Hand-of-a-God
Skag and Carlin had come back from Poona where five of Carlin's seven brothers had been present at her marriage. There were weeks in Hurda now, while Skag's equipment for jungle work arrived bit by bit. They lived some distance from the city and back from the great Highway-of-all-India, in Malcolm M'Cord's bungalow, a house to remember for several reasons.
The Indian jungles were showing Skag deep secrets about wild animals—knowledge beyond his hopes. Some things that he thought he knew in the old days as a circus-trainer were beginning to look curious and obsolete, but much still held good, even became more and more significant. The things he had known intuitively did not diminish. These had to do with mysterious talents of his own, and dated back to the moment he stood for the first time before one of the "big cat" cages at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. That was his initiation-day in a craft in which he had since gone very far as white men go—even into the endless fascination of the cobra-craft.
Skag was meeting now from time to time in his jungle work some of the big hunters of India, men whose lives were a-seethe with tales of adventure. When they talked, however, Skag slowly but surely grasped the fact that what they had was "outside stuff." They knew trails, defensive and fighting habits, species and calls; they knew a great collection of detached facts about animals but it was all like what one would see in a strange city—watching from outside its wall. There was a certain boundary of observation which they never passed. All that Skag cared to know was across, on the inner side of the wall.
As for the many little hunters, they were tame; only their bags were "wild." They never even approached the boundary. Skag reflected much on these affairs. It dawned on him at last, that when you go out with the idea of killing a creature, you may get its attitude toward death, but you won't learn about how it regards life.
The more you give, the more you get from any relation. This is not only common knowledge among school-teachers, but among stock-raisers and rose-growers. Almost every man has had experience with a real teacher, at least once in his life—possibly only a few weeks or even days, but a bit of real teaching—when something within opened and answered as never before. It was like an extension of consciousness. If you look back you'll find that you loved that teacher—at least, liked that one differently, very deep.
Skag wanted a great deal. He wanted more from the jungle doubtless than was ever formulated in a white man's mind before. He wanted to know what certain holy men know; men who dare to walk to and fro in the jungles without arms, apparently without fear. He wanted to know what the priests of Hanuman know about monkeys; and whatmahoutsof famous elephants like Neela Deo and Mithi Baba and Gunpat Rao of the Chief Commissioner's stockades, know about elephants.
At this point one reflection was irresistible. The priests of Hanuman gave all they had—care, patience, tenderness, even their lives, to the monkey people. There were no two ways about themahouts; they loved the elephants reverently; even regarding them as beings more exalted than men. As for the holy men—the sign manual of their order was love for all creatures. No, there was no getting away from the fact that you must give yourself to a thing if you want to know it. . . . Skag would come up breathless out of this contemplation—only to find it was the easiest thing he did—to love wild animals. . . .
Skag had reason to hold high his trust in animals. He had entered the big cat cages countless times and always had himself and the animals in hand. He had made good in the tiger pit-trap and certainly the loose tiger near the monkey glen didn't charge. All this might have established the idea that all animals were bound to answer his love for them.
But India was teaching him otherwise.
In the hills back of Poona he had met a murderer. That cat-scream at the last chilled him to the very centre of things. Cheetahs were malignant; no two ways about that. Skag hadn't failed. He never was better. There was no fear nor any lack of concentration in his work upon the cheetah beast. Any tiger he knew would have answered to his cool force, but the cheetah didn't.
It was the same with the big snake in the grass jungle. Skag had met fear there—something of monstrous proportion, more powerful than will, harder to deal with by a wide margin than any plain adjustment to death. It stayed with him. It was more formidable than pain. He had talked with Cadman about a peculiar inadequacy he felt in dealing with the snake—as if his force did not penetrate. Cadman knew too much to hoot at Skag's dilemma. The more a man knows, the more he can believe.
"It would be easier with a cobra than a constrictor," Cadman had said. "You'd have to strike just the right key, son. This is what I mean: The wireless instruments of the Swastika Line answer to one pitch; the ships of the Blue Toll to another. . . . But I've seen things done—yes, I've seen things done in this man's India. . . . I saw a man from one of the little brotherhoods of the Vindhas breathe a nest of cobras into repose; also I have seen other brothers pass through places where the deadly little karait is supposed to watch and wait and turn red-eyed."
The more Skag listened and learned and watched in India, the more he realised that if he knew all there was to know about the different orders of holy men, all the rest of knowledge would be included, even the lore of the jungle animals. He had come into his own considerable awe through what he had seen in the forest with the priests of Hanuman, but things-to-learn stretched away and away before him like range upon range of High Himalaya.
Malcolm M'Cord was the best rifle-shot in India. The natives called him Hand-of-a-God. As usual they meant a lot more than a mere decoration. M'Cord was one of the big master mechanics—especially serving Indian Government in engine building—a Scot nearing fifty now. For many years he had answered the cries of the natives for help against the destroyers of human life. Sometimes it was a mugger, sometimes a cobra, a cheetah, often a man-eating tiger that terrorised the countryside. There are many sizeable Indian villages where there is not a single rifle or short piece in the place; repeated instances where one pampered beast has taken his tolls of cattle and children of men, for several years.
The natives are slow to take life of any creature. They are suspicious toward anyone who does it thoughtlessly, or for pastime; but the Hindu also believes that one is within the equity of preservation in doing away with those ravagers that learn to hunt men.
In the early days M'Cord began to take the famous shoot trophies. Time came when this sort of thing was no longer a gamesome event, but a foregone conclusion. His rifle work was a revelation of genius—like the work of a prodigious young pianist or billiardist in the midst of mere natural excellence.
He had wearied of the game-bag end of shooting, even before his prowess in the tournaments became a bore. . . . So there was only the big philanthropy left. The silent steady Scot gave himself more and more to this work for the hunted villagers as the years went on. It sufficed. Many a man has stopped riding or walking for mere exercise, but joyously, and with much profit, taken it up again as a means to get somewhere.
It was Carlin who helped Skag to a deep understanding of her old friend, the Scot, and the famous bungalow in which he lived.
"It is 'papered' and carpeted and curtained with the skins of animals, but you would have to know what the taking of those skins has meant to the natives and how different it is from the usual hunter-man's house. The M'Cord bungalow is a book of man-eater tales—with leather leaves."
Carlin, who had been one of M'Cord's favourites since she was a child, saw the man with the magic of the native standpoint upon him. . . . With all its richness there was nothing of the effect of the taxidermist's shop about the place. Altogether the finest private set of gun-racks Skag had looked upon was in the dim front hall. Bhanah and Nels had a comfortable lodge to themselves, and there was a tiny summerhouse at the far end of the lawn that had been an ideal of Carlin's when she was small. The playhouse had but one door, which was turned modestly away from the great Highway. It was vined and partly sequestered in garden growths, its threshold to the west. The Scottish bachelor had turned this little house over to the child Carlin years ago, as eagerly as his entire establishment now. Yet the woman was no less partial to the playhouse than the child had been.
. . . They hardly saw the Scot. In fact it was only a moment in the station oval. Skag looked into a grey eye that seemed so steady as to have a life all its own and apart, in the midst of a weathered countenance both kindly and grim. . . . There was a tiny locked room on the south side of the bungalow, vividly sunlit—a room which in itself formed a cabinet for mounted cobras—eight or ten specimens with marvellous bodies and patchy-looking heads. . . . The place was heavily glazed, but not with windows that opened. Skag caught the hint before Carlin spoke—that the display might have a queer attraction for cobras that had not suffered the art of the taxidermist.
Skag turned to the girl as they stood together at the low heavy door, leading into the library. Something in her face held him utterly—something of wisdom, something of dread—if one could, imagine a fear founded on knowledge. . . . A brilliant mid-afternoon. Bhanah and Nels had gone to the stockades. Since the chase and rescue of Carlin, Nels and the young elephant Gunpat Rao were becoming friends—peculiar dignities and untellable reservations between them—but undoubtedly friends.
There was a kind of stillness in the place and hour, as they stood together, that made it seem they had never been alone before. Deep awe had come to Skag. As he looked now upon her beauty and health and courage, with eyes that saw another loveliness weaving all wonders together—he knew a kind of bewildered revolt that life was actually bounded by a mere few years; that it could be subject to change and chance. Thus he learned what has come to many a man in the first hours after bringing his great comrade home—that there must be some inner fold of romance to make straight the insistent torture at the thought of illness and accident and death itself—something somehow to enable a man to transcend all three-score and ten affairs and know that birth and death are mere hurdles for the runners of real romance.
. . . The sunlight brought out faint but marvellous gleamings from the serpents. It was as if every scale had been a jewel. . . . Skag looked closer. It wasn't bad mounting. It was really marvellous mounting. His eye ran from one to another. Every cobra's head had been shattered by a bullet. The broken tissues had been gathered together, pieced and sewn—the art of the workman not covering the dramatic effect entirely, yet smoothing the excess of the horror away.
". . . I've heard of cobras always, yet I never tire and never seem any nearer them," Carlin was saying. "I remember the wordcobrawhen I heard it the first time—almost the first memory. It never becomes familiar. They are mysterious. One can never tell the why or when aboutthem. One never gets beyond the fascination. The more you know the more you prepare for them in India. It's like this—any other room would have windows that open. . . . Cobras have much fidelity. We think of them as reptiles; and yet they are life-and-death-mates, like the best of tiger pairs. One who kills a cobra must kill two or look out—"
Carlin had strange lore about mated pairs; about moths and birds and other creatures (as well as men-things) finding each other and living and working together; about a tiger that had mourned for many seasons alone, after some sportsman had killed his female; about another rollicking young tiger pair that leaped an eight foot wall into a native yard in early evening, made their kill together of a plump young cow, and passed it up and over the wall between them.
"The cubs were hungry," Carlin had said.
Still they did not leave the door-way of the cobra room. Skag saw that something more was coming. Once more he was drawn to the mystery of the holy men by her tale:
". . . I was a little girl. It was here in Hurda. . . . I had strayed away into the open jungle, not toward our monkey glen, but farther south where the trees were scarce. . . . Of course I shouldn't have been alone—"
Skag was staring straight at one of the cobras. Carlin turned and placed her hand upon his sleeve. She knew that he was fighting that old dread that had come upon him on the day of the elephant pursuit—a dread well enough founded, grounded upon many tragedies—of the pitfalls and menaces and miasmas of old Mother India; the infinite variety, craft, swiftness and violence of her deaths. (White hands were certainly clinging to Skag.) One's vast careless attitudes to life are fearfully complicated when life means two and not the self alone.
"This isn't a horrible story—" she said.
He cleared his throat; then laughed.
"I'll get past all this," he muttered. "Go on, Carlin—"
"I heard a step behind," she said. "It was my uncle—the most wonderful of many uncles. I have not seen him since that day. He is a little older than my eldest brother—possibly thirty at that time—tall, dark, silent; a frowning man, but not to me. Even then he belonged to one of the little brotherhoods of the Vindhas—lesser, you know, in relation to the great brotherhoods of the Himalayas. In fact it is from the Vindha Hills that they move on when they are called—up the great way and beyond—"
Another of Carlin's themes—always the dream in her mind of climbing to the heights.
"We walked on together through one of the paths—some time I will show you. It was not like anyone else coming to find a child, or coming to take it back. A most memorable thing to a little one, this elaborate consideration from a great man. He did not suggest that I turn. He made himself over to my adventure."
She waited for Skag to see more of the picture from her mind than her words suggested:
"Ahead on the path—leisurely, like nothing else, a cobra reared, a king cobra, as great as any of these. He barred our way. There comes a penetrating cold from the first glance. It's like an icy lance to the centre of consciousness. Then I felt the man's presence beside me. My confidence was that which only a child can give. What the mind knows and fears has too much dominion afterward. . . . The appalling power and beauty of the cobra fascinated me. I have never quite forgotten. There was a lolling trailing grace about the lifted length, the head slightly inclined to us, the hood but partly spread—something winged in the undulation, a suggestion of that which we could not see, faintly like the whir of a humming bird's wings. That is it—an intimation of forces we had not senses to register—also colours and sounds! . . . My hand was lost in the great hand. My uncle did not turn back. He was speaking. There was that about his tones which you had to listen for—a low softness that you had to listen to get. Yes, it was to the cobra that he spoke.
". . . There was never a poem to me like those words, but they did not leave themselves in continuity. I could not say the sentences again. I seem to remember the vibration—some sense of the mysterious, kindred with all creatures—and a vast flung scroll of wisdom and poetry, as if the serpents had been a great and glorious people of blinding, incredible knowledges—never like us—but all the more marvellous for their difference! . . . And the cobra hung there, his eyes darkening under the gentleness of the voice—then reddening again like fanned embers. . . .
"Then I heard my uncle ask to be permitted to pass, saying that he brought no harm to the mother, undoubtedly near, nor to the baby cobras—only good-will; but that it was not well for a man and a little girl to be prevented from passing along a man-path. . . . It was only a moment more that the way was held from us. There was no rising at all, to fighting anger. A cobra doesn't, you know, until actual attack. In leisurely undulations, he turned and entered the deeper growths. A moment later my uncle pointed to the lifted head in the shadows. One had need to be magic-eyed to see. We went on a little way and walked back. It was not that we had to pass—but that we must not be obstructed." . . .
This was the India that astonished Skag more than all hunter tales, more than any hunter prowess; but there were always two sides. . . . The weeks were unlike any others he had ever known. The mystery deepened between him and Carlin. Almost the first he had heard of her was that she was "unattainable"—yettheyhad known each other at once. . . . Still Carlinwasunattainable; forever above and beyond. Such a woman is no sooner comprehended on one problem than she unfolds another; much of man's growth is from one to another of her mysteries. And always when he has passed one, he thinks all is known; and always as another looms, he realises how little he knows after all. . . .
A thousand times Skag recalled the words of the learned man who had spoken to Cadman and himself on their way to the grass jungle. "You will acknowledge love, but you will not know love until it is revealed by supreme danger. The way of your feet is in the ascending path. Hold fast to the purposes of your own heart and you will come into the heights."
Could Carlin be more to him than now? . . . Yes, she was more to-day than yesterday. It would always be so. Love is always love, but it is always different. . . . Sometimes he would stay away from the bungalow for several hours. He was of a nature that could not be pleased with himself when he gave way tumultuously to the thing he wanted—which was continually to be in Carlin's presence. His every step in the market-place, or in the bazaar, had its own twitch back toward Malcolm M'Cord's bungalow; his every thought encountering a pressure of weight to hurry home.
Carlin was full of deep joys of understanding. One did not have to finish sentences for her. She meant India—its hidden wisdom. She had the thing called education in great tiers and folds. Skag's education was of the kind that accumulates when a man does not know he is being educated. . . . Certainly Carlin was unattainable—this was an often recurring thought as he learned Hindi from her and something of Urdu; the usages of her world, its castes and cults.
Down in the unwalled city one mid-afternoon, he finished certain errands and started for the bungalow. Had he let himself go, his feet would have stormed along. He laughed at the joy of the thing; and he had only been away since tiffin. Yet there was tension too—the old mystery. A man cannot feel all still and calm and powerful, when there has suddenly descended upon him realisation of all that can possibly happen to take away one so much more important than one's own life as to make contrast absurd. Skag was looking ahead into stark days, when he would be called upon to take big journeys alone into the jungle for the service. It was very clear there might be many weeks of separation . . . and now it was only a matter of hours. He was nearing the little gate. . . .
These are affairs men seldom speak about—seldom write; yet his experience was one that a multitude of men have felt vaguely at least. There was a laugh about it, a sense of self-deprecation; but above all, Skag knew for the sake of the future that he must get himself better in hand against this incredible pull to the place where she was. It seemed quite enough to reach the compound or the grass plot and hear her step.
She was not at the gate. He halted. Malcolm M'Cord was expected home this day. He might have come. Surely he might give two such rare good friends a chance to have a chat together . . . in Malcolm's own house, too. Besides there was no better chance than now for a bit of moral calisthenics. Skag turned back. No one was very near to note that he was a bit pale. Still he was laughing. Even Nels, his Great Dane, would have thought him weird, he reflected. Had Bhanah been along, there could have been no possible explanation. . . . He was walking toward the city, but his eyes were called back again. Carlin had come to the gate. She held up her right arm full and straight—her signal always, such an impulse of joy in it.
He waved and made a broken sort of gesture toward Hurda, as if he had forgotten something. Minute by minute he fought them out after that—sixty of them, ninety of them, good measure, sixty seconds each, before he started at last to the bungalow again. The sun was low. The bazaars were but a little distance back, when he met Bhanah and Nels out for their evening exercise. . . . No, M'Cord-Sahib had not yet come. . . . Yes, all was quite well with the Hakima, Hantee-Sahiba, who was reading in the playhouse. . . .
Quite alone. Skag quickened, but repressed himself again. It was business for contemplation—the way Bhanah had spoken of Carlin as Hantee Sahiba, after her usual title. . . . He heard the birds. The great Highway was deserted; the noise of the city all behind. . . . If he had merely "acknowledged love" so far, as the learned man had said—what must be the nature of the emotion that would reveal the full secret to him? Always when his thoughts fled away like this, his steps seized the advantage and he would find himself in full stride like a man doing road-work for the ring.
She wasn't at the gate this time. Just now Skag felt the first coolness of evening, the shadow of the great trees. . . . She did not come to the gate. His hand touched its latch and still he had not heard her voice. On the lawn path—in that strange lovely wash of light—he stood, as the sun sank and the afterglow mounted. This was always Carlin's hour to him—the magic moment of the afterglow. In such an hour in the outer paths of the tree jungle, they had spoken life to life.
"Malcolm M'Cord—is that you, Malcolm?"
Her voice was from the playhouse. It was steady but startling. Something cold in it—very weary. Still he did not see her. The door was on the western side.
Skag answered.
"Oh—" came from Carlin.
There was an instant intense silence; then he heard:
"Go into the house. I thought it was Malcolm. . . . I'll join you.Don't come here—"
He turned obediently. He had the male's absurd sense of not belonging. . . . He might at least be silent and do as she said. A keener gust of reality then shot through him. His steps would not go on. She must have heard his change from the gravel to the grass, for she called:
"It's all right, go right in—"
"But, Carlin—"
"Don't come here, dear! It's—not for you to see now!"
He halted, an indescribable chill upon him. The low threshold was in sight, yet Carlin did not appear in the doorway. It was not more than sixty feet away, across the lawn. It may have been something that she had on. . . . A gold something. This came because of a fallen bit of gold-brown tapestry on the threshold. It had folds. Out of the cone of it, was a rising sheen like thin gold smoke. A fallen garment was the first thing that came to Skag's mind, keyed to the suggestion of some fabric which Carlin was to put on. The thing actually before his eyes had not dislodged for an instant, the thought-picture in his mind.
Right then Skag made a mistake. He had not taken ten running steps before he knew it, and halted. That which had been like rising gold smoke was a hooded head—lifting just now, dilating. Already he knew, almost fully, what the running had done. The thought of Carlin in the playhouse had over-balanced his own genius. He walked forward now, for the time not hearing Carlin's words from within. . . . The door was open; the windows were screened. The girl was held within by the coiled one on the stone. . . . She was imploring Skag to go back:
". . . to the house!" he heard at last. "Wait there—don't come! It is death to come to me!"
He could not see her.
"Where are you standing, Carlin?"
"Far back—by the sewing machine! . . . Will you not—will you not, for me?"
He spoke very coldly:
"While he watches me from the stone—you come forward slowly and shut the door!"
"That would anger him into flying at you—"
Quite as slowly, his next words:
"I do not think he is angry with me—"
Yet Skag was not in utter truth right there, even in his own knowledge. His voice did not carry conviction of truth. . . . The thing unsteadied his concentration. The fact that he had started to run and thus ruffled the cobra, was still upon him like shame. It reacted to divide his forces now, at least to make tardier his self-command. Back of everything—Carlin's danger. There was a quick turn of his eye for a weapon, even as he heard a deep tone from Carlin—something immortal in the resonance:
". . . You might save me . . . but, don't you see—I want you more!"
Alakriof Bhanah's leaned against the playhouse at the side towards the road.
The cobra had lifted himself erect upon his tail almost to the level of Skag's eyes, hood spread. Carlin talked to him—low tones—no words which she or Skag should know again. . . .
Thelakriwas of iron-wood from the North, thick as the man's wrist at the top. It pulled Skag's eye a second time. It meant the surrender of his faith in his own free-handed powers to reach for thelakri; it meant the fight to death. It meant he must disappear from the cobra's eye an instant behind the playhouse. . . . Carlin's tones were in the air. He could not live or breathe until the threshold was clear—no concentration but that. . . . Like the last outburst before a breaking heart, he heard:
"If you would only go—go, my dear!"
He had chosen—or the weakness for him. There was an instant—as his hand closed upon thelakri, the corner of the playhouse wall shutting him off from the cobra—an instant that was doom-long, age-long, long enough for him to picturein his own thoughtsthe king turning upon the threshold—entering, rising before Carlin! . . . The threshold was empty as he stepped back, but the cobra had not entered. Perturbed that the man had vanished, he had slid down into the path to look.
Skag breathed. "And now if you will shut the door, Carlin—"
A great cry from Carlin answered.
Thick and viperine, the thing looked, as it hurled forward. It was like the fling of a lash. Four feet away, Skag looked into the hooded head poised to strike, the eyes flaming into an altogether different dimension for battle.
The head played before him. The breadth of the hood alone held it at all in the range of the human eye—so swift was the lateral vibration, a sparring movement. The whole head seemed delicately veiled in a grey magnetic haze. Its background was Carlin—standing on the threshold.
"I won't fail—if you stay there!" he called.
It was like a wraith that answered—again the old mystery, as if the words came up from his own heart:
"I—shall—not—come—to—you—until—the—end!"
Skag was back in the indefinite past—all the dear hushed moments he had ever known massed in her voice.
"Stay there—not nearer—and I can't fail!"
He was saying it like a song—his eyes not leaving the narrow veiled head before him. It was like a brown sealed lily-bud of hardened enamel, brown yet iridescent—set off by two jewels of flaming rose. There was no haste. The king's mouth was not tight with strain. It was the look of one certain of victory, certain from a life that knew no failures—the look of one that had learned the hunt so well as to make it play. . . .
The brown bud vanished. Skag struck at the same time. Hislakritouched the hood. With all his strength, though with a loose whipping wrist, he had struck. Thelakrihad touched the hood, but there was no violence to the impact. . . . Carlin's love tones were in his heart. Skag laughed.
The head went out of sight. Skag struck again. It was as if hislakriwere caught in a swift hand and held for just the fraction of a second. No force to the man's blow. The cobra was no nearer; no show of haste. Skag's stick was a barrier of fury, yet twice the king struck between . . . twice and again. Skag felt a laming blow upon a muscle of his arm as from sharp knuckles.
And now they were fast at it. The man heard Carlin's cry but not the words:
"Stay there!" he sang in answer. "Not nearer—just there and I can't lose! . . . It isn't in the cards to lose, Carlin—"
Yet his mind knew he could not win. The cobra's head and hood recoiled with each blow. It took Skag's highest speed—as an outfielder takes a drive bare-handed, his hands giving with the ball. The head moved past all swiftness, even the speed greatest swordsmen know. It was like something that laughed. Before the whirringlakri, the cobra head played like a flung veil between and through and around.
. . . So, for many seconds. The grey magnetic haze was a dirty brown now. The man was seeing through blood. He could not make a blow tell. He could not see Carlin. . . . She was not talking to him. . . . She was calling upon some strange name. . . . His arm was numbed again—like a blow from a leaden sling. There was a suffocating knot in his throat and the smell of blood in his head . . . that old smell of blood he had known when his father whipped him long ago. . . .
He tried to chop straight down to break in upon the king's rhythm. It answered quicker than his thought. . . . Yes, it was Malcolm M'Cord, she was calling. . . . He saw her like a ghost now. She was utterly tall—her arms raised! . . . Then he heard a rifle crack—then a breath of moisture upon his face—the sealed bud smashed before him—the rest whipping the ground.
Skag went to Carlin who had fallen, but he was pulled off abruptly.
"I say, Lad, let me have a look at you. . . . The child's right enough. Let her rest—"
The grim face was before him, two steady hands at work on him, pulling back his collar, taking one of Skag's hands after another—looking even between the fingers, feeling his thighs.
"I can't find that he cut you, Lad," he said gently.
Skag pushed him away. Carlin was moaning.
"I'm thinking your lad's sound, deerie," M'Cord called to her. "A minute more, to be sure." . . .
He kept a trailing hold of Skag's wrist, staring a last minute in his eyes.
No break anywhere in the younger man's flesh.
The afterglow was thickening. A servant came down the path to call them to dinner. The servant had never seen such a spectacle—the Hakima sitting with Hand-of-a-God and Son-of-Power, together—on the lawn already wet with dew—their knees almost touching. . . .
"The like's not been known before, Lad—even of a man with a sword," Malcolm M'Cord was saying. "You must have stood up to him two minutes. No swordsman has done as much. . . . And it was only alakriyou had—and a swordsman's blade goes soft and flat against a cobra's scales! . . . You see, they take wings when the fighting rage flows into them. It's like wings, sir. . . . Yes, you'll have a lame arm where the hood grazed. It couldn't have been the drive of the head or he would have bitten through—"
Even Skag, as he glanced into Carlin's face from time to time, forgot that Hand-of-a-God had done it again—one more king cobra with a patched |head and a life and death story to be added to the sunny cabinet in the bungalow. . . . Carlin rose to lead them to dinner at last, but Malcolm shook his head.
"On you go, you two. I'll sit out a bit in the lamplight, just here by the playhouse door. . . . She'll be looking for him soon. . . . She won't be far. She won't be long coming—to look for him. . . . She'd find him and then set out to look for you, Lad."
The lights of the bungalow windows were like vague cloths upon the lawn. . . . Carlin and Skag hadn't thought of dinner. They were in the shadow of the deep verandah. Once Carlin whispered:
"I loved the way he said 'Lad' to you."
It was hours afterwards that the shot was heard. . . . Carlin was closer. He felt her shivering. He could not be sure of the words, yet the spirit of them never left his heart:
"If I were she—and I had found you so—upon the lawn—I should wantHand-of-a-God to wait for me—like that!"
Elephant Concerns
"Only the altogether ignorant do not know that the women of my line have been chaste."
It was the youngest mahout of the Chief Commissioner's elephant stockades of Hurda, who spoke.
They sat in comfort under the feathery branches of tall tamarisk trees, smoking their water-pipes, after the sunset meal. It was the time for talk.
"A good beginning," said a very old man near by, "it being wise, in case of doubt, to stop the mouth of—who might speak afterward."
"And the men of my line," proceeded the youngest mahout, without embarrassment, "have been illustrious—save those who are forgotten. They all have been of High Himalaya; yet I am the least among you. I render homage of Hill blood, hot and full, to every one of you—my elders—because you are all mahouts of High Himalaya, even as my fathers were."
The men of the stockades bowed their heads in grave acknowledgment.
"Then by what curse of what gods falls this calamity," the boy went on, "that we of the Chief Commissioner's stockades are forced to receive a mahout from the Vindha Hills; and an unreputed elephant—from the hills without repute?"
"Softly, young one, softly!" a mahout in his full prime made swift answer. "Truly it is well the young are not permitted to use that untamed strength in speech, which is best governed by the waste of sinew!"
The youngest mahout bent his head in humility and said with soft reverence:
"Will he who is most wise among us, enlighten the darkness of him who is most foolish?"
"It is that elephants of great repute have come from the Vindha Hills; and mahouts of great learning. Also, there is a luminous tradition that the most exalted creatures of their kind—those who travelled far from the high lands of Persia long ago—chose place for their future generations in the Vindha Hills; and not in High Himalaya."
This man who had first rebuked sternly and afterward explained with extreme gentleness, was Kudrat Sharif, the mahout of Neela Deo—mighty leader of their caravan. He was malik—which is to say, governing mahout—over them all; and best qualified among them. Therefore a clamour rose for more. The youngest mahout went from his place and sat near, as Kudrat Sharif continued:
"The black elephants are all but gone. Not more than one in a generation of men is seen any more. They are seldom toiled into the trap-stockades, in which the less wary are taken. The natures of those who have been snared are strange to us of the High Hills. They sometimes destroy men in their anger; they sometimes destroy themselves in their grief."
"What is the heart of this knowledge?" asked a man who had not spoken before.
"That these stockades are distinguished by Government," Kudrat Sharif replied. "The elephant who is to reach us this evening, is a black elephant—descended from the lines of ancient Persia."
A chorus of exclamations swept the circle, before the gurgle of hookahs took the moment, as the mahouts gave themselves to meditation and water-winnowed smoke.
Then the trumpet tones of an elephant were heard from far out in the gathering gloom.
"May Vishnu, the great Preserver, save us from a killer!"
The man who said these words was not less than magical in his power to control the unruly; but he never took credit to himself. "That is the voice of a fighter—smooth as curds of cream—and it reaches from far out; very far out."
The challenge-call sounded again; and the big males of the stockade answered without hesitation.
These mahouts had trained ears; and they listened—computing the stranger's rate of speed. The fullness of tone increased; and presently one said:
"He comes fast."
But they were not prepared to see the elephant that rolled into the glare of their torches out of the night.
He came to pause in the centre of the exercise arena—a vast sanded disk just front of the stockade buildings—and stood rocking his huge body, tamping the ground with his feet as if still travelling. The mahout on his neck spoke to him patiently:
"Now will my master use his intelligence to understand that we have arrived?"
Then turning to the men on the ground, the strange mahout said wistfully:
"Look on me with compassion, oh men of honour and of fame! I have heard of you, but you have not heard of me."
"We have heard of you, that you are the making of a master-mahout, in due time," answered Kudrat Sharif.
"Then the gods who preserved my fathers to old age, have not forgotten that I learned patience in my extreme youth," sighed the man.
Seeing that the elephant was not quieting, Kudrat Sharif spoke now in pacifying tones—to the mahout:
"Come down among us who are your brothers; we have prepared all things for your refreshment."
"I will come down with a full heart and an empty stomach, most beneficent, when this Majesty will permit," the strange mahout assented wearily.
"Is he rough, son—to sit?" asked the very old man, coming closer.
The elephant shied a step and his mahout cuddled one ear with his fingers, as he replied:
"He is the smoothest thing that ever moved upon the surface of the earth—like a wind driven by fiends. But he never stops."
The elephant was rolling more widely if anything, than at first; so the mahouts stood back a little and considered him.
His blackness was like very old bronze, with certain metallic gleams in it—like time-veiled copper and brass. His flawless frame was covered with tight-banded muscle. There was no appearance of fat. His skin was smooth—without wrinkles. He was young; about forty years, or less. But there was the nick of a tusk-stroke in one ear; and a small red devil in his eye.
Without warning, he flicked his mahout off his neck and set him precisely on the ground—the movement so quick no eye could follow his trunk as it did it.
The youngest mahout brought a sheaf of tender branches—such as are most desirable—and laid them near, but not too near; and when the elephant began to eat, they removed the burden of his mahout's possessions from his back.
Then the man received their ministrations—keeping an eye on the elephant. When he was ready to smoke, he began slowly:
"Ram Yaksahn is my name; and my ancestors—from the first far breath of tradition—have been servants of the elephant people. We were of High Himalaya till the man who was the man before my father. Since then we serve in the Vindha Hills. My twin brother was called with his master, to the teak jungles of the South; but I have been with the trap-stockades till now, when they send me down to these plains with the catch of all seasons."
"It is a good hearing," said the very old man, as they all bent their heads; and the youngest mahout carefully arranged some specially good tobacco in Ram Yaksahn's hookah.
"Now what is his record?" one asked.
"First, there is a record," Ram Yaksahn replied, "which may be his or another's. It is your right to know.
"Four monsoons before this elephant was trapped, the body of a forest reserve officer was found on a mountain slope. The head was broken; and the ribs. Rains had washed away all earth-marks, but small trees had been uprooted near that place; therefore the thing had been done by an elephant. Close by, a dead dog lay; entirely battered—and a split stick. Burial was given to that man with few words. He was not mourned. May the gods render to him his due!"
The mahouts assented, as Ram Yaksahn smoked a moment.
"Be patient with me, most honourable," he went on, in strained tones. "I come to you serving a strange master. The record I tell now, is truly your right to know."
"Have no fear; we serve with you!" Kudrat Sharif reassured him.
"Some months after this elephant was trapped," he continued, "they had him picketed in the working grounds—to learn the voices of men. It was there, in the midst of us all, that he killed his first mahout. No man could prevent.
"That mahout was a violent man. He had just struck his own child an unlawful blow. She lay on the ground as the dead lie. Then it was that this elephant moved before any man could move. We heard his picket stakes come up, but we did not see them come up. No man could prevent.
"He gathered the child's dead body in his trunk and swung it back and forth—back and forth. It hung like a cloth. Slowly he came nearer to his mahout, while he swung the body of the child. When he was close, he laid the body between his own front feet. The violent man stood watching like one in a dream.
"Then this elephant who is now my master, caught the man who stood watching—as you saw him take me down, swiftly—and swung him, but in a circle. The man struck the ground on his head and it was broken; also his ribs."
Low murmurs of appreciation swelled among the listening mahouts. RamYaksahn bent his head.
"It was determined," he said with satisfaction, "by wise men of authority who rule such matters at the trap-stockades, that this elephant had done just judgment; because the man had done murder.
"But we could not come close to this elephant—to link with his leg-chains—for his threatening eye. That night and the next day, he kept the body between his feet—the body of the little child he kept—save when he swung it. No man could prevent.
"Then he left it" (Ram Yaksahn's voice suddenly went husky), "and came to me—and put me on his neck. For this reason I am his to him; and he is mine to me!"
"Well done, well done!" the mellow voice of Kudrat Sharif spoke softly; and the mahouts of the Chief Commissioner's stockades assented.
"There is yet one thing," Ram Yaksahn resumed, "and I should cover my face to tell it. But if you learn that I am a fool of fools, consider my foolishness. His blackness is strange; his strength is mighty—it took four to handle him, not two, in the beginning—and his quickness is more quick than a man can think. Also, he has a red devil in his eye.
"When my name was spoken after his name and my duty rendered me to serve him, I found he was indeed my master. We consider the creatures of his kind are exalted above men; but I thought him a son of darkness, come up out of the pit. In my fool heart I did; and I do not know yet.
"At the time when he was trapped, I was in High Himalaya finding a fair woman of lineage as good as my own—as my fathers have done. So when this last thing happened, not many weeks ago, a son of mine lay on his mother's breast. She came out with the child and sat near me. She was teaching me that my son laughed. I saw only her; and knew only that her babe was strong.
"I forgot that this elephant browsed close by, having long picket chains to reach the tender branches. He came toward where we sat and stood looking at us; and I called on her to behold the red devil in his eye. But I looked—not into his eye; and I did not see him upon us—till he lifted my son from her breast. I saw the little body swing up, far above my head—the so very little body—and I heard her cry in the same breath."
Ram Yaksahn laid his forehead against his fists and softly beat his head. Looking up with drawn features, he went on:
"My face was in the grasses when I heard her laugh. Then I saw the babe—not longer than a man's arm—slowly swinging in my master's trunk, back and forth—back and forth. The little one was making noises of content—such as babes use—when my master laid him very gently between his own front feet. The child spread his hands, reaching up for the curling tip above his face.
"Now it has been said that I am not lacking in courage; but in that hour I was without sense to know courage or fear. The fingers of cold death felt along my veins and searched out the marrow of my bones; for when I leaped to take the babe—I met the red threat in my master's eye. But the mother of my son went like a blown leaf and stooped between this elephant's feet, to lift up her first man-child.
"She came away with him safe; and this elephant swayed before us, at the end of his picket chains, stretching his quivering trumpet-tip toward the babe—with flaming fires in his eyes.
"The daughter of High Himalayan mahouts called this black majesty 'Nut Kut'; and they have added that name on the Government books. But they will not take his first name away. I have finished."
And Ram Yaksahn gave himself to his hookah—still keeping his eye onNut Kut.
"His first name has not been told," mildly reminded the very old man.
"His first name is Nut Kut!" said Ram Yaksahn with decision. "But his last name is Pyar-awaz."
All the mahouts laughed; translating the double name in their own minds—-Mischief, the Voice-of-Love.
"We have no violent men in these stockades," said Kudrat Sharif, speaking to them all. "And we do not find that Ram Yaksahn was lacking in courage. We will prove the nature of Nut Kut with kindness."
His decision was conclusive; and they proceeded to encourage the mighty black into his own enclosure.
This was the coming of Nut Kut to the Chief Commissioner's elephant stockades at Hurda. As time went by, the attraction of his mysterious nature inflamed the mahouts with interest; and also with concern—for he was a fearsome fighter.
Carlin had gone to a sick sister-in-law for a few days; and as soon as he heard of it, Dickson Sahib had driven to the M'Cord bungalow—realising that without her it would be desolate to his young American friend. Protesting that he needed someone to come and break his own loneliness, he carried Skag home.
So just now Skag was smoking his after-tiffin cigarette in the verandah of Dickson Sahib's big bungalow. The great Highway-of-all-India, with its triple avenue, its monarch trees, swept past the front of the grounds. Several times from here, he had seen a big elephant go joyously rolling by. He could tell it was joyous; and the man on its neck was usually singing.
The very smell of elephants had always stirred Skag—like all clean good earth-smells in one. When he was animal trainer in the circus, the elephants had not been his special charge; but he had seen a good deal of them. They looked to him like convicts; or manikins—moving to the pull of the hour-string. They were incessantly being loaded, unloaded, made to march; cooped in small, stuffy places—chained.
He wanted to see elephants—herds of them! He wanted to see them in multitudes, working for men in their own way; using their own intelligence. He wanted to see them in their own jungles—living their own lives.
Sooner or later he meant to see them, all ways. He had come to India, the land of elephants, partly for that reason; but in the Mahadeo mountains he had found none—nor in the great Grass Jungle. Yet he had learned that when he wanted anything—way back in the inside of himself—he was due to get it. To-day this thing was gnawing more than ever before; he wanted elephants—hard.
Dickson Sahib came out on his way back to the offices and stopped to finish their tiffin conversation:
"I'm glad you're interested in young Horace; you're going to be no end good for him, I can see that. You'll find him far too mature for his years. His brain's too active; but he's not abnormal. His tutors call him insatiable; but from his babyhood the breath of his life has been elephants. He's taken a lot from the learned natives; they talk with him as if he were quite grown—half of it I couldn't follow myself."
"That is extraordinary to me," said Skag.
"Of course it is. But there's been nothing else for it. My own days are quite tied up, and his mother—the climate, you know. So you see what I mean, he's really needing—just you."
Dickson's eyes turned on a little fellow who stood alone, further down the verandah. Then his face shadowed, as he spoke in a lower tone:
"I said he's not abnormal—that should be qualified. Several years ago he was carried home from the Chief Commissioner's elephant stockades by their governing mahout, Kudrat Sharif. The servants said he was crying and fighting to go back; but otherwise seemed quite himself. When I came from the offices in the evening, however, he was in a fever; raving about Nut Kut—raving about Nut Kut for days—always wanting to go back to Nut Kut.
"I went after the governing mahout and he said the child had played too hard; and that was why they brought him home. Kudrat Sharif is a graceful man, with much dignity; but I always felt he held something in reservation."
"What about Nut Kut?" Skag asked.
"Nut Kut is a great black elephant, trapped in the Vindha Hills only a few years ago. He's young and I've heard he's a dangerous fighter. My son likes him; but I can't get over believing he's responsible for the high nerve tension the boy always carries. But don't let Horace annoy you." Dickson Sahib finished hurriedly. "You're his first love, you know!"
Any man knows the kind of thrill when he's told that a boy has fallen in love with him; but the lad's interest in elephants—reminding Skag of his own—made him specially worth considering. The little figure suggested dynamic power rather than physical strength. The hair was dull brown, with an overcast of pale flame on it; the skin too white. But the eyes held Skag. They were pure grey, full of smouldering shadows and high lights—forever contending with each other. At this moment the boy was leaning his head toward the road, listening.
"She's petulant to-day, the lady!" he chuckled. "Wait till you seeMitha Baba, Skag Sahib."
Down through the great trees a handsome female elephant approached, careering at a curious choppy gait. With her trunk well up, she was trumpeting every third step.
"What's the matter with her?" Skag asked.
"She's abused, Skag Sahib." The boy became a bit embarrassed; hesitating, before he went on: "The Hakima used to speak to her whenever she passed Miss Annesley's bungalow; and now—she's not there to do it."
Horace waved his hand to Mitha Baba's mahout; and the mahout shouted something in a dialect Skag did not know.
"He's awfully proud of Mitha Baba; and it's true, Skag Sahib, there isn't anything in grey beyond her; but—" Horace stopped, suddenly gone wistful.
"What's the trouble?" Skag asked, startled.
"They won't let me near him—they won't let me! I want him more than anything I know—"
"Then you'll get him!" interrupted Skag.
It must have been the sureness in Skag's voice, that made some choking tightness way back in the boy's soul let go; whole vistas of possibilities opened up.
"We're going to get on, you know—I'm sure of it!" he said breathlessly. "If only I were old enough to be your friend!"
Skag remembered the father's words.
"I've never had a friend younger than myself," he answered, "and there are only a few years difference—why not?"
Their hands met as men. And it was still early in the afternoon.
Horace went into the house and spoke with a servant. Coming out, he took a long minute to get some excitement well in hand before speaking:
"I've arranged for one thing to show you, already! My boy will be back from the bazaar soon, to let me know whether the time will be to-day or to-morrow. It's a surprise—if you don't mind, Skag Sahib."
"All right, then what is the most interesting thing you know about?"Skag asked.
"Elephants. No question."
"Have you many here in Hurda?"
"Not any belonging to Hurda; but our Chief Commissioner has forty Government elephants in his stockades—the finest ever. Neela Deo, the Blue God—who is the leader of the caravan—the mahouts say there isn't an elephant in the world to touch him; and Mitha Baba and Gunpat Rao—they're famous in all India. And Nut Kut; indeed, Skag Sahib, you should see Nut Kut. They don't allow strangers about where he is; he's the one—the mahouts won't let me go near him."
"What's wrong with him?" Skag asked.
"I don't know; I'm always wondering. In the beginning—when I was little—but I don't believe it was—wrong."
The boy spoke haltingly, frowning; but went on:
"That's between Nut Kut and—Horace Dickson! I like him better than anything I know. The mahouts have tried every way to discourage me—yes, they have!"
"What does he do?" Skag questioned.
"You know Government doesnotpermit elephant fighting," the boy began solemnly, "but—Nut Kut doesn't know it! His pet scheme is to break away out of his own stockades, if there are any elephants across the river—that's where the regiments camp—and get in among the military elephants. He's a frightful fighter."
"How do they handle him?" Skag asked.
"It takes more than two of their best males to do it—big trained fellows, you understand. Even then, usually, one of the great females comes with her chain—the kind they call 'mother-things'—she handles it with her trunk. Just one little flick across his ears and any fighter will be willing to stop—even Nut Kut. But it's to see, Skag Sahib; never twice the same—it can't be told."
A servant came in from the highway, salaaming before Horace and reporting that thetamashawould occur at the usual time this afternoon—afternoon; not evening.
"Then we'll have tea, at once!" Horace interrupted him. "Quick! tell the butler."
After tea they walked along the great Highway-of-all-India, by the edge of the native town and over the low stone bridge. Beyond the river, they passed acres of tenting. A glamour of dust lay in the slanting sun-rays. An intense earth-smell penetrated Skag's senses. A feel of excitement was in the air.
"Where are the elephants?" Skag asked.
"How do you know it's elephants?" the boy countered.
"Several ways; but last of all, I smell 'em."
"It is elephants—much elephants. You are to see them in one of their big works in the Indian elephant-military department."
This announcement of the programme instantly made Skag forget that he had come out with a lad in need of healthy comradeship.
"What work?" he asked.
"This is elephant concerns, Skag Sahib," the boy replied; "they work with men and they work for men, but no one knows what they think about the man-end of it; because they are always and always doing things men never expect. They do funny things and strange things and wonderful things. It's the inside working of an elephant regiment, that makes it so different from anything else.
"It's all tied up with men on the outside; but you mustn't notice the outside. Inside is what I mean—the elephant concerns. No one knows what it will be to-day."
"Have you forgotten Nut Kut?" smiled Skag.
"Not ever!" the boy answered quickly, "but even if he doesn't come—they almost always do something interesting. That's why we never call them animals or beasts, but sometimes creatures—because they have a kind of intelligence we have not. And that's why wealwaysspeak of them as persons."
"I like that," Skag put in.
"From end to end of India," the boy went on, "down Bombay side and up Calcutta side, regiments of elephants go with regiments of men—in the never-ending fatigue marching that keeps them all fit.
"The tenting and commissariat-stuff is carried by the elephants, straight from camp to camp, safe and sure and in proper time—always. That's the point, you understand, Skag Sahib—they never run away with it, or lose it, or go aside into the jungle to eat. You're going to see one regiment start out to-day.
"The man-regiment will go another road—a little longer, but not so rough. The elephant regiment will go by themselves, just one mahout on each neck—like you would carry a mouse. Really, they go on their own honour; because men have no power to control them—only with their voices. You know Government doesn't permit elephants to be shot, for anything—only in case one is court-martialled and sentenced to die."
"Don't the mahouts ever punish them?" Skag asked.
"They're not allowed to torture them—never mind what! And men can't punish elephants any other way—they're not big enough."
Then a voice rolled out of the dust-glamour before them. In quality and reach and power, it reminded Skag of a marvel voice that used to call newspapers in the big railway station in Chicago.
"Whose voice?" he asked Horace.
"That's the master-mahout. He calls the elephants; you'll see. He's the only kind of mahout who ever gets pay for himself."
"How's that?"
"It's what makes the elephant-military a proper department. Only elephant names on the books; the pay goes to them. The mahout is always an elephant's servant; he eats from his master, of course. From the outside it saves a lot of trouble, to be sure."
Skag laughed. From the elephant standpoint, a small Englishman was conceding a certain amount of convenience to men.
"You see," the boy went on, "an elephant lives anyway more than a hundred years; and his name stays just like that and draws pay without changing. Always a mahout's son takes his place, when he gets too old or dies. I can recall when Mitha Baba's mahout was one of the most wonderful of them all. Now he has gone old, as they say; and his son is on her neck."
There was a moment when Skag would have given his soul—almost—if he might have grown up in India, as this child was growing up; in the heart of her ancient knowledges—in the breath of her mystic power. Then a great plain opened before them. It appeared at first glance, completely full of elephants.
. . . The glamour of sun-drenched dust hung over all.
Looking more closely, Skag saw nothing but elephant ranks toward the right, and nothing but elephant ranks toward the left; but in the centre, a large area was covered with separate piles of dunnage, evenly distributed.
From where he stood toward where the sun would set—a broad division stretched; and in the middle of this division, a single line of loaded elephants filed away and away to the horizon.
. . . Skag became oblivious. He was so thralled with the sight that he did not notice what was nearer. The whole panorama held his breath till right before him a great creature rose from sitting—without a sound. There was a dignity about its movement not less than majestic. It was a mighty load; but the huge shape slid away as smooth as flowing water—as easy as a drifting cloud.
A deep voice said quietly:
"Peace, master; go thy way. Peace, son."
"Did he speak to both of them?" Skag asked of Horace.
"Yes; the first part was to the elephant and the last part was to the mahout. This mahout must be one of the great ones, else the master-mahout would not have spoken to him. But he will always speak to the elephants—something."
A strange name filled the air, rolling up and away. It was followed by a courteous request, in softer tones; and Skag watched another big elephant approach from the unpicketed lines. It came to where the master-mahout stood, close to a pile of tenting, wheeled to face the way it should go presently, and sank down to be loaded.
Men did the lifting into place and the lashing on. There was detail in the process, to which the elephant adjusted his body as intelligently as they adjusted theirs. When they required to reach under with the broad canvas bands, he rose a little without being told. Indeed they seldom spoke even to each other; and then in undertones. The elephant's mahout sat in his place on the neck, as if he were a part of the neck itself.
The smoothness, the ease of it all, amazed Skag. That every good night, spoken to every separate elephant, was different—peculiar to itself—was no less astounding. It was never as if addressed to an animal, or even to a child; but always as if to a mature and understanding intelligence. As when the master-mahout said to one female:
"Fortune to thee, great Lady. May the gods guard that foot. And have a care in going down the khuds—it is that mercy should be shown us, thy friends."
And again to a young male, whose movements were very self-conscious:
"Remember there is to be no tamasha to-night, thou son of destiny. It is not yet in thy head—to determine when shall be tamasha. Fifty years hence, and when wisdom shall be come to thee, thou heir of ancient learning, then we shall have tamasha at thy bidding."
. . . A monster female came at the call of her name, with a long heavy chain—one end securely attached to her. The other end she handled with her trunk. Advancing to within a few feet of the master-mahout, she stood facing him, teetering her whole body from side to side, swinging her chain as she rolled.
Horace flashed away and ran in among the massed elephants and mahouts.Coming back to Skag, he said breathlessly:
"A mahout says the other one went before we came! That means, if Nut Kut comes—there'll be no one to manage him. You remember, Skag Sahib, I told you about the 'mother-thing'—if anyone starts a fight, she breaks it up with her chain; better than any two or three fighting males. Two tuskers just wake Nut Kut up!"
Then he stood staring at the female with her chain—getting red in the face as he spoke:
"Oh, I say! She doesn't want to be loaded; and she knows! Why, they know she knows! . . . Master-mahout!" he called in brave tones that trembled, "I am Dickson Sahib's son—of the grain-foods department—"
"We know you, Sahib, salaam!" interrupted the master-mahout, with a smile.
"Is it not the unwritten-law that the great 'mother-thing' shall be obeyed?" the boy quavered.
"It is the unwritten-law, Sahib; and we will not impose our will on her. It is this, there is no sign of what she means; the masters are all quiet to-day—there is no warning oftamasha."
The master-mahout spoke with grave consideration; but just as he finished, the "mother-thing" wheeled into place and went down to take her load.
"Cheer up, son, I guess it's all right," comforted Skag.
"It's all right—if Nut Kut doesn't come," said the boy, whimsically.
"So 'tamasha' sometimes means trouble?" queried Skag, remembering the tamer definition he had learned.
"It means anything anybody considers entertaining!" answered Horace. "By preference—an elephant fight! Remember, Government doesn't allow 'em; but sometimes they just happen anyway."
Then an elephant failed to answer. Several mahouts left their places and went to one spot; and Skag saw the one who had been called. He was sitting low against the ground, slowly rocking his head from side to side. A mahout was examining his ears—folding them back and feeling of them—laying his cheek against the inside surface.
"Is he sick?" Skag asked.
But the boy's eyes were wide upon the broad avenue before them, where the loaded elephants went marching away. Then he burst out, in choking excitement:
"Look, Skag Sahib! See that loaded elephant coming back from the line? I think you are going to see one of the most wonderful things that ever happened. They say it has been done; but I've never seen it—I've never seen it myself."
Skag saw a powerful elephant coming back alongside the loaded line. He did not move with the same smooth flowing motion as the others. He walked as if he were coming on important business. With a load on his back, he returned and sank down beside the pile of tenting intended for another elephant.
"What's the meaning of it?" Skag asked.
Little Horace Dickson answered in a hushed way—as one in the presence of a miracle:
"It is one of the regulars, come back to take a part of what belongs to the sick elephant."
Skag looked at the boy's face, in incredulous amazement. It was lit—awe and exaltation were both there. Then he noticed the look of the master-mahout—that was a revelation.