!--little Biroo is hard
already. Why dost thou not give up the service of the Queen, and----" He
paused, and after awhile asked, "What didst thou receive from Captain
Barfield?"
"The gun thou hast seen, Thanadar ji; but from his mem-sahib five
hundred rupees, a timepiece of gold, and whatsoever I may want
hereafter. The money lieth in the hands of Moti Ram, the great mahajun
(banker) of Naini Tal."
"Wah! Ram Deen, thou art thyself rich enough to be a mahajun. Consider,
too, the kindness bestowed by Nyagong on Biroo at thy asking,--two
hundred rupees and over, and much merchandise. Leave the road, my
friend, and put thy money out at usury. A woman in thy hut to cook thy
evening meal, and mend Biroo's ways, were not amiss. Eh? The daughters
of the Terai are very fair, as thou knowest, coach-wan ji."
"The road hath been father and mother to me, Thanadar Sahib, since I
lost my Buldeo, who knew not his mother; so I may not leave it. And when
I think of Bheem Dass, bunnia and usurer of the village whereof I was
potter three years ago, and whom ye found dead on the road the day I
brought in the mail, and was made driver, as thou rememberest, I may not
live by harassing the poor and the widow and fatherless. God forbid! As
for women,--they be like butterflies that flit from flower to flower;
perchance, if I could find a woman who cared not to gossip at the
village well, and had eyes and thoughts for none save her husband, I
might--but I must be about my business on the road, and I have no time
for the seeking of such a woman. Wah! I have not, even as yet, tried the
gun Barfield sahib gave me."
Soon afterwards, by an alteration of the service, Ram Deen brought the
mail to Kaladoongie in the early afternoon, and availed himself of the
opportunity thus afforded of rambling about during the rest of the day
in the jungle with Biroo and Hasteen, in search of small game.
One day they came upon a half-grown fawn, at which Ram Deen let fly with
both barrels; but as his gun was loaded with small shot only, the deer
bounded away apparently unhurt, with Hasteen in hot pursuit, whilst Ram
Deen and Biroo followed with what haste they could.
Presently, they could hear the baying of the great dog and the shrill
cries of a woman in distress. Directed by these sounds, they crossed the
road that leads to Naini Tal, and, scrambling up the bank and over a
low stone wall, they found themselves in a neglected garden, in the
middle of which was a grass hut, whence issued the cries that had
quickened their steps. They arrived just in time, for Hasteen had almost
dug himself into the hut.
Calling off the dog, Ram Deen hastened to allay the fears of the woman
in the hut, who was still giving voice to her distress in the Padhani
patois. "The dog will not harm thee; see, I have tied him with my
waistband to a tree."
"Who art thou?" asked the woman. The tones of her voice, when she spoke,
were exceedingly soft and pleasant, and made one long to look upon the
face of the speaker.
"I am Ram Deen, the driver of the mail-cart, and well known in
Kaladoongie."
"I have heard of thee and thy doings, and will come forth. But the dog
(Nana Debi, was there ever such a dog!--he almost slew my fawn), art
thou sure he cannot harm us?"
"Kali Mai twist my joints, if he be not well secured."
Whereupon the door of the hut was opened a few inches. Having satisfied
herself that all was as Ram Deen had said, the young woman came out of
the hut with one arm about the fawn.
She was a Padhani, and in her early womanhood. The simple kilt she wore
allowed her shapely ankles to be seen, and her bodice well expressed the
charms of her youthful figure. Ram Deen thought her eyes were not less
beautiful than the fawn's.
After salaaming to him, she looked at her pet. "Oh, sahib, she
bleeds,--my Ganda bleeds!" she exclaimed, pointing to a slender streak
of red on the fawn's flank.
"Belike some thorn tore her skin as she fled," said Ram Deen; but he
knew that at least one shot from his gun had taken effect.
"'Tis a sore hurt, Coach-wan sahib. Will she die?"
"Nay, little one, 'tis nought. See!" and with a wisp of grass Ram Deen
wiped the blood from the fawn's skin.
"But the dog, coach-wan,--thou wilt not permit him to fright my Ganda
again?"
"Of a surety, not." Then, with a hand on the fawn's head, he rebuked
Hasteen, saying, "Villain, the jackals shall pursue thee if thou huntest
here again!" And Hasteen hung his head, putting his tail between his
legs; and the young girl knew that Ganda was safe thereafter from the
great dog.
As they talked together, a very decrepit old man appeared at the door of
the hut; after peering at Ram Deen from under his hand, he spoke in the
flat, toneless voice of a deaf man: "Tumbaku, Provider of the Poor, give
me tumbaku."
Ram Deen put his pouch of dried tobacco-leaf in the old man's hand, and
looked inquiringly at the young woman.
"It is my grandfather, and he is deaf and nearly blind,--and a sore
affliction. Give back his tumbaku to the sahib, da-da," she said in a
louder voice to the old man.
"Nay, nay, let him keep it!" said Ram Deen; then after a pause, and by
way of excuse for staying a little longer, he inquired the old man's
name.
"Hera Lal, Coach-wan sahib; our kinsman is Thapa Sing, of Serya Tal, who
was accounted rich, and planted this garden and these fruit trees many
years ago. We stay here by his leave in the winter time, to keep the
deer and wild hog out. My name is Tara, and I sell firewood to Gunga Ram
the sweetmeat vender."
Whilst she was speaking, Biroo had approached the fawn with a handful of
grass.
"Is this the little one they say ye found on the Bore bridge, sahib?"
inquired the young Padhani.
Ram Deen nodded affirmatively.
"Poor child!" she exclaimed, and, moved by a sudden impulse of pity, she
knelt beside Biroo, and smoothing the hair from his face she put a
marigold behind his ear.
Next day, after he had delivered the mail, Ram Deen, making a bundle of
his best clothes, started off into the jungle. When he was out of sight
of the village, he donned a snowy tunic and a scarlet turban, and
encased his feet in a pair of red, hide-sewn shoes. When Tara, on her
way to the bazaar with a load of firewood, met him soon after, she
thought she had never seen any one so bravely attired, and stepped off
the path to make room for him to pass.
"Toba, toba!" he exclaimed; "it maketh my head ache to see the load thou
bearest. Gunga Ram will, doubtless, give thee not less than eight annas
for the firewood."
"Nay, Coach-wan sahib, Gunga Ram is just, and besides giving me the
market price,--two annas,--he often bestoweth on me a handful of
sweetmeats."
"Thou shalt sell no more wood to Gunga Ram. He is base, and his father
is a dog. Set thy load at my door; here is the price thereof," and Ram
Deen laid an eight-anna piece in her palm. Before she could recover from
her astonishment he said, "The fawn Ganda, is her hurt healed?"
"It is well with her. And what of Biroo, sahib?"
"He is a budmash, Tara, and I repent me of befriending him."
"Nay, Coach-wan sahib, he is but little, and hath no mother."
"That is the evil of it," said Ram Deen, leaving her abruptly.
When Tara returned to her home that evening, she noticed the footprints
of a man's shoes in the dust in front of the hut; her grandfather,
looking at her cunningly, smoked sweetened tobacco that was well
flavored, and the clay bowl of his hookah was new and was gayly painted.
A similar scene was enacted on the jungle path the next day, and many
days in succession, and the tale of Biroo's iniquities grew at each
recital. Every day there was some fresh villainy of his to relate, and
each day Tara's grandfather waxed in affluence, which culminated one day
in a new blanket and a small purse with money in it.
"Tara," said Ram Deen one day, "put down thy load; I have bad tidings to
tell thee concerning Biroo. He and Hasteen killed a milch-goat to-day
belonging to the Thanadar."
"'Twas the dog's doing, Ram Deen."
"Nay, Biroo is the older budmash, and planneth all the villainies.
To-morrow I must pay the Thanadar three rupees and eight annas, or
Hasteen will be slain and Biroo beaten with a shoe by the Thanadar's
chuprassi."
"Biroo shall not be beaten for a matter of three or four rupees, sahib.
Lo, here is the money," and Tara, taking a small purse from a tiny
pocket in her bodice, held it out to him.
"Nay, listen further!" exclaimed Ram Deen, holding up his hands; "thou
knowest I am wifeless, and I might have the best and fairest woman in
the Terai for my wife; but she liketh not Biroo, and will not share my
hut because of him. Verily, I shall return him to the men of Nyagong."
"Thou art, doubtless, entitled to the best and the fairest wife in the
Terai," said Tara, with a sudden catch in her voice; "but Biroo goeth
not back to Nyagong as long as our hut standeth and as long as Gunga
Ram, who is a just man and a generous, will pay me two annas each day
for wood." She turned away her face, so that Ram Deen should not see
the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.
"'Tis well, Tara; thou shalt have him, but thou must beat him every day,
and often, to make an upright man of him."
"Nana Debi wither the hand that striketh him! He is not a dog to be
taught with stripes." Then, after a pause, she went on, "And the--the
woman who is to be the best and fairest wife in the Terai,--what manner
of woman is she?"
"She is about thine age."
"Yes?"
"And as tall as thou art."
"Proceed."
"Her voice is soft and sweet as a blackbird's, and her eyes are like a
fawn's. Her name is----"
"Well, what is her name?"
"'Tis the most beautiful name that a woman can bear. Nay, how can I tell
thee her name if thou wilt not look at me?"
When she had turned her eyes on him, he put his hands on her shoulders,
saying, "Her name is Tara, star of the Terai."
And Tara put her head on his breast, and was very happy.
"Thou must beat Biroo, Beloved, or he will be hanged."
"Thou wouldst have been hanged, budmash, hadst thou been motherless and
beaten by strangers. Biroo's mother will make him a better man than thou
art, O Beater of Babes."
"And thou takest me for love?"
"Nay, coach-wan ji, but for the training of Biroo."
CHAPTER VII
_Chandni_
About a mile below the eastern gorge of Naini Tal, the favorite
hill-station of Kumaon, is a Padhani village overlooking Serya Tal. It
is inhabited by a few score of low-caste hill-men, who earn a living,
they and their women-folk, by carrying rough-hewn stones from the
hillsides for contractors engaged in building houses, or by selling
fodder-grass and firewood to the English residents.
When a Padhani has accumulated sufficient means he purchases a wife and
stays at home every other day; and when he has attained affluence and
bought two wives, he stays at home altogether; which accounts for the
fact that a large majority of these carriers of wood and stone are
women.
It is not to be supposed that the Padhani women look upon their toilsome
tasks as a hardship: nature, and the decrees of evolution, have endowed
them with superb health and strength, and they are wont, as they carry
the most astonishing loads, to sing joyous choruses, and so lighten
their toils. Every one who has been to Naini Tal is familiar with the
sight of a string of Padhani women, short-kilted, showing a span of
brown skin between their bodices and skirts, and singing in unison.
They never seem to weary of their choruses, and Captain Trenyon of the
Forest Department, and his _khansamah_, Bijoo, never tired of looking at
them as they passed below his bungalow with swaying hips and jaunty
carriage. They were a trifle darker than their Rajpoot sisters (_quod
tune, si fuscus Amyntas_), and they might have been akin to Pharaoh's
daughter, she who was "black but comely."
Now, Bijoo was a Padhani, and he took more than a casual interest--such
as Captain Trenyon's, doubtless, was--in the laughing and singing crowd
that filed below the captain's house several times a day. Chiefest among
them, and distinguished by her beauty and her stature, was Chandni;
and, ere the season was over, Bijoo purchased her from her crippled
father for ten rupees, and, thereafter, Captain Trenyon turned his back
on the Padhani traffic of the Mall to watch Chandni instead, as she
helped Bijoo to clean the silver; and the songs of the Padhani women
attracted him no more.
* * * * *
The following year, before the snows of February had cleared off from
Shere-ke Danda and Larya Kata, Chandni returned alone to the house of
her father, Thapa, at Serya Tal. It was night when she pushed back the
thatch door of his hut, which was in darkness within, and called him by
name:
"It is I, father, Chandni, thy daughter."
"Moon of my Heart!" said the old man, waking from his sleep, and he
would have "lifted up his voice and wept," as is the manner of all
orientals when greatly moved, but she prevented him by the
impressiveness of her "Choop, choop! father; proclaim not my return to
the village!"
"Where is Bijoo, the man thy husband?"
"Nana Debi alone knoweth, my father, and I have come back to thee."
"Is he dead, little one?"
"He is dead to me, da-da; and I have returned to cook thy food and carry
wood and stone for thee, if thou wilt let me."
"Let thee, O Spray of Jessamine!" and the old man caught his breath, and
once more she had to check his emotions with an imperative "Choop,
choop!"
He left his charpoi, and raking together the embers in the chula, he
blew on them till they kindled into a blaze, at which he lit a smoky
chirag, whose dim light showed Chandni sitting on the ground with her
back towards him, swaying to and fro, and crying softly "Aho, aho, mai
bap!"
He sat by the fire patiently, waiting for her to speak, his hands
trembling with apprehension.
When her composure was sufficiently restored, she said, "Thapa Sing, my
father, Nana Debi hath no ears for a woman's prayers; do thou,
therefore, sacrifice a goat to him to-morrow at Naini Tal, and entreat
his curses on all Faringis. See, here is money," and she threw a small
bag of coins towards him.
He picked up the purse, and after a pause she went on:
"My father, the Mussulmanis do well to veil their women's faces. Trenyon
sahib looked upon me ere I was married to Bijoo, and since then, daily,
in his jungle camp hath he scorched me with his eyes, till my cheeks
felt as though the hot wind had blown on them.
"One day, Bijoo came home with a coin of gold in his hand, such as I had
never seen before, and which, he said, the sahib had given him; and he
bored a hole through it and hung it on my forehead, and bade me wear it
there at the sahib's request; but he stabbed me with his eyes as he put
it on me.
