"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. Ram
Yaksahn 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 on
Nut 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 see
Mitha 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 does not permit 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 the tamasha would 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 we always speak 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 of tamasha.
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.
. . . They were putting half as much again on top of the already loaded elephant.
. . . Certain phrases went through Skag's brain, as he watched the thing done—over and over. No one had called this elephant back. He came before they knew themselves that an elephant was sick. When the mahouts first went to examine the sick one—this one was already on the way. How did he know?
The extra loaded elephant rose and started again. Then a great shout went up. Tones of many voices filled the slanting sun-rays in all the glamour of dust. The wonderful voice of the master-mahout loomed above all:
Wisdom and excellence are thy parts, oh Thou! Justice and kindness—we who are poor in them—will learn of thee! Thou son of strength, thou child of ancient knowledges and worth!
And the mahouts shouted again!
At that moment Skag knew as well as he knew anything in life, that he stood somewhere in the outer courts of a great animal-cult; and he was convinced that it was of a mystic nature—however that could be. He swore in his heart that he would never give up, till he got further in.
The master-mahout's voice ascended now on a strange call. It was a lift-lift-lifting tone.
What does that mean? Skag asked.
All the elephants know that—it's the lifting call, Horace explained. "When an elephant is sick—unless they have an extra number in the regiment—they always call for two to volunteer; and they divide the load of the sick elephant between them. They use these tones instead of a name—just for that. There comes a male now, to take the rest of this load."
Skag watched the added load going into place on the volunteer. It was almost finished, when a trumpet blast sounded directly behind him—toward Hurda. Several elephants answered from the regiment; and many mahouts called to each other.
Is that the bad fighter coming? Skag asked.
Yes, Skag Sahib, that's Nut Kut. But I don't know just what you're going to see—the ones who ought to handle him are all gone.
The master-mahout's voice was rising up into the vault of heaven and falling over upon the horizon. It seemed to Skag the like was never heard before.
He's calling the two big tuskers back, Horace chuckled, "but there'll be doings on before they get here! Will you listen to Nut Kut's challenge?"
Skag turned to face the looming trumpet tones. There were no tones behind him like them. Smooth and mellow, they were yet so full of power as to make all the others sound insignificant. They were like love-tones translated into thunder.
But when Nut Kut came in sight, Skag caught his breath. The shape was made of gleaming bronze. No detail showed; it was a thing that took the eye and the breath and the blood. There was no look of effort in its inscrutable motion.
They stood in the open, between this thing and the regiment behind. There was no obstruction. And Skag moved to be between it and Horace—when it should pass them on its way. The regiment of thoroughly trained elephants were standing firmly in their places; but they were making the welkin ring with a thousand trumpets in the air.
Certainly Skag knew that this incredible thing before him—bigger every second—was Nut Kut. He looked to see why the great challenge-tones had stopped, and revelation went through him—like an explosion. Nut Kut had seen Horace and was coming straight for him.
Skag leaped to meet Nut Kut first, but he couldn't catch the elephant's eye. The huge shape was upon him and he was flung aside. Recovering himself almost instantly, he got around in time to see—but not in time to prevent.
Horace lifted both arms and leaned forward—his grey eyes gone black—as Nut Kut's trunk caught him. A little broken cry came from him and his death-white face hung down an instant—from high up.
Then, backing away, swaying from side to side, Nut Kut set his eyes on the man who followed—his red eyes, blazing with red warning. The American animal trainer did not fail to understand; he paused.
Slowly the great bronze trunk curled and cuddled about Horace Dickson's body and began to swing him. Skag knew that elephants swing men when they intend to kill them; and he heard a low moaning—like wind—rise up from the multitude of mahouts behind.
. . . Further and further the boy swung in the elephant's trunk, back and forth—back and forth. Unnatural tones startled Skag—sounding like delirium. Nut Kut put little Horace Dickson down, close under his own throat, his long trunk curling outside—always curling about—feeling up and down the boy's limbs, his frame, his face. The small mouth was open; the little red tongue—flickering.
Horace seemed oblivious; but when he laughed aloud. Nut Kut caught him up again—lightning quick. This time he swung the boy higher, till he rounded a perfect circle in the air; backing still further away and lifting his head. Nut Kut flung him round and round and yet around—faster and yet faster.
The moaning—like wind—still came from behind.
After endless time—like perdition—Skag heard Horace gasping, choking. He thought there were words; but couldn't be sure. And while this was going on. Nut Kut brought the boy down—flat on the ground. The impact must have broken a man. But Horace got to his feet—staggering in the circle of the trunk—looking dazed.
Now Skag moved forward, holding his hands out—as he came nearer to the big black head.
I know you now, Nut Kut, he said quietly, "you're white inside all right. You're not meaning to hurt him. You like him—so do I."
But Nut Kut backed away, gathering the boy with him, looking down into the American's eyes—the red danger signals flaring up in his own again.
Nut Kut, old man, Skag reasoned in perfectly natural tones, "you can't bluff me. I tell you, I know you. I know you as well as if we came out of the same egg!"
Nut Kut was still backing away and Skag was following up.
You may take me, if you want—I can't let you wear him out, you know.
And then, while Nut Kut wrapped about and drew Horace in closer, Skag laid his fingers on the great bronze trunk, gently but firmly stroking—the red eyes focused in his own. For seconds the man and the elephant looked into each other. Suddenly Nut Kut loosed Horace and laid hold on Skag.
The moaning ascended and broke—like wind going up a mountain khud. There was nothing certain to the mahouts, but that this man of courage would be dashed to death before their eyes.
Skag squirmed in the grip about his body as Nut Kut held him high. It looked as if he were being crushed. But when he got his hands on the trunk again, he laughed. Now Nut Kut lowered him quickly—holding him before his own red eyes. The touch of the elephant was the touch of a master. But the eyes of the man were mastership itself.
. . . They were just so, when Ram Yaksahn—with a ghastly haggard face—lurched from behind Nut Kut, fairly sobbing. Nut Kut jerked Skag tight (it was like a hug), released him deliberately and turning, put his own sick mahout up on his own neck, with a movement that looked like a flick of his trunk.
Now easy, Majesty, go easy with me—indeed I am very ill! Ram Yaksahn protested in plaintive tones, as Nut Kut wheeled away with him.
Seeing Horace in the hands of a strange native—and certainly recovering—Skag looked away toward Hurda and wonder aloud if Nut Kut would be punished. It was the master-mahout who answered him:
Nay, Sahib. He has done no harm.
I'd like to have a chance with him, said Skag.
The master-mahout smiled—a mystic-musical smile, like his voice.
I have come from my place for a moment, he said, looking intently into Skag's eyes, "for a purpose. We have heard of you, Son-of-Power. The wisdom of the ages is to know the instant when to act; not too late, not too soon. We have seen you work this day; and the fame of it will go before and after you, the length and breadth of India—among the mahouts."
He turned, pointing toward the elephant regiment. Many mahouts were shouting something together; their right hands flung high.
It is right for you to know, the master-mahout went on, "that mahouts are a kind of men by themselves apart. Their knowledges are of elephants—sealed—not open to those from without. Yet I speak as one of my kind, being qualified, if in the future you have need of anything from us—it is yours."
And without giving Skag a chance to answer him, but with a stately gesture of salaam, the master-mahout had returned to his place and was calling another elephant.
Skag turned toward Horace, who was drawing a fine looking native forward by the hand. The boy spoke with repressed excitement—otherwise showing no sign of Nut Kut's strenuous handling:
Skag Sahib, I want you to know Kudrat Sharif, the malik of the Chief Commissioner's elephant stockades. It is not known, you understand—meaning my father—but the malik has always been very wonderful to me.
Kudrat Sharif smiled with frank affection on the boy, as he drew his right hand away, to touch his forehead in the Indian salaam. The gesture showed both grace and dignity—as Dickson Sahib had said.
I am exalted to carry back to my stockades the story of the manner of your work, Son-of-Power, he began.
My name is Sanford Hantee, Skag deprecated gently.
But you will always be known to Indians of India as Son-of-Power! Kudrat Sharif protested. "It is a lofty title, yet you have established it before many."
Just then a great elephant came near, playfully reaching for Kudrat
Sharif with his trunk.
And this is Neela Deo, the leader of the caravan! laughed Horace.
It is my shame that there is no howdah on him to carry you; we came like flight, when Nut Kut's escape was known, Kudrat Sharif apologised. "But after some days, when Nut Kut's excitement sleeps, we shall be distinguished if Son-of-Power chooses to come to the stockades and consider him.
I heard your judgment of his nature, Sahib; and I say with humility that I shall remember it, in what I have to do with the most strange elephant I have ever met. Truly we are not sure of Nut Kut, whether he is a mighty being of extreme exaltation, above others of his kind in the world, or—a prince from the pit!
Kudrat Sharif salaamed again; and Neela Deo lifted him to his great neck and carried him away.
Walking home, Horace expressed himself to his friend—as the heart of a boy may be expressed; and Skag dropped his arm about the slender shoulders, speaking softly:
Remember, son, a little more—would have been too much.
All right, Skag Sahib, because now you understand; but—isn't he interesting?
Knowing well what the boy meant about the great strange creature—more than his fighting propensities, deeper than his physical might—Skag assented thoughtfully:
Yes; I would like to know him better.
Across the river at the military camp, the cavalry outfits were preparing for a jungle outing. It isn't easy to name the thing they contemplated. Pig-sticking couldn't be called a quest, yet there are "cracks" at the game, quite the same as at polo or billiards.
Horse and man carry their lives on the outside, so to speak. The trick of it all is that a man never knows what the tusker will do. You can't even count on him doing the opposite. And he does it quick. Often he sniffs first, but you don't hear that until after it is done. Men have heard that sniff as they lay under a horse that was kicking its life out; yet the sniff really sounded while they were still in the saddle—the horse still whole.
All the words that have to do with this sport are ugly. It's more like a snort than a sniff. . . . You really must see it. A trampled place in the jungle—tusker at bay—-a mounted sticker on each side waiting for the move. The tusker stands still. He looks nowhere, out of eyes like burning cellars. That is as near as you can come with words—trapdoors opening into cellars, smoke and flame below.
At this moment you are like a negative, being exposed. There is filmed among your enduring pictures thereafter, the raking curving snout, yellow tusks, blue bristling hollows from which the eyes burn. The lances glint green from the creepers. . . .
Then the flick of the head that goes with the snort. The boar isn't there—lanced doubtless. . . . Yes, the cavalry "cracks" get him for the most part and then you hear men's laughter and bits of comment and the strike of a match or two, for very much relished cigarettes. But now and then, the scene shifts too quickly and the other rider may see his friend's mount stand up incredibly gashed—a white horse possibly—and this other must charge and lance true right now, for the boar is waiting for the man in the saddle to come down.
Nobody ever thinks of the boar's part. Queer about that. It's the bad revolting curve that goes with a tusker's snout, in the sag of which the eye is set, that puts him out of reach of decent regard. Only two other curves touch it for malignity—the curve of a hyena's shoulder and the curve of a shark's jaw. Three scavengers that haven't had a real chance. They weren't bred right.
Among the visitors that came in for the jungle play was Ian Deal, one of the younger of Carlin's seven brothers; one of the two who hadn't appeared for her marriage. The other missing brother was in Australia, but Ian Deal had been in India at the time of the ceremony and not the full-length of India away. Skag had thought about this; Carlin had doubtless done more than that. Once she had flushed, when someone had marked Ian's absence to the point of speaking of it. Before that, Skag had only heard that Ian was one of the best-loved of all. . . .
He watched the meeting of the brother and sister. It was at the railway station in Hurda, and Skag couldn't very well get away. There was something almost like anguish in the face of the young man as he hastened forward—anguish of devotion that never hoped to express itself; anguish by no means sure of itself, because it burned with the thought of Carlin being nearer to any man. Ian didn't speak, as he stopped with a rush before his sister. He merely touched her cheek, but his eyes were the eyes of a man whose heart was starving. The English observe that this jealous affection occasionally exists between twins; the Hindus suggest certain mysterious spiritual relations as accounting for it. . . . Finally Skag realised that Carlin's eyes were turned to him, something of pity in them and something of appeal.
It was all very quick then. Skag's hand was out to her brother. Ian didn't see it. Only his right elbow raised the slightest bit; his dark face flushed and paled that second. The stare was refined; it wasn't hate so much as astonishment that any man could ever bring the thing about to touch Carlin's heart. Back of it all was the matter that Ian Deal would have died before confessing—the pain and powerlessness of a brother who loves jealously.
Few beings of his years would have seen so deep and kept his nerve that instant, but Skag had been different since his battle with the cobra. He had decided never to lose his nerve again. This was the first test since that day. . . . His throat tightened a second, so that he had to clear it. All he knew then was that her brother was striding away, having muttered something about the need to see after unshipping Kala Khan, his Arab mount, which was aboard the train. There was a sort of shimmer between Skag's eyes and Ian Deal's vanishing legs that made them seem lifted out of all proportion. Then Carlin caught his arm, carried him forward and to her at the same time, as she whispered:
You were perfect, Skag-ji. I never loved you so much as that moment, when poor Ian refused to take your hand—
Skag cleared his throat a second time. . . . Carlin had used that name only once or twice before; and only in moments of her greater joy in him. He had been told by Horace Dickson that "ji" used intimately was "nicer" than any English word.
Something in this experience threw Skag back to the point of the cobra and the last experience with crippling nerves. Of course, it was the thought of Carlin imprisoned in the playhouse that broke him. Starting to run when he first saw the cobra on the threshold, he counted Failure. That burst of speed for ten steps had put the king into fighting mood. Skag had beaten thin in his own mind the possibility of ever committing Failure again. A man must not lose his nerve in the stress of a loved one's peril. One doesn't act so well to bring the event to a winning. In fact, there is no excuse and no advantage and no decency in losing one's nerve, any time, any place. . . .
Skag had known things in certain seconds of his duel with the cobra. (Mostly, a man only thinks he knows.) Carlin had stood on the threshold, not more than fifteen feet away, while he was engaged. No one had told him at that time, that the man does not live who can continue to keep off a fighting cobra from striking home; but Skag learned in that short interval. He faced not only the fastest thing he had ever seen move, but it was also the stillest. It would come to a dead stop before him—stillness compared to which a post or a wall is mere squat inertia. This lifted head and hood was sustained, elate—having the moveless calm one might imagine at the centre of a solar system. Its outline was mysteriously clear. Often the background was Carlin's own self. The action took place in the period of the Indian afterglow, in which one can see better than in brilliant sunlight, a light that breathes soft and delicate effulgences. The cobra at the point of stillness was like dark dulled jewels against it—dulled so that the raying of the jewels would not obscure the contour.
And once toward the last, as he fought (the inside of his head feeling like a smear of opened arteries), Skag had seen Carlin over the hood of the cobra. She had seemed utterly tall, utterly enfolding; his relation to her, one of the inevitables of creation. Nothing could ever happen to take her away for long. Matters which men call life and death were mere exigencies of his scheme and hers together.
In a word, it was a breath of the thing he had been yearning for, from the moment he first saw her in the monkey glen; the need was the core of the anguish he had known in the long pursuit of the thief elephant; the thing that must come to a man and a maid who have found each other, if there is to be any equity in the romantic plan at all, unless the two are altogether asleep and content in the tight dimensions of three-score-and-ten.
Skag had seen that he could not win; but he had also seen that Carlin was there—there to stay! . . . Something in her—that no fever or poison or death could take away—something for him! The thing was vivid to him for moments afterward; it lingered in dimmer outlines for hours; but as the days passed, he could only hold the vital essence of what he had learned that hour.
Carlin was more to him every day—more dear and intimate in a hundred ways; yet always she held the quest of her before him; a constant suggestion of marvels of reserve; mysteries always unfolding, of no will or design of hers. It seemed to the two that they were treading the paths of a larger design than they could imagine; and Skag was sure it was only the dullness of his faculty and the slowness of his taking, not Carlin's resources of magic, that limited the joy.
Ian Deal took up his quarters across the river with the cavalry. He did not come to the bungalow.
He has always been strange, Carlin said. "In some ways he has been closer to me than any of the others. Always strange—doing things one time that showed the tenderest feeling for me and again the harshest resentment. You could not know what he suffered—remaining away when we were married. He has always hoped I would stay single. The idea was like a passion in him. Some of the others have it, but not to the same degree. . . . You know we have all felt the tragedy over us. We are different. The English feel it and the natives, too; yet we hold the respect of both, as no other half-caste line in India. It is because of the austerity of our views on one subject—to keep the lineage above reproach as it began. . . . No, Ian will not come here. He has seen his sister. He will make that do—"
Why don't you go to him? Skag asked.
She turned her head softly.
You Americans are amazing.
Why? he laughed.
"
An Englishman or any of my brothers in your place, wouldn't think India could contain Ian Deal and himself.
"It wouldn't do any good to fight that sort of feeling, Skag said.
Only a man whose courage is proven would dare to say that.
If I were on the right side, it would not be my part to leave India.
Carlin liked this so well that she decided Skag deserved to hear of a certain matter.
. . . Ian has something on his side. You see I had almost decided not to marry—almost promised him. He always said he would never marry if I didn't; that our people would do better forgotten—so much hid sorrow in the heart of us. . . . Something always kept me from making the covenant with him; yet I have been closer and closer up the years to the point of giving my life to the natives altogether. . . . That day in the monkey glen, after the work was done . . . I looked into your face! . . . You went away and came again. I had heard your voice. The old tiger down by the river had made you forget everything—but your power—
Carlin laughed. The last phrases had been spoken low and rapidly.
I didn't forget everything, dear, she went on. "I didn't forget anything! Everything meant you—all else tentative and preparatory. I knew then that the plan was for joy, as soon as we knew enough to take it—"
On the third morning of the pig-sticking Ian Deal rode by the elephant stockades in Hurda just as the American passed. The hands were long that held the bridle-rein, the narrowest Skag had ever seen on a man. The boots were narrow like a poster drawing. It was plainly an advantage for this man to ship his own horse from the south for the few days of sport. The black Arab, Kala Khan, seemed built on the same frame as its rider—speed and power done into delicacy, utter balance of show and stamina. When the Arab is black, he is a keener black than a man could think. His eyes were fierce, but it was the fierceness of fidelity; of that darkness which intimates light; no red burning of violence within.
Ian's face was darker from the saddle; the body superb in its high tension and slender grace. Was this the brother that Roderick Deal, the eldest, had spoken of as being darker than the average native? Yet the caste-mark was not apparent; the two bloods perfectly blent.
The depth of Skag's feeling was called to pity as well as admiration. The rift in this Deal's nature was emotional not physical—some mad poetic thing, forever struggling in the tight matrices of a hard-set world. India was rising clearer to Skag; even certain of her profound complexities. He knew that instant how the fertilising pollen of the West was needed here, and how the West needed the enfolding spiritual culture which is the breath within the breath of the East. This swift realisation had something to do with his own real work. It was filmy, yet memorable—like the first glimpse of one's sealed orders, carried long, to be opened at maturity. Also Skag had the dim impulse of a thought that he had something for Ian Deal. He meant to speak to Carlin of this at the right time.
Pig-sticking no-end, the cavalry officers had promised and they were making good.
That third afternoon Carlin and Skag took Nels out toward the open jungle, which thrust a narrow triangular strip in toward the town. At intervals they heard shouts, far deeper in. The Great Dane was in his highest form, after weeks of care and training by Bhanah. He could well carry his poise in a walk like this; having his full exercise night and morning. A marvel thing, like nothing else—this dignity of Nels. . . . The two neared their own magic place—not the monkey glen; that was deeper in the jungle—the place where they had really found each other as belonging, in the moment of afterglow.
It was wonderful then, he said, "but I think—it is even more wonderful now."
That was about as much as Sanford Hantee had ever put into a sentence. Carlin looked at him steadily. They were getting past the need of words. She saw that he was fulfilling her dream. Their story loomed higher and more gleaming to him with the days. He had touched the secret of all—that love is Quest; that love means on and on, means not to stay; love from the first moment, but always lovelier, range on range. It could only burn continually with higher power and whiter light, through steady giving to others.
A woman knows this first, but she must bide her time until the man catches up; until he enters into the working knowledge that the farther vistas of perfection only open as two pull together with all their art and power; that the intimate and ineffable between man and woman is only accomplished by their united bestowal to the world.
They walked long in silence and deeper into the jungle before halting again. Nels brushed the man's thigh and stood close. Skag's hand dropped and he felt the rising hackles, before his eyes left Carlin's. They heard the Dane's rumble and the world came back to them—the shouting nearer.
For a moment they stood, a sense of languor stealing between them. Without a word, their thoughts formed the same possibility, as two who have a child that is vaguely threatened. They were deeper in the jungle than they thought. . . . The cordon of native beaters was still a mile away in its nearest arc, but there is never any telling what a pig will do. . . . They turned back, walking together without haste, Nels behind. They heard the thudding of a mount that runs and swerves and runs again. It was nearer. . . . Their hands touched, but they did not hasten.
When Carlin turned to him, Skag saw what he had seen on the cobra day—weariness, but courage perfect. A kind of vague revolt rose in him, that it should ever be called again to her eyes—more, that it should come so soon. He was ready, but not for Carlin to enter the vortex again.
This foreboding they knew, together. Love made them sentient. Not merely a possibility, but almost a glimpse had come—as if an ominous presence had stolen in with the languor.
Let's hurry, Carlin—
She was smiling in a child's delicate way, as their steps quickened. The thrash of the chase was nearer; the jungle was clearing as they made their way to the border near Hurda. The low rumbling was from Nels. He would stand, turning back an instant, then trot to overtake them. . . . No question now. One pig at least, was clear of the beaters, coming this way, someone in chase.
The great trees were far apart. They were near their place, after many minutes. They had caught a glimpse of a mounted man through the trees—playing his game alone—the pig, but a crash in the undergrowth. . . . There was silence, as if the hunter were listening—then a cutting squeal, a laugh from the absorbed horseman, and it was all before their eyes!
The tusker halted at the border of their little clearing. He had just seen them and the dog—more enemies. . . . Hideous bone-rack—long as a pony, tapering to the absurd piggy haunches—head as long as a pony's head, with a look of decay round the yellow tusks—dripping gash from a lance-wound under one ear—standing stock just now, at the end of all flight!
Nels seemed to slide forward two feet, like a shoved statue. It was a penetrating silence before the voice of Ian Deal:
You two—what in God's name—
That was all of words.
His black Arab, Kala Khan, had come to halt twice a lance-length from the tusker. Carlin and Skag and Nels stood half the circle away from the man and mount, a little farther from the still beast, the red right eye of which made the central point of the whole tableau.
Ian looked hunched. He seemed suddenly ungainly—as if all sport like this were mockery and he had merely been carried on in these lower currents for a price. His lance wobbled across his bridle-arm which was too rigid, the curb checking the perfect spring of the Arab's action.
The tusker was bone-still, with that cocked look which means anything but flight. Skag moved a step forward. His knees touched Nels; his left hand was stretched back to hold Carlin in her place. There was no word, no sound—and that was the last second of the tableau.
The tusker broke the picture. Flick of the head, a snort—and he wasn't there. He wasn't on the lance! His side-charge, with no turn which the eye could follow, carried him under the point of Ian's thrust in direct drive at the black Arab's belly.
Kala Khan was standing straight up, yet they heard his scream. The boar's head seemed on a swivel as he passed beneath. Ian Deal standing in the stirrups swung forward, one arm round his mount's neck, but badly out of the saddle. . . . The tusker turned to do it again.
Skag spoke. That was the instant Nels charged. In the same second, the Arab, still on his hind legs, made a teetering plunge back, to dodge the second drive of the beast, and Ian Deal fell, head-long on the far side, his narrow boot locked in the steel stirrup.
Skag spoke again. It was to Kala Khan this time. Nels' smashing drive at the throat had carried the tusker from under the Arab's feet. His rumbling challenge had seemed to take up the scream of the horse; it ended in the piercing squeal of the throated boar.
Skag still talked to Kala Khan, as he moved forward. The Arab stood braced, facing him now—the tumbled head-down thing to the left, arms sprawled, face turned away. A thousand to one, among the best mounts, would have broken before the second charge and thrashed the hanging head against the ground.
Skag's tones were continuous, his empty hand held out. There was never a glance of his eye to the battle of the Dane and the beast. Four feet from his hand was the hanging rein, his eyes to the eyes of the black, his tones steadily lower, never rising, never ceasing. His loose fingers closed upon the bridle rein; his free hand pressed the Arab's cheek.
He felt Carlin beside him and turned—one of the tremendous moments of life to find her there. (It was like the last instant of the cobra fight, when he had seen her over the hood—utterly white, utterly tall.) She took the rein from his hand. Her face turned to Nels' struggle—but her eyes pressed shut.
Skag stepped to Kala Khan's side, lifted the leather fender, slipped the cinch, and let the light hunting saddle slide over, releasing Ian Deal. Then he sprang to Nels, calling as he caught up the fallen lance:
Coming, old man—coming to you!
Nels on his feet was bent to the task—the tusker sprawling, the piggy haunches settling flat.
. . . So, it's all done, son, the man said softly. "You're the best of them all to-day."
He laughed. Nels looked up at him in a bored way, but he still held. Skag went back to Carlin. Ian Deal had partly risen. The American did not catch his eye, and now Kala Khan stood between them, Carlin still holding the rein. Skag's hand rested upon the wet trembling withers, where the saddle had covered. There was a blue glisten to the moisture. Skag loved the Arab very hard that moment, and no less afterward. Kala Khan needed care at once. His wound was long and deep, from the hock on the inside, up to the stifle-joint.
Ian Deal was on his feet, the Arab still between him and Skag's eyes. But now her brother drew off, back turned, walking away, his arms and hands fumbling queerly about his head, as he staggered a little.
He will come back! Carlin whispered.
Nels loosed now, but sat by his game—sat upon his haunches, bringing first-aid cleansing to his shoulders and chest, where the pinned tusker had worn against him in the battle. . . . All in astonishingly few seconds—the blue beast still with an isolated kick or two.
It was as Carlin said. They had scarcely started toward Hurda before they saw Ian Deal following. His pace quickened as he neared—his first words queerly shocking:
Is he hurt—oh, I say—is the Arab hurt?
Skag answered: "A bad cut, but he'll be sound in a week or two."
One might ask first, you know. He's rather a fine thing—
Carlin seemed paler, as she held her brother with curious eyes. Ian didn't see her. He was slowly taking in Skag, full-length.
One might ask, you know, he repeated presently. "One couldn't make a gift of a damaged thing. Oh, yes, you're to have him, Hantee. Things of Kala Khan's quality gravitate to you—I was thinking of the dog, you know—"
Skag shook his head.
Don't make it harder for me! Ian said fiercely. "He belongs to you—Carlin, too, of course—no resistance of mine left. A man sees differently—toes up."
Carlin pressed Skag's arm.
The American bowed. Ian Deal straightened.
That's better, he breathed. "You'll see to the mount? I'd do it for you, but I need an hour—in here among the trees, you know, alone. . . . If it isn't quite clear to me, I'll cock one foot up in the crotch of a tree—until it's straight again. . . . But it's clear, Hantee," he added. "I'm seeing now—the man she sees—or something like!"
Ian turned toward the deeper growths. . . . They walked in silence. The untellable thing—for Skag alone—lingered in Carlin's eyes, in the pallor of her face. She was the one who spoke:
It is terrible—terribly dear, like a blending of two souls in a white heat together—those moments at the play-house and now—as you held Kala Khan—
It was not one alone, he answered strangely. "Something from you was with me—half, with mine."
This is the story of Neela Deo, King of all elephants! Protector of the Innocent! Defender of Defenders! Equitable King!
For his sake, knowledge of the place where he was known and of those who looked upon his person, shall go down from generation to generation into the future and shall be continued forever, under the illumination of his name.
How he preserved the great judge and how he fought that mightiest of all battles, for the honour of his kind and for the preservation of his liege-son, must be told in order.
The fortune of the season, the features of the town, and the chief names must be established.
See that nothing shall be added. See that no part be left unspoken.
It is the law.
The great rains had passed on their way north; and they had been good to the Central Provinces country. The water-courses were even yet but a line below flood; the tanks were full, the wells abrim. The earth was clothed with new garmenture. Jungle creatures were all in their annual high-carnival. Life-forces were driving to full speed.
The town of Hurda, on the great triple Highway-of-all-India, clung to the side of her little river leaning against the massive buttressed walls of her old grey stone terraces, where—on their wide step-landings—at all seasons, she burned her human dead by the tide's margin.
The great Highway spanned the river on a broad low stone bridge and turned—just south of the burning ghats—with a majestic sweep northward, between its four lines of sacred, flowering, perfumed and shade trees. Remember, those trees were planted by the forgotten peoples of dead kings, for each within his own realm; they were all nourished under the unfailing rivalry that the highway of each king should be more excellent in beneficence and in beauty than the highway of his neighbour kings.
But from High Himalaya to the beaches of Madras, from sea to sea, the triple Highway-of-all-India was nowhere more august than here, where Neela Deo lived. The exalted splendours of those so ancient and imperial trees rendered distinction to the town, in passing through it, like a procession of the radiant gods.
Beyond the hill and well outside the town—which would be called a city if it were walled, which would be walled if a wall would not separate it from the great Highway—was the station Oval, where railway people lived in European bungalows of many colours, round about the gymkhana—a building made to contain music and strange games; but from the arches of all its verandahs the railway people saw.
On the other side from the Oval and toward Hurda, was the little old bungalow where Margaret Annesley—of the tender heart—out of her lonely garden, looked that day and saw.
Across the great Highway from the temple of Manu, the bungalow of Dickson Sahib sheltered under the mighty sweep of full bearing mango trees. His small son stood between two teachers in the deep verandah and beat his hands together while he saw.
At the top of the hill, the bare bungalow of the old missionary Sahib made protest against the perfume-drunken orient and the colour-mad European world of India with its carbolic-acid whitewash and chaste lines. Down the driveway his children ran away from their teachers and saw.
But in sight of the town—as should be—and beside the courts—as should be—stood the austere home of the Chief Commissioner, most high civil judge of Hurda and all surrounding villages. One of his deputies leaned from an upper balcony and saw.
Back of his park, more than three quarters of a mile away, were the stockades of the Chief Commissioner's elephants. A round parade ground spread its almost level disk straight away front of the stockade buildings. Perfectly rimmed by a variety of low jungle growths, nesting thick at the feet of a circle of tall tamarisk trees, its effect was satisfying to the eye beyond anything seen about the homes of men. Nay, the avenues which led up to the palaces of ancient kings were not so good!
Now all is established concerning the time and the place and those who saw; and it will not be questioned by any save the very ignorant—who are not considered in the telling of tales.
So in the day of Neela Deo, most exalted King of all elephants, came a runner at the end of his last strength. Stripped naked, but for his meagre loincloth, the oils of his body ran thick down all his limbs and his splitting veins shed blood from his nostrils and from his mouth. In the market-place he fell and with his last breaths coughed out a broken message.
Many gathered to discover his meaning. Spread a swift excitement. The shops were emptied, the doorways and alleys opened, and streams of people poured out into a common tide.
Perfume dealers brought copper flasks of priceless oils. Flower merchants gathered up their entire stock of freshly prepared garlands of marigold and tuberose and jasmine and champak blooms—banked masses of garlands were hung on scores of scores of reaching arms, lifted to carry them. Sixty full pieces of white turban-cloth were caught from the shelves of cloth sellers.
Companies and companies of nautch-girls, with their men-servants and instruments to accompany them—even the most costly of these, who were also singing women—poured out of the districts where the towns-women lived and blended in their groups as individual units, in the increasing surge that flowed out along the great Highway, like a river which had broken its dam.
The multitude followed the great highway past the station oval and turned aside into the open jungle—deepening, thickening, swelling, teeming forward. Twenty thousand voices, lifted in all pitches of the human compass, were caught by tom-toms and the impelling cadence of the singing nautch-girls—like drift-wood in a swift current—and driven into rhythmic pulsation.
So the people of Hurda went out to meet Neela Deo, King of all elephants.
When the front of the throng went by his place, Hand-of-a-God enquired of running men from his own gateway. By his side the Gul Moti stood with Son of Power. When they understood, she pushed her chosen of all men through the vine-made arch and he sprang away and ran with the people.
They shared their garlands with him, that he should not come into Neela Deo's presence with empty hands; and they exulted because he ran with them, for the fame of Son-of-Power was already established.
At the margins of the true jungle, a high-tenor voice came out to meet them. The feeling in it chained Skag's ear; it was like a strong man contending bravely with his tongue, but calling on the gods for help, with his heart. Listening intently, the American began to get the words:
What are we before thee—oh thou most Exalted! Children of men, our generations pass before thee as the seasons. But thou, oh mighty King—thou Destroyer of the devastator, thou Protector of our wise judge, blessed among men is he for whom thou hast spilled thy blood! We will send his name down from generation to generation under the light of thy name! Thou most Glorious!
The next words were more difficult to catch:
Nay, nay! but my beloved, it is a little hurt! Do I not know, who serve thee? I whose father served thee before me—whose father served thee before him? I whose son shall serve thee after me? As my small son lives, he shall serve thee—being come a man—in his day, even as I serve thee in this my day!
This was evidently enticing the great creature to live. But the voice winged away again:
Ah, thou heart of my heart, thou life of my life! Hear me, the milk of a thousand goats shall cool thee. The petals of a thousand blooms shall comfort thee. Tuberose and jasmine and champak shall comfort thee, thou Lover of rare things! Nay, it is not enough, but the offerings of the heart's core of love shall satisfy thee—the blood of a million-million blooms shall anoint thee, to thy refreshment!
The words were lost for a moment, before they rang again:
Are not the coverings of our heads upon thy wounds? Thou, most excellent in majesty! Have we not laid the symbols of our honour upon thy wounds? Thou, with the wisdom of all ages in thy head and the tenderness of all women in thy heart! We have seen thee suffer, that he who is worthy might live! Thou Discerner of men! We have seen thee destroy the killer, without hurt to him who is kind! Thou Equitable King!
And slowly out of the shadows of forest trees, came the Chief Commissioner's elephant caravan, trailing in very dejected formation, behind Neela Deo, who showed naked as to his back—for his housings had been stripped off him; and as to his neck, for Kudrat Sharif was not on it but on the ground—walking backward step by step, enticing him with the adoration and sympathy of his voice.
Sanford Hantee saw Neela Deo stop to receive the first garlands on his trunk. From there on, the great elephant paused deliberately after every step to take the offerings of homage from hundreds of reaching hands.
When the American had laid his garlands over Neela Deo's trunk and was about to make his turn in the press, he saw the Chief Commissioner himself, walking behind the wounded elephant with uncovered head. After a keen glance, the great judge motioned Skag to close in by his side. His strong face was shadowed by deep concern; and for some time he did not speak. This was the man of whom Skag had heard that his name was one to conjure with. His fame was for unfailing equity, which—together with strange powers of discernment and bewildering kindness—had won for him the profound devotion of the people. Skag's thoughts were on these matters when he heard, on a low explosive breath:
Most extraordinary thing I've ever seen!
The Englishman's eye scarcely left the huge figure swaying before him and the distress in his face was obvious.
I see you're greatly concerned, Skag said gently.
Well, you understand, I've jolly good right to be—he saved my life! And he's got a hole in his neck you can put your head into—only it's filled up and covered up with twenty dirty turbans! And by the way, you may not know, but it's unwritten law—past touching—the man in this country never uncovers his head excepting in the presence of his own women. It's more than a man's life is worth to knock another's turban off, even by accident. But look, yonder are the turbans of my caravan—deputies, law-clerks and servants together—on Neela Deo's neck! Their heads are bare before this multitude and without shame. What's one to make of it? There's no knowing these people!
Skag's eye quite unconsciously dropped to the white helmet, carried ceremonially in the hand; and glancing away quickly, he caught a mounting flush on the stern countenance.
Presently the Chief Commissioner spoke again:
"
We were coming in on the best trail through a steady bit of really old tree-jungle—Neela Deo leading, as always. We've been out nine weeks from home, among the villages. It's not supposed to be spoken, but a stretch like that is rather a grind. The elephants wanted their own stockades; they were tired of pickets. You understand, they're all thoroughly trained. They answer their individual mahouts like a man's own fingers. Neela Deo is the only elephant I've heard of who has been known to run; I mean, to really run—and then only when he's coming in from too many weeks out. Few European men have ever seen an elephant run. Nothing alive can pass him on the ground but the great snake. I stayed on top of Neela Deo once when he ran home. It was not good sitting. I've never cared for the experience again.
""
As the jungle began to open toward Hurda, he was nervous. Of course I should have been more alive to his behaviour—should have made out what was disturbing him. If we lose him, I shall feel very much responsible. But his mahout was easing him with low chants—made of a thousand love-words. They're not bad to think by. I was clear away off in an adjustment of old Hindu and British law—you know we have to use both together; and sometimes they're hard to fit. I know no more about how it happened than you do. I was knocked well up out of my abstraction by a most unmerciful jolt. Kudrat Sharif had been raked off Neela Deo's neck and was scrambling to his feet on the ground. In one glimpse I saw his dothi was torn and a long dripping cut on one thigh. He shouted, but I couldn't make it out, because all the elephants were trumpeting to the universe.
""
There are always four hunting pieces in the howdah and I reached for the heaviest automatically, leaning over to see whatever it was. There was nothing intelligible in the hell of noise and nothing in sight. I tell you, I could not see a hair of any creature under me—but Neela Deo. And don't fancy Neela Deo was quiet this while. My howdah was pitching me to the four quarters of heaven—with no one to tell which next. Six of the hunters had rifles trained on us, but I knew they dared not fire for the fear of hitting me or him. And I'm confident they would be as ready to do the one as the other. Then he began swaying from side to side with me. It was a frightful jog at first, but he went more and more evenly, further and further every swing, till I kept myself from spilling out by the sheer grip of my hands. The rifles were knocking about loose.
""
At last I was up-ended cornerwise and I thought, on my word, I thought my elephant had turned upside down. A shriek fairly split my head open and Neela Deo was dancing straight up and down on one spot. It was a thorough churning, but it was a change. I should say his dance had lasted sixty seconds or more, before he himself spoke; then he put up his trunk and uttered a long strong blast. I've never heard anything like it; in eighteen years among elephants, I've never heard anything like it.
""
After that he slowed down and they closed in on him, with weeping and laughter and pandemonium of demonstrations, mostly without meaning to me, till I climbed down and saw the remains of what must have been a prime Bengali tiger—under his feet. It had charged his neck and gotten a hold and eaten in for the big blood-drink. It had gripped and clung with its four feet—there are ghastly enough wounds—but the hole it chewed in his neck is hideous.
"
He poured blood in a shocking stream till they checked it with some kind of jungle leaves and their turbans. And you see—he's groggy. He's quite liable to stagger to his knees any moment. If he gets in to his own stockades, there may be a chance for him; but he doesn't look it just now. Still, I fancy they're keeping him up rather. Eh? Oh yes, quite so.
The Chief Commissioner wiped his forehead patiently, before he went on:
You're an extraordinary young man, Sir. I've heard about you; the people call you Son-of-Power. You haven't interrupted me once—not one in twenty could have done it. I'm glad to know you.
This was spoken very rapidly and Skag smiled:
I'm interested.
The Chief Commissioner's eyes bored into Skag with almost impersonal penetration, till the young American knew why this big Englishman's name was one to conjure with. Then he went on:
"
Yes, we'll have much in common. You see, I'm working it out in my own mind. . . . The curious part of it all is, they say an elephant has never been known to behave in this manner before. The mahouts seem to understand; I don't. This I do know: When a tiger charges an elephant's neck, the elephant's way is—if the tiger has gotten in past the thrust of his head—to plunge dead weight against a big tree, an upstanding rock, or lacking these—the ground. In that case he always rolls. You see where I would have been very much mixed with the tiger. In this case, Neela Deo measured his balance on a swing and when he found how far he dare go, he took his chance and struck the cat off with his own front leg. It's past belief if you know an elephant's anatomy.""
"
The Chief Commissioner broke off. Neela Deo had lurched and was wavering, as if about to go down. The sense of tears was in Kudrat Sharif's voice; but it loomed into courage, as it chanted the superior excellence of Neela Deo's attributes.
Then Neela Deo braced himself and went on, but more slowly. The big
Englishman smiled tenderly:
"He's a white-wizard, is Kudrat Sharif—that mahout! He does beautiful magic, with his passion and with his pain. It's practically worship, you understand; but the point is, it works! The mahouts say Neela Deo did the thing for me; stood up and took it, till he could kill the beast without killing me. Oh, you'll never convince them otherwise. They'll make much of it. They're already pledged to establish it in tradition—which means more than one would think. These mahouts come of lines that know the elephant from before our ancestors were named. They know him as entirely as men can. All his customs are common knowledge to them—in all ordinary and in all extraordinary circumstances. They say that once in many generations an elephant appears who is superior to his fellows—he's the one who sometimes surprises them.""
"
The Chief Commissioner stopped, looking into Skag's eyes for a minute, before he finished:
I'm a Briton, you understand; stubborn to a degree—positively require demonstration. I'm not qualified to open the elephant-cult to you—it's as sealed as anything—but I've had bits; and I recommend you—if you'll permit me—to give courtesy to whatever the mahouts may choose to tell you. You'll find it more than interesting.
I'm very grateful to you, Skag answered. "I've had a promise of something and I mean to know more about the mahouts and about elephants."
It was well on in the night when the elephants turned down out of the great highway into their own stockades. Neela Deo staggered and swayed ever so slowly forward, with his head low and his trunk resting heavy and inert on Kudrat Sharif's shoulder; but he got in.
After that no man saw him for sixteen weeks—save the mahouts of his own stockades. But every morning the flower merchants sent huge mounds of flower garlands to comfort him.
Then a proclamation was shouted in the marketplace—in the name of the Chief Commissioner—calling all to come and sit in seats which had been prepared around the parade ground before his elephant stockades—to witness the celebration of Neela Deo's recovery. Great was the rejoicing.
Many Europeans of distinction answered the Chief Commissioner's invitation—from as far as Bombay. But all the Europeans together looked very few; for from the surrounding villages and towns and cities, a vast multitude had been flooding in for days. Sixty-two thousand people found places in good sight of the arena, in prepared seats. That number had been reckoned for; but half as many more thronged the roofs of the stockade buildings and hung—multicoloured density—from their parapets. And above all, a few tall tamarisk trees drooped long branches under hundreds of small boys.
Famous nautch-girls had come from distant cities and trained with those of Hurda for an important part in the celebration. They were all staged on twelve Persian-carpeted platforms, ranged on the ground within the outer edge of the arena and close against the foot of the circular tier of seats. Artists of the world had wrought to clothe these women. Artists in fabric-weaving, in living singing dyes; in cloths of gold, in pure wrought-gold and in the setting of gems.
People were looking to find the concealed lights which revealed this scene of amazing splendour, when thirty-nine of the Chief Commissioner's elephants came out through the stockade gates, single file. Many drums of different kinds, together with a thousand voices, beat a slow double pulse. The elephants, setting their feet precisely to the steady rhythm of it, marched around the entire arena three times. Those elephants were perfect enough—and they knew it! They were freshly bathed and groomed. Their ears showed rose-tinted linings, when they flapped. Their ivories were smooth and pure. Their howdahs—new-lacquered—gleamed rose and orange and blue, with crimson and green silk curtains. Their caparisons of rich velvets, hung heavy with new gold fringes.
Every elephant turned toward the centre of the arena, coming to pause at his own appointed station, evenly spaced around the circle. Then every mahout straightened, freezing to a fixed position that did not differ by a line from the position of his neighbour on either side. Now the people saw that this celebration for Neela Deo, King of all elephants, was to show as much pomp as is prepared for kings of men—and they were deeply content.
The strings of one sitar began to breathe delicate tones. Other sitars came in illusively, till they snared the current of human blood in a golden mesh and measured its flow to the time of mounting emotion. Then Neela Deo himself—Neela Deo, the Blue God!—appeared at the stockade gates alone, with Kudrat Sharif on his neck. His caparison was of crimson velvet, all over-wrought with gold thread. The gold fringes were a yard deep. The howdah was lacquered in raw gold—its curtains were imperial blue. Kudrat Sharif was clothed in pure thin white—like the son of a prince—but he was very frail; and ninety-odd thousand people sent his name, with the name of Neela Deo, up into the Indian night—for the Indian gods to hear.
Neela Deo was barely in on the sanded disk, when the elephants lifted their heads as one and saluted him with an earth-rocking blast; again and yet again. Then he thrust his head forward, reached his trumpet-tip—quivering before him—and made speed till he came close to the Chief Commissioner's place, where he rendered one soft salute and wheeled into position by the stand. This was a movement no one had anticipated. Nothing like it was in the plan; the Chief Commissioner had not intended to ride! But Neela Deo demanded him and there was nothing for it but to go; so with a very white face, he stepped into the howdah.
Waves upon waves of enthusiasm swept the multitude. They shouted to heaven—for all time it was established. No man could ever deny it—Neela Deo himself had made his meaning perfectly plain, that he had done the marvel thing sixteen weeks before, to save the life of his friend—their friend! They stood up and flung their flower-garlands on both of them—as Neela Deo, with a stately tread, carried the Chief Commissioner around the circle. The nautch-girls sprang from their platforms into the middle of the arena and danced their most wonderful dances—tossing the fallen garlands, like forest fairies at play.
Then a thousand voices lifted upon the great chorus of laudation, which had been prepared in high-processional time; the drums and the sitars furnishing a dim background for the volume of sound. The elephants turned out of their stations as Neela Deo passed them and came into their accustomed formation behind him. The tread of four times forty such ponderous feet, in perfect time with the music, shook the earth.
The chorus told the story of the incredible manner of their Chief Commissioner's deliverance; it exalted his record and his character; it pledged the preservation of his fame. Then a master-mahout from High Himalaya went alone to the centre of the disk and in incomparable tones—such as master-mahouts use—having no accompaniment at all, told the story of Neela Deo's birthright. The people were utterly hushed; but the elephants kept their even pace—as if listening. Then the great chorus came back, rendering the acknowledgment of a human race.
At last the multitude rose up and loosed its strangling exultation in mighty shouts. The elephants raised their big heads, threw high their trumpets and rent the leagues of outer night—as if calling to their brothers in the Vindha Hills.
The next part of the celebration was to happen suddenly. The mahouts had planned it in sheer boyishness; and to their mountain hearts it meant something like the clown-play in a western circus. Its success depended on whether Neela Deo had enough foolishness in him—to play the game. So now they wheeled the elephants into their stations again, just in time before one section of the enclosure folded down flat on the ground. This left that part open to the outside world; for the shrubs that used to grow thick at the feet of the tamarisk trees had been rooted up and green tenting-cloth stretched in their place. One shrub still grew in the midst of that opening.
Neela Deo stopped short one moment—frozen so still that he looked like a granite image—then, feeling toward the shrub with his trumpet tip an instant only, flung up his head with a joyous squeal and was upon it before a man could think. The shrub melted to pulp under his tramping feet. Then they saw the black and yellow stripes of the tiger he had killed in this same way—tramping, tramping. He was doing it over again, for them.
The mahouts laughed, calling their strange mountain calls; and the people went quite mad. Even the English taxidermist who had taken the trouble to sew and roughly stuff that mangled tiger-skin for the mahouts—even he shouted with them. Every time Neela Deo put that little quirk into his trunk and slanted his head in that absurd angle—Neela Deo, whose smooth dignity had never shown a wrinkle before—they broke out afresh.
This clown-play certainly brought the people back to earth; but it did something queer to the elephants. Having learned to know human voices, they had already felt the mounting excitement; they had already been tamping the ground with hard driving strokes, as if making speed on the open highway—for some time. But in this abandonment to amusement, this joyous unrestraint, they must have found some reminder. They did not have Neela Deo's sense of humour. But they must have remembered the unwalled distances of their own Hills—the hedge of shrubs had been taken away; the tall slender tamarisk trees still standing, made no obstruction. Beyond the waning torches they must have looked and seen the quenchless glory of the same old Indian stars.
It was Nut Kut, the great black elephant not long down from his own wilds among the Vindha Hills, who left his station first and moved on out into the night. Gunpat Rao followed him. . . . One by one they filed away. Indeed, there was not one shrub left to bar their path. But in this falling of calamity upon their so successful foolish plan, the mahouts were stricken—desperate. There was something grotesque about their hands, as they disappeared. With wild gestures and twisted-back faces many of them went out of sight. The elephants were surely their masters, in that hour.
They all passed quite close to where the Chief Commissioner sat in Neela Deo's howdah. Neela Deo had regained his dignity; he was gravely driving fragments of black and yellow stripes into the sand—patiently finishing his job. But Kudrat Sharif's voice had no effect upon the others; and the Chief Commissioner was entirely helpless. No one could prevent their going. Then it appeared that one had not gone—one other, beside Neela Deo.
Mitha Baba, the greatest female of the caravan, under her pale rose caparison and gold lacquered howdah with its curtains of frost-green, was beating the ground with angry feet and thrusting her head aside impatiently. Something was holding her. When he saw, the Chief Commissioner made haste to reach her—leaving Kudrat Sharif, who was confident of keeping Neela Deo.
Mitha Baba's station in the circle was close to where the Gul Moti sat; her new housings had been specially designed to recognise her devotion to the Gul Moti, whose low 'cello tones were now soothing the great creature and restraining her. But when the Chief Commissioner approached, Mitha Baba started, flinging herself forward—and the Gul Moti was suddenly at the edge of the stand. Just as the elephant lunged out to take her stride, the colourful voice that she had never refused to obey said:
Come near, Mitha Baba, come near!
Mitha Baba was not sure about it; she struck the voice aside with her head. But the voice was saying:
Mitha Baba, you may take me with you!
Then Son-of-Power was on his feet, but it was too late—Mitha Baba decided quickly and she acted soon—he could not reach the edge in time to go himself, but on an impulse he threw his great-coat into the Gul Moti's hands and she laughed as she caught it from the howdah.
In swerving suddenly to pass close by the stand, the elephant had unbalanced her boy-mahout from her neck; but his father—the very old mahout—was coming as fast as he could across the space before them, calling to her—like the lover of wild creatures that he was.
Carlin bent from her howdah and spoke joyously:
Put him up, Mitha Baba, put him up!
And Mitha Baba scarcely broke her stride, which was lengthening every step, as she obediently circled the old man with her trunk and carelessly flung him on her neck.
We'll fetch them all home! the Gul Moti's voice floated back, as they melted away into the night.
The Chief Commissioner gave Son-of-Power his hand—being without words, for the moment.
Is she safe? Skag asked.
Absolutely safe! the Chief Commissioner assured him. "The caparisons may be doused in the Nerbudda, but the howdahs will not be in the least wet."
What did she mean—that she'd fetch them all back?
She meant that Mitha Baba has been used in the High Hills—for years before she was sent down—to decoy wild elephants into the trap-stockades. She's entirely competent, is Mitha Baba; she's the leader of my caravan—next to Neela Deo. Of course Neela Deo is our only hope of overtaking them; he's fast enough, but this is rather soon after his injury, and he'll have to rest a bit. In the meantime, come away up to the house; we'll talk there.
To possess one white elephant is calamity. But if Evil—the nameless one—could possess a pair, he would breed an army able to break down the very walls of Equity.
Indra—supreme hypocrite—fathered the first two, who were brother and sister. Kali—wife of Shiva, the great destroyer—Kali—goddess of plague and famine and fear and death—was their mother.
Beware the white elephant—who is never white. The stain of Indra is on his skin; the shadow of Kali on his hair. Honour is not in him!
The Gul Moti had always loved adventures; and she had been in the throat of several. But this was no lark; it was more serious than funny. Thirty-eight of the most valuable elephants in India were rolling away before her toward the Vindha Hills. If they once arrived there, no man could say how many of them, or if any of them, would ever be recovered. The Nerbudda River crossed their path mid-way—almost at flood. If they entered that tide—deep and wide and muddy—state-housings of great value would be hopelessly damaged.
Mitha Baba was beginning to show that she did not like the old mahout's urging—but Mitha Baba was always willful. Indeed, the Gul Moti was depending much on this same willfulness. The splendid female was still young, but she had been for years a celebrated toiler of wild elephants; and it was well known she had loved the game. Had she forgotten it? Could she be reminded? First, it was supremely important to overtake all the others this side the Nerbudda.
The old mahout gasped a broken cry, as Mitha Baba lifted him and set him not too gently on the ground; she was in a hurry herself and she was making speed on her own account—she objected to being urged. The Gul Moti, understanding in a flash, cried quickly:
No, no! Mitha Baba, I want him! Put him up to me—put him up to me—soon!
Mitha Baba wavered in her long stride.
Mitha Baba, I want him—I want him!
And the elephant turned on a circle and caught him up, throwing him far enough back, so the Gul Moti could help him into the howdah.
My day is done! he said bitterly.
Nay, father! the girl physician answered him. "She knew you were not safe there."
Is it so? the old man marvelled. "Indeed, she always loved me! Now I am satisfied!"
Then, in the white fire of what men call genius, the Gul Moti stood up to meet this new emergency—leaning toward Mitha Baba's head—and called in ringing tones:
"
Now come, Mitha Baba, we're away! We're going out to fetch them in! Away, away, awa-a-ay!
"So long as he lived, the old mahout told of the intoxicating splendour of that young voice—the golden beauty of those tones; of how Mitha Baba reached out further and further every stride, to its rhythm, till the earth rose up and the stars began to swing.
We'll fetch them in, Mitha Baba, we'll fetch them in! . . . Away, away, awa-a-ay!
But the toiler of wild elephants had remembered the game she loved.
As they topped the crest of a low hill, the Gul Moti scanned the country declining before her toward the Nerbudda. A string of jewels appeared—incredibly gorgeous in mid-day light. It was thirty-eight full-caparisoned elephants—going fast. Mitha Baba called on them to wait for her; but they remained in sight only a few minutes. The Gul Moti's high courage sank; the caravan was too near the river to be delayed by Mitha Baba's calls—the river too far ahead.
Do they ever obey her, Laka Din? the Gul Moti asked.
They always used to, the old man replied dubiously.
Finally Mitha Baba came out into the straight descent toward the river.
No elephants were in sight, but a blotch of colour showed on the bank.
Well done for those mahouts! the Gul Moti cried out in relief. "The caparisons at least are safe. How did they do it?"
It was well done, Hakima-ji, the old man exulted. "The masters were listening to Mitha Baba, delaying between her and the river—space of six breaths; then those men became like monkeys! It is no easiness—unfastening everything from top of an elephant. (I who am old have done it!) Also, some went down to loosen underneath buckles. You shall see."
They found four very disconsolate mahouts on the bank of the river beside the great pile of nicely arranged stuff.
I want the smallest howdah you have! called the Gul Moti, as the men sprang in front of Mitha Baba.
But, Hakima-ji, they protested, "by getting down—we were left behind!"
I must not be left—and yet you must take these clothes from her! the
Gul Moti said, while they helped the old man to the ground.
Then go to her neck—oh, Thou Healer-without-fear! She will not wait long—she follows Nut Kut, the demon! and Gunpat Rao, who both got away with everything on!
Still hoping, the Gul Moti slipped over the edge of the big howdah and climbed toward Mitha Baba's neck. The mahouts worked fast stripping her. Then Mitha Baba flung her head, striding away from their puny fingers, and plunged into the river. Sinking at first enough to wet the Gul Moti a little, she rose beautifully as she found her swimming stroke.
Day went by—and no elephants in sight. Night came on—and no elephants in sight. Mitha Baba rolled across the Nerbudda valley, as confident of her way as if she travelled the great Highway-of-all-India. She began to climb into the rising country beyond, as certain of her steps as if she were coming in to her own stockades. The Gul Moti took up her call again—thinking of the caravan they were following. But Mitha Baba was not thinking of the caravan. It had happened that the Gul Moti's tones had fallen upon those intonations used in High Himalaya, to send the toilers out to toil wild elephants in.
It was night-time, before the moon came up, when a strange elephant crashed past them—lunging in the opposite direction. It reeled as it ran and went down on its knees; evidently having been done to death in a fight. But the outline of it, in the shadows, appeared too lean to be one of her own.
Soon after that, Mitha Baba trumpeted in a new tone of voice—one the Gul
Moti had never heard before. It sounded very wild, very desolate.
In the name of all the gods, Mitha Baba, what's the meaning of that? the Gul Moti enquired with a little tension—it being one of those moments when one gains assurance by speech.
But Mitha Baba's reply was in the very oldest language of India—one even the mahouts know only a very little of. It rose in wild, wistful tones—higher and higher. It was repeated from time to time; the sense of it strangely thrilling to the girl on her neck.
. . . They were well up in the mountains, so far that the trees had become massive of body and heavy and dense of top—the moon only just showing through—when they heard the trumpeting of elephants, off toward the east. Mitha Baba answered at once, turning abruptly toward the east.
Mitha Baba! the Gul Moti protested, "our people have never gone off in this direction—where are we, anyway?"
Mitha Baba's calling was just as wild as before; but it had become wild exultation.
. . . They were coming up into what reminded the Gul Moti of something she had heard—that the really old jungle is always dark; that the light of day never touches earth there. This was almost dark, the moon glinting through black shadows—only at intervals.
The sense of this place was strange. It might be on another planet. And that thought touched the root of the difference—this was not on, this was in. Everything felt in—deep in.
Here Mitha Baba changed her voice again. (Nothing had ever happened to the Gul Moti like it.) It was still wild, still wistful—quite as much so as before. But there was a cooing roll in it—away and away the most enticing thing human ears ever listened to. It sounded like Nature—weaving all spells of all glamour, in tone; soft-flaming gold, in tone; soft-flaming rose, in tone; and on and on—the very softest, deepest magics of life-perpetual!
. . . The trumpeting ahead was fuller and nearer, distinctly nearer; almost as if they were coming into it. Then, without warning, the mighty mountain trees cut off the moon-lit sky. It had been dark before—now it was utterly dark!
Suddenly the Gul Moti was aware of a strong earth-smell. There was no stench about. It had a quality of incense made of tree-gums and sandalwood and perfume-barks, all together. Then a dull thudding caught her ear—almost rhythmic.
. . . The earth-smells deepened and the thudding thickened. Mitha Baba was not climbing any more; moving smoothly, on what felt like firm soil, she seemed to turn and turn again. It was fathoms deep in rayless night—the place that never knew the light of day!
Carlin clung tight to Mitha Baba's neck and remembered everything actual, everything definite, everything sound and sensible she knew. The earth-smells filled her nostrils, her lungs, her blood; tree-gums, sandal-wood, perfume-bark, body-warmth—charging the air.
And over all—wild, and wistful, and pulsing-tender—the weaving of Mitha
Baba's enchantment through the dark.
The thudding all about her on the ground—must be the sound of many wild feet! This must be—the "toiling in."
. . . A rending, tearing noise broke in on Mitha Baba's voice; and at once a great crash among the trees, high up. (Someone had torn a sapling from its place and flung it far.)
. . . The keen squeal of a very little elephant—right near—and the angry protest of a strange voice. (Some mother's baby had been pinched, in the crowd!)
. . . It must be imagination—this strong nearness! The Gul Moti, putting out her hand, touched—skin! And within the same breath, on both sides of Mitha Baba—first this side and then that side—two great elephants challenged each other. They were both long, rocking blasts, a little above and almost against the Gul Moti's quickened ears. She shivered under the shock.
Mitha Baba, without breaking her step, backed away from between them; and the impact of frightful blow meeting frightful blow, bruised through the outbreak of much trumpeting.
As Mitha Baba went further and further from the fighters, the Gul Moti was amazed at the sounds of their meeting—like explosions. She remembered their tonnage; and recalled having heard that an elephant fight is not the sort of thing civilised men call sport.
. . . A soft, feeling thing crept from the Gul Moti's shoulder along down her back! With convulsive fingers she clung tighter to Mitha Baba's neck. Instantly Mitha Baba turned a bit, driving sidewise at the stranger with her head. The Gul Moti's confidence in the great female's intention to protect her, was established!
At last, lifting her head sharply to utter a different call, Mitha Baba developed a peculiar drive in her motion; a queer drive in the whole huge body that had something to do with a wide swinging of the head. It made them both touch the strange elephants, every few minutes; and always there was a storm of trumpeting all about. Gradually these outbreaks began to sound toward one side; but the direction kept changing—so the Gul Moti made out that Mitha Baba was moving round and round on the outside of the mass.
After a while they came again into the vicinity where the big males were still fighting. Mitha Baba rocked on her feet a moment, calling a curious low call—a question, softly spoken. At once there was the sound of rapid movement in front. Then Mitha Baba literally whirled—plunging away at incredible speed—almost exactly in the opposite direction from the one she had been facing.
Doctor Carlin Deal Hantee tried to remember Skag—tried to remember her own name. She locked herself about that neck with her strength—she clung with her might. She flattened her body and gripped with her fingers and with her toes—long since having kicked off her low shoes. Away and away they went, coming out into the moonlight—long enough to see a mass of dun shadows rising and falling, lurching and rolling, on all sides. Surely the Gul Moti had known that this was a wild elephant herd—these hours. Surely the Gul Moti had heard the "toiling" of them in! But what was Mitha Baba going to do with them—now that she had them?
Down the long slopes and up the steep inclines—the two big elephants close on either side of Mitha Baba—plunging into khuds and out again—most of the time up-ended, one way or the other, at astounding angles—the wild herd raced with Mitha Baba toward whatever destination she might choose.
Dawn broke upon them while they were still in the very rugged hills; and as the mountain outlines cleared of mist, the Gul Moti saw that Mitha Baba was leading her catch straight away back to Hurda. True to her training—there being no trap-stockades near—the toiler was taking them home! The situation was absurd; but it roused the Gul Moti—like one out of a dream—to actual joy.
Through grey avenues of forest trees—rolling down khuds, ringing up crags—the voice of Nut Kut went on out beyond the mountain peaks, to meet approaching day. Nut Kut, the great black elephant who had been trapped in these same Vindha Hills only a few years ago, was rejoicing in freedom again. Nut Kut, who had already made his reputation as the most deadly fighter known to the mahouts, was exulting in strength. It was his joy-song. It came from straight ahead. Mitha Baba answered with a rollicking squeal. But the wild herd voices were savage—chaotic. Now Nut Kut's challenge came back—looming. The situation was no longer absurd.
It meant a fight—an open fight—between the wild herd and the caravan. The wild herd would never give Mitha Baba over to her own—they would surely fight to keep her. Everything tightened in the Gul Moti and locked—hard. She had known most of the caravan elephants all her life—what would happen to them? They had lived among men these many and many years—never permitted to fight—they could not be equally fighting-fit. The herd would be much leaner—it must be much tougher. So she bruised her head and her heart between the things that were due to happen to her caravan—horrible punishments and almost certain deaths.
When the caravan appeared, the males were leading; the four females well in the rear. Nut Kut's flaming orange and imperial-blue trappings covered and cumbered him; and young Gunpat Rao's gorgeous saffron and old-rose burned through the Gul Moti's eyes to the hard lump in her throat—it was the one time in their lives when they should be free.
At once the wild females gathered their youngsters—and some who seemed almost mature—cutting them out from the herd and driving them back. This revealed the wild fighters—many more in number than those of the caravan. The approaching challenges, from both sides, were thundering thick and fast now. The two bodies of elephants were plunging down the opposite sides of a deep khud and would meet in the broad bottom. Mitha Baba—the big males on each side of her—was setting the pace for this side, as if everything depended on time. But when they were quite close, she rushed ahead—straight through the caravan and beyond.
Mitha Baba had been leading her catch to her own stockades—being in no wise responsible that they were not trap-stockades! Now, the home elephants having come to receive it, she had rushed it in—exactly as she would have rushed it into a trap. But Mitha Baba was not satisfied. With a curious little call she wheeled, coming back to face the wild herd from her own side.
It was a turmoil that looked and sounded like nothing imaginable. The fighting pairs were choosing each other and taking place. They had plenty of room. When it was settled between them, Nut Kut was facing the most powerful-looking of the wild fighters; and Gunpat Rao, another who looked almost as dangerous. The extra males of the wild herd—every one formidable—were skirmishing about, watching for a chance to interfere. It looked bad for the caravan.
The mahouts—the Gul Moti had scarcely remembered them till now—were calling back and forth about a bad one, a "tricky elephant." Following their gestures, she saw a pale shape moving around in the open. They left no doubt that he represented the worst of all danger. They were charging each other to watch him—never mind what.
. . . The fight was on. Plainly—in every tone, every action—the wild went in with wild enthusiasm, the tame with grave determination. Mitha Baba, having come in closer than any of the other females, did not move,—save for a constant turning of her head under the Gul Moti's icy fingers—seeming to keep an eye on all the separate fights at once.
Her fear for the caravan elephants was anguish, her fatigue extreme; but excitement held the Gul Moti in a vise. She saw the fighters meet, skull to skull. (Those were the frightful blows she had heard in the dark, through the trumpeting of a whole herd!) How could any living thing endure the impact of such weight? She looked to see the skin break away and fall apart at once. She expected to see an elephant's head split open. It was nerve-wrecking—an arena of giant violence.
Pray the gods to send Neela Deo! one of the mahouts shouted.
Pray the gods to send Neela Deo! others called back.
The Gul Moti knew that Neela Deo did not fight; that it was his leadership they needed. Soon she heard a muffled cry from the same mahout:
Men of the Hills, mourn with me!
(A low wind of tone replied.)
His elephant seemed slower than the one against him; slower in getting back—in coming on. . . . Now he was wavering—shaken through his whole bulk by every meeting. . . . He was not running—he was dazed—he was down! Staring wide-eyed at the horror—the way a barbarian elephant kills—the Gul Moti was glad Skag did not see! . . . The mahout had managed to reach a tree in time to save his own life and was crouching on a branch, with his head buried in his arms.
Nut Kut was finishing with the leader of the wild herd—more mercifully than the wild was of doing it—when two of the extras charged him together. Ram Yaksahn, his mahout—whose voice had not been heard before—cried out; and Mitha Baba went in like a thunder-bolt. How it happened no one could tell, but one of the wild elephants—before Mitha Baba's rush, or in the instant when she reached him—caught his tusk under Nut Kut's side-bands. They were made of heavy canvas, with chains on top. As Mitha Baba drove at him and Nut Kut turned—his tusk ripped out sidewise. With a frantic scream he got away, running up into the jungle—still screaming so far as they could hear.
The Gul Moti, numb with weariness, had held on with her last ounce of strength. Now she sat amazed at her escape—while a tumult of trumpeting shattered the air about her. There was disturbance among the fighting pairs; some staying with each other, some changing—running to and fro—charging at odd angles. But when the confusion cleared—more fresh ones had come in!
Now Nut Kut was a whirl-wind—he was unbelievable. One broke away from him and ran—demoralised. One died—fairly defeated. Still others came to meet him; yet his challenges were triumphant to the point of frenzy.
Call on the gods! The devil is in! rang out.
Gunpat Rao was now fighting for his life. The "tricky elephant" had charged him from the open. This was the bad one whom the mahouts had recognised on sight—had feared from the beginning. Gunpat Rao was one of the finest young elephants in captivity; one of the swiftest in the caravan; but the mahouts knew he could not think a trick! The sense of his danger swept them.
The Gul Moti knew that "white elephants" are always feared—being almost always bad. This one was not white; nor grey, nor yellow. He was whitish-grey—dull-tawny overcast—unclean looking. He was larger in frame than Gunpat Rao; but very lean—long, loose-jointed. He moved like a suckling trying to caper. But there was a rakish look about him.
In spite of all their own stress—every one of their elephants being in some degree of jeopardy—the mahouts gave as much attention to Gunpat Rao as they could. It was foregone conclusion—he was doomed. Bracing themselves to witness his defeat, expecting to see his bitter death in the end, yet the bad one's method at the start maddened them beyond control.
He was bred in the Pit! one mahout called.
His father was Depravity! another called back.
And they cursed him with the curses of the Hills.
Chakkra, who was Gunpat Rao's mahout, was a plucky little man; but his face had gone old.
The pale one's behaviour was entirely different from any the Gul Moti had seen. He was doing nothing regular—not using the common methods at all. He was giving Gunpat Rao no chance to get back—to put his body-weight into his drive. He was staying too close. He was circling—starting to rush in and veering away—round and round, in and out. Then the Gul Moti saw! He was manoeuvring to strike Gunpat Rao back of his ear! He was trying to "hit below the belt!"
So Gunpat Rao was kept pivoting in his own tracks to face the danger, with scant room to meet a rush when it came. And always it came when least suggested by the other's manner. Then the pale one squealed—a succession of thin, cutting tones—and Gunpat Rao answered with a charge. The pale one raced away from him, wheeling suddenly and coming in behind his head. (An instant before, it looked as if they would meet fairly.) But Gunpat Rao, being in full drive and not on guard against such a manoeuvre, could not stop quickly; yet he swerved just enough to clear that yellow tusk—with a long slash in his flank! . . . Gunpat Rao began to show that he was baffled. His trunk came around—feeling of Chakkra!
He wants Neela Deo! His heart is alone! Chakkra cried out.
Pray the gods to send Neela Deo! the mahouts answered together.
And from the khud-wall behind them, a thundering challenge rolled down.
It was like an avalanche of dynamic power.
Now the elephants of the Chief Commissioner's stockades gave account of themselves. Youth had returned to them—courage had been restored. They clamoured to heaven that they were doing well. They shouted to the universe that they belonged to him—to Neela Deo, their King!
Sanford Hantee scarcely saw—an impossible thing—Carlin on Mitha Baba's neck! Her face was actually strange—the awful pallor—the fire. It left his brain a blank to other impressions, for minutes.
The Gul Moti only glimpsed the stone-white face of her American, beside the Chief Commissioner, as Neela Deo charged past, on his way to take over the fight that was taxing Gunpat Rao to the last breath before defeat. Neela Deo had seen at once where he was needed most. He went in with a charging challenge that was intoxication to those who heard—all the assurance of ancient mastership in it.
No one had ever seen Neela Deo fight before. Kudrat Sharif was so astonished that he barely got back from his neck in time to be out of the way. The mahouts were amazed—Neela Deo did not fight! Neela Deo was the Lord of peaceful rule!
Many of the fighting pairs broke away from each other, when they heard Neela Deo's charging challenge, as if agreeing that the destiny of all hung on the issue of his contest. This left most of the mahouts free to watch. With passionate distress they saw the King—wounded almost to death less than four months since—carrying a heavy howdah and three men—going in to fight with a bad elephant who was all but fresh. They cursed the wild elephant with every inward breath, seeing as little hope for Neela Deo as they had seen for Gunpat Rao.
The Gul Moti watched—appalled. It seemed to her that the pale one had been playing—before he engaged with Neela Deo. But he did not play any more. He manoeuvred so fast that his body appeared to glance in and out. But Neela Deo foiled him with still greater speed. Her eye could not follow all—the maze, the glamour, the incredible spectacle.
Neela Deo's first blow had shaken the pale one, carrying a different dimension of force from any in himself. He gave way—backing from it with an angry scream, showing surprise and rage in every movement. When he circled round, trying to get in on Neela Deo's side, the King was too quick for him—forcing him out, forcing him further out; not permitting him to follow his chosen course, whatever direction he took. He came in with his peculiar art of approaches—the jarring blow was there! He played all his lightning feints—the shock that rocked him was a flash quicker! Neela Deo met him squarely, whatever curve he made—whatever tangent he turned upon. This, every time, in spite of himself; for he always meant to avoid that crash!
He tried his falsetto squeals—all aggravation in them. But Neela Deo refused to accept taunts. This caused an instant's pause—the pale one seeming to consider. Then he raced away and came back on a full drive, as if meaning to meet the King in a legitimate encounter—after all. But Neela Deo only lowered his head a fraction, leaning a bit forward; and the pale one, instead of finishing straight, or passing alongside close enough to strike—swerved out. This was the moment when Neela Deo charged him and he ran, dodging—far beyond the range of the fighting arena—down the khud valley. Everyone followed; the wild elephants running by themselves—screaming in harsh tones; the caravan—trumpeting in clear, full tones; the mahouts, calling the name of the King—beside themselves with delight.
But Neela Deo was at the pale one's heels—his tusks not dangerous, having been shortened and banded. Yet they were sharp enough to make the pale one turn and defend himself. And desperately he fought, using every faculty of his nature—every value of his wild fitness. Still the crook in him showed. It was all faster now than in the beginning, but he was not exhausted, he was not broken; only a bit less certain, a breath less quick, when he tried the same old trick—to get in back of Neela Deo's ear. And it was on that false turn that Neela Deo caught him fairly in the throat—caught him and finished him in one thrust—with the blunt point of a banded tusk. (That was the miracle of it all—the banded tusk!)
Then Neela Deo stood back, put up his trunk and uttered a long, strong blast. They were ringing tones—mounting clarion tones, with tremendous volume at the top. They were the King's proclamation of victory.
The mahouts answered him in High Himalayan voices—full of unleashed devotion. The caravan made announcement of that allegiance the heart of an elephant gives—sometimes. But the wild herd broke away and ran shrieking up into the Vindha Hills.
Coming down from Mitha Baba's neck between Skag's hands, the Gul Moti smiled into his anguished eyes.
Carlin! Are you—safe? he asked.
Safe—now! she answered.
The tone of that low "now" startled him.
Where have you been? he breathed.
Far— she said, "very far!"
But where? he questioned.
It was not in our world, Skag, she said. "It was—dark!"
The Chief Commissioner had come close, to hear; was stroking her shoulder, in fact—in an absent-minded way—shaking his head.
You can't mean—the dark? he broke in.
I mean it was utterly dark, sir, she said. "It was absolutely dark!"
But—I'm not able to understand! her old friend protested.
It was there Mitha Baba found them, the Gul Moti explained. "It was there she did the 'toiling in.' Then, she was leading them home to Hurda, when we met the caravan—at dawn."
Some of the mahouts had gathered about. The Chief Commissioner spoke to them in their speech and they answered him—calling others. Soon the men of High Himalaya drew near with grave deference, slowly stooping to touch the ground at her feet.
No human has ever been in that before, said Kudrat Sharif. "We will prepare rest for her—Chosen-of-Vishnu, the Great Preserver!"
It was after they had cared for the Gul Moti with the best they had—water from a mountain stream and food Neela Deo had carried, in a shelter made of tender deodar tips, where she now slept on a bed made of the same—that the mahouts told the Chief Commissioner and Skag, all they themselves had seen.
By this time concern had spread from Hurda throughout the country. Neela Deo had gone out to find the Gul Moti, carrying the Chief Commissioner and Son of Power. No one had come back. Calamity must have fallen. Men went out on horses to trace them. But it was certain priests of Hanuman who found the caravan first. (The Gul Moti having saved the life of a monkey king once, her safety was their concern also.) Without being seen or heard themselves, they went close enough to learn that she was making recovery from great exhaustion; and that the mahouts were caring for an elephant unable to travel by reason of a bad wound. They overheard talk of strange happenings; but more about Neela Deo's undreamed-of achievement.
Before any of the searchers from Hurda reached the caravan, mysterious gifts of provisions—much needed—were found by the mahouts, with a crude writing beside them: "For the Healer-without-fear." And those same priests of Hanuman—preparing a signal-system as they came—brought the good word back to the anxious people, who became joyous at once. Their Gul Moti was safe! Neela Deo was safe—everyone was safe. (But that was a strange saying—that Neela Deo had fought!)
Bonfires blazed up in every village within sight of the caravan's way home—from so far away as watchers on Hurda's highest hill could see—burning night and day. At last the one furthest from Hurda went out. The watchers raced in—Neela Deo's caravan was coming! One by one, the bonfires went out—till it was this side the Nerbudda. Then the people made ready.
They thronged out the great Highway-of-all-India, meeting the caravan where the slow-moving elephants turned in from open jungle. Eagerly striving to see the Gul Moti's face, eagerly pointing at Neela Deo, yet it was a stranger silent multitude. Only many tears on many tears showed their feeling.
The Gul Moti sat in Neela Deo's howdah, with the Chief Commissioner and Son-of-Power. Two men came close, carrying a long slender shape covered with pure white cloth—dripping wet.
We be poor men, one said, "but our hands bring to thee, oh Healer—from the people of Hurda, oh Healer—" and breaking off, because his lips could speak no more, he stooped reverently to lay aside the covering.
A great folded leaf appeared; a long heavy stalk; then the flawless splendour of one bloom—immaculate! a sacred lotus, brought from far lakes. The Gul Moti received its ineffable loveliness and rose to stretch her fingers toward the multitude. Then their shouts swept the horizon.
Still, their concept of Neela Deo's character must be either shattered or restored—and soon; they would not wait. Ominously quiet questions went up to the mahouts; and the mahouts were full-ready to answer! In the end, it sounded like a wild Himalayan chant about Neela Deo's great fight to save Gunpat Rao. The people listened patiently, till an inward meaning enlightened them. Then they exulted:
Neela Deo, Neela Deo, King of all elephants!
Exalted in majesty, Defender of honour, protecting his own with strength! We will remember him!
Neela Deo, Neela Deo, King of all elephants!
He with the wisdom of ages. Destroyer of devastators, preserving his friend with blood! Our children shall not forget!
He the Discerner of men, Equitable King! He the Discerner of evil, Invincible King! All generations after us shall hear of him; but we have looked upon his face!
Neela Deo, Neela Deo, King of all elephants!
Carlin appeared to get right again in a few days of quiet after her terrific experience on Mitha Baba. There were a few more wonderful weeks for Skag and herself in the Malcolm M'Cord bungalow in Hurda—weeks always remembered. Then Skag undertook a little adventure of his own that had to do with Tiger. He was away seven days in all and made no report of the thing he had done to his department. He came back with a deeper quiet in his eyes and told no one but Carlin what the days had shown him. Skag never was at his best in trying to make words work. He was slow to explain. He had been hurt two or three times in earlier days, trying to tell something of peculiar interest to his work and finding incredulity and uncertain comment afterward. This made the animal trainer more wary than ever about talk.
But Carlin required few words. Carlin always understood. She didn't praise or fall into excesses of admiration, but she understood, and the older one gets the dearer that becomes. Carlin didn't advise with Skag whether she should speak of the matter. She merely decided that her old friend, Malcolm M'Cord, Hand-of-a-God, deserved to be told. The silent Scot knew much about animals and this was an affair that would stand high in his collection of musings and memories. M'Cord observed, in a Scotch that had suffered no thinning in thirty years of India, that if he hadn't known Hantee Sahib he would be forced to pass by Carlin's report as an invention, though a "fertile" one. It was M'Cord who decided that Government should get at least a private account of the affair.
A remarkable tiger pair had operated for several years in the broken cliff country stretching away toward the valley of the Nerbudda beyond the open jungle round Hurda. As mates they had pulled together so efficiently that the natives had started the interminable process of making a tradition concerning them. These were superb young individuals and not man-eaters, for which reason Hand-of-a-God had not been called out to deliver the natives; also on this account Skag had been interested from the beginning.
Their lair had never been found, but they had been seen together and singly over a ranging ground that covered seventy miles and contained several dejected villages. Once, hard pressed for game, the male tiger had entered a village grazing ground and made a quick kill—on the run—of one of the little sacred cows—a tan heifer much loved by the people. The point of comment was that the tiger had spared the boy; in fact, the young herder had been unable to run so rapidly as his little drove, which was lost in a dust cloud ahead of him. The tiger had actually passed him by, entered the drove, knocked the heifer down and stood over it as the boy circled past.
There were no firearms in the village, so that the natives did not venture close in the falling darkness. It was evident next day, however, that the tiger had not fed on the spot of the kill. It was supposed that the female had come to help him carry away the game.
Also, this was the same tiger pair that had leaped an eight-foot wall surrounding another village, made their choice of a sizable bullock in a herd of ordinary cattle, and actually helped each other drag the carcass over the wall and away—a daylight raid, this, witnessed from the shadows of several village huts.
So the stories went, but nothing monotonous about them. Often for months at a time no villager would sight the tiger mates. It was positively stated that there were no other mature tigers within the vicinity: that is, within the seventy-miles range. The pair had been known to bring up at least three litters; but the young had been driven at the approach of maturity to outlying hunting grounds, as had been all the weaker tigers of the vicinity.
Now the report came into Hurda that an English hunter had wounded the big female. Another report followed that the Englishman had killed the male and wounded the female. The hunter himself did not appear in Hurda; nor was a trophy hide recorded anywhere. Skag heard the two stories. Thinking over the affair, he called Nels for a stroll in the open jungle toward the Monkey Glen.
To the American there was a pang about the hunter's story. He was altogether unsentimental, but wild animals had to do with his reason for being and there was his fixed partiality for tigers. The uncertainty about the story troubled him. This was the time of year for kittens and it was seldom far from his mind that these parents were not man-eaters. The stories of the hunter were indefinite. The thing worked upon Skag as he walked. The thought of finding the motherless lair and bringing in a hamper of starving young occurred to him as a sane performance, but not one to speak about. Also his servant, Bhanah, reported Nels superbly fit for travel and adventure.
The animal trainer rode the elephant, Nut Kut, into one of the villages in the tiger-ranging grounds and left him in charge of the mahout, saying that he might be gone two or three days and that he was out for a ramble among the waste places of the valley. Skag took merely a haversack, a canteen, light blanket and a hunting belt, carrying a knife and a six-shooter but no rifle. Nels actually lost his dignity in enthusiasm for the excursion, and they were miles away from a village and hours deep in an apparently leisurely journey before he subsided into that observant calm which was his notable characteristic.
This light travelling, with none other than the great hunting dog, brought him back a keen zest of appreciation and memories of early days among the circus animals, and his first adventures in India with Cadman. Moreover, there was a fresh mystery that had to do with Carlin after Skag's first supper fire afield. He had always resented the fact that it was straight out-and-out pain for him to be away from the place she had made in Hurda. Suffering of any kind to Skag was a sign of weakness. He had dwelt long on the subject.
The mystery of that first night out had to do with the fact that Carlin seemed to be near. He had known something of this before, a flash at least, but nothing like this. There wasn't the pain about separation he had known aforetime. It was as if the miracle he had longed for had come—some awakening of life within himself that was quick to her presence even at a distance and cognisant that absence was illusion. Carlin's uncle, the mystic of the Vindhas, had told him that there were mysteries of romance that had to do with separation as well as with together, and that real mates learn this mystery through the years. To-night Skag found to his wonder that the mystic had spoken the truth.
He cooked the supper joyously and shared it with Nels, talking to him often and answering himself for the Dane. The camp was in the open and the night was presently lustrous with stars. There was a sense of well-being, together with his fresh delight in the unfolding secret of Carlin's nearness, that made him enjoy staying awake. Nels was wakeful also—as if these moments were altogether too keen with life to waste in sleep.
It's just a ramble, old man. We'll be about it early, Skag said toward the last. "We may find what we're after and we may not. In any case we'll live on the way."
That was Skag's old picture of the Now; making the most of the ever-moving point named the Present.
And I'm expecting great things from you, my son—an altogether new brand of self-control—if we find what we're out after. I don't mind telling you that it's Tiger, Nels—tiger babies possibly—little orphans just grown enough to be demons and just knowing enough not to behave.
Nels woofed.
Half-grown tiger cubs are apt to be a whole lot meaner than their parents, Skag went on. "Wild—that's the word. They haven't sense enough to be careful or mind enough to be appealed to. I think that's something of what I mean to say."
Skag was taking more pains to explain than he would to a man. Nels didn't get it—didn't even make a pretense. He knew what Tiger meant, but so far as he was concerned that subject had been dropped some moments since. He had listened intently to the point in which Tiger ceased to be the topic—sitting on his haunches. Then he dropped to his front elbows, and as Skag's voice trailed away he rolled quietly to his side, keeping himself courteously awake.
There was silence. Skag's eyes were far off among the blazing Indian stars.
We'll manage 'em together, he added sleepily. The next day they wandered—rough desolate country in burning sunlight. It gave the impression that the whole surface crust of earth had been burned to a white heat ages ago. Low hills with clifflike faces; shallow nullahs used only a month or two a year to carry the monsoon deluges to the Nerbudda; the stones of the river bottoms bone-white—everywhere sparse and scrubby foliage with dust-covered leaves. There was no turf in this stony world except the sand of the hollows and the wind eddied most of these spaces like water, quickly covering all tracks. It was toward the end of the afternoon that Nels first intimated a scent.
Tiger of course—that was Nels' orders—but it wasn't fresh. Skag gave the Dane word to do the best he could and followed leisurely. The big fellow worked with painful care for more than an hour before he became sure of himself; then his speed quickened, following a dry nullah at last, for several miles. The dark was creeping in before they came to a deep fissure among the rocks where the empty waterway sunk into a pool which was not yet dry. Skag and the Dane drank deep; then the man filled his canteen, with the remark:
We'll camp a little back, not to obstruct the water hole. All trails end here. To-morrow morning we'll get fresh tiger scent if we're in luck. But I wonder what we're trailing?
It was a fact of long establishment among the villages that only the one mated pair worked this section of the country. According to one of the stories of the English hunter, the male tiger had been killed and the female wounded—in which case what was this? Certainly there was nothing to indicate that the scent was left by a wounded tiger. Others might have doubted Nels' discrimination, but Skag scouted that in his own mind. The Dane knew Tiger. It was as distinct and individual to him from the other big cats as the voices of friends one from another.
Nels was said to have met Tiger in battle before he came to Skag, but it was no purpose of his present master to give him a chance now. It was established that several of the great Indian hunting dogs had survived such meetings. Malcolm M'Cord declared that a veteran in the cheetah game would show himself master in any ordinary tiger affair.
They were tired and sun drained. Skag laid down his blankets in the early dusk and there were hours of sleep before he was awakened by the different activities at the water hole. Nels apparently had been awake for some time, studying the separate noises in a moveless calm. Skag touched his chest affectionately. A panther or some smaller cat had just made a kill among the rocks above the pool, yet Nels' hackles had not lifted in answer to the bawl of the stricken beast.
Spotted deer possibly, Skag muttered. Then he added to the Dane:
You're an all-right chap to camp with, son. You'd sit it out alone until they brought the fracas to our doorstep rather than disturb a friend's sleep. That's what I call being a white man.
Skag always thought of Cadman as the unparallelled comrade for field work. In fact, he had learned many of the little niceties of the open from the much-travelled American artist and writer—finished performances of comradeship, a regard for the unwritten things, reverence for those rights which never could be brought to the point of words, but which give delicacy and delectation to hours together between men. Skag never ceased to delight in the silence and self-control of the Dane. The dog rippled and thrilled with all the fundamental elements of friendship and fidelity, but his big body seemed able to contain them with a dignity that endeared him to the one who understood. Bhanah's work in the training of this fellow was nothing short of consummate art.
Breakfasting together, Skag refreshed Nels' mind with the work of the day—that it meant Tiger, that all lesser affairs might come and go. The big fellow was up and eager to be off, before Skag finished strapping his blanket roll. There was rather a memorable moment of sentiency just there. Skag was on one knee as he glanced into Nels' face. His own powers were highly awake that minute, so that he actually sensed what was in the dog's mind—that they must go down to the pool for a look before moving on. The thing was verified a moment later when Nels led the way down into the dim ravine to the margin of the water.
Tiger tracks—full four feet on the soft black margin of the pool—a huge beast, unmarked by any toe scar or eccentricity. Long body, heavy, a perfect thing of his kind. It was as if the tiger had stood some moments listening. Yet the natives declared that only the mated pair operated in this range and the hunter was said to have killed the male. If these were the tracks of the tigress she certainly was not badly hurt. There wasn't the overpressure of a single pad to indicate her favouring a muscle anywhere. And this couldn't have been the track of anything but a mature beast—the finished print of a perfect specimen.
That hunter didn't tell it all, Nels, or else he didn't do it all, Skag remarked. "We started out to find a sick tigress and a hamper of neglected babies. I'm not saying we won't find that much. The thing is, we may find more."
Nels was already five yards away across the pebbly hollow, waiting for Skag to follow along the ravine. Not a sign of a track that human eye could detect after that—straight, dry, stony nullah bed, deeply shadowed from the narrow walls and stretching ahead apparently for miles. At least it was cool work; the sun would not touch the floor of the fissure for hours yet. Nels never faltered. His pace gradually quickened until Skag softly called. The Dane would remember for fifteen or twenty minutes, when Skag, again finding that he had to step uncomfortably fast to keep up, would laughingly call a check. The man was watching the walls and the coverts of broken rock, and Nels' speed, if left alone, altogether occupied his outer faculties.
It was eleven in the forenoon and Skag reckoned they must be close to the Nerbudda when Nels halted—even bristled a bit, his broad black muzzle quivering and held aloft. Skag came up softly and stood close. He touched his finger to his tongue and drew a moist line under his nostrils, trying to get the message that Nels was working with so obviously. Presently an almost noiseless chuckle came from the man, and he touched Nels' shoulder as if to say that he had it too. The thing had come unexpectedly—the faintest possible taint of a lair.
They would have passed it a hundred times if it had not been for the scent. The silence was absolute and the walls of the fissure apparently as unbroken as usual. No human eyes would have noted the wear of pads upon the stones, and one had to pass and look back to see the cleft in the walls of the ravine, far above the high-water mark, which formed the door of significant meaning for the man. Nels hadn't seen this much, but he couldn't miss now. He nosed the pebbles again and made an abrupt turn to the right. They climbed to the rocks near the entrance. The taint was unmistakable now—past doubt a bone pile of some kind in there—and Nels had followed Tiger to the door.
Skag sat down upon a stone a little below and mopped his forehead, with a smile at the Dane. For ten minutes he sat there. He thought of the first time he had ever entered a tiger cage as a mere boy, way back in the Middle West of the States, travelling with the circus. A bored show tiger in that cage, and he had blinked unconcernedly at the boy. Years of circus life had atrophied that tiger's organs of resentment. Miles and miles of the public stream had passed his cage with awe, speculating upon the great cat's ferocity. Skag had merely to learn after that, the trick of it all—that one's perfect self-control not only soothes but disarms most normal beasts. Skag had cultivated such self-control in recent years to a degree that made him the astonishment of many Hindu minds. India had shown him that the attainment of this sort of poise is a stage of the same mastery that the mystics are out after—to gain complete command of the menagerie in one's own insides. Hundreds of times after that, night and day, in storm, in sultry weather, Skag had entered the cages of all kinds of animals in all their moods.
His first adventure in India came back, when with his friend Cadman he had fallen into the pit trap and the grand young male tiger had tumbled after them. Skag had prevailed upon the nervy Cadman to sit tight and not to shoot, against all that the writer man knew; also he had appeared to prevail upon the tiger to keep his side of the pit until they were rescued. And now Skag recalled the big tiger that had lain on the river margin near the Monkey Glen while he had told Carlin that he had never really seen what a woman was like before. The presence of the big sleepy cat down among the wet foliage had nerved him and called out all his strength for that romantic crisis.
He thought of the moment under the poised head of the great serpent in the place of fear in the grass jungle; and of the coming of Nut Kut, the incomparable black elephant, whom he had forced to listen in spite of the red hell in the untamable eyes. Always between and in and round, his thoughts were of Carlin—her voice, her presence, the curious art of her ministration and the utterly wise lure of her heart. Even now he couldn't quite be calm under the whip of memory of the afternoon of the cobra fight. The whole panorama might have been named Carlin so far as Skag was concerned.
He didn't think of his own danger now. It wasn't that he ignored it; rather that he had entered upon a new dimension of his power. He had no thought of failure. No thought came to him that Carlin would have prevented his entering had she been near. This was different from anything he had ever been called to do, but his power was different. The thing that engaged his mind was utterly clear from every angle. He couldn't have missed the novelty from the unusual stress of Nels' manner. The big Dane was actually burning with excitement. His eyes were filled with firelight and back of the smoky burning was a dumb appeal turned to his chief. Hyenas alone had been able to break Nels' nerve for himself, but he was frightened now for the man. The big bony jowl was steadily pressed like a knuckled hand against Skag's knee, the body only half lifted from the dry stones and cramped with tension.
Skag's eyes were turned up toward the mouth of the lair and his left hand fell to the Dane's head. The beast actually shook because his eyes were covered a second.
Of course you're to stay outside, Nels, he said softly as he rose.
The dog lowered his breast to the stones. It was like a blow to him—the one thing he had feared most.
Don't, Nels! the man muttered. "You're to stand at the mouth of the lair and watch there. I need you there—outside, of course."
The dog followed him heavily up the slope past the high-water mark. Skag turned with a cheering whisper, shielding his eyes from the light for a moment before peering in. There was a sound like blown paper across a marble floor and then another sound—low, soft, prolonged, like the hiss of escaping steam.
Skag shoved himself into the narrow, rocky aperture. He could see nothing for the moment. The taint was oppressive at the first breath of the still air. There were kittens—no doubt of that. He heard their scurrying; he felt their eyes and the sort of melting panic in the place that would have utterly unstrung any but a perfectly keyed set of nerves.
It was a cave, the mouth higher than the floor. The way down was jagged and precipitous. Skag, advancing softly, had to feel for each step and yet give no distracting attention to keep his footing, for the full energy of his faculties was directed ahead.
The sound of blown paper was from the kittens—that was clear enough. Yet the hissing continued and this was the mystery of it all—that there appeared to be no movement besides. If this sound came from the tigress, at least, she had not stirred to meet him.
The hiss sunk to a low guttural grating. No cub had a cavernous profundity of sound such as that. Still there was not the stir of a muscle, so far as his senses had detected.
Skag was puzzled. Big game before him, possibly nerved to spring, and yet the tensity was not like that. The man stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness—waiting for the mystery to clear. Then to the right, like a little constellation suddenly pricking through the twilight, Skag saw a cluster of young stars. His heart warmed—kittens hunched there in a bundle and watching him. Their pricked ears presently shadowed somewhat from the blacker background; then he saw the little party suddenly swept and overturned, as if a long thin arm had brushed them back out of reach of the intruder.
Now his eyes turned slightly to the left and began to get the rest—the great levelled creature upon the darkened floor. Skag kept his imagination down until his optic nerves actually brought him the picture. The long thin sweep was the mother's tail, yet she was not crouched. Skag saw her sprawled paws extended toward him. She lay upon her side.
Thus it was that he was rounded back to the original proposition. He had found the lair of the wounded tigress and her young. For fully two minutes Skag stood quiet before her, working softly—her hiss changing at slow intervals to the cavernous growl. The kittens were too young to organise attack—the tigress was too maimed for resistance, even though at bay in lair with her kittens to defend.
Now the man saw the gleam of her eyes. She had followed his movements and was holding him now, but half vacantly. The pity of it all touched him; the rest of the story cleared. Her tongue was like a blown bag, the blackness of it apparent even in the dark. She was dying of thirst, the bullet wound in the shoulder turned up to him. The little ones were still active, for the tigress had fed them until her whole body was drained. He saw how her breast had been torn by the thirsty little ones—the open sores against the soft grey of her nether parts. Skag backed out. Nels pressed him—half lifted his great body in silent welcome.
Oh, yes, Skag was saying, "we got the call, all right, my son. Four little duds in there eating their mother alive, and she full of fever from a wound—no water for days. I'm just after the canteen, Nels."
Skag entered again. His movements were deliberate, but not stealthy. He spoke softly to the creature on the floor—his voice lower than the usual pitch, yet sinking often deeper still. The words were mere nothings, but they carried the man's purpose of kindness—carried it steadily, tirelessly. The great beast tried to rise as he stepped closer. Skag waited, still talking. He had uncorked the canteen and held it forward—his idea being not only that she would smell the water but become accustomed to the thing in his hand. Each time he pressed a bit nearer she struggled to rise toward him—Skag standing just out of reach, tirelessly working with his mind and voice. He keenly registered her pain and helplessness in his own consciousness and was unwilling to prolong it, yet at the same time he had a very clear understanding of the patience required to bring help to her.
It was fully a quarter of an hour before he bent close, without starting a convulsion of fear and revolt in the huge fevered body upon the rocky floor. Skag poured a gurgle of water upon the swollen tongue, watching the single baleful tortured eye that held his face. The water was not wasted, though not drunk, for it washed away some of the poison formed of the fever and the thirst. Skag poured again and for a second the great holding eye was lost to him and the tongue moved.
Thus he worked, permitting her fear and rage to rouse no answer in kind from himself; talking to her softly, luring her out of fury into the enveloping madness of her own great need.
He waited a moment and her tongue stretched thickly to draw to itself the water on the rock; then he turned toward the cubs. They scurried back deeper into the cave. He poured a gill or two of water into a hollow of the rock and returned to the mother. Presently as he moistened her tongue again, one of the little ones crept forward and began to lap the puddle on the rock.
Skag smiled in the gloom. The others were presently beside the baby leader. A few moments later Skag interrupted his ministrations to the mother to fill the hollow for the kittens again. All this with less than three pints of water—the work of a full half hour as he found when he emerged to Nels and the light.
It's only a beginning, old man. We've got to get more water. It's five hours' march back to the pool where we camped. I'm gambling that we're a lot nearer than that to the Nerbudda.
Nels' jubilation was stayed by the unfolding of fresh plans that were not slow to dawn upon his eager mind. They hastened along the river bed, continuing in the direction they had come. Skag was in a queer elation, dropping a sentence from time to time. Suddenly he halted. It had occurred to him to recall something his mind had merely noted during the work in the cave. There was fresh meat there. He had not looked close, but at least two partly devoured carcasses had lain in the shadows.
They were mighty thirsty, Nels, he muttered. "The mother dying of thirst, but the little ones were only sultry compared. Yes, they're old enough to tear at fresh meat. They weren't so bad off and there was plenty of meat there. Only thirsty," he added thoughtfully.
It was clear to his mind that the tigress had been helpless at least three days, possibly four. She could not have brought the game. There was one conclusive reason—that the meat was in an altogether too fresh condition to have been brought by the mother before she gave up. Skag walked rapidly. They did not reach the Nerbudda, but sighted a village back Horn the river bed after nearly two hours' walk.
They refilled the canteens and procured two water skins besides; also a broad deep gourd which Skag carried empty. The man's difficulty was to escape without assistance. A white man in his position was not supposed to carry goatskin water bags over his shoulders. The boys of the village followed him after the elders had given up, and Skag halted at last to explain that this was an affair that would interest them very much—when a teller came back to tell the story; but that this was the doing part of the story and must be carried to its conclusion alone.
A little later in the nullah bed he fastened the canteen and the gourd to Nels' collar, but continued to pack the two skins himself—a rather arduous journey in full Indian daylight with between forty and fifty pounds of water on his shoulders. It was four in the afternoon when they neared the mouth of the lair and Nels was drooping again.
Buck up, old man! Skag said. "I'll go in for a while with the thirsty ones. Then we'll make a camp and have some supper together."
Skag heard the hiss again as he entered the darkness, and the kittens were not so still as before. Only a trifle less leisurely he approached the mother. He knew that any strength that had come would only feed her hostility so far; that a man was not to win the confidence of a great mammal thing like this in a day. His first impulse was to silence the kittens with a gourd of water, but he could not bear to make the mother wait.
She raised her head against him as before, but the smell of the water caught and altered her fury more swiftly this time. Skag saw the glare go out from the great eye as the tortured mouth was cooled; and now the hope grew within him that the tigress might actually be saved. He talked softly to her as he poured drop by drop upon her tongue from the side—the little ones pressing closer and closer. Even in the convulsive trembling that took her body from time to time there was an inflowing rather than the ebb of strength.
Presently he left her long enough partly to fill the big gourd for the babies. He had scarcely drawn back before the first was at the edge. Lapping was not enough for this infant. He wanted to cover himself; apparently to overturn the dish upon himself. The others helped to balance the gourd for a moment or two, but the massed effort became too furious and over it went among them. Skag laughed. Only a portion was wasted, for the kittens followed the little streams on the rock, tonguing them as they moved and filled. He tried them again, only covering the bottom of the gourd, but it was as swiftly overturned. Still the young had drunk enough presently and went to tearing at the meat in the deeper shadows.
Skag went back to the mother, still using the canteen for her. Alternately now he dropped the water upon the wound in her shoulder. There were hours of work here to soften the fever crust and establish drainage. Some time afterward this work was stopped abruptly by the warning of Nels at the door. Skag stood his canteen against a rock and hurried forth. Nels stood at the mouth of the lair, his head turned up the river bed. His eyes did not alter from their look of fixity as the man emerged. The shoulder nearest Skag merely twitched a trifle, the left paw lifting to the toes. Skag followed the Dane's eyes.
The great male himself stood stock-still in the centre of the river bed, the carcass of a lamb having dropped from his mouth. So strange, so vast and still, the picture, that it seemed dreamlike; the great, round, sunny eyes unwinking—serious rather than savage—a dark-banded thing of gold in the ruddy gold of late afternoon.
Skag was silent, the magic of the moment flowing into him. Nels had not moved. Skag had been forced to walk round him to find room to stand. They faced the big Bengali together for an instant, the man's hand dropping softly to the dog's shoulder.
The king himself, son, Skag whispered raptly. "He's the loveliest thing in stripes. We'll have to look out for this fellow, Nels. There's no fear in him. We're on his premises and the missus is sick and needs quiet. He's apt to charge, and I can see his point of view. We'll back down, son, and not obstruct the gentleman's door."
They couldn't have been three seconds clambering down the rocks to the nullah bed, yet the male tiger was twenty feet nearer when they looked up. Moreover, he had brought the lamb with him, and this time he kept it in his mouth as he watched.
We mustn't let him see our dark side again, Nels, Skag muttered.
"See if we can't stare as straight as he does. God, what a picture! Yet I'm rather glad he's got that lamb. He must have brought it far. Carrying out her orders doubtless. Only a great male would do that. Oh, it's not that he cares for the babies, Nels. It's to please her that he does it! And she's down and done, but running the lair!
"So Skag talked, hardly knowing what he said, keeping in touch with Nels with his hand and holding the eyes of the royal beast that seemed to be made of patience and poise and gilded beauty. Skag didn't step back, but presently to the side, away from the mouth of the lair. The tiger's counter movement was not to lessen the distance between them this time, but to drop to his haunches, still holding his game. He rocked a little on his hind feet, that ominous undulation which portends the charge. Not more than ten seconds passed and no outward change was apparent, yet there was a relief of tension in Skag's voice.
It's the little lamb that saved us that time, Nels. I think we've passed it—passed the crisis, my boy. We'll just stand by now and measure patience with him.
It was two minutes before Skag ventured a further movement to the right. The tiger made absolutely no counter this time. Skag now spoke to Nels:
You're doing beautifully, son.
The dog had stood by like part of himself. The droop and the quiver that he had known twice that day when the man disappeared into the lair had given way in the real test to unbreakable nerve and defiant heart. Yet it was less the courage than his absolute obedience that entered the man with a charge of feeling that instant. A minute later Skag took another ten steps to the right.
In the deeper shadows, less than an hour afterward, he struck a match to the little supper fire a hundred yards up the slope from the mouth of the lair. Skag then loosened his hunting belt, dropping the weight from him to the blanket with a sigh of content. The hardware had chafed him all day and had only been really forgotten in the stresses of action.
I didn't pack that gun for tiger, he said softly. "Why, I would as soon have shot our good Arab, Kala Khan, or put a bullet between Nut Kut's eyes, as to stop that big fellow bringing young mutton home—to please her! Won't Carlin love to hear that! Oh, yes, it's been a day, son, one more day! I've loved it minute by minute, and you've been—well, I can't think in words, when it comes to that."
The big fellow drowsed in the firelight, his four paws stretched evenly toward the man.
In the morning and afternoon of the next two days Skag brought water to the tigress and bathed her shoulder long. On the third day he could not be sure that the male had left the lair until late afternoon, and when he finally ventured to the mouth and his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness within he saw that the tigress was watching him from the deeper shadows—not prone, but on three feet.
He filled the gourd and weighted it with stones; then backed out.
We're starting for Hurda to-night, son, he said to Nels. "I've left her a drink or two, and by the time she needs more, she'll be able to get to the river herself."
Carlin must have caught the reality of that moment of crisis from Skag's telling—the moment when the male tiger might have charged but didn't, because she succeeded in making Malcolm M'Cord see it, too.
And you say there was no sign from the tiger, but that Hantee Sahib knew when the instant was past? the famous marksman repeated curiously.
Carlin nodded.
But how did he know?
Ask him, she said.
Huh, he muttered. "I might as well enquire of the Dane beastie."
Carlin had been listless for a day or two. This was several weeks after her forty-two hours on Mitha Baba. They were still living in Malcolm M'Cord's bungalow. Skag woke in the night, not with a dream, but rather with a memory. He was broad awake and recalled an incident that had entirely escaped his day-thoughts for a long time. It had to do with that hard-testing period, just after his meeting with Carlin, when he had journeyed to Poona to confer with the eldest brother, Roderick Deal, and had been forced to wait more than a month. In that interval he had learned about hyenas at first hand, through the plight of Beatrice Hichens and the children; also his servant Bhanah had come to him, and the Great Dane, Nels; still it had been a vague stretch of days, in retrospect.
It was during the return-trip to Hurda that the thing happened which held him now as he lay broad awake. Toward twilight, as the train halted at one of the civil stations, a white-covered cot was lifted aboard. There was a kind of silence about that station. The mountains were near on the left hand which was to the West. The white glare of Indian day had softened into delicate rose. A haze of orange and bronze lay upon the lower slopes of the mountains, magically enriching the greens; and the blue against which the mountains were contoured, was pure and immense and still. It was difficult to remember the fret and pain and discolouration of a world bathed in so vast a peace. . . .
At first he thought that the body on the cot was in its shroud. The hush about it and from the mountains touched him with a feeling that he had not quite known before, the depth of it having to do with Carlin. Then he saw, back of the natives who had lifted the cot, yet not too near, the figure of an Englishman of the Military—standing quietly by, as if casually ordering a platoon of soldiers in the duty of loading the train. Now Skag looked at the man's face. It had nothing to do with the lax grace of the officer's figure. This was the face of a man who could endure anything without a cry—a narrow face, tanned and a bit hard possibly from years of self-repression—a silent man, doubtless loved for the feeling around him, rather than because of what he was accustomed to say or do—a face stricken now to the verge of chaos—unchanging anguish of fear and loneliness and sorrow imprinted from within. A strange white glow, that had nothing to do with the tan, shone forth from the skin—etheric disruption, subtler than the breakdown of mere cells. This man would put a bullet in his brain if pressed too far, but he would not cry out. Just now he was close to his limit.
Skag knew something of what passed in the English officer's heart, because he himself was learning what love means. Before his hour with Carlin in the afterglow, on their way back from the monkey glen, he would never have dreamed that there was such feeling in the world; in fact, he would have been unable to read the vivid story of it in the officer's face. . . . So much in a second or two.
The cot had been partly lifted into the coach. The face now was uncovered—the white wasted face of a lovely woman, a woman still living; an utterly delicate face, telling the story of one who had never met a rough impact from the world. It was as if there had always been a strong hand between her and the grit and the grind of world-affairs—first her father's and then the lover's. In the great silence, the eyelids opened. It seemed that night and chill had suddenly come in. The lips moved. The most mournful and hopeless voice spoke straight into Skag's eyes:
Oh, won't you please stop those fever birds!
Skag supposed it an isolated sentence of delirium. He didn't understand. There was a drive of drama or tragedy back of it, but his mind did not give him details. He did not see the English officer again. He did not know if he entered the train. One thing Skag knew: Deep under that narrow masculine face there was a capacity for feeling that this officer's men never saw; that his closest associates never saw. The American reverenced the secret. . . . Sometimes during the hushes of the night, when the train stopped for a moment, Skag lying awake, heard the voice of the woman. There was a feeling from it utterly strange to him. It carried him out of himself, as if he shared something of her delirium and something of the man's agony.
The next day was one of the hardest that Skag ever lived, for Carlin was not at Hurda to meet him. She had gone with a strange elephant into the country. That was the day of the chase on the great young elephant Gunpat Rao, the day in which the story of the monster Kabuli unfolded. The face of the man at the mountain station and the sentence of the woman were completely erased from his surface consciousness, as the memory of an illness.
That was months away, and life had been very full in between. . . .
Carlin said she was just tired, when he went to her room in the morning. She looked at him long. It suddenly came to him vaguely, that she wasn't thinking; rather that her eyes were merely turned to his face. A queer breathlessness came to him a little later, as her head rolled to one side—such a sinking of weakness in the movement. It reminded him with a shock that she had never seemed quite tireless since that long ride on Mitha Baba's neck. But never before had her face turned away from him.
And now he saw a certain inimitable loveliness of her. There were no words to describe the last—only that it was Spirit made of all the dusks and all the white fires. There was something little about her that called an undreamed-of tenderness; and something superb and mysterious, so vast that he could be held in it like a toy in the hands.
Burning Indian day was walled and curtained and barred from the place where she lay. White of the walls, white of her face, white of the pallet—the rest a breathless, ