"You've made a strong argument for the cheetah as a fighter, Bhanah, but you don't seem to stand much for his character."
"Who faces the hunting cheetah, Sahib, faces death. If the cheetah falls upon him from above, or comes upon him from behind, he will know death; but he will never know the cheetah. A hunter's first shot must do its work; he will not often have time to fire again."
"I've got that. But I don't quite see what chance a dog has with him."
"Only four dogs in this my land, have any chance with him, Sahib."
"And the others?"
"They live because they have not met a cheetah."
"How does Nels do it?"
"My master must look upon that, to understand. I have seen, but I cannot show it. It—" and a rare smile lighted the dark shadows of Bhanah's face, "issoon."
"I've heard the Indian princes use them for hunting."
"Yes, Sahib, many Indian princes keep hunting cheetahs as English Sahibs keep hunting horses. They go out after small things; and innocent—mostly deer, of all kinds; even theneel gai, the great blue cow."
"Will Nels attack such things?"
"Nels will not attack the defenseless; he has not been used for it. His ways are established in that; there is no fear. If he should be ranging at any time, he will return at the first call; but if he does not, my Master, let him go. Be certain,Nels knows."
"That's good. I'm in this country to get acquainted with animals—"
"But to the preserving of men?"
"When I find it's necessary, I've no objection then—"
Bhanah stooped quickly and touched Skag's feet.
"Vishnu, the Great Preserver, has sent another Hand to this my India."
Skag looked into the man's face and found high light in it.
Next dawn was hot, but there was a stimulation in it; not like the mountains, not like the sea. The air was full of a mellow enticement, like strange incense; or romance. Skag enquired of his servant if the day would be right for the cheetah hills.
Bhanah turned to the southeast and scanned the horizon line. Then he held up his hand, palm toward the same direction, for a minute. At last he walked to a shrub and looked at its leaves, closely.
"It may be that one day is left for my master to go into the cheetah hills; but the earth makes ready for the breaking of the great monsoon."
Skag was getting interested in the Indian standpoint; he was finding something in it. Quite innocently, he used the subtlest method known to learn.
"What is the great monsoon?"
"Beneficence."
"What is the earth doing?"
"Now, she is holding very still. When it breaks, she will shake. Having endured three days, she will rise up and cast off her old garments, putting on new covering—entirely clean."
"Will I be able to see that?"
"Nay, Sahib! The wall of the waters will be between your eye and every leaf."
. . . The wall of the waters; like the tones of a bell far off, the words sank into some deep place in Skag. This day they would recur to him; and in the years to come, they would recur again and yet again.
Swinging along out of Poona toward the cheetah hills, Skag was buoyant with healthy energy. His heart was like the heart of a boy. Consistent with his old philosophical dogma, this present was certainly the best he had ever known. Carlin was in it, as surely as if she were present. Roderick Deal had proved to be a man to respect; and to love, secretly . . . "the guardianship of an elder brother."
Looking back, he saw that Poona City was beautiful, lying close against the eastern side of the Ghats, just as they begin to fold away toward the plains. No breath of plague or pestilence from Bombay could reach across the ramparts of that mountain range.
The air was getting hotter every minute; but it was good. The vistas stretched far—all satisfying. Bhanah said the monsoon was close. "Beneficence"; the Indian idea of a deluge. He liked it all.
They came up into the hills through some stretches of stiff climbing; and on the margin of a broad shelf Skag stopped for breath. The panorama behind had widened and extended immensely. The face of a planet seemed to reach from his feet across to the eastern horizon, descending. He sat down on a flat rock and Nels comfortably extended himself near by.
It was all good. The great golden jewel back in his heart, full of afterglows—Carlin. The finding of a real man. The ways, the reservations, the revelations, of Bhanah. The beauty and character of the dog at his foot . . .
Nels had lifted his head. His eyes were fixed intently on the empty white distances of the sky. His pointed ears were set at a queer angle. There was nothing unusual to be seen, nothing Skag himself could hear. He paid closer attention; and presently, began to get a perfume. It was the great, good earth-smell; richer and fuller every minute.
Then Nels stood up and faced the southeast. Skag looked where the dog seemed to be looking. Along the horizon line he saw an edge of dark grey. No, the horizon line was cut; this thing lay against the earth as straight as the blade of a knife.
Now Skag began to feel something in the air. He couldn't recognise it, nor define it, but it was imperative—some kind of urge. There was the sense of emergency, perfectly clear; so much that he turned and looked about, listening for a call. He thought of Carlin; could she be in any need? He was glad she wasn't here; this was a good place to get away from . . . Ah, that was it!The urge to run.
"How is it, Nels, old man, does the great monsoon make us feel like moving?"
Nels stood like a thing carved out of solid pewter. He did not hear. He faced the southeast. But Skag understood why the animals were due to make a procession; the chief thing was to get away. Then Skag settled into a perfect calm.
Four spotted deer came trotting up the shoulder of a near incline, almost directly toward them. The dog watched them with a casual eye. They went by, sixty feet away. Nels was looking further on to where a big brown bear ambled along, making good time for one of her build—behind her, a yearling. Still Nels showed no inclination to leave his place.
As if it were a vision of the night, the whole landscape before Skag became dotted with specks; all moving. All moving in the same direction, almost toward him. As the numbers increased, he saw that they ran straight; there was no swerving. In spite of what Roderick Deal had told him, his mind demanded the reassurance of his own voice.
"Nels, is it real? Are we asleep?"
The dog was a stoic; he moved one ear, but he did not lift an eye.
Skag noticed that the hush in the air seemed to have laid a bond of silence on all these creatures. He had heard no calls, no cries. And these were the calling, crying animals of the world.
Here and there at some distance, he saw the ungainly, shambling gait of hyenas, in twos and fours and threes together, or alone. Once when four passed quite near, he felt Nels' shoulder against his thigh.
"Nels, old man, buck up. I tell you, get a grip. They may be the devil, but he isn't hard to kill. I'll show you. Do you get me, son?"
Nels looked up into the man's face, a long look. Then he pressed his head close, under Skag's hand.
Spotted deer ran in small groups; they came into sight and passed out quickly. More swift and more beautiful, were slender deer with single horns, twisted spirally; sometimes very long. Skag thrilled to their pride of action; but Nels seemed in no wise interested.
There was another kind of deer seen at some distance; the bucks were full-antlered and from where Skag stood, they looked light grey colour. Rabbits scuttled in and out of sight constantly, all over the landscape.
Between the parallel lines of seven spotted deer on one side and a small herd of grey deer on the other, he saw a great, low-leaping beast; plainly yellow with black stripes—one tiger the sportsmen had not bagged.
Evidently some mighty thing had transcended enmity and annihilated fear—for one day.
Little things held his eye one while. Creatures like monster rats—they were really mongooses—racing for their lives. Lizards from two to eighteen inches long; and he saw one with rainbow colours in his skin, mostly red. He learned afterward it was a great-chameleon; and angry. He saw one small scaled thing, rather like a crocodile in shape, but with a sharp-pointed nose; it waddled by, near enough to show two little black beads in its face.
When Skag lifted his eyes the earth seemed to have given up a score of packs of jackals. Their action was not like the wolf nor like the dog; it was a short, high leap—giving to a running pack the effect ofbobbing. They were more perfect wolves than the American coyote, but smaller; and they looked to have much fuller coats. Searching the location of these groups of bobbing runners, his eye lifted toward the southeast.
. . . The grey knife-blade had cut away half the world. It lay straight across the earth, midway between his feet and where the horizon line should curve. Without any look of motion, without any shine or sheen, smooth as a wall of dull-polished granite, it rose to beyond sight in the sky—the utterly true line of its base upon the ground.
. . . So this wasthe wall of the waters.
No man dare interpret it to any other man; but Skag found perfect awe.Then he grew very quiet—his faculties alert as never before.
When he noticed the landscape again, the bobbing packs were gone. Slender spotted things in pairs and alone, were leopards—leaping long and low. A great dark creature, going like the wind, was a black panther.
Then he saw, right before him, the unthinkable. Majesty in miniature. A perfect East Indian musk buck—the most beautiful of living things. The wee fellow came on, leaping to the utmost of his strength; his nostrils wide, his lips apart, his eyes immense. He swayed a little, wavered and fell.
Skag ran and leaned over him—the little heart was driving out the little life. It seemed a pity out of all proportion. . . . He held the tiny breathless thing tenderly, as if it were a dead child. . . . So he laid it down reluctantly, at last; and straightened—to see a hunting cheetah coming toward him, not far away.
He glanced down, Nels was not there. He looked all about, Nels was not in sight. Then the reserves in Skag's nature came up. All his training flashed across his brain. Every nerve, every muscle in his body, was instantly adjusted to emergency. There was no failure in co-ordination.
He stood quietly watching the cheetah. It appeared not to have seen him. If it kept on, it would pass about seventy feet away. But Skag knew it would not keep on. With his mind he might think it would, but something in him knew it would not.
He remembered Carlin; no, he must not think of her now. He remembered that Nels was gone; no, he must not think of that either. All the weapons he had were in his heart, in his head. He set himself in order, ready. Recalling, while he waited, with what joy he had been ready to face the tiger that coughed near the monkey glen, to stand between Carlin and it—he was aware that now he faced a hunting cheetahas much for her.
The cheetah stopped, and turning toward him direct, laid itself along the ground so tight he could see only a line of colour among the grasses. There it seemed to stay.
When a man deals with a cat, to allay fear or to establish any common ground of sympathy, he ought to see its eyes. While realising this fact, Skag heard a piercing cat-scream, some distance back of him. He had not heard sounds from any of the animals before. . . . He found himself calculating whether the monsoon or night or the cheetah, would reach him first.
Changing sun-rays had laid a sheen resembling silver upon the wall; not dazzling, but softly bright. After a while the cheetah showed, nearer than when it settled into the grass. The wall was moving forward surely—as surely as time—but the cheetah would reach him first.
At last he saw two yellow discs. Then he worked with his power—his supreme confidence. He had never been more quiet, never more fearless in his life.
The hunting cheetah moved toward him without pause, till he could see the whole body along the ground; the broad, short head; the wide, sun-lit eyes. And while he sent his steady force of human-kindly thought into those eyes, theynarrowed into slits. In that instant Skag knew that the beast had no fear to allay; no quality of nature he could touch. It was a murderer, pure and simple.
Then he thought of Carlin. . . . Of her brother. . . . Of Nels. He opened his lips to speak, but the name did not pass his throat.
Carlin, Carlin! It was only a question of time; and Skag folded his arms.
And high against the wall of the waters rolled the clarion challenge-call of Nels, the Great Dane dog. The cheetah leaped and settled back. Skag turned to look the way it faced. A grey line flashed along the ground. Skag did not know it, but he was racing toward their meeting.
The cheetah lifted and met Nels, body against body, in mid-air—Skag heard the impact. Nels had risen full stretch, his head low between his shoulders; the cheetah's wide-spread arms went round him, but his entire length closed upon the cheetah's entire length—like a jack-knife—folding it backward. Skag heard a dull sound, the same instant with a keen cat-scream—cut short as the two bodies struck the earth. When he reached them, Nels was still doubled tight over the cheetah's backward-bent body; his grey iron-jaws locked deep in the tawny throat.
"Sahib! SanfordHan—tee Sahib!"
"Hi, Bhanah; this way!"
Bhanah came with a rain-coat in his hand. Stooping to examine Nels a moment and rising to glance at the wall, he spoke rapidly:
"The Sahib has seen his Great Dane Nels kill a second cheetah in one day. There are two cuts on each leg. Also because Nels must not lose his strength on a fast journey to his master's place—I, Bhanah, will uncover mine honour in the presence of a man."
And quickly casting his turban from his head, he proceeded to tear it down the middle. While he worked, he talked—as if to himself—in half chanting tones:
"Men in my country donot—this thing; but I do it. Of a certainty Nels has accomplished that I could not, though I would. This night two cheetahs remain not—the gods witness—to destroy little tender children of men. And when the so-insignificant cuts of Nels shall be presently wrapped with the covering of mine own honour, I shall be exalted not less!The gods witness. Then we return swiftly into a safe place."
This was no ordinary exultation. Skag's ears were wide open; and he heard grief—and hate.
"How did you know where I was?" he asked quietly.
"I heard the first cheetah's death cry; and I knew he was not far from you, Sahib."
"I thought he was pretty far, one little while."
Skag had spoken, thinking of Nels. Bhanah searched his face while the look of a frightened child grew in his own. Again he stooped quickly and touched the man's feet. He had done it once before—to Skag's acute discomfort.
"What's the meaning of that?"
"That a man's life is in thy breath, my Master."
"Bhanah, I'll find out—how to answer you."
Then Bhanah laughed a low exultant chuckle, while he finished bindingNels' legs with a part of his own turban.
"It is well, Sahib; thefortune which never failsis thine. And now, if we are wise, we will run."
Nels led, all the way; and they were barely under cover, when the earth indeed shook. The stone walls of the building rocked; the dull thunder of a solid, continuous impact of dense water upon its roof, filled their ears. The light of the sun was cut off.
"Bhanah, you and Nels will camp with me to-night. This has been the hunting cheetah-day of my life; and—Nels is responsible that he didn't get me."
"My master is the heart of kindness."
While Bhanah was busy, later, Skag laughed:
"I'm remembering that you said Nels did itsoon. How did he do it?"
"By the drive of his weight against the cheetah's body; and the strength of his limbs, in the action my master saw."
They had eaten and Nels was properly cared for, when Bhanah spoke softly:
"Shall we have tales, Sahib?"
Skag roused from a moment's abstraction to answer:
"Bhanah, I don't remember anything I could talk about to-night, but the hunting cheetah—Nels got."
"The hunting cheetah is one, Sahib;there are many. Telling is in knowledge and in speech; finding is in the man. I will tell, if the Sahib pleases; but he shall find."
So they had tales that night.
The Monster Kabuli
Skag had learned, in finding Carlin, that it wasn't like a man in America finding the one particular and inimitable girl, not even if she were thelaurus nobilisand he the eagle of the same coin. In India, where people have pride of race, and time to keep it shining, there are formalities. . . . The two had arranged to meet in the jungle—not deep in the glen where the tiger had coughed, but at the edge toward Hurda, when Skag returned from Poona. He was to go straight into the jungle from the railway station. Carlin would be watching and follow there. . . .
Sanford Hantee of the Natural Research Department, after much opportunity to wrestle with the subtle and gritty and hard-testing demon of delay, came at last to Hurda again, and stepped out of the coach with a throb in his chest and a knot in his throat which only the best and bravest soldiers have brought in from the field. As the moments of waiting at the edge of the jungle passed, it dawned upon him that something had happened, or Carlin already would be with him, at least crossing the big sun-shot area from the walled city. . . . What had happened is this story of the monster Kabuli, which is an animal story even without the entrance of the racing elephant, Gunpat Rao.
Many months before, five merchants came in from far Kabul and sat down in the market-place at Hurda, day by day unfolding more of their packs. They brought nuts from High Himalaya, foot-hill raisins and the long white Kabuli grapes themselves, packed in cotton, a dozen to fifteen in the box. Then there were dried figs and dates, pomegranates picked up far this side of the Hills, Kabuli weaves of cloth, and silks inwoven with gold thread. They were small packs, but worth a great price; which is important to relate in any company.
Now these five Kabulies were usually together (not too far from the kadamba tree where Ratna Ram sat); and their turbans were of different colours, but their hearts were mainly of one kind of hell. Sometimes they stood and sometimes they moved one by one among the bazaars; but Hurda thought of them as one alien presence, and signified that the hugest of them, the monster himself, was also the most hateful and dangerous, which he was.
If I should tell how tall he was exactly, and this in the midst of Sikhs and other of the tallest people of the world, you would think it one of the high lights of a writer-man, and if I should tell you of the face of this monster; the soft folds of fury resting there in the main; the bulk of loose greyish lids over the whites of eyes flecked with brown pigments; of the sunken upper lip and the nose drooping against it, you would say long before I had finished, "Let up on the poor beast—"
And this was a rich man, this Kabuli; richer than any of these brothers, and deeper-minded; so that he could think with keener power to make his thought come true. Also, life was more full to him than to the others, so that he could look over the world of his packs; and when he slept in the midst of his packs, all his treasure was not there. You really should have seen him smile as the head-missionary, Mr. Maurice, approached, and you should have seen the smile change to a sneer, without a flick of difference in the expression of the eyes. And perhaps it is just as well that you missed the look that came into the eyes of the monster Kabuli when the beautiful English missionary, Margaret Annesley, passed.
Miss Annesley was Carlin's closest friend in Hurda. They worked together among the women and children, among the sick and hungry, and found much to do, without entering the deeper concerns of soul-wellbeing which Mr. Maurice attended. These last were rather reticent concerns of Carlin, especially. Mr. Maurice protested against their moving through certain parts of the city, against entering Mohammedan households, or the quarters of the bazaar women—all of which talk was well-listened to. Miss Annesley had no fear, because she was essentially clean. She was effective and tireless, a thrilling sort of saint; but she could see no evil, not even in the monster Kabuli. Carlin had no fear because she was Carlin; but she had a clear eye for jungle shadows—for beasts, saints, and men. As for the Kabuli, she quietly remarked:
"Why, Margaret, can't you see he's a mad dog?"
In other words, Carlin used the optic nerve as well as the vision said to be of the soul.
"But, my dear, he seemed really stirred," Miss Annesley protested.
"I do not doubt he was stirred," Carlin replied. Her mind was the mind of India, with Western contrasts; also it was familiar from both angles with the various attractive attributes of her friend. . . . But Margaret Annesley continued to greet the monster Kabuli from time to time. Having great means and worldly goods and riotous health, he had nothing to discuss but his soul—which few beside Margaret would have found ostensible.
"I tell you he hasrabies," Carlin once repeated.
This did no good; so she went to Deenah who was Miss Annesley's servant, a Hindu of the Hindus and priceless. Deenah declared that he was already aware of the danger; that he missed nothing; also that he was watchful as one who feared the worst.
Deenah was a small man, swift and noiseless. He had an invincible equilibrium and authority in his own world, which was a considerable establishment back of the dining-room, including a most delectable little creature even smaller than Deenah, but quite as important, and sharing all light and shadow by his side. Deenah had a look of forked lightning and a mellow voice. The more angry he became, the more caressing his tones.
One day while he was down in the bazaars buying provisions, the monster Kabuli beckoned Deenah to come closer. They stood together—terrier and blood-hound—and Deenah listened while the form and colour of better conditions was outlined for his sake. . . . The Kabuli had heard that Deenah was a great servant; he had heard it from many sources, even that Deenah was favourably compared with the chief commissioner's favourite servant—who was a picked man of ten thousand.
Deenah inclined his head, hearkening for the tone within the tone, but gravely acknowledged that he had heard much in this life harder to listen to.
The Kabuli continued that Deenah was no doubt appreciated on a small scale in the house of Annesley Sahiba; but the establishment itself, as well as the people, was inadequate to offer scope for the talents of such a man as Deenah; also that Deenah was remiss in making no better provision for the future of his own household; also, the gifts should be considered—and now the Kabuli was opening his packs.
Deenah granted that life was not all sumptuous as he might wish, but he had been given to understand no man's life was so in this world; he would be glad now, to hear the plan by which all that he lacked could appear and all that he hoped for, come to pass.
The Kabuli opened wider his treasures. Deenah's narrow-lidded eyes feasted upon the wealths and crafts of many men. . . . And the plan had to do, not with this night nor with the next, but with the night after these two nights were passed, and Deenah's Sahiba and the Hakima (literally, the physician, which meant Carlin) were to be brought for the evening to the house of the Kabuli's friend, one Mirza Khan, a Mohammedan, whose soul also was in great need.
Deenah's voice was gentle as he enquired how he was to be used—why riches accrued to him, since it was the life of the life of his mistress to serve those ill or in need, body or soul. The Kabuli replied that he was not sure that the Sahiba would go to a Mohammedan house, even with her friend the Hakima, unless Deenah could assure his mistress that the Mohammedan was well known to him and honourable, his house an abode of fellowship and peace.
Deenah considered well, in soft tones saying presently that he could not accomplish this thing alone, but must advise with his fellow-servants who were trustworthy. In fact, if the Kabuli could come this afternoon—when the Sahiba and the Hakima would be away—and tell his story once more, in the presence of the utterly reliable among the servants—all might be brought to pass.
The Kabuli did not care for the plan, but Deenah repeated that he could not do this thing alone; his voice admirably gentle, as he reiterated his own helplessness. . . . Still he granted with hesitation that the Sahiba deigned to trust him to a degree. . . . At this moment the Kabuli saw Deenah's eyes forking at the treasure-pack. There was longing in them that was pain. The face of Deenah was the face of one struck and crippled with his own needs, which point helped the Kabuli to decision.
The terms of the agreement were made straight and fixed. Deenah went back to his house where he made the monster's plan known to the servants. In the afternoon, when the house was empty, the monster Kabuli called and opened a small pack in the quiet shade of the compound, before the eyes of six men and one woman, as much Deenah as himself. . . . When the time in the story came that Deenah was to use his influence upon the mind of his mistress, there seemed a slowness of understanding among the other servants; so that the Kabuli had to speak again and very clearly.
Just now the head of Deenah bent low over the open pack, the movement of his hand instantly drawing and filling the eye of the trader from Kabul; and then it was that the Sahiba'ssyce, who was a huge man, materialised alakrifrom under his long cotton tunic—thelakribeing a stick of olive-wood from High Himalaya and very hard. This he brought down with great force upon the hugest and ugliest head in all Central Provinces at that time.
Merely a beginning. Six otherlakriswere drawn from five other tunics—the extra one for Deenah.
The great body was dragged farther back toward the servants' quarters. Here Deenah officiated. With each blow he enunciated in caressing tones, some term of the agreement . . . until he heard the protest of the mother of his little son:
"Shall you, Deenah, who are only her man-servant, have all the privilege of defending the Sahiba—to whom I, Shanti, am as her own child?"
And Deenah, not missing a count, cried:
"Come and defend!"
So Deenah's wife and the other women came, bringing the smooth hand stones with which they ground the spices into curry powder. . . . And when the beating was over, they carefully tied up the pack of the Kabuli and sealed it without a single article missing. Then they carried the body out of the compound, across the main highway, beyond the parallel bridle-road, and let it slide softly down into the littlekhudbeyond, deeper and deeper each year from erosion.
A little afterward, that same afternoon, Margaret Annesley and Carlin Deal were walking along the bridle-path. Hearing a moan they looked over into the khud, where the monster Kabuli was coming to. He managed to raise one hand, but the movement of the fingers somehow struck the pity from Carlin's heart. It was not a clean gesture of a chastened man. Even though his body was terribly bruised and broken, the face was that of Ravage in person. Carlin pulled her companion on. They hastened to the bungalow where the tied pack was in evidence and strange sounds reached them from the servants' compound.
It was the picture of a tranced group that they saw—Deenah sitting upon the ground, uttering frightful low curses securely coupled together—in the language of all languages for this ancient art. The others were around him, even two or three of the women.
"Deenah!" Miss Annesley called.
The concentration was not to be broken.
"Deenah—is a madness come to this place?"
The head of her priceless servant was bowing close to the ground, but his mind was still away; and in high concord to his tones, were the tones of the small delectable one, whose eyes, dark and vivid, were the eyes of Jael singing her song after slaying Sisera. Margaret turned to hersyce. There were tears and sweat in his eyes, but no answering human gleam.
"Carlin—" she said. "Help me carry thedaik-ji—"
It was a huge vessel containing several gallons of cool water; and this was lifted by four hands and poured upon Deenah, whose eyes met them at once with the light of reason.
"Bear witness, I am cursing softly," he said.
"Are you my head servant?"
"I am thy servant."
"And you permit this bazaar-tamasha in your compound?"
Deenah observed that this was not an affair upon which he could speak to the Sahiba, his mistress. Meanwhile Carlin watched Deenah's eyes fill with the keen reds of bloody memory.
"Go away, Margaret," Carlin said. "He will talk to me. Please go now.In six breaths he will be back in his trance again—"
So it happened. Deenah watched his mistress depart, then he raised his eyes to Carlin, saying:
"The Hakima will understand. These things are not for the Sahiba—"
"Speak—"
Deenah arose, saying: "It is not good for you to set foot in my house, but come to the threshold; then neither my voice nor the voices of these shall enter her understanding—"
Deenah pointed to the rest of the servants who gathered around.
The tale of the monster Kabuli was unfolded to Carlin without a single interruption for several moments; in fact, until Margaret Annesley came running forth, crying:
"Are you never going to cease talk and carry help to the Kabuli—who is hurt?"
Carlin beckoned her back. "Not hurt, dear. He is ill. He has hydrophobia."
"Our protection depends upon you," Deenah concluded, to Carlin. "We commit ourselves to you; we render our lives and honour into your care. You alone, Hakima-ji, can present the story of these doings to the chief commissioner, whose name we hold in honour above other men. Will you see that it be known—not one thread has been taken or changed from the pack of the Kabuli; also, the chief commissioner—out of his equity which has never failed—shall judge us,knowingthat we did the beating for the Sahiba's sake."
The chief commissioner at Hurda was a good and a just man. He listened seriously and spoke to Carlin of the value of good Indian servants in the houses of the English; of the dangers of the tiger in the grass and the serpent upon the rock and the Kabuli in the khud—to whom he would attend at once.
It was many weeks after that when the case was called, and Deenah's eyes grew red-rimmed like a pit-terrier's as he told the story again, but his voice fondled the ears of those present in the court-room. . . . One by one, the other four Kabulies left the market-place in Hurda; and when the monster himself had been made to pay and his healing had been uninterrupted for many weeks, there came, a day when the unwalled city of Hurda knew him no more.
He was not forgotten, even though months sped by; for in Miss Annesley's heart was a pang over the big man who had been horribly hurt. . . . Meanwhile for Carlin all life was changed—as the magic of swift afterglow changes every twig and leaf and stem. Then came her hard days, watching for Skag's return—the weeks passing while he waited in Poona. Every morning from a distance, she observed the train come in from the South. When Skag did not appear, sometimes she would go alone for a while to the edge of the jungle, but never deep, because he had asked her not to. Sometimes it was an hour or two before she was ready to look out at the world or the light again. . . .
One early morning as she crossed the market-place, Carlin saw a strange elephant there with his mahout; and a messenger approached deferentially, asking if she were the Hakima, and if she could lead the way to Annesley Sahiba. . . . Four hours' journey away—this was the messenger's story—a native prince whose dignity included the keeping of one elephant, an honourable dispensation from Indian Government, had called in great need for the ministration of the Hakima, and that of her friend, Annesley Sahiba—for lo, unto him a child was to be born.
Carlin asked if she were needed at once—thinking of the many days and the train at noontime. The messenger said that within four hours he was told to deliver the Hakima and Annesley Sahiba at the palace door. He followed along, and the elephant came behind him, as she walked toward Margaret's bungalow. . . . If Skag were to come this day, she thought! . . . Deenah was away, but Carlin left word with his wife that she would be back that night, or early the next day. Margaret was ready. Carlin was in the howdah beside her, before there was really a chance to think.
The Monster Kabuli (Continued)
Skag did arrive from Poona that day. When Carlin did not come to the jungle-edge, and the vivid open area between him and the city showed no movement, he did not linger many minutes. Power had come to him from the waiting days, and this hour was the acid test. All his life he had refused to look back or look ahead, making theNow—the present moving point, his world—wasting no energy otherwise.
In the long waiting days, he had learned what many a man afield had been forced to learn in loneliness, that when he was very still, and feelinghigh, not too tired—in fact, when he could forget himself—something of Carlin came to him, over the miles.
But in spite of all he knew, much force of his life had strained forward to this moment of meeting. The shock of disappointment dazed him. His first thought was that there was some good reason; but after that, the misery of faint-heartedness stole in, and he wondered the old sad wonder—if love had changed.
Skag hurried back to the station where he had left the Great Dane, Nels, with Bhanah, who would have to find quarters for himself. Nels stood between the two, waiting for his orders; and wheeled with a dip of the head almost puppy-like when the man decided. So Skag walked on toward the road where Carlin lived; and at his heels, with dignity, strode one of the four great hunting dogs in India. Presently he saw Miss Annesley's head-servant, Deenah, running toward him—face grey with calamity.
And now Skag heard of the coming of the messenger with the strange elephant; and the black edging began to run about Deenah's tale, as he revealed the ugly possibilities in his own mind that the Monster Kabuli had his part in this sending:
". . . Now Hantee Sahib must learn," Deenah finished, "that not within four hours' journey from Hurda; nay, not within six hours' journey from Hurda, is there any native prince with the dignity of one elephant."
. . . They were walking rapidly toward the house of the chief commissioner whom Deenah said was away in the villages. Their hope of life and death fell upon the Deputy Commissioner-Sahib. Always as he spoke, Deenah's face steadily grew more grey, the rims of his eyes more red. His memories of the monster were flooding in like the rains over old river-beds, and there was no mercy for Skag in anything he said.
The Deputy Commissioner, a perfectly groomed man, leisurely appeared. He did not wear spectacle or glass; still there was a glisten about his eyes, as if one were there. He came out into the verandah opening a heavy cigarette-case of soft Indian gold. His head tilted back as if sipping from a cup, as he lit and inbreathed the cigarette. To Skag he seemed so utterly aloof, so irreparably out of touch with a man's needs at a moment like this, that he could not have asked a favour or adequately stated his case. Deenah took this part, however. If there were drama or any interest in the tale, there was no sign from the Deputy, whose eyes now cooled upon Nels, and widened. Presently he interrupted Deenah to inquire who owned this dog.
The servant signified the American, and Skag took the straight glisten of the Englishman's glance for the first time.
"May I inquire? From whom?"
Skag coldly told him that the dog had been owned by Police Commissioner Hichens of Bombay. . . . The deputy regretfully ordered Deenah to continue his narrative, and in the silence afterward, presently spoke the name:
"Neela Deo, of course—"
This meant the Blue God, the leader of the caravan; and signified the lordliest elephant in all India. . . . The Deputy, after a slight pause, answered himself:
"But Neela Deo is away with the chief commissioner. . . . Mitha Baba—"
There was another lilting pause. This referred to a female elephant, the meaning of whose name was "Sweet Baby." The Deputy capitulated:
"Mitha Baba, yes; especially since she knows the Hakima—and oh, I say, that's a strange tale, you know—"
He glanced from Deenah to Nels, to Skag; but received no encouragement to narrate same. Not in the least unbalanced, he tipped back his head and took another drink from between his smoky fingers; then his glassless eye glittered out through the white burning of the noon, as he added:
"But Mitha Baba would not chase a strange elephant, unless shepositively knew the creature was running off with her own GulMoti. . . . She's discriminating, is Mitha Baba. But I say, GunpatRao came from the Vindhas, you know."
It dawned upon Skag that this wasn't monologue, but conversation; also that it had some vague bearing upon his own affairs. The pause was very slight, when the Deputy resumed:
"Yes, Gunpat Rao is from the Vindha Hills, within the life-time of one man. . . . Mitha Baba is as fast, but she won't do it; so there's an end. Gunpat Rao. . . . Gunpat Rao. The mahouts say young male elephants will follow a strange male for the chance of a fight. It's consistent enough. Yes, we'll call in Chakkra. . . . Are you ready to travel, sir?"
This was to Skag.
No array of terms could express how ready to travel was Sanford Hantee. The Bengali mahout, Chakkra, appeared; a sturdy little man with blue turban, red kummerband, and a scarf and tunic of white.
The Deputy flicked away his cigarette and now spoke fast—talk having to do with Nels, with the Hakima, with Gunpat Rao, who was his particular mahout's master, and of the strange elephant who had carried the two Sahibas away.
Chakkra reported at this point that he had seen this elephant in the market place, an old male—with a woman's howdah, covering too few of his wrinkles—and a mahout who would ruin the disposition of anything but a man-killer. Chakkra appeared to have an actual hatred toward this man, for he enquired of the Deputy:
"Have I your permission to deal with the mahout of this thief elephant?"
"Out of your own blood-lust—no. Out of necessity—yes."
A queer moment. It was as if one supposed only to crawl, had suddenly revealed wings. Not until this instant did Skag realise that a Chief Commissioner had the flower of England to pick his deputies from, and had made no mistake in this man. . . . A moment later, Nels had been given preliminary instruction, and Skag was lifted, with a playful flourish of the trunk, by Gunpat Rao himself, into the light hunting howdah. Chakkra was also in place, when the Deputy waved his hand with the remark:
"Oh, I say, I'd be glad of the chase, myself, but an official, you know, . . . and Lord, what a dog!"
The last was as Nels swung around in front of Gunpat Rao's trunk as if formally to remark: "You see we are to travel together to-day."
The Deputy detained them a second or two longer, while he brought his gun-case and a pair of pistols, to save the time of Skag procuring his own at the station. They heard him call, after the start:
"It might be a running fight, you know. . . ."
A little out, Nels was given the scent of the strange elephant and Deenah left them, with nothing to mitigate the evil discovery that Carlin and her friend had been carried straight through the open jungle country, toward the Vindhas; not at all in the direction the messenger had stated within hearing of the other servants.
A steady beat through Skag's tortured mind—was Deenah's story of the monster Kabuli; no softness nor mercy in those details. He had watched, in the Deputy, a man unfold, after the mysterious manner of the English. He had entered suddenly, abruptly into one of the most enthralling centres of fascination in Indian life—the elephant service. He had seen the exalted and complicated mechanism of a Chief Commissioner's Headquarters get down to individual business with remarkable speed and not the loss of an ounce of dignity. But under every feeling and thought—was the slow bass beat of Deenah's story about the monster Kabuli.
Nels had been called to the trail in the very hour of his arrival. Skag would have supposed their movement leisurely, except that he saw Nels steadily at work. Gunpat Rao, the most magnificent elephant in the Chief Commissioner's stockades—excepting Neela Deo and Mitha Baba—was making speed under him, at this moment. (Gunpat Rao had approved of him instantly, swinging him up into the howdah with a glad grace and a touch that would not unfreshen evening wear.)
Chakkra, the mahout, was singing the praises of Gunpat Rao, his master, as they rolled forward; flapping an ear to keep time and waving his ankas—the steel hook of which was never used.
"Kin to Neela Deo, is Gunpat Rao; liege-son to Neela Deo, the King!" he repeated.
It appeared that he was reminding Gunpat Rao, rather than informing theAmerican, of this honour.
"Did I not hear the Deputy Commissioner Sahib say that he came from theVindhas, and that Neela Deo is from High Himalaya?" Skag asked.
The mahout's face turned back; his trailing lids did not widen in the fierce sunlight. It was the face of a man still singing.
"The kinship is of honour, not of blood, Sahib," he answered.
Then Chakkra informed Skag that Kudrat Sharif, Neela Deo's mahout, was the third of his line to serve the Blue God, who was not yet nearly in the ictus of his power and beauty; while he, Chakkra, was the only mahout Gunpat Rao had known—since he came down from the Vindhian trap-stockades, where he was snared. He was about thirty years younger than Neela Deo, the King. Would the Sahib bear in mind that an elephant continues to increase in strength and wisdom for an hundred years? And now would he consider Gunpat Rao's size—the perfection of his shape? Might not such a Prince claim relationship to such a King?
. . . Chakkra then pointed out that when the grandson of his own little son should sit just here, behind the incomparable ears of his beloved—the ears with linings like flower-petals—so, looking out upon the world from a greater height than this—then doubtless people would have learned that another mighty elephant had come into the world.
Skag missed nothing of the talk. Another time it would have filled him with deep delight. It belonged to his own craft. A man might use all the words, of all the languages in all their flexibilities and never tell the whole truth of his own craft. In fact, a man can only drop a point here and there about his life work. One never comes to the end.
Also before his eyes was the joy of Nels in action—the big fellow leaping to his task, steadily drawing them on, it appeared; and always a breath of ease would blow across Skag's being as he noted the quickening; but when that was merely sustained for a while, the hope of it wore away, and he wanted more and more speed—past any giving of man or beast. . . . The old drum of the Kabuli tale constantly recurred, as if a trap door to the deeps were often lifted. Skag would brush his hand across his brow, shading his head with his helmet lifted apart for a moment, to let the sunless air circulate.
They passed through the open jungle merging into a country of low hills and frequent villages. The rains that had broken in Poona had not yet reached this country. . . . The sun went down and the afterglow changed the world. Carlin's afterglow, it was to Skag, from their moment at the edge of the jungle—on the evening of the troth; there was pain about it now. India had a different look to him—alien, sinister, of a depth of suffering undreamed of, because of the beating bass of the Kabuli tale, intensified by the sense that falling night would slacken the chase. . . .
Skag had lost the magic of externals, the drift of his great interest. All his lights were around Carlin, and powers of hatred, altogether foreign to his faculties, pressed upon him in the threat of the hour. . . . Yes, Chakkra remembered the five Kabuli men who had sat in the market-place. Yes, he remembered the story of the beating of the monster, the long slow healing after that; and his last look, as he left Hurda for the last time. . . .
It was well, Chakkra said, that they had open country for the chase. It was well that the Kabuli did not call to the Sahibas, and hide them in one of the great Mohammedan households of Hurda—where even Indian Government might not search. It was well that the Kabuli did not dare to come closer to Hurda than this, so that they had a chance to overtake his elephant afield, before the walls of thepurdahclosed. . . .
Such was the burden of Chakkra's ramble, and there was no balm in it for Skag. The weight settled heavier and heavier upon him with the ending of the day. Nels was a phantom of grey before them in the shadows, leisurely showing his powers. At times, while he ranged far ahead, they would not hear him for several minutes; then possibly a half-humorous sniff in the immediate dark, and they knew the big fellow waited for Gunpat Rao to catch up. Once he was lost ahead so long that Skag spoke:
"Nels—"
The answer was a bound of feet and a whine below that pulled the man's hand over the rim of the howdah, as if to reach and touch his good friend.
"Take it, Nels—good work, old man," Skag said.
They passed through zones of coolness as the trail sank into hollows between the hills, and Gunpat Rao rolled forward. Pitch and roll, pitch and roll—as many movements as a solar system and the painful illusion of slowness over all. Often in Skag's nostrils one of the subtlest of all scents made itself known, but most elusively—a suggestion of shocking power—like an instant's glimpse into another dimension. If you answer at all to an expression which at best only intimates—the smell of living dust—you will have something of the thing that Skag sensed in the emanation of Gunpat Rao, warming to action.
Occasionally as they crossed the streams there was delay in finding the trail on the other side. Once in the dark after a ford, when Nels had rushed along the left bank to find the scent, Gunpat Rao plunged straight on to the right without waiting; and the mahout sang his praises with low but fiery intensity:
"He is coming. He is coming into his own!"
"What do you mean, Chakkra? Make it clear to me who have not many words of Hindi—"
"The meaning of our journey appears to him, Sahib; from our minds, from the thief ahead and from the great dog,—the thing that we do is appearing to him. He knows the way—see—"
Nels had come in from the lateral and found that Gunpat Rao was right. An amazing point to Skag, this. The great head before him, with Chakkra's legs dangling behind the ears, had grasped something of the urge of their chase. A vast and mysterious mechanism was locked in the great grey skull. Actually Gunpat Rao seemed to laugh that he had shown the way to Nels.
"You don't mean, Chakkra, that he goes into the silence like a holy man?"
"It is like."
Skag had seen something of this in his India—the yogi men shutting their eyes and bowing their heads and seeming to sink their consciousness into themselves, in order to ascertain some factwithoutand afar off.
"Our lord gives his mind to the matter and the truth unfolds—" Chakkra added.
"Will the other elephant travel through the night so steadily?"
(The sense of his own powerlessness was in him like a spear.)
"Not like this, Sahib," said Chakkra.
The hint, however, was that the thief elephant would make all speed; that the lead of the four hours would be conserved as carefully as possible by the other mahout.
"But he has a woman's howdah," Chakkra invariably added. "Two Sahibas, as well as the mahout himself. . . . To-morrow will tell—hai, to-morrow will tell, if they go that far!"
That was always the point of the blackest fear—that the elephant ahead should come to some Mohammedan household, and leave Carlin where no one could pass the veil.
"But what of the messenger who brought word to the Sahibas?" Skag asked.
"He would slip away. Some hiding place for him—possibly back atHurda."
Chakkra seemed sure of this.
That was Skag's long night. He tried to think of the Kabuli as if he were an animal. A man might have a destroying enmity against a cobra or a tiger or a python; but it was not black and self-defiling like this thing which crept over him, out of the miasma of Deenah's tale.
In the dawn they reached a small river. Skag saw Nels lose his tread in the deepening centre, swing down with the current an instant and then strike his balance, swimming. Here was coolness and silence. To-night he would know. To-night, if he did not have Carlin—
. . . Gunpat Rao stood shoulder-deep in the stream. Skag fancied a gleam of deep massive humour under the tilt of the great ear below him, as the elephant, none too delicately, set his foot forward into the deeper part of the stream. His trunk and Chakkra's voice were raised together—for Chakkra was slipping:
"Hai, my Prince, would you go without me? Would you leave the Sahib alone in his proving-time? Would you leave my children fatherless? . . . There is none other—"
They stood in the lifting day overlooking a broad sloping country—theVindha peaks faintly outlined in the far distance.
"It is the broad valley of Nerbudda," Chakkra said, "full of milk and wine against the seasons. One good day of travel ahead to the bank of Holy Nerbudda, Sahib, before the fall of night—if the chase holds so long."
Skag did not eat this day. It was not until high noon that they halted by a spring of sweet water, and the American thought of his thirst. Nels was leaner. He plunged to the water; then back to the scent again with a far challenge call. (It was like the echo of his challenge to the cheetah as the wall of the waters loomed across the hills, above Poona.) On he went, seriously; his mouth open in the great heat, his tongue rocking on its centre like nothing else.
Gunpat Rao seemed gradually overcoming obstructions; as if his great idea mounted and cleared, his body requiring time to strike its rhythm. Chakkra sang to him. The sun became hotter and higher—until it hung at the very top of the universe and forgot nothing. There was a stillness in the hills that would frighten anything but a fever bird to silence. To Skag it was a weight against speech and he sat rigidly for many moments at a time—all his life of forest and city, of man and creature, passing before his tortured eyes. . . . And the words Carlin had spoken; all the mysteries of his nights near Poona when she had seemed to draw near as he fell asleep—seemed to be there as he came forth from a dream. Always he had thought he could never forget the dreams—only to find them gone utterly, before he stood upon his feet. Past all, was the marvel of the hunting cheetah day, when he looked at the beast that gave no answer to his force; only murder in its savage heart—and Carlin's name was his very breath in that peril, something of her spirit like a whisper from within his own heart.
All that afternoon Skag's eyes strained ahead, and his respect grew for the thief elephant with his greater burden, and his wonder increased for Nels and Gunpat Rao. One dim far peak held his eyes from time to time; but Skag lived in the low beat of India's misery—the fever and famine; the world of veils and the miseries beyond knowledge of the world. He sank and sank until he was chilled, even though the sweat of the day's fierce burning was upon him. He understood hate and death, the thirst to kill; the slow ruin that comes at first to the human mind, suddenly cut off from the one held more dear than life. It seemed all boyish dazzle that he had ever found loveliness in this place. That boyishness had passed. In this hour he saw only hatred ahead and mockery, if Carlin—. . . but the far dim peak of misty light held his aching eyes.
"Go on, Nels—on, old man," he would call.
And Chakkra would turn with protest that could not find words—his tongue silenced by the lean terrible face in the howdah behind him. Presently Chakkra would fall to talking to his master, muttering in a kind of thrall at the thing he saw in the countenance of the American who had touched bottom.
Sanford Hantee was facing the worst of the past and an impossible future, having neither hate nor pity, now. Yet from time to time with a glance at the gun-case at his feet, he spoke with cold clearness:
"We must overtake them before night."
Chakkra, who had ceased singing, would bow, saying:
"The trail is hot, Sahib. They are not far."
Steadily beneath them, Gunpat Rao straightened out, lengthening his roll, softening his pitch. Nels was not trotting now, but in a long low run. Skag was aghast at himself, that his heart did not go out to these magnificent servants. There was notfeelingwithin him to answer these verities of courage and endurance; yet he could remember the human that had been in his heart.
The low hills had broken away behind them; the first veil of twilight in the air. A shelving dip opened, showing the bottom of the valley. Skag could see nothing ahead—but Nels lying closer to the trail. Chakkra's shoulder was suddenly within reach of Skag's hand, for the head of his master was lifted.
As the great curve of Gunpat Rao's trumpet arched before his face—two things happened to Skag. A full blast of hot breath drove through him; and a keen high vibrant tone pierced every nerve. Then Chakkra shouted:
"Gunpat Rao, prince of Vindha—declares the chase is on! Hold fast,Sahib,—we go!"
The earth rose up and the heavens tipped. There was no foundation; the bulwarks of earth's crust had given away. The landscape was racing past—but backward—and Nels, yet ahead, was a still, whirring streak. The thing hardly believed and never seen in America—that the elephant is speed-king of the world—was revelation now! No pitch or roll; a long curving sweep this—seeming scarcely to touch the ground. This was the going Skag had called for—a night and a day. And Nels was labouring beside them now, but seeming to miss his tread—seeming to run on ice.
"Hai!" yelled Chakkra. "Who says there is none other than Neela Deo?"
A thread of silver stretched before them, crossing the line of their course. It broadened in a man's breath. They turned the curve of the last slope, and heard the shout of the mahout far ahead. The thief elephant was running along Nerbudda's margin to a ford.
A roar was about Skag's head and shoulders like a storm—Gunpat Rao trumpeting again! The landscape blurred. The forward beast was growing large . . . two standing figures above him—the fling of a white arm!
The huge red howdah rocked as the thief elephant entered the river; a moment more, only the howdah showing. Distantly like the hum of furious insects, Skag heard Chakkra's chant:
"The thief is snared! Holy Nerbudda herself weaved the snare. . . .The hand of destiny is ours, Sahib. Nay, mine, not thine! Did not theDeputy Commissioner Sahib sayby necessity? . . . Plunge in! . . .Hai, but softly. Prince of thy kind, take the water softly, I say—"
And Gunpat Rao entered the river at a swimming stroke. Skag's eyes had hardly turned from the great red howdah. There was a keen squeal from ahead, answered by a fiery hissing intake of Chakkra's breath:
"That, Sahib, is the murderous mahout using his steel hook. . . . Yes, it wasby necessity, the Deputy Sahib said. Certainly it wasby necessity!"
The fling of a white arm again. Sanford Hantee was standing.
"Carlin!" he called.
The answer came back to him in some mystery of imperishable vibration.
"I am here."
The two great beasts were moiled together against the stream. . . . The man and woman, whose eyes still held, might have missed the flash of steel that Chakkra parried with his ankas. In fact, it was the sound of a quick gasp of Margaret Annesley that made them turn, just as Chakkra shouted:
"By necessity, Sahib! . . . It is accomplished!"
The other's blade had whirled into the water. They had heard the welt as Chakkra's ankas came down. The strange mahout looked drunken and spineless for a second; then there was a red gush under his white cloth as he pitched into the stream.
The Great Dane had just caught up. He was in the river below them—not doubting his part had come.
"Nels, steady! Let him go!" Skag called. "Don't touch, old man!"
And then, after the thief elephant, having no fight in him, was made fast, they heard Chakkra singing his song, but paid no attention. . . .
It was a longer journey back to Hurda, for they came slowly, but there was no haste; and two, at least, in the hunting howdah could transcend passing time, each by the grace of the other. Gunpat Rao was returned to the Deputy Sahib with an amulet to add to his trophy-winnings; and a sentence or two that might have been taken from the record of Neela Deo himself. The thief elephant was found to be a runaway that had fallen into native hands. And Nels was restored to Bhanah by the way of the heart of Carlin Deal. . . .
They never found out how far the two women would have been taken beyond the Nerbudda. After they had first mounted into the red howdah at Hurda, the messenger of the Kabuli had disappeared into the crowd and was not seen again. . . . As for the monster himself, he had suffered enough to plan craftily. (The Nerbudda took his mahout and covered him quite as deeply as the crowd had covered his messenger at Hurda.)
Much in his silence afterward, and in the great still joy that had come to him, Sanford Hantee chose to reflect upon the mystery of pain he had known on the lonely out-journey—the spiritless incapacity to cope with life—the loss even of his mastercraft with animals. He would look toward Carlin in such moments and then look away, or possibly look within. By her, the meanings of all life were sharpened—jungle and jungle-beast, monster, saint and man—the breath of all life more keen.