"And the next day, Bhamaraya, the sweeper's lame wife, (Kali Mai afflict
her with leprosy!) came to the door of our hut, Bijoo being gone to the
village market for food supplies, and she extolled my beauty, and
showed a picture of myself made by Trenyon sahib by the help of the sun;
and thereafter I veiled myself when I went abroad.
"She came again the next day, and whensoever Bijoo was away from home,
always praising my lips and my eyes, and telling me what Trenyon sahib
spake concerning me. And yesterday she came to me and said, 'Chandni, O
Moon of the Jungle, Trenyon sahib would fain have speech with thee.
To-night will he send Bijoo with a message to the thana at Kaladoongie,
and when he is gone and the other servants be asleep I will conduct thee
to the sahib's tent. See what he hath sent thee,' and she placed at my
feet a gold bangle.
"When I would have spurned her and her lures from my door she laughed
wickedly, saying, 'Ho, ho, my Pretty Partridge! if golden grain will not
catch thee, assuredly thou art entangled in the snare of necessity, thou
Wife of a Thief!' and she pointed at the coin on my forehead.
"Then, as my heart turned to water, she went on: 'To-morrow the
Thanadar will return with Bijoo, and, unless thou asketh the clemency of
the sahib, Bijoo will be charged with theft and taken back to
Kaladoongie as a prisoner.--The Sircar sends men across the Black Water
for lesser offences than this!'
"And being a woman, and fearing I knew not what dangers for Bijoo and
myself, I entreated Bhamaraya to take me to the sahib's tent, promising
to say naught to Bijoo.
"And thus it fell out, Bijoo being away, that I went with the lame
she-wolf to Trenyon sahib's tent last night to make appeal for my
husband."
She paused in her narrative once more, swaying herself to and fro and
moaning, "Aho, aho!" Then, after a while, she went on:
"When we were in the sahib's presence Bhamaraya plucked the chudder from
my face, saying, 'Lo, sahib, I have brought thee the Rose of the Terai!'
Whereon he filled her palms with rupees. And as she left the room she
spake to me, saying, 'The saving of Bijoo were an easy task for thy
beauty, thou Flower-Faced Chandni.'
"And I stood suppliant before the sahib, with folded palms and downcast
eyes, and in the silence I could hear the beating of my heart. After a
while, and because he spake not, I looked up and met his eyes that
burned upon my face; and then I knew the price that was set on Bijoo's
safety.
"Falling before him, I clasped his feet, saying, 'Provider of the Poor,
let thy servant depart in honor, and so add one more jewel to the crown
of thy worth. See, here is the coin Bhamaraya says was stolen from thee
by the man Bijoo, my husband.' And, unwinding the gold piece from my
head, I laid it at his feet.
"Thereupon he raised me from the ground, and because great fear was upon
me, and because my limbs shook, he seated me upon his bed, whereon was a
leopard's skin. Then, filling a crystal vessel with sparkling waters
that bubbled and frothed, he bade me drink. And my courage revived, and
once more I made plea for Bijoo.
"And then I noticed, for the first time, that the air of the tent was
heavy with the odor of attar; slumbrous music came from a magical box on
the table, and the thought of Bijoo seemed to go far from me, as though
he were in another land, and I became as one who had smoked apheem or
churrus. Then the sahib bound the gold coin on my brow again, and spake
words to me such as I had never heard from man, assuring me of Bijoo's
safety, and calling me Queen of the Stars, Dew of the Morning, Breath of
Roses, and putting a strange stress upon me that cared not for any
consequences.
"When I had flown, as it seemed to me, to the highest peak of elation,
he gave me another draught of the sparkling waters, and, as I sank back
on the pillows, the last thing I had sense of was his hand on mine. Oh,
Nana Debi, that I had never waked again! Aho, aho!"
And once more the woman stopped to indulge her grief.
"When I waked again," she resumed, "the sahib sat by the table, asleep,
with his head on his arm, the light still burning brightly over him. A
bird cheeped uneasily in the peepul-tree above the tent, and through the
chink of the doorway I could discern the faint glimmer of the false
dawn. Fearing to be seen in or near the sahib's tent by the servants,
who would soon begin to stir, I made shift to rise from the bed, but my
head swam from the effects of the strong waters I had drunk, and I fell
back on the pillows and shut my eyes for a few moments.
"When I looked again Bijoo stood within the doorway. Holding up a
menacing finger that enjoined silence, he advanced stealthily on Trenyon
sahib with an unsheathed khookri. Arrived within striking distance, he
touched the sahib on the shoulder, and, as the sleeper raised his head
from the table, the heavy blade descended on it and shore it from the
shoulders, and Trenyon sahib passed from sleep to death without any
waking.
"Tearing the coin from my forehead, Bijoo wound his fingers in my hair
and bade me follow him without any outcry on pain of instant death.
"When we had passed into the jungle a mile from the camp he bade stand,
and then, O my father, he inflicted the punishment our men exact from
unfaithful wives."
"O Moonlight of my Heart, say not thou art a nakti! Not that! not that!"
For answer she rose slowly to her feet and turned towards him. Drawing
from her face the chudder, which was soaked with blood, she disclosed to
his horrified gaze a countenance with a hideous gap between the eyes and
mouth, and bearing no resemblance to that of the once beautiful
Chandni.
CHAPTER VIII
_One Thousand Rupees Reward_
The Terai was in consternation: Captain Trenyon of the Forest Department
had been killed by his khansamah, Bijoo; the latter's wife, Chandni, had
been horribly mutilated by her infuriated husband in accordance with an
immemorial right claimed by the men of the Terai in such cases, and the
government had offered a reward of one thousand rupees for the capture
of the injured husband.
"Are we dogs?" said Ram Deen, indignantly, when the Thanadar had
displayed a notice of the reward printed in Nagari that was to be posted
throughout the Terai. "Are we dogs, brothers, that the sircar should
tempt us with base money to betray men for exacting just retribution
from those who wrong them?"
"We be men, coach-wan ji," said the bullock driver, valiantly; and
whilst he spoke the great dog, Hasteen, who lay at Ram Deen's feet,
pricked up his ears and growled as a shadow crept along the ground from
the peepul tree in front of the village temple to a clump of tall grass
some fifty paces from the Thanadar's fire.
"Peace!" exclaimed Ram Deen, venting his spleen on the dog with a blow
from his shoe; "dost thou not know a jackal as yet?" Then to those
assembled round the fire he went on, raising his voice: "Kali Mai wither
the hand that betrayeth Bijoo, and fire consume his hut! There is
contention even in my house, because the woman Chandni is kin to my
wife, who believes in her innocence; but better such contention, and
bitter silence for kindly speech, than that brothers should sell
brothers, and so make light the honor of men in the Terai!"
"Nevertheless," said the Thanadar, "this notice must be posted wherever
men pass or congregate throughout this Zemindaree."
"Nevertheless," retorted Ram Deen, bitterly, "without disrespect to
thee, Thanadar Sahib, it shall be told throughout the Terai that Ram
Deen spat on the notice of the sircar and tore it in shreds," and the
driver of the mail-cart proceeded to make his words good.
* * * * *
Next evening, when the mail-cart drove up to the post-office, little
Biroo plucked Ram Deen's sleeve as he dismounted. "Thou must come with
me," he said, simply.
"Must, Little Parrot?"
"Ay, father mine. Tara wanteth thee; and there is pillau for thy evening
meal."
Now Ram Deen had fed on Gunga Ram's stale cates the evening before for
having expressed approval of the mutilation of Chandni, and this
prospect of pillau, besides appealing shrewdly to his eager stomach,
was, perhaps, a sign of capitulation on the part of the young wife he
had but lately wedded.
As he approached his hut his nostrils were assailed with the odors of a
great cooking.
"Thou seest, my father," said little Biroo, with the ineptitude of
infancy, "thou seest what awaits thee inside."
When Ram Deen entered his abode a woman's voice came to him from the
inner apartment, saying, "Feed, Big Elephant, stupid as thou art tall!"
As Ram Deen fell to, Biroo also dipped his hand in the dish, mouthful
for mouthful; and when his little stomach was pleasantly distended, he
paused and said, "Where didst thou sleep last night, my father?"
"'Twere better to eat pillau, little Blue Jay, than ask questions that
may be answered only through the soles of thy feet," replied Ram Deen.
"O valiant Beater of Babes!" said the voice from the inner room, "were
it not for Biroo, I would return to my grandfather's house; but thou
wouldst starve and ill-use the little one."
"Nay, my Best Beloved," said Ram Deen, in a conciliatory tone, "thou art
not even just to me. Listen----"
"I will not listen, O Brave to Women, till thou hast answered Biroo's
question."
"My Star, an' you should tell it abroad that I did not sleep in mine own
house last night, it would blacken my face in Kaladoongie."
"Thou wilt say, perchance, that I gossip at the village well. Go on,
what next?"
"Nay, then, if thou must know it, I slept in Goor Dutt's bullock-cart."
"'Twas well, Lumba Deen (Long Legs). Ho, ho, ho! Thy case was that of a
ladder balanced across a wall. Proceed."
"The grain bags I lay on, Heart of my Heart, were stony, and the night
was full of noises."
"Yes. And thou wast warm?"
"Nay, Beloved, for there was not room for the drawing up of my knees
between myself and Goor Dutt, so my feet were frozen, and Goor Dutt
ceased not from snoring."
"'Twas well, Oppressor of Women and Children. And thy evening meal?"
"Light of the Terai, Gunga Ram's stale pooris were ill-bestowed on a
pariah dog,--but the savor of thy pillau hath effaced the wrong done to
my stomach last night."
"Ah! And now what thinkest thou of my kinswoman Chandni?"
"Tara, Light in Darkness, thou art dearer to me than life itself, and I
would not lightly vex thee. What is done is done; why slay me with thy
questions? I were not worthy of thee if I answered thee differently
concerning the price to be demanded for the virtue of a woman; nay, do
not cry, little one."
A sound of wailing came from the inner room, where two women were
weeping in each other's arms. "Aho! aho!"
"Tara," exclaimed Ram Deen, starting to his feet, "who is the woman with
thee? and why is she here?"
"It is I, Chandni," said a thick, muffled voice, "and thou doest me
wrong, coach-wan ji. Listen!" Then the strange woman proceeded to tell
Ram Deen of the slaying of Trenyon sahib, and of her own horrible
mutilation.
When she had finished, Ram Deen said, "It was a brave stroke that Bijoo
gave the sahib."
"It was well done, khodawund."
"And thou art not sorry for the killing of the sahib?"
"Doorga restore me and afflict me again, if I do not think it was a good
killing!"
"They will hang Bijoo for it; a thousand rupees hath been offered for
his taking, alive or dead."
"Aho! aho!" wailed the strange woman. "Men will be wicked for even ten
rupees."
"But he robbed thee of thy beauty," remonstrated Ram Deen.
"'Twas right to do so, in his eyes," was the reply.
"And 'tis true thou wast in Trenyon sahib's tent for the helping of
Bijoo?"
"As Nana Debi is my witness. And I know not all that happened, for the
sahib gave me strong waters to drink that robbed me of my senses."
"Toba! toba!" exclaimed Ram Deen, walking towards the outer door. "Wife,
see to it that thy relative is properly lodged this night."
"And to-morrow night?" queried Tara.
"To-morrow night I would eat of a kid seethed in milk and stuffed with
pistachios by thy honorable kinswoman. Moreover, I will make provision
for her ere the week is out."
"My lord is good as he is great," said Tara, as Ram Deen left the hut.
The next night, as they sat around the fire, Ram Deen waited till the
shadow crept from the peepul tree to the clump of tall grass.
"Brothers," he began, speaking deliberately and in loud tones, "the
woman we spake of last night is guiltless of wrong, as I now know. She
is here and in my hut, and an honored guest." He paused and looked round
the circle grimly.
"We be poor men, coach-wan ji," said the little driver, deprecatingly,
"and thy honorable kinswoman is deserving, doubtless, of thy exalted
consideration."
"She is deserving of the consideration due to a woman who was greatly
wronged by the villain who was slain, and by the madman, his slayer. She
was lured, brothers, into the sahib's tent by the sweeper's wife,
Bhamaraya,--who is a lame she-wolf!--for the purpose of pleading for her
man, Bijoo, who was accused of theft; and then she was robbed of her
senses by the sahib's strong waters, and hath done no wrong; let no man
in the Terai gainsay it!"
Ram Deen paused awhile to "drink tobacco," but nobody made comment on a
matter in which he was so greatly interested.
"Bijoo's life is forfeit," he resumed; "and the rope that shall hang him
is already made, for the sircar never fails to find whom it seeks. But
Bijoo, alive or dead, is worth a thousand rupees to the man who shall
take him. 'Twere pity that the money should go to some jackal of a man,
for it belongs, of a right, to Chandni, whom he hath wrongfully
mutilated; but he is a man, and will, doubtless, make the only
reparation in his power, and yield himself up, for her sake, to some one
who will bestow the blood money upon her."
The shadow rose from the tall grass and speedily disappeared in the
darkness. Soon after, those who sat round the fire heard the dreadful
lamenting of a strong man who walks between Remorse and Despair.
"Brothers," said Ram Deen, as he rose to go to his hut, "alive or dead,
Bijoo will be here to-morrow night."
* * * * *
At the fire, next evening, no one spoke; they were waiting for the
fulfilment of Ram Deen's prediction, and the bugle-call of the fateful
man had just been heard in the direction of the Bore bridge.
"Bijoo hath come, Thanadar ji," said Ram Deen, as he dismounted from the
mail-cart.
He then proceeded, with the help of his hostler, to lift a heavy burden
covered with a cloth from the back seat of the mail-cart. The limp hands
trailing on the ground as they carried it showed their burden to be a
corpse. They laid it in the firelight; and Ram Deen, drawing the
covering from its face, disclosed the dreadful features of a man who had
been hanged; part of the rope that had strangled him still encircled his
throat.
"This was the way of it," began Ram Deen, after due identification had
been made and the corpse had been carried to the thana; "this was the
way of it: this evening, just before we began the descent that leads to
the Bore bridge, a man sprang from the darkness in front of the horses
and stayed the mail-cart below the great huldoo tree that stretches its
arms across the road. The light of the lamps showed him to be Bijoo. So
I sent the hostler forward to the bridge to await my coming, for Bijoo
and I were fain to be alone for that which had to be said between us.
"When we were by ourselves I bade him mount the mail-cart and sit beside
me. As he took his place, he said, 'Wah! coach-wan, dost thou not fear
to be alone with a hunted man on a jungle road? I might slay thee now,
for I am armed, and so remove the only man who can match me in the
Terai.'
"'Nevertheless,' I replied, 'I will take thee to-night to Kaladoongie
with my naked hands, if need be.'
"'We will speak of that hereafter,' said Bijoo; 'but now tell me of
her.'
"'She is as you made her,--nakti and poor and a widow; for thou art but
a dead man, Bijoo.'
"'And you spake the truth, last night, when you said she went to the
sahib's tent to plead for me?'
"Taking one of the lamps, I held it to my face, saying, 'Draw now thy
khookri, Bijoo, and slay me if thou thinkest I have lied.'
"''Tis well,' he replied, sheathing his weapon. 'And what will become of
Chandni?'
"'She shall dwell honorably with her kinswoman in my hut, and respected
of all men as long as I live; but the road is not safe, Bijoo, and bad
men and jungle fever and wild beasts have slain better men than I; and,
bethink thee, by yielding thyself my prisoner thou canst bestow one
thousand rupees on Chandni, and so set her beyond the reach of want and
scoffers till her end come.'
"He mused awhile, and then replied quietly, 'I will go with thee.
Proceed. I know thou wilt bestow upon her the reward offered by the
sircar.'
"'But they will hang thee, Bijoo.'
"'Of a surety. Proceed.'
"''Tis a shameful death, for the hangman is a sweeper,--some brother to
Bhamaraya, perhaps.'
"'Nevertheless, proceed; but promise me that thou wilt trap the lame
witch in some pit of hell, Ram Deen.'
"'Fret not thyself on that score, Bijoo; I have already given the matter
thought. But why should the sircar hang thee? They--would--not--hang--a
dead man;' and I flicked a branch that overhung us with my whip.
"'Thou art right, Ram Deen,' he said, quietly; 'but, lo! I have not
slept for many nights, and my thought is not clear.' He then stooped
downward, groping in the bottom of the mail-cart, and drew forth one of
the heel ropes of the horses.
"Throwing one end of the rope over the branch that was above us, he
fastened it thereto with a running loop, and then encircled his neck
with a noose at the other end.
"As he stood up on the seat, he asked, 'Thou wilt give me honorable
burning, Ram Deen?' And I replied, 'I will be nearest of kin to thee in
this matter.'
"'Tis well. Thou wilt not forget thy reckoning with Bhamaraya?'
"But ere I could make reply, the gray wolf that hunts beyond the bridge
bayed, and the horses broke from me in their fear, so that I could not
stay them till we reached the Naini Tal road."
"Yea, brothers," said the hostler, at whom Ram Deen looked for
confirmation of this part of his story, "I had scarce time to leap to
one side, as the mail-cart sped past me whilst I waited on the bridge."
More he would have said,--for he had never before enjoyed the privilege
of speech at the Thanadar's fire, and the occasion was epochal,--but he
saw in Ram Deen's face that which made him whine and say, "But I am a
poor man, and know nothing, and my sight is dim by reason of sitting
overmuch by grass fires,--only Ram Deen, Bahadoor, could not stay the
horses, though he cursed their female relatives for many generations,
and----"
"So, Thanadar ji," interrupted Ram Deen, "as soon as I could restrain
the horses I turned them back, and, after picking up the hostler (who,
because he is more silent, is wiser than most poor men who are ever
talking of what they know not), I drove to the huldoo tree where hung
Bijoo as dead as you saw him but now."
Then, after a pause, he said, "Brothers, let it be told in the Terai
that Bijoo came back as befitted an honorable man."
CHAPTER IX
_The Rope that Hanged Bijoo_
"Thy man-child is very beautiful, my lord," said Tara.
Ram Deen was sitting outside of his hut on a charpoi, whilst Tara rubbed
their month-old babe with "bitter oil" in the forenoon sun.
The little brown manikin, without a stitch on him to conceal God's
handiwork, sprawled on his stomach across his mother's knees, making
inarticulate noises, and wriggling after the manner of infants when it
is well with them, for the sun was pleasantly warm, and his mother's
rubbing appealed to his budding sensations.
"It is not so beautiful as its beautiful mother," said Ram Deen.
"Thou Worthless!" exclaimed Tara. "Sawest ever such hands?" and she put
a finger into the wee palm that clasped it by "reflex action."
"Toba! toba!" swore Ram Deen. "Nana Debi send grace to evil-doers in the
Terai in the days to come, or else shall they be undone by these hands.
Why, they might almost crush a fly!"
"Nevertheless, coach-wan ji, my lord, thy son shall be taller than thou
when he is a man grown."
"Khoda (God) grant it, for thy son must drive the mail-cart in the time
to come, and the Terai is full of dangers."
"But he _shall not_ drive the mail-cart," said Tara; "he shall be
Thanadar of Kaladoongie, and he shall feed his father and his mother
when his beard begins to sing on a scraping palm. Eh, my butcha?" and
the young mother, after the manner of young mothers the world over, bent
her head and kissed the little one's dimples.
"He shall be rich, too, coach-wan ji," said a tall woman with a
beautiful figure appearing in the doorway of the hut. Her eyes made
beholders long to look upon the rest of her face; but that was closely
veiled, for it was horribly mutilated.
Her voice was thick and muffled, and she spoke with difficulty. It was
the unhappy Chandni.
"He shall be rich, if a thousand rupees can make him rich, and the
wishes of thy humble servant. Tulsi Ram, pundit, hath this day indited a
letter for me to Moti Ram, the great mahajun of Naini Tal, directing him
to hold the money, that was the price of Bijoo, for thy son till he
comes to man's estate."
"Now, nay, Chandni," remonstrated Ram Deen; "I am richer than most men
in the Terai, and, through the advice of my friend, the Thanadar, my
wealth groweth apace, and my son shall lack nothing. Biroo, too, is
provided for; thou mayest need the money thyself, for the thread of life
parts easily in the Terai, as thou knowest, and the shelter of my hut
may be wanting to thee some day."
"Nevertheless, my lord and my master, thy lowly handmaid must not be
thwarted in this matter," and Chandni disappeared into the hut.
"Let her have her will, my lord," pleaded Tara; "we owe her much," and
with a sweeping gesture she indicated the garden in which they sat and
which was Chandni's special care.
The enclosure in which Ram Deen's hut stood used to be, ere the days of
Tara and Chandni, the most neglected spot in the village; but, after the
arrival of the latter, it gradually began to assume an appearance of
neatness and thrift that made Ram Deen's home-coming a daily delight to
him.
The young peepul tree in front of the hut was aflame with a gorgeous
Bougain-villea, and the flower-beds laughed with marigolds and poppies
of many hues sown broadcast. A little runnel sparkled through the
garden, and, in one part of its career, chattered pleasantly over a tiny
pebbly reach artfully contrived to produce the "beauty born of murmuring
sound," which is nowhere more grateful than in the domain of the Hot
Wind.
In one corner of the garden were planted radishes, and turnips, and
carrots, with their delightful greenery. Chili plants and Cape
gooseberries abounded, and many a potherb pleasant to behold and good in
a curry. Every plant and shrub gave evidence of loving care, and repaid
the tilth bestowed upon them with lavish interest.
A little machand (dais) of plastered mud, under the peepul tree, had
been specially built for little Biroo, who decorated it, after the
manner of the small boy, with bits of gayly-tinted glass and potsherds,
bright feathers and cowries, and such other gauds as appeal to his kind.
In another corner of the compound was a tiny hut, wherein Heera Lal,
Tara's old grandfather, lived in such ease and affluence as he had never
dreamed of in his wildest imaginings. His day was setting in scented
clouds of sweetened tobacco, and he had tyre to eat every morning. Every
week he added two annas (six cents) to the hoard under his hearth; it
was saved from the allowance made to him by Ram Deen; and he owed no man
anything. Moreover, in Ram Deen he had found one who could be most
easily overreached, and Ram Deen delighted to be swindled by the old man
in matters involving small change.
Even Hasteen had not been forgotten in the improvements made in the
enclosure: in one corner a small space had been carefully lepoed
(plastered) and roofed with thatch for him. Farther on, Nathoo, Biroo's
kid, was tethered to a stake; and beyond that the fawn, Ganda, had a
little paddock to herself.
The whole compound was fenced in by a flourishing mandni hedge, which
gave Ram Deen a fuller sense of possession. As he sat on the charpoi,
lazily smoking his hookah and drinking in the beauty of the garden and
of the day beyond, he was the happiest man in all the Terai. When Tara
had finished the baby's simple toilet and put it to her breast, the
thought passed through Ram Deen's mind that, if God ever smiled, it must
be when he looked on a young mother suckling her first-born.
"Respect the aged and infirm," said a whining voice, breaking in upon
Ram Deen's pleasant reverie. The speaker, who stood outside the hedge,
was an old mendicant equipped like his kind, with an alms-bowl
containing a handful of small copper coin and cowries. He was smeared
with wood ashes, and his tangled, grizzly hair hung to his waist.
"Respect the aged and poor, Ram Deen, for the sake of the beautiful
babe." (Tara immediately covered it with her chudder for fear of the
evil eye.) "Listen, I have tidings for thee."
"Speak, swami," replied the driver, throwing him a small piece of
silver.
"Bhamaraya, the lame mehtrani, cometh this way. She is on the road on
the hither side of Lal Kooah, in a covered byli whereof one of the
wheels has come off. The byl-wan walked into Kaladoongie with me this
morning to seek assistance, leaving the old woman on the road."
"'Tis well, jogi ji. Durga will doubtless protect her own. Salaam," said
Ram Deen, dismissing the mendicant.
The time had come for the fulfilment of his promise to Bijoo. What he
should do when he came across the mehtrani who had wrecked Chandni's
life would doubtless be suggested to him by the circumstances of the
place and the hour, but for the present he was satisfied that she was
completely in his power.
That day Chandni was absent from the mid-day meal.
The Hot Wind blew fiercely, rattling the leafless branches of the forest
trees. The Bore Nuddee, below the head of the canal that supplied
Kaladoongie, had shrunk to a few scattered pools that became shallower
every day.
"Nana Debi send thy kinswoman is in a cool shade this day," said Ram
Deen, addressing Tara.
"She hath doubtless gone to the ford of the Bore Nuddee to bleach her
new chudder," explained Tara.
But when evening came and Chandni had not returned, the driver became
alarmed. After he had made his preparations for taking the mail to Lal
Kooah he joined the circle in front of the Thanadar's hut.
The Hot Wind had abated its fury to little puffs that came at intervals
and seemed to sear the skin, and the sun had set like a copper disk in
the haze that overhung the western sky. As the hostler brought the
mail-cart round, Ram Deen told the Thanadar of Chandni's absence, and
received his assurance that immediate search should be made for her.
As they spoke together a little puff of wind came out of the west, laden
with the smell of fire. They instinctively turned their faces windwards.
The glow of the setting sun, that had but just disappeared, seemed to be
returning in the west and illuminated the under surface of a huge black
cloud that was growing rapidly in size.
"The jungle through which thou must drive is on fire, Ram Deen, and thou
must make haste if thou wouldst take the mail to Lai Kooah to-night."
"But thou must not go to Lai Kooah to-night," said little Biroo, running
up to Ram Deen. "Chandni said so ere she went away this morning. I was
to tell thee, but I had forgotten till I saw just now the money she gave
me for the telling of this to thee;" and opening his hand he showed the
men a rupee.
"Therefore must I go, Thanadar ji," said Ram Deen. "Had this little
budmash spoken sooner Chandni had been home now, and not on a quest that
belongs properly to me. Toba, toba!" he exclaimed, as a tongue of flame
shot high into the air, "was ever such fire lit for the purification of
the jungle? But I must make haste if I would save Chandni;" and the next
minute Ram Deen was speeding towards the Bore bridge. Two miles beyond
the bridge they reached the hither end of the fire, which was now being
driven furiously by a storm of its own creation towards the road, from
which it was distant about half a mile. The hostler leaped to the
ground, refusing to go any farther; but the element of danger and the
risk to Chandni only stirred Ram Deen's pulses into activity, and he
shook the reins and urged his horses into a headlong gallop.
The wild things of the Terai fled in front of the fire and across Ram
Deen's path, heedless of the presence of man, who was but a pygmy to the
wrath behind them. The roar of the giant fire put a great stress upon
the fleeing animals, so that they were as of one kin in the presence of
a common danger. A herd of spotted deer, with a leopard in their very
midst, dashed across the road in front of the mail-cart. A wild boar
came next in headlong fashion. Jackals, hares, nyl-gai followed each
other pell-mell, making for the shelter of the bed of the Bore Nuddee,
whilst overhead was seen the flight of the feathered denizens of the
Terai.
All this confusion and rush but accented the roar of the pursuing fire.
When Ram Deen looked back for an instant he saw that it had leapt across
the road at a point he had passed but a minute before, and now he knew
that he was running for his life.
A quarter of a mile farther on the road turned to the left, thus
increasing his chance of reaching the southern limit of the fire, which
was travelling due east. By the light of the flames he could see a tall
woman sitting on the parapet of a small culvert, about one hundred yards
in front of him. On the edge of the jungle beside her was an overturned
byli, and from it there came the most appalling screams that could be
distinguished even through the din of the fire.
The woman on the culvert saw him as soon as he turned the bend of the
road, and forthwith mounted the parapet; and he saw it was Chandni. As
the mail-cart swept past her she sprang towards it, and Ram Deen passed
an arm round her and drew her on to the seat beside him.
"For the love of God, Chandni, for the love of God!" screamed the woman
in the byli as a burning branch fell on it. But the mail-cart sped away,
and presently only the roar of the angry fire could be heard.
A quarter of a mile farther on they had passed the southern edge of the
fire, which was within fifty yards of the road when they reached safety.
"The woman in the byli?" asked Ram Deen.
"Bhamaraya," was the quiet reply.
"And why came she not forth?"
"Because of the rope that hanged Bijoo."
CHAPTER X
_Coelum, Non Animum Mutant_
The Commissioner of Kumaon had arrived at Kaladoongie in the course of
his winter tour of inspection, and the same evening Joti Prshad, his
butler, sat beside the Thanadar on a charpoi and smoked with
metropolitan ease amidst the awe-struck notables of the jungle village.
Ram Deen alone was not abashed, and puffed his hookah unconcernedly,
although Joti Prshad told many wonderful things of the sahiblogue, and
spoke concerning the doings of the great world of Naini Tal during the
greater rains.
Joti Prshad was a small man, and Ram Deen's _blasé_ mood galled his
sense of superiority; it was but right that he should snub this
exasperatingly cool villager.
"Thanadar ji," he began, "thou and I know that nowhere in Hindoostan is
there such greatness assembled as at Naini Tal during the Greater
Barsât."
"Men say that the governor-general still goeth to Simla, but, doubtless,
the sirdar knoweth best," said Ram Deen.
"The Lât-sahib, indeed, goeth to Simla, but those with him be mere
karanis (clerks), and shopkeepers, and half-castes. 'Tis plain thou hast
not seen Naini Tal, coach-wan."
"The Terai sufficeth me, Joti Prshad."
"They say," piped Goor Dutt, the little bullock driver, "that the
mem-sahibs at Naini Tal bare their shoulders and bosoms and dance with
strange men. Toba, toba!"
This being an indisputable fact, and one to which Joti Prshad had never
reconciled himself, the latter did not speak, and the diversion thus
made by the byl-wan was felt by all to be in Ram Deen's favor.
Taking advantage of the silence of Joti Prshad, Ram Deen went on: "The
people of Naini Tal come and go, but the children of the Terai never
forget their mother. What sayest thou, Thanadar ji?"
"'Tis even so, brothers," said the Thanadar, with the gravity of one who
is in authority and under the stress of weighing his words.
As they evidently waited for him to proceed, the Thanadar continued:
"The jungle is our father and our mother, and the huldoo trees our near
kin, O my brothers; and we who have once seen the beauty of the morning
in the jungle, and the rye-fields laughing in the clearings in the
winter, may not live elsewhere."
"Ay, Thanadar ji," said Ram Deen; "and, moreover, the senses of those
who live in bazaars are asleep as with bhang, and they cannot see nor
hear the wonders of God."
A general "humph" of assent followed Ram Deen's speech.
"If the sirdar will stay with us we will show him whereof we speak,"
said the Thanadar. But the butler had fond recollections of Oude and the
rose-fields of Shahjahanpoor, where they make attar, and shook his head
dissentingly. So the Thanadar went on: "Many seasons since, a holy
man--a Sunyasi--who had given up his wife and children and lived in a
hollow tree by the Rock of Khalsi (whereon are written the laws of the
great king Asoka) returned to Gurruckpoor, his native village, when he
felt the Great Darkness coming on. He told the village Brahmin that he
longed for death, but that he could not die outside of the Terai."
After a pause, during which the bubbling of his narghili was heard, the
Thanadar said: "It is the same with all who are born in the
Terai,--Faringi and Padhani, Brahmin and Dome, Sunyasi and fair
woman,--all are alike in bondage, and return, sooner or later, to their
jungle mother. Listen. Twelve years ago there came to Gurruckpoor to
hunt big game an Englishman named Fisher Sahib. He was of those favored
by God who have much wealth, and to whom sport standeth for occupation.
As he was accustomed to fulfil his heart's desires, he hired two
shooting elephants from the Rajah of Rampore,--one for himself and the
other for his mem-sahib, who accompanied him. And he had a great camp,
and many servants, and beaters, and shikaris, chief of whom was Juggoo,
whose fame as a hunter reached from Phillibeet to Dehra. He it was who
always rode with the sahib in his howdah, and he had command from the
mem-sahib never to leave the sahib's side in the jungle, in that he was
rash and loved danger, and many a time fell into it unawares by reason
that he saw not clearly except he looked through a piece of glass that
he wore in one eye.
"One day the sahib had shot a deer, and let himself down from his
elephant--Juggoo going with him--to give it hallal, according to the
rule of the Koran,--for he intended the deer as a gift to the
Mussulmanis in his camp. As he bent over the deer to cut its throat with
his khookri, a great boar ran upon them from a thicket. Juggoo uttered a
cry of warning, but ere the sahib could find his sight the boar was upon
them, and Juggoo thrust himself in its way and got his death, or the
sahib had been killed.
"So they carried the dead man to the camp, where his daughter, Chambeli,
having cooked his evening meal, awaited the return of her father. She
was fifteen years in age, and a widow,--for her betrothed husband and
all his people had died five years before of The Sickness (small-pox);
so she had returned to her father, and had cared for his house ever
since. And Kali Dass, who was learning jungle-craft from her father,
would have had her to mistress. 'Come and live with me, my beloved,
beyond the head-waters of the Bore Nuddee,' he had pleaded; 'and when
thy hair hath grown again none shall know thou art a widow, and the
people of the foothills shall wonder at thy beauty.'
"'But I shall know and Nana Debi,--and the others matter not, Kali
Dass'" she replied firmly.
"So Kali Dass went his way; and the young man and Chambeli looked at
each other, but spake no more together.
"The mem-sahib it was who told Chambeli of her father's death, Kali Dass
standing by, and she turned on him like a leopard bereft of its young
and upbraided him, saying, 'Hadst thou been a man, Kali Dass, my father
were still living.' Thereafter she swooned, and the mem-sahib laid her
on her own couch, and held her in her arms and comforted her, because
Juggoo had died to save the sahib.
"Then for that she was childless and very wealthy, and could do
whatsoever seemed good in her eyes, the mem-sahib took Chambeli across
the Black Water. They brought her up as their own kin, teaching her
whatsoever it is fitting the daughter of a Faringi should know, and
training her to work amongst our women and children when they should be
afflicted with sickness; and, furthermore, she was to turn them from
Nana Debi to the God of the Faringis.
"Moreover, to aid her in her work she was married to a young English
padre; and they came to Kaladoongie six years ago, when the next
new-year festival of the Faringis shall arrive. And because we knew her
and still remembered Juggoo, her father, we of Kaladoongie waited on her
at the dâk-bungalow on the day she returned.
"She came out to us on the veranda, dressed in the garments of a
mem-sahib, and we saw that she was a woman grown and in the mid-noon of
her beauty. She was glad to see us, calling us all by our names, and we
greeted her with such gifts as we could,--fruit and flowers and
sweetmeats. Last of all came Kali Dass, and behind him four men bearing
a leopard but newly slain, slung from a pole.
"They laid the beast at her feet, and Chambeli laughed and clapped her
hands till the little padre, her husband, frowned at her; whereon her
nostrils twitched and she looked at him in wonderment, as though she saw
for the first time that he was a small man with a pale face, and void of
authority.
"Then turning to Kali Dass she said in our Terai tongue, 'Is it well
with thee, shikari ji? Thou art doubtless married and happy?'
"And he said, 'Nay; I have no spouse, save only my jungle-craft.'
"'And the jungle?' she asked, looking on the ground.
"'It is my father and my mother, and fairer than any of its daughters,
mem-sahib. But thou hast been in great cities, and across the Black
Water; thou hast read in books, and hast changed thy gods,--what
shouldst thou care for the jungle?'
"'It is the garden of God, Kali Dass, and I am fain to see it again, for
I am a Padhani born, and a daughter of the Terai.'
"Ere she gave us leave to depart it was arranged that she and the padre
sahib, accompanied by me and Kali Dass, should start in the early
morning and follow the Bore Nuddee backward into the foothills.
"Kali Dass was at the dâk-bungalow before me in the morning; and he was
dressed in holiday clothes; his face shone, and behind one ear he had
placed a marigold.
"When the padre and his mem-sahib came forth from their chamber, behold!
she was dressed as a Padhani; and she was the Chambeli we knew of old,
only taller.
"'I am but a Padhani,' she explained, 'and shall get nearer to my people
the more I am like to them.'
"It was a time of great stillness when we started, for the morning was
just born, and the dew lay on all things. Taking the road to Naini Tal,
we struck into the jungle when we came to the path that leads to the
ford of the Bore Nuddee, and Chambeli alighted from her pony and walked
in front of the rest with Kali Dass. A faint flush showed in the east,
and presently a jungle-cock greeted the dawn. Chambeli stopped, and,
with joy in her face, she turned round to the padre sahib, exclaiming,
'Didst hear that?' And he laughed, saying, 'It was but the crowing of a
cock.'
"'But it came out of the stillness of the morning, and the dew accorded
with it,--and it was a wild thing,--but how shouldst thou understand?
thou art not of the Terai,' she said.
"Soon the glow in the east became brighter, and the jungle burst into
its morning song. Chambeli stopped and put her hands to her forehead, as
if she would remember something; then she said to the shikari,
'Something is lacking, Kali Dass; what is it?' And even as she spake
there came the call of a black partridge from a thicket near by: 'Sobhan
teri koodruth!' Brothers, ye know that the black partridge is the priest
of the Terai, and at its voice Chambeli fled with a cry of joy from the
path and into the thick jungle.
"The little padre sahib, knowing not what to think, urged us to follow
her. When we came up with her, Kali Dass stood by regarding her with a
smile, whilst she lay on the ground with her face buried in the dewy
grass, moaning and saying, 'O Jungle Mother, I will never leave thee
again, I will never leave thee again!' And the little padre chid her in
his own tongue; whereat she rose shuddering; and brushing the dew and
the tears from her face, she returned to the path.
"She had eyes and ears for everything that morning, and was as a wild
thing that had just fled from captivity.
"When we came to the brow of the hill that slopes down to the ford, the
sun rose over the tops of the trees and laid a gleaming sword across the
stream; and as we looked at the brightness and wonder of it all there
came to us the song of a string of Padhani women approaching the ford.
In an instant Chambeli took up the song, and set off swiftly down the
narrow path, we following as we could.
"As she neared the ford she lifted her sari and took the water with her
bare limbs; and I looked at the little padre, who seemed sore amazed.
"When we had all crossed the ford, Chambeli and Kali Dass were not to be
seen on the road that ran by the stream. A traveller on his way to
Kaladoongie said he had not met them, and as we questioned him there
came the report of a gun.
"'Kali Dass hath met game, padre sahib,' said I.
"'Find them, and bring them back instantly, Thanadar,' commanded the
holy man, and his voice shook with anger.
"Following the direction of the shot, I came upon their tracks, and
thereafter I found a handful of fresh feathers. A few paces beyond lay a
small book; it was the sacred book of the Faringis printed in Nagari,
and on the first leaf, which was held down by a stone, was writing in
English. On the path a pace farther were two sticks crossed, and beyond
that other two; and I knew it was the warning of Kali Dass, who must not
be followed.
"So I returned with the little book to the padre sahib. And when he had
read what was written on the first leaf he trembled and clutched at his
throat, and I caught him in my arms as he fell from his horse.
"I returned with him to Kaladoongie; but Chambeli and Kali Dass never
came back.
"I showed the writing in the book to Tulsi Ram. Speak, pundit, and tell
our brothers what it meant."
Tulsi Ram, pleased and proud to give an exhibition of his scholarship,
replied, "Brothers, and you, O Joti Prshad, the writing said: 'Like to
like: Kali Dass is of my blood, and the great jungle hath claimed her
daughter this day.'"
CHAPTER XI
_The Lame Tiger of Huldwani_
It was in the middle of May--just before the beginning of the lesser
rains--that Ram Deen and certain wayfarers sat round a handful of fire
at Lal Kooah from mere force of habit, for the heat of the evening was
great, and not a breath of air stirred in the jungle. The sâl trees had
lost their leaves and looked like ghosts; the grass had been burnt in
all directions; and as the sun set in the copper sky, it lit up a
landscape that might have stood for the "abomination of desolation."
The dry chirping of the crickets, just beginning to tune their first
uneasy strains, accorded with the unholy scene. Even the horses waiting
for the mail-cart were imbued with the depressing influence of the
season, and hung their heads with a sense of despair, as though they
thought the blessed monsoon would never set in.
No one spoke, and the hookah passed from hand to hand in a dreary
silence. Suddenly, the attention of those assembled was attracted by the
curious action of a bya (tailor) bird in a neighboring mimosa tree. It
was calling frantically, and dropping lower from bough to bough, as
though against its will.
"Nâg!" exclaimed the bunnia; and, directed by his remark, all eyes were
turned to the foot of the tree, where an enormous cobra with expanded
hood was swaying its head from side to side, and drawing the wretched
bird to its doom through the fascination of fear.
Ram Deen, whose sympathies were always with the weak and defenceless,
rose to his feet, and, throwing a dry clod of earth at the reptile,
drove the creature from the tree; whilst the bird, released from its
hypnotic influence, flew away.
"Brothers," said Ram Deen, "fear is the father of all sins, and the
cause of most calamities. He who feareth not death is a king in his own
right, and dieth but once; but a coward--shabash! who can count his
pangs?"
"Ho! ho!" chuckled the little bullock driver; "Ram Deen, The Fearless,
shall live to be an hundred years old."
"Nay, Goor Dutt," said Ram Deen, gravely regarding the little man, "I,
too, have known fear. No man may drive the mail to Kaladoongie without
looking on death."
Ram Deen smoked awhile in silence; and, when the expectation of his
listeners was wrought to a proper pitch, he went on: "Ye all knew
Nandha, the hostler, who used to go with me last year from this stage to
Kaladoongie?"
"Ay, coach-wan ji," responded the carrier for the others. "'Tis a great
telling, but not known to these honorable wayfarers who come from beyond
Moradabad."
"Brothers, ye saw the plight of the bya bird but now; so was it with
Nandha," said Ram Deen.
"One evening, ere the mail arrived, he called me to where he stood by
the kikar tree yonder, looking down at the ground. In the dust of the
road were large footprints.
"'These be the spoor of a tiger lame in its left hind foot,' I said to
Nandha; 'see, here it crouched on its belly, and wiped away the wheel
tracks made by the mail-cart this morning.'
"''Tis the lame tiger of Huldwani, coach-wan; he is old, and he hunteth
man. Gunga send he is hunting elsewhere to-night!' replied Nandha.
"When we came within a mile of the Bore bridge that night, the horses
stopped suddenly; they were wild with fear, and refused to move. The
night was as dark as the inside of a gourd, and beyond the circle of
light made by our lanterns we could discern in the middle of the road
two balls of fire close to the ground.
"'Bâg! (tiger),' said Nandha, as he climbed over into the back seat; 'we
be dead men, Ram Deen.'
"'Blow!' I commanded, giving him the bugle; and as he startled the
jungle with a blast, I gathered up the reins, and, adding my voice to
the terrors of Nandha's music, I urged the horses with whip and yell to
fury of speed; and the light of the lanterns showed the great beast
leaping into the darkness to escape our onset.
"Nandha ceased not from blowing on the bugle till I took it from him by
force at the door of the post-office at Kaladoongie.
"They gave him bhang to smoke and arrack to drink ere he slept that
night, for his great fear had deprived him of reason for awhile; and he
looked round him as though he expected to see the tiger's eyes
everywhere.
"'The bâg followed me to the hither side of the Bore bridge,' he said to
me next morning, as we prepared to return to Lai Kooah. But I laughed at
his fears, to give him courage.
"'It is a devil,' he whispered, looking cautiously round him, and I saw
that the light of his reason flickered.
"When we came to the Bore bridge, Nandha leaped to the ground, and in
the dim light of the morning I could see the tracks of a great beast on
the ground, to which he pointed; and, even as we looked, there came the
roar of a tiger. I could scarce hold the horses whilst Nandha, whose
limbs were stiff with fear, scrambled into the back seat of the
mail-cart.
"When a tiger puts its mouth to the ground and gives voice, no man may
tell whence the sound comes; so I stayed not to see, if I might, where
the danger lay, but gave the horses free rein.
"As we cleared the end of the bridge, Nandha screamed, 'Bâg, bâg!' and
glancing back, I saw the tiger in full pursuit of us, and within a
hundred paces.
"'Blow!' I commanded, handing the bugle to Nandha; but, though he took
it from me, he appeared not to understand what he was required to do.
"'Blow!' said I, once more, shaking him; but he took no heed of me, and
was as a man who walks in his sleep. So I put my arm round him and
lifted him on to the front seat beside me; and even as I pulled him to
me, his head was drawn over his shoulder by the spell of fear. There was
a foam on his lips and on his beard, and he shook so that I feared he
would fall off the mail-cart.
"'Be brave, Nandha,' I shouted to him, 'the beast is lame, and we shall
soon leave it behind.' For answer, he turned his face to me for one
instant, and his lips framed the word 'bâg,' but no sound came
therefrom.
"Suddenly, he laughed like a child that is pleased with a toy, babbling,
and saying, 'How beautiful is my lord! Soft be the road to his feet!
But, look! my lord limpeth; belike he hath a thorn in his foot.' As he
rose, I put an arm round him and forced him down again; and at that
instant the tiger uttered another roar. The horses swerved, and would
have left the road in their fear, had I not put forth the full strength
of both my arms; and as soon as Nandha felt himself free, he leaped to
the ground, and advanced towards the tiger. He walked joyously, as a
loyal servant who goeth to meet his lord.
"Looking over my shoulder (for now the horses were in the middle of the
road, which here stretched straight ahead of us), I beheld Nandha
proceed towards the tiger, which now crouched in the road, waiting for
him, its tail waving from side to side. When he was within five paces
of the beast, he salaamed to the ground, and as he stooped the tiger
sprang on him with another roar, and throwing him over its shoulder it
bounded with him into the jungle.
"More there is to tell concerning the lame tiger of Huldwani, but here
is the mail-cart, and here is that which had saved Nandha's life had I
not also looked upon fear that morning."
Putting the bugle to his mouth, Ram Deen blew a blast that would have
routed any jungle creature within hearing, and which made the leaves of
the peepul tree overhead rattle as he dashed away on the mail-cart.
CHAPTER XII
_How Nandha was Avenged_
The travellers from beyond Moradabad having reached Kaladoongie, were
discovered to be men of consequence by the Thanadar, and were invited by
him to join the circle of the great round his fire on the evening of
their arrival.
It was very warm, and the dismal silence was only accented by the
distant howl of a lonely jackal. The sheet lightning flickered fitfully
over the foothills, mocking the gasping Terai with its faint promise of
a coming change.
The conversation round the fire flagged, and the hookah passed languidly
from hand to hand. Those present would have retired to sleep, had sleep
been possible; but as that was a consummation not easily attained at
this season of the year, they preferred their present miseries to those
that come in the wakeful night watches when the Terai is athirst.
Ram Deen's arrival was a nightly boon to those who were wont to assemble
round the Thanadar's fire; there was always the possibility of his
having news; and, besides, men seemed to acquire fresh vitality from
contact with his vigorous personality.
The strangers were especially grateful for his arrival; and when he had
taken his usual place beside the fire, the hookah was at once passed to
him.
"Any tidings, coach-wan ji?" inquired the Thanadar.
"None, sahib; save that the great frog in the well at Lal Kooah--who is
as old as the well, and wiser than most men--gave voice just ere I
started, and the bunnia said it was a sure sign of rain within two days,
as the frog's warning had never been known to fail."
"Nana Debi send it be so," exclaimed the little carrier, "for my
bullocks be starved for the lack of green food, and _bhoosa_ (chaff) is
past my means."
"Thou shouldst not complain, Goor Dutt," said Ram Deen, with a smile;
"their very leanness is thy passport through the jungle. Fatter kine had
been devoured, and their driver with them, long ere this."
Hint of danger that might be encountered in the jungle having been thus
given, one of the strangers was moved to ask concerning the lame tiger
of Huldwani, part of whose biography they had heard from Ram Deen at Lal
Kooah on the previous day.
"Coach-wan ji, wast thou not afraid to carry the mail after the slaying
of thy hostler, Nandha?"
"Those who carry the Queen's mail may not stop for fear. Nevertheless,
fear rode with me a day and a night after the death of Nandha."
"It is a great telling," said the little carrier, nodding at the
wayfarers, whilst Ram Deen "drank tobacco."
When Ram Deen had passed the hookah to his neighbor, he went on:
"Brothers, on the day that Nandha was carried off by the tiger, I sent
word to the postmaster of Naini Tal concerning the killing, and the
out-going mail brought me word that the sircar (government) would send
me help.
"Ye know that a tiger kills not two days in succession; so I had no fear
when I traversed the road to and from Lal Kooah till the second day
after the slaying of Nandha. Ere I started on that morning, the munshi
told me to drive to the dâk-bungalow for a sahib who had been sent to
slay the slayer of men.
"Brothers, when I went to the dâk-bungalow, there came forth to me a
man-child--a Faringi--whose chin was as smooth as the palm of my hand.
"I would have laughed, but that I thought of the tiger that, I knew,
would be waiting for us; and taking pity on him, I said, 'The jungle
hereabout is full of wild fowl, sahib, an 'twere pity, when shikar is so
plentiful, you should waste the morning looking for a budmash tiger who
will not come forth for two days as yet.'
"He answered me never a word, but went into the dâk-bungalow for
something he had forgotten; and, whilst he was gone, his butler spake
to me, saying, 'Coach-wan, make no mistake; thy life depends upon thy
doing the sahib's bidding. He is a very Rustum, and he knoweth not fear,
for all he is so young.'
"'He is a man after my own heart then, sirdar; but, mashallah! I would
he had a beard,' I replied.
"Presently the young sahib came forth with an empty bottle in one hand
and his gun in the other. Throwing the bottle into the air, he shattered
it with a bullet ere it reached the ground. Startled by the report, a
jackal fled from the rear of the cook-house towards the jungle, and the
sahib stopped its flight with another bullet. Then, replenishing his
gun, he took his seat beside me on the mail-cart, saying 'Blow on thy
bugle, coach-wan, and announce our coming to Shere Bahadoor, His Majesty
the Tiger.'
"It was a brave jawan (youth), brothers; but he was very young, and,
belike, he had a mother; so I swore in my beard to save him, whatever
might befall.
"As we proceeded, he questioned me concerning the killing of Nandha,
speaking lightly, as one who goeth to shoot black partridge.
"'He is lame, coach-wan, and will doubtless be waiting for us by the
Bore bridge,' said the sahib. 'As soon as he appears, stay the horses
for an instant whilst I get off the mail-cart, and then return when your
horses will let you.'
"'Bethink thee, sahib,' I answered; 'the Lame One of Huldwani is old and
cunning; it is no fawn thou seekest this morning. Perchance the sircar
will dispatch some great shikari to help thee in this hunting. Gunga
send we may not meet the tiger; but if we should, shame befall me if I
permit thee to leave the mail-cart whilst the horses are able to run!'
"For answer, my brothers, the sahib flushed red, and, calling me coward,
he drave his elbow into my stomach with such force that the reins fell
from my hands. Taking them up, the while I fought for my breath, he
turned the horses round, saying, 'A jackal may not hunt a tiger! I have
need of a man with me this morning, and Goor Deen, my butler, shall take
thy place.'
"'The sahib, being a man, will not blacken my face in the eyes of
Kaladoongie,' I said. 'I spake for thy sake, sahib; but I will drive
thee to Jehandum an' thou wilt,--for no man hath ever called me coward
before.'
"Then the sahib looked in my face, as I tucked the ends of my beard
under my puggri; and seeing that my eyes met his four-square, he gave up
the reins to me, saying, 'If thou playest me false I will kill thee like
a dog;' and he showed me the hilt of a pistol that he had in his pocket.
"We spake no more together, but when we came to the Bore bridge I shook
the jungle with a blast from my bugle.
"'Shabash! coach-wan,' exclaimed the sahib; 'thou art a man, indeed, and
shalt have Shere Bahadoor's skin as recompense for the hurt to thy
stomach. Bid him come again.'
"Half a mile beyond the bridge, as we sped along the level road above
the river, I again blew upon the bugle. The sound had scarcely ceased,
when we heard the angry roar of a charging tiger.
"'Stop!' exclaimed the sahib; and I threw the frightened horses on their
haunches, whilst he leaped to the ground.
"Then, whilst the horses flew along the road, I looked back over my
shoulder and beheld the Lame One bound into the middle of the road; and
the sahib blew on his fingers, as one would whistle to a dog. The great
beast stopped on the instant and crouched on the ground, ready to spring
on the sahib as he advanced towards it, and I prayed to Nana Debi to
befriend the young fool.
"When he was within thirty paces or so from the tiger, the sahib halted
and brought the gun to his shoulder. The next instant there was the
crack of a rifle, and the Lame One leaped straight into the air.
"I knew the tiger was dead; and immediately thereafter the mail-cart ran
into a bank and spilled me on the road. Leaving the stunned horses tied
to a tree, I proceeded to seek the sahib.
"Wah ji, wah! brothers, we must pay taxes to the Faringis until we can
raise sons like theirs. When I joined the boy sahib he was smoking, and
taking the measure of the tiger with a tape!
"His bullet had struck the beast between the eyes, and the Lame One had
died at the hands of a _man_!"
CHAPTER XIII
_An Affront to Gannesha_
"A little brother hath come," said Biroo, as Ram Deen dismounted from
the mail-cart. The tall driver snatched up the little boy and hurried to
his hut, over the door of which was affixed the green bough that is
customary on such occasions, and whence came the wailing of a new-born
child.
The inner apartment was guarded by a lean old woman, who refused Ram
Deen admittance thereto, and who would have prevented even speech on his
part had she been able. But Ram Deen was not to be denied such solace as
could be gained from the voice whose accents had taken him captive the
first time he had heard them.
The feeble wailing of the babe made the strong man tremble.
"Tara, Light in Darkness, is it well with thee?" he asked.
"Quite well, my lord and my master," came the faint answer. "Thy
handmaid hath bestowed a man-child upon thee, and Nana Debi will require
a kid of thee in recompense."
"He shall have a flock of goats, Heart of my Heart----"
"Nay," interrupted Tara; "it is a very little child and a kid will
suffice; but go now, my master, I am very tired and would fain sleep."
"May the stars in heaven shower their blessings on thee, my Best
Beloved;" and with this invocation Ram Deen left the hut, leading little
Biroo by the hand.
"See what Gunga Ram gave me but now, father mine," said Biroo, unfolding
a plaintain leaf wherein was wrapped a sweetmeat made of rice and milk;
"and he hath a great cooking forward to-night."
"Wherefore?" asked Ram Deen.
"For that a man-child hath come to Nyagong, as well as Kaladoongie, this
day."
"Oh, ho," said Ram Deen, chuckling softly, "we will have speech with
Gunga Ram."
When they had arrived at the methai-wallah's booth, Ram Deen, looking on
the thalis (trays) heaped with sweetmeats crisp from the making, said,
"Wah ji, wah! Gunga Ram, is the Hurdwar mela (fair) coming to the Bore
Nuddee, that thou shouldst make such preparations?"
"Nay, coach-wan ji, but a man-child hath come to the house of the
Jemadar of Nyagong, and he hath commanded fresh sweetmeats and cates for
a feast in honor of an honorable birth."
"There is no honorable thing done in Nyagong, Gunga Ram. They be all
thugs and thieves there, and it shall not be said that Ram Deen's
friends at Kaladoongie ate stale pooris whilst the Jemadar of Nyagong,
whose face I have blackened, set fresh cates before his guests.
Therefore bid carry these sweetmeats to my friends who sit round the
Thanadar's fire, and to-morrow thou shalt make enough for all the people
of Kaladoongie, so that they may know that a son hath been born to Ram
Deen."
"But, coach-wan ji," remonstrated Gunga Ram, "the Jemadar's men wait to
carry these things to Nyagong."
"Tell them, Gunga Ram, that I had need of them; but, nevertheless, for
the kindness the men of Nyagong did to little Biroo last year, send
them, on his behalf, two rupees' worth of gur and parched gram;" and Ram
Deen laid the money in the sweetmeat vender's palm.
To the impromptu feast round the fire that evening Ram Deen contributed
also a chatty of palm-toddy that Goor Dutt had brought for him from
Moradabad. By the time the circling hookah had crowned the feast beards
were wagging freely round the fire; and even Tulsi Ram, the village
pundit, most modest and unassuming of men, was moved to unusual speech.
Once more Ram Deen had told the story of the avenging of Nandha; and the
Thanadar, whose utterances were always sententious, owing to the
responsibility and dignity of his office, said, "Verily, the young and
not the old Faringi is the true subduer of Hindoostan."
"Thou sayest it, Thanadar ji," assented Tulsi Ram. "I knew such a young
sahib as he who slew the lame tiger of Huldwani when I worked as munshi
at Hurdwar for certain Faringis who had business there. He I speak of
feared not even the Gods."
When all eyes were turned upon the pundit, and he found himself in the
trying position of one who was expected to give proof of his opinion,
his natural modesty overcame him and he was suddenly silent. It was not
till he had swallowed a generous draught of the toddy that his courage
revived to the point of telling the following narrative, for which his
audience waited patiently:
"Brothers," he began, "some three years after the great Mutiny there
came to Hurdwar two Faringis, by name Scott Sahib and Wilson Sahib, of
whom the latter was a great shikari, as all Hindoostan is aware, and who
was further known amongst the Faringis as 'Pahari Wilson.'
"They hired me to cut down sâl timber on the upper waters of the Gunga
and float it down to Hurdwar, where they established a post, over which
they set in charge a young Faringi named Clements Sahib, whose munshi I
was, and whose duty it was to stamp the timber with the seal of his
employers and make it into rafts that were then floated on to Allahabad.
"Clements Sahib had been found by Pahari Wilson Sahib in one of the
villages of the Rajah of Tiri, whither he had fled from Cawnpore, where
his father and mother had been killed by the people of the plains during
the season of the Mutiny.
"He was a man grown when he came to Hurdwar, speaking Nagari and
Padhani, and knowing well the ways of our people. And wherever he went
men's eyes followed him, for he walked amongst them with the air of a
master. His face was scarred with small-pox; his nose was curved like a
hawk's, and his nostrils were terrible to behold when he was angered,
which was often, for he lacked patience with men of our race, because of
the slaying, and worse, of his mother, which he had witnessed; and his
words did not often go before his blows, which were weighty by reason of
his great strength. He limped, for that his right leg had been broken
by a bear whilst he lived amongst the hill men.
"But, great and terrible as he was on land, the wonder of him when he
swam in the Gunga, as he did daily, man never saw before.
"He feared nothing, brothers,--neither man nor beast, nor even Gannesha,
upon whom he put an affront one day, when he beat his priests in the
temple and in the presence of the God.
"This was the way of it: There passed daily through our compound, on its
way to the jungle, a young, sacred bull that was fed by the priests of
Gannesha; and its horns had silver tips, whereon was graved a picture of
the God bearing an elephant's head. And because the bull pursued one of
his dogs, one day, the sahib shot it; and the bazaars of Hurdwar buzzed
with angry men.
"'Sahib,' said I to him, 'this is not well done; the Gods never forget
an insult.' But he only laughed.
"That evening, as the sahib ate his meal, the lamps being lit, there
came an arrow through an open window and transfixed the dog which was
lying at his feet.
"The beast yelped as one that is stricken to the death, and I, who sat
at my book in the adjoining room, looked up as Clements Sahib, snatching
up a gun from the corner, ran to the veranda and fired at a man who
passed swiftly through the darkling garden. For answer there came the
lowing of a bull; and the sahib, being lame, soon gave up the chase and
returned to the house.
"By the light of a lantern we searched the garden, and when we found
drops of blood on the ground the sahib laughed, and said, 'Aha! Tulsi
Ram; I wounded the shikar, after all.'
"''Tis bad hunting, sahib,' I made reply.
"The next moment he stopped, and held the lantern to a necklace of plum
seeds and gold that hung on the branch of an orange tree. To the
necklace was attached an agate, whereon was graven the head of an
elephant."
"When we returned to the house the sahib drew the arrow from the dead
dog, and on the bolt of that, too, was graven the head of Gannesha. And
I said, 'Thou hast affronted the Gods, indeed, sahib! 'Twere well to
restore his beads to some priest of Gannesha.'
"'Of a surety,' he replied, 'when I find the owner; but, till then, I
will wear the thing round my own neck.'
"The next morning, as we rode on an elephant through the jungle to the
river, there came the lowing of a bull from a thicket, and an arrow
whistled through Clements Sahib's sola topee, and another struck the
cheroot from his mouth. So I said, 'The man with the bow could slay
thee, sahib, had he a mind to do so.' But the sahib flushed like an
angry dawn, and gave the mahout orders to beat through the thicket for
the man with the bull's voice; whereon the bellowing came from behind
us. Now it was here, and now there, but never where we looked for it,
and, whenever the sahib fired into some likely thicket, the archer gave
us further proof of his skill.
"'To the temple of Gannesha!' shouted the sahib, roused to frenzy, and
there was that in his face that forbade speech.
"When we reached the city, the main street was already packed with a
menacing crowd,--for word of our coming had gone before us, and the
thoroughfare resounded from end to end with lowings as of a thousand
bulls. The weight of the great beast that bore us alone took us through
the crowd.
"When we reached the gate of the temple of Gannesha, behold! the priests
formed a lane through the court-yard, and the crowd fell back at their
bidding. We alighted from the elephant, and walked through the priests
till we came to the inner door of the temple, where stood a venerable
jogi naked, save for a loin-cloth, and covered with wood-ashes from his
head to his heels.
"'Welcome, brother,' he said, as Clements Sahib approached him; 'but thy
rosary will not admit thee farther than this, and 'tis not fitting that
thou shouldst enter the presence of Gannesha without thy _teeka_ of
purification;' and, with an agility that was surprising in such an old
man, he sprang towards the sahib and touched him on the forehead, at the
same time snatching at the necklace. But the sahib swept him aside, and
the next moment we entered the temple, the door of which closed with a
threatening crash as the last of the priests followed us in.
"When they saw the sahib advance with set purpose towards the great god
Gannesha, they raised a shout and ran upon him; and I, being unarmed and
a man of peace, and, moreover, a Brahmin, slipped behind a pillar and
watched the beginning of a great combat, wherein one man fought with
twenty, and they with staves in their hands.
"And the sahib waited not for his foes, but, firing his gun at their
legs, he whirled it aloft and hurled it into the crowd that advanced
upon him; wherefore three priests lay on the ground and were as dead
men. And, ere they could recover from their confusion, the sahib ran in
upon them with clinched hands, and his face was terrible to look upon.
"So thick were they that many of them fell from their brothers' blows;
and whenever the sahib struck, a man fell to the ground and remained
there. Toba! toba! never saw I such fighting.
"When there were but three or four of them able to stand, they broke and
fled to an inner shrine, whence they besought the sahib to depart and
molest them no more. But he said, 'Nay, not till ye have delivered up to
me him to whom this rosary belongs.'
"'It is mine, Faringi dog,' screamed the old jogi, darting upon the
sahib from behind a pillar, a long knife in his hand. The sahib had
scarce time to turn, when the knife passed through the fleshy part of
his arm. The next instant the sahib wrenched his weapon from the old
jogi, and, putting the necklace round him, he bore him to a window and
threw him into the river which flowed below, saying, 'Gunga will
doubtless succor a follower of Gannesha.'
"After I had tied his handkerchief round his arm to stay the bleeding he
took up his gun, and, opening the door of the temple, he went forth.
And the people marvelled to see him come out again.
"Having mounted his elephant, he spake to those standing round, saying,
'Dogs and swine! neither ye, nor your priests, nor your Gods can avail
against a Faringi. Go into the temple and see for yourselves if I speak
not the truth. Let no man of Hurdwar cross my path hereafter, or I will
scourge the streets of your city.' So the crowd opened before us, and we
returned in peace.
"And as the sahib dismounted from the elephant, I said, 'The teeka,
sahib: it is still on thy forehead.'
"'Ah,' he exclaimed, 'that was what the old jogi put on me.' And he
plucked it off. It was made of silver and stamped with the image of
Gannesha on both sides, and the impress of the stamp showed red on the
white skin of the sahib's forehead.
"The next morning, when I went to my work, the sahib called me into his
room, and behold! the stamp of Gannesha showed as brightly on his
forehead as it did the day before! and I feared greatly for the sahib,
for it is no small thing to affront a God.
"For a whole week the mark remained on the sahib, and he wore his hat
before all men. None dared to speak to him, for he answered mostly with
blows.
"'Tulsi Ram,' said he to me one day, 'tell the old jogi of the temple of
Gannesha that I desire speech with him.'
"And when the old man had come the sahib spake: 'So Gunga bare up thy
chin, swami?'
"'Ay, ji; and I told him much concerning thee. Thine arm?'
"''Tis well,' replied the sahib. 'But now remove me the mark from my
forehead.'
"'I may not do anything without the permission of Gannesha, whom thou
hast angered. He must be propitiated in a manner befitting the sahib's
station,' returned the jogi.
"'State thy demands, swami,' said the sahib.
"'Now, nay, not mine, sahib, but Gannesha's,' remonstrated the old jogi.
Then, after musing awhile, he went on: 'The God requireth of thee two
hundred rupees for the use of his temple, and ten rupees a month, for
twenty months, to salve the hurts of his twenty priests.'
"''Tis well,' said Clements Sahib, opening a drawer of the table whereat
he sat, and pushing two hundred rupees across to the old man. 'Proceed.'
"After the jogi had tied the money in his loin-cloth he touched the mark
on the sahib's forehead with his finger, and, lo! at the touching it
disappeared.
"'And what if I should not pay thee the rest of thy demand?' asked
Clements Sahib after he had looked in a mirror and seen that the mark of
Gannesha was gone.
"'Thou art a Faringi ji, and wilt not fail of thy word,' replied the
jogi.
"'There be bad Faringis, swami, and my heart inclineth me to their
number.'
"''Twere easy to persuade thee to a right course, sahib,' said the old
man, pointing his finger at Clements Sahib. 'Behold!' And the livid mark
leapt out on the sahib's forehead again.
"After the mark had been removed once more by the jogi, and as he was
preparing to depart, Clements Sahib said, 'Come for your monthly payment
when the new moon shows, but cross not my path at any other time, or
harm shall befall thee.'
"'Brave words, sahib,' returned the mendicant; 'and be careful, thyself,
not to insult the Gods. Salaam,' and he went forth. So there was peace
between the Gods and Clements Sahib until the jogi had received three
payments.
"Then, on a day, the sahib bade me accompany him to the Hurke Piree, for
he was fain to catch the great mahser that abound there, where they feed
on the offerings of the pilgrims.
"And I would have prevented him, saying, 'The fish, Provider of the
Poor, are tame; 'twere no sport to catch them. Besides, the Hurke Piree
is holy, and 'twere not well to pollute the great steps with the killing
even of fish.'
"'Therefore it is in my mind, O Brown Mouse, to catch fish for my
evening meal,' replied the sahib, his nostrils twitching; so I spake no
more.
"When the sahib had drawn forth the first fish that took his bait, there
came the voices of an angry crowd, and, looking up, behold! the great
stairs were black with people; and, taking four steps at a bound, there
came towards us a young priest stripped for bathing, and it was Salig
Ram, the greatest pylwan (wrestler) in Hurdwar.
"Ere the sahib could guess the purpose of the priest, the latter sprang
upon him, and they twain fell together into the deep water.
"When they came to the surface again, the sahib had an arm round Salig
Ram's throat, and was beating him with his clinched hand till the blood
ran down his face, and he spat forth a handful of teeth. The priest was
as one who is amazed, crying feebly, 'Ram dhwy, ram dhwy!' and he was as
a frightened child in the sahib's hands.
"Thinking that the sahib would slay their champion before their eyes,
and so desecrate the gates of heaven, two or three score of angry
Brahmins leapt into the river to the rescue of Salig Ram, and I
followed, likewise, to see the end of the matter.
"Releasing the young priest, the sahib swam away easily from those who
followed, slipping off his upper garments as he proceeded down the
river, and then his shoes, which he threw in derision at those who
followed.
"Now, when he came to the temple of Gannesha, there appeared in the
window that overlooks the river the old jogi, who swung something round
his head that glittered in the sun; and he shouted aloud, 'Gunga, take
thee! Gunga, take thee!'
"The sahib turned his face towards the temple, and, as he did so, the
jogi threw the thing he swung at him. It flashed as it circled through
the air, and settled over the sahib's head; and, in that instant, he
threw up his arms and disappeared, and thereafter a few bubbles came to
the surface.
"Two days afterwards, the dead body of a Faringi was found ten miles
below Hurdwar and taken to Roorkie, whither I went by order of the
sircar, to assist in the identification of the dead man.
"Brothers, the corpse was that of Clements Sahib. Round his neck was a
rosary of gold and plum seeds, with an agate amulet; and on his forehead
was the presentment of an elephant's head, the seal of Gannesha, whom no
man may affront."
CHAPTER XIV
_A Daughter of the Gods_
To those in evening conclave round the fire came a long refrain sung on
one high note by Goor Dutt, as his bullock-cart approached the village.
"She died in the night of co-o-o-old," he keened. There was a pathos in
his voice which told of his own sufferings, for the night was frosty,
rather than those of some fictitious person.
"What freight to-night, byl-wan?" inquired the Thanadar, when he came
within speaking distance.
"Vessels of clay, and a dead man," replied the little bullock driver.
Some one held a torch to the thing that lay across the end of the
bullock driver's wagon, shrouded in a white cloth, on which was a red
wet stain as big as a man's hand.
"'Tis Lakhoo, the dacoit," said the Thanadar, when the face of the
corpse had been uncovered; "now, Nana Debi be praised for his taking
off! Some one will be the richer for this deed by five hundred rupees."
Below the left breast of the corpse, and beneath the stain on the cloth
that covered it, was a little hole that would scarce admit the tip of a
man's finger, but whence, nevertheless, had issued the life of one of
the terrors of the Terai. The dead man had been the head of a daring
band of dacoits, whose depredations ranged from Rajpore to Bareilly, and
on each of whose heads was a large reward, for they had not hesitated to
commit murder when committing theft.
After Goor Dutt had refreshed his inner man and taken his place at the
fire, he began: "This was the way of it: This evening, as I came
hitherwards, there passed me two doolis, and he who held the torch to
light the way was Lakhoo, whom I had seen once before at the thana at
Moradabad, whence he afterwards escaped. As the doolis passed, he held
the torch to my face, but I feigned sleep, and so he did not molest me.
"The baggage, slung on poles across the shoulders of the bearers, showed
the people in the doolis to be Faringis; and I was minded to see what
would happen, and, if need were, bring thee early word, Thanadar ji, as
to Lakhoo's doings. So I tied my bullocks to a tree and followed the
doolis, treading where the dust was thick and the shadows deepest.
"When the doolis arrived at the path that leads to Nyagong, men came out
of the jungle and stopped the bearers; and I crept behind a bael tree on
the edge of the road and within fifty paces of the travellers, so that I
could see and hear all that passed, for the torch was bright and the
night was still, and Lakhoo spoke as one who knoweth not the need for
speaking low.
"And when those who carried the doolis knew that it was Lakhoo who had
borne the torch for them, and that they were in the midst of his men,
their livers turned to water. One, less frightened than the others,
attempted to flee, but a bamboo lat descended on his skull, and he lay
as one dead, and the rest moaned, 'Ram dhwy, ram dhwy!'
"'Ye Sons of Jackals! ye have naught to fear,' said Lakhoo. 'What were
your miserable dole for the carrying of these doolis to me? But,
remember, ye have nor eyes nor ears now if ye would have them
hereafter!'
"And they whined, saying, 'We be blind and deaf, Bahadoor; and we know
nothing, for we be poor men.'
"'Therefore are ye safe, ye sons of mothers without virtue, for they who
sleep in the doolis are rich, and the family of the sahib who hanged my
brother last year. Who would crack dry bones for sustenance when savory
meat is at hand?'
"Thereafter he tapped on the roof of one of the doolis, saying, 'Wake,
mem-sahib, wake!'
"'What is the matter, dooli-wallah?' was the reply, in the feeble voice
of a sick woman.
"'This is the chowki, khodawund; but the fresh bearers are not here, and
those who brought thee hither are spent and cannot proceed farther. But
there are those here who will bear thee on thy journey for a proper
price.'
"So she called aloud in her own tongue, and there came forth into the
night, from the other dooli, a young lad rubbing the sleep from his eyes
and yawning; and whilst he parleyed with his mother, the curtain of her
dooli was lifted, and a young mem-sahib rose from it and stood beside
the boy, and we could see they were brother and sister, but she was the
older and taller by a span, and in the budding of her womanhood. The
hair, that fell to her waist, was as spun gold in the light of the
torches; rings and stones flashed in her ears and on her fingers, but
they were nothing to the glances of her eyes, which met four-square the
eyes of those to whom she spoke; and she looked at those who were
present as though they were there to do her bidding.
"When the sick mem-sahib in the dooli had finished speaking, the younger
one addressed the masalchi (torch-bearer), saying, 'How far is it to the
next chowki, and what do you ask for taking us there?'
"'Two kos (six miles), mem-sahib, and the hire of my men is fifty
rupees,' answered Lakhoo.
"'And what did you get for bringing us here?' asked she, turning to the
dooli-bearers who stood round them.
"'They are poor men, missy baba, and know nothing,' said Lakhoo, at whom
the dooli-bearers looked for instructions.
"'Son of a Pig!' exclaimed the young lad, taking a leather bag from his
sister's hand and throwing the money, a rupee at a time, on the ground;
'there are fifty rupees. Proceed, for the mem-sahib, my mother, is sick,
and must be on the hills ere the morning sun give heat,' and his face
flushed in the torchlight.
"So Lakhoo tied the money in his waistband, and, without further speech,
sat down and smoked the hookah that was passed to him.
"And after awhile the baba (boy), who had been walking to and fro with
the young woman, his sister, stopped opposite Lakhoo, and spoke,
saying, 'Why do you not proceed, dooli-wallah?'
"'Because I am waiting for my hire, baba ji,' replied Lakhoo.
"'I paid you but now,' exclaimed the young sahib.
"'The sahib is scarce awake,' said Lakhoo, in a bantering tone, 'and
hath been dreaming.' And his men who formed the outer circle laughed
insolently.
"'Liar!' shouted the young sahib, bursting into tears and clinching his
hand; but his sister laid a restraining finger on his arm, and whispered
in his ear.
"'We will give thee thy due, masalchi,' she said, as she went to her
mother's dooli.
"When she returned, she put a three-cornered bag of leather in her
brother's hand.
"'The young mem-sahib is as generous as she is beautiful,' said Lakhoo,
fixing hot eyes on her, whereat her nostrils twitched; 'and her hair is
more precious than gold.' And as he spake, he laid a desecrating hand on
her locks.
"'Swine-born!" shouted the young lad, and drawing from the bag in his
hand a toy that glittered in the torchlight, he put it to Lakhoo's
breast and fired. The tall man bounded into the air like a stricken
deer, and fell prone on his face. As the dacoits rose to their feet, I
smote on the branches of the bael tree that sheltered me with my bamboo
staff, shouting like three men, 'Thieves, thieves!' So Lakhoo's men fled
headlong, and I came forth from my shelter, and salaamed to the baba and
the young mem-sahib.
"'Thou hast earned five hundred rupees, sahib,' said I, 'by the killing
of the great dacoit, Lakhoo.'
"'We had been slain, an' it had not been for thee,' said the young
mem-sahib. 'Who and what art thou?'
"'Goor Dutt, byl-wan, mem-sahib,' I replied; 'and it is my highest
reward to have served thee and thine.'
"'Now, nay, byl-wan, my brother, Charlie Sahib, herewith bestows on thee
whatsoever reward is due for the killing of this dog.'
"'Ay, and this pistol, too,' interrupted the young lad, putting his
glittering toy in my hand. And he showed me the wonder of it,--how it
spake five times, if need were, and how to charge it.
"Then they put the dead man on my bullock-cart, which one of those
present had been sent to fetch. And when the bearers took up the doolis,
they shouted, as one man, 'Chali Sahib ke jhai!'"
"Wah, byl-wan ji, wah!" exclaimed Ram Deen, when Goor Dutt had finished,
"thou art taller than most men. Let us honor a man, my brothers."
And those who sat round the fire sprang to their feet, and woke the
slumbering village with the heartiness of their salutation, as they
shouted, "Goor Dutt ji ke jhai!"
CHAPTER XV
"_Ich Liebe Dich_"
Early one morning in December, in the year 186--, I left my camp with a
pointer at my heels to explore the foothills to the northwest of
Nyagong. The region abounded with iron ore, and the mining syndicate I
represented instructed me to conduct my prospecting in a way that would
not arouse the suspicion of the manager of another company that had
already established iron works at Kaladoongie. So it speedily became
noised about in that section of the Terai that I was one of the many
Englishmen who spend their leave of absence in the jungle for the
purposes of sport.
There was a shrewd nip in the air when I started, and the barrels of my
gun were so cold that I was glad I had put on a pair of thick gloves.
The jungle was hardly awake when I struck into the path that skirted the
Bore Nuddee. Presently, a green parrot "kr-r-r-d" tentatively, as a
faint flush appeared in the cloudless east. A wild boar jumped a fence a
few hundred yards ahead of me, followed by the sounder, of which he was
chief, as they left the fields they had been marauding during the night.
A nilghai, with his wicked-looking horns, soon followed, and lumbered
noiselessly away. These were the thieves of the Terai, and they were,
naturally, hurrying to their coverts before the coming day should be
upon them.
Suddenly, the dewy silence was broken by the invocation of a black
partridge,--the muezzin of the jungle. "Sobhan theri koodruth!" How
solemnly, and with what splendor of utterance and pause this voice of
the Terai announces the miracle of the morning! The cry was taken up and
passed on with a significance that dwarfed the passing of the fiery
torch as told by Scott in "The Lady of the Lake." And immediately
thereafter the jungle was singing its many-voiced matin, not the least
"notable note" of which was the challenge of the jungle-cock, who is a
native of the Terai, and whose vigorous voice is not raucous with the
civilized laryngeal affections of the "tame villatic fowl."
And then, in the awakening of the forest, there came--Italian opera! A
well-poised soprano voice silenced the jungle choir by a brilliantly
executed chromatic scale, as though the singer were trying her voice.
Finding it flexible enough for her purpose, she launched into the
difficult--and abominable--aria, "Di tale amore che dirsi" in "Il
Trovatore." She suddenly stopped, as though she were ashamed of the
rubbish she sang; and, after a pause of half a minute, my soul was
stirred by the air of Beethoven's immortal "Ich Liebe Dich," sung to the
following words, which were beautifully enunciated:
I love thee, dear! All words would fail
To tell the true and tender theme;
Such ardent thoughts, and passion pale,
And humble suit, I fondly deem,
Would need a poet's rapturous mind.
Oh! if fit words could but be bought,
If Love's own speech I could but find,
I'd sell my soul to express my thought,
So you should in Love's toils be caught!
Oh! then a kindlier sun would shine,
The vermeiled flowers would look more fair,
The common world would seem divine,
And daily things appear most rare;
My soul, a soaring lark, would rise
To greet the morning of thy love
So sweetly dawning in thine eyes,
And in thy smiles, which should approve.
The tender charm of the sweet old song--now utterly neglected for more
brazen utterances, and which only Beethoven could have written--was
thoroughly appreciated by the singer.
Wishing to see her without myself being discovered, and hoping to hear
her sing again, I "stalked" her--and, behold, she was a Padhani! I
couldn't be mistaken, for she was singing David's "O ma maitresse," as I
watched her from behind the bole of a great huldoo tree.
A little boy, about three years in age, played beside her as she sat on
a fallen tree trunk and took part in the matin of the Terai. There was a
noble breadth between her eyes that reminded one of the Sistine
Madonna, and an air of repose about her figure which was set off by her
simple garments.
She was, without doubt, Chambeli, the Padhani protégé of the Fishers,
whose flight from her husband, the Rev. John Trusler, immediately after
her return to the Terai, had been the sensation of the season at Naini
Tal a few years ago.
Snapping a dry twig with my foot to attract her attention, I stepped
into the open and approached her. Her first impulse was to flee, but she
quickly regained her composure and awaited me, standing, her eyes
meeting mine without the least embarrassment.
"Your singing attracted me," I began, taking off my hat to her.
"Yes?" she replied, evidently not at all anxious to come to my relief in
the awkward position I had sought.
"It was very beautiful----"
"And it is finished," she interrupted. There was a slight tone of
contempt in her voice as she thus gave me to understand that my
presence was unwelcome. But, as a student of psychology, I was not to be
so easily moved from my design of "investigating the case" before me.
"The Rev. John Trusler is dead." I paused awhile to see how she would be
affected. Then, as she gave no sign of emotion, I went on, "He hanged
himself a few days after you left him."
"My God!" she exclaimed, putting her hand to her side and seating
herself on the fallen tree.
The child, who had been clinging to his mother's dress and regarding me
with round, brown eyes, began to cry when he saw his mother's sudden
emotion. She took him up in her arms and cuddled his head to her bosom,
saying in the Padhani patois, "Mea mithoo, mea mithoo! hush, my butcha."
In the silence that ensued after the child had been quieted there came
the regular stroke of a woodman's axe, and presently the refrain of a
Padhani song sung by a man.
When the woman had regained her calm, she looked up at me somewhat
defiantly and said, "What business had they to come between me and my
jungle mother? What right had they to impose moral shackles on one who
was above their petty codes?"
"The Fishers were moved by kindness, surely; they educated you, and
Christianized you, and through them you met and married an honorable
man."
"Educated me, forsooth!" she exclaimed with scorn, her nostrils
twitching; "they robbed me of my five senses, and gave me
instead--accomplishments. Can you tell the time of the day from the sun,
sir? Can you say when the sambhur passed whose track is at your feet,
and how many wolves were in the pack that followed him? Would your sense
of smell lead you to a pool of fresh water in mid-jungle? Can you feel
the proximity of a crouching leopard without seeing it? What sort of
education is it that neglects the senses? Oh, the highest product of
your civilization--your poet-laureate, Tennyson--felt the same thing
stir in his pulses when he wrote 'Locksley Hall,' and deprecated the
'poring over miserable books' with blinded eye-sight."
"'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay,'" I quoted, as
she paused in her rapid discourse.
"For the European, perhaps; not for the Chinaman. No, I have no feeling
of gratitude towards those you speak of; for the large freedom of the
Terai they gave me a brick cage in London; they gave me endless crowds
of miserable men and women for these, my green brothers, who are always
happy," and she put out her hand and caressed a tree that grew beside
her.
"As for Christianity," she resumed, "it is but one facet in the jewel,
morality. Christ was but an adept, I take it, who attained to his
miraculous powers--as do our rishis and jogis--by prayer and fasting and
meditation. I cannot see that Christian vices are fewer or more venial
than those of our people."
"But don't you miss your books, and the keeping in touch with the
progress of civilization?" I asked.
"Must I quote 'books in the running brooks' to you? What book is there
like this book of God's?" and she swept her arm round her. "And if my
son grow up to be brave and strong, that will be civilization enough for
me."
"But your music?"
"Ah! that is the only thing I miss. But I recollect all of Schumann's
songs and Schubert's, some of Beethoven's--and then I make songs of my
own to fit the moods of my jungle mother, and I have some small skill in
weaving words for them."
"And the man who hanged himself?"
"He was no man," she flashed; "who had not the strength of a girl, and
who was as weak-eyed as the bat in daytime! You shall see a man indeed,
one who fears not to track the tiger afoot, and who even beats me when
he sees fit," and she called aloud, "Aho! Kali Dass, aho!"
The sound of the woodman's axe ceased, and presently we heard some one
approaching through the jungle.
"'Twere better that he should know from me that you and I had had
speech together, than that he should learn it from the Terai, for our
men are very terrible when they are wrought upon by jealousy." Then,
after a pause, she went on, "Don't speak to me in English in his
presence. He won't like it."
She rose and half veiled her face with her chudder, as a splendid young
Padhan bearing an immense load of wood entered the glade. He threw down
his burden as soon as he perceived me, and, snatching up his axe,
advanced menacingly towards me. He was a bronze Apollo, with the air of
freedom that is native to mountaineers and woodsy folks.
"The sahib intended no harm, Kali Dass," began the woman; "and he hath
given me tidings of _his_ death."
"What of it? He was but a quail."
"But now canst thou become a Christian, and--marry me."
"Marry one who was twice a widow? Nana Debi forbid! I must admonish thee
when we return to our hut. Come."
Fearing that any further interest in the case on my part would but
increase the severity of her punishment, I turned down the jungle path.
Just before leaving the glade I looked back; the woman had one knee on
the ground, and with outstretched arms she was balancing the load of
wood that Kali Dass was putting on her head.
CHAPTER XVI
_The Smoking of a Hornets' Nest_
"The 'big rains' will begin to-night," said the bunnia at Lal Kooah, as
Ram Deen took his seat on the mail-cart.
"And there will be much lightning and thunder," added one of the
by-standers, "the night is so still."
The sky was inky, and the Terai awaited the coming storm in a breathless
silence which was only emphasized by the parting blasts of Ram Deen's
bugle. The horses had their ears twitched forward apprehensively, and
started, every now and then, at the objects revealed by the light of the
lamps. A mile or so beyond Lal Kooah a few heavy drops of rain pattered
on the broad leaves of the overarching huldoos. Suddenly the sky was
rent by a streak of lightning,--the _avant courier_ of the mighty
monsoon,--and it was immediately followed by the terrific thunder that
bayed at its heels.
In the intensified silence that ensued Ram Deen blew his bugle to
reassure the frightened horses. He had barely ceased when there came the
sharp crack of a pistol-shot, and a far cry, "Ram dhwy! ram dhwy! Aho!
Ram Deen, aho!"
"Tis the voice of Goor Dutt," said the hostler, "and he looketh on
fear."
Ram Deen urged his team into a flying gallop as the storm struck the
jungle and woke its mighty voices. Wind and rain, and trees with
leafless branches for stringed instruments, made an elemental orchestra
that discoursed cataclysmic music.
Whilst the thunder crackled and crashed overhead to the steady and
sullen roar of the rain the horses came to a sudden stand-still. In the
feeble lamplight Ram Deen discerned a man lying in the middle of the
road. Taking one of the lamps, he held it to his face. It was Goor Dutt,
the little bullock driver. He was unconscious, and had a deep wound on
his head from which the blood was still welling.
Hanging on a wild plum-tree that grew on the edge of the road was a
bloodstained turban that fluttered in the storm. Tying it securely to
the branch whence it hung, Ram Deen placed the unconscious bullock
driver at the bottom of the mail-cart, the hostler supporting his head.
Arrived at Kaladoongie, Ram Deen roused the native apothecary at the
dispensary. Goor Dutt was carried in and laid on a charpoi, and whilst
the apothecary attended to his hurts Ram Deen knocked on the Thanadar's
house, saying, "Wake, Thanadar ji. There be bad men abroad to-night, and
blows to pay."
When the two friends returned to the dispensary Goor Dutt was looking
about him in a dazed fashion. The stimulant administered to him had
begun to take effect, and the sight of the tall driver roused him to a
recollection of the events of the night.
"Lakhoo's men," said he, feebly. "I counted five by the light of the
torch they burned. They beset me, and doubtless I had been slain, but
they heard thy bugle, and, whilst they hesitated, I shouted to thee,
and, freeing one hand, I drew the pistol Charlie Sahib gave me and fired
once, and then a great darkness fell upon me."
Whilst the Thanadar roused a couple of his men Ram Deen slipped into his
own garden to release Hasteen, for the great dog would be needed in the
hunting of that night.
The sky was emptying itself in great sheets of rain as the mail-cart
sped away with the dog running beside it. When they reached the tree to
which the turban was tied Ram Deen removed it and held it out to
Hasteen, who, after sniffing at it for a moment, started off at a trot,
with his nose to the ground. But the scent was bad, owing to the heavy
rain, and the dog began to run round in widening circles in his search
for a trail, whilst the men stayed on the edge of the road. Suddenly the
dog bayed, and, following the direction of the sound, they came up with
him as he stood by Goor Dutt's cart, from which the bullocks had been
removed.
"The man stricken by Goor Dutt rode hence on a bullock," said Ram Deen,
who had been examining the tracks in the mire with a lantern; "there be
signs of but four men going hence, Thanadar Sahib, whereas five walked
beside the wagon till it stopped here."
The cart was in the jungle about a hundred yards from the road. The
noise made by its progress had been entirely drowned in the roar of the
storm, so that Ram Deen had not heard it.
"See, sahib," said Ram Deen, pointing to the trail made by the heavy
animals in their course through the jungle, and which not even the rain
had effaced, "we shall not need Hasteen's nose, but his teeth, ere the
daybreak."
Fastening the turban taken from the tree round Hasteen's neck, Ram Deen
struck into the trail, the dog walking beside him, whilst the others
followed in single file. The tall driver stopped occasionally to examine
the ground with his lantern. He had with him the revolver given to him
by Captain Barfield, but his main dependence was on the long bamboo
club, loaded with lead, which he carried in his right hand.
The events that followed were thus told to Captain Fisher, the deputy
commissioner of the district, who came down the next day from Naini Tal
to investigate them.
"Sahib," began Ram Deen, whose left arm was in a sling, "it was thus: We
followed the trail that led along the right bank of the Bore Nuddee,
till we came to the ford, where the stream was now a roaring torrent
owing to the great rain, which never ceased to drum on the Terai all
that night.
"Here those we sought had crossed to the left bank, and then continued
up the hill to the garden of Thapa Sing; through the door of the hut,
wherein Heera Lal, who is kin to me, used to dwell, there came the gleam
of firelight.
"Then the Thanadar bid stand, saying, ''Twere well to take them alive,
Ram Deen, so that the sircar may not be despoiled of the hanging of
them. What sayest thou?'
"'Such as these cannot be taken alive, Thanadar ji,' I replied.
"'What would you?' he inquired.
"'They be hornets, khodawund,' I made answer, 'and must be smoked out of
their nest. When they come forth we will take them as we best may.'
"So we proceeded without noise to the hut, and when we reached it the
lantern showed us that the Thanadar, and I, and Hasteen, whom I had
unloosed, were alone. For, behold, the policemen had fled, not having
stomachs for blows; their blood had turned to milk and their livers to
water. For their fathers are jackals and their mothers without honor;
and the sahib will doubtless bestow upon them the reward due to their
valor.
"And the Thanadar growled in his beard at the baseness of his men, and
whispered, 'Those dogs of mine have made it necessary that we should
slay these within, Ram Deen, should they refuse to surrender, instead of
taking them alive;' and I nodded assent.
"We could hear the wounded man groan inside the hut, and one said,
'Never mind, Kunwa, I slew Goor Dutt for thy hurt, and had these who are
with us been men instead of children, we had slain the driver of the
mail-cart, whose voice is greater than his strength, and his legs but
female bamboos.'
"'Thou art a liar!' I shouted, kicking in the thatch door of the hut,
which fell in the fire on the hearth. In a moment the hut was in a
blaze. Two men ran forth through the doorway, and, in the light of the
burning hut, I could see other twain breaking through the wall of thatch
at the rear, whilst Kunwa, the wounded man, who was unable to move,
greeted with appalling screams the death that approached him.
"'I will attend to these, Thanadar Sahib!' I shouted; 'do thou and
Hasteen look to those that escape from the rear.' And the Thanadar,
calling the dog, ran to the back of the hut.
"Seeing but one man in front of them, the dacoits--strong men and
tall--ran in upon me. I anticipated the blow of one, and he fell to the
ground without even a cry; but the club of the other had crushed my
skull, had I not warded it with my left arm, which was broken thereby;
and ere my assailant could again swing his weapon I had stretched him
beside his companion.
"From the other side of the burning hut came the sounds of a terrible
combat and of heavy blows. I made what haste I could, and as I turned
the corner of the hut I stumbled over the body of the Thanadar. Six
paces beyond was Hasteen, and he was serving the sircar as he best
might. He stood over one of the dacoits, whom he held by the throat,
whilst the other rained blows on him, till I made the fight an equal one
between dog and man; and then, because my arm pained shrewdly, I was
fain to sit on a fallen tree, whilst Hasteen finished the fray in his
own manner; the man in the hut, meanwhile, uttering screams that even a
strong man might not hear unmoved.
"But he on the ground could not scream by reason of the fangs at his
throat; he only gurgled, and rattled dreadfully, and the foam flew from
his lips as the great dog shook him from side to side. When his head
swayed helplessly I knew he was dead, so I bade Hasteen release him; and
the man in the hut having ceased his outcries, I made shift to raise the
Thanadar, and lo, he was dead, and the Terai bereft of a great and a
good man, and I of the best of friends. And now, as the sahib knoweth
but too well, there be none in the Terai to maintain the orders of the
sircar."
"Nevertheless, Ram Deen," said Captain Fisher, "the sircar will look to
you in the future to be a terror to evil-doers, and here are papers
making you Thanadar of this district. What say you?"
"The sircar is my father and my mother, Fisher Sahib; but this thing may
not be. I have neither learning nor wisdom to uphold the English raj as
it should be upheld. Besides, who is to drive the mail-cart?"
"There be drivers a-plenty, Ram Deen, but not many who will strike a
blow for the right and defend the poor and the fatherless. Thy munshi
will instruct thee in the duties of thy office. But beyond all things,
remember this: There must be no budmashes in thy district, Ram Deen,
Thanadar." Then, before Ram Deen could make reply, he went on, "Oh, yes,
the reward; thou wilt receive from the sircar two thousand five hundred
rupees for the slaying of Lakhoo's men."
"But Goor Dutt slew one of them, Captain Sahib, and Hasteen another."
"Well, give Goor Dutt what thou wilt and bestow a collar of honor, with
spikes of brass, on Hasteen. Thou art Thanadar henceforth, and the
sircar expects you to be just in all your dealings."
And as he finished, word having gone through Kaladoongie that Ram Deen
was now Thanadar, the men who crowded round the Deputy Commissioner's
tent raised a mighty shout: "Ram Deen, Thanadar, ke jhai!"
"What meant that shout?" asked Tara, when Ram Deen returned home an hour
later.
"Congratulation to thy Lumba Deen (long legs) for a trifle of money and
some little honor as salve for a broken bone, Light in Darkness."
"What honor?" she inquired, eagerly.
"But the money was the greater, my Star----"
"Now, nay, my lord trifles with me. The honor, the honor!" she demanded.
"And if I were to tell thee that they have made me Thanadar of this
Zemindaree?"
"'Tis but thy due, my lord; and thou hast but prepared the way for thy
man-child. Said I not many moons ago that he should be Thanadar of
Kaladoongie one day!"
"See to it that he is brave and strong, Heart of my Heart, else were he
better dead."
"I will help her in the bringing up of thy son," said a tall woman,--she
of the muffled face,--coming into the room; "and he shall be worthy of
thee, who art now as great as thou hast been always good."
THE END.
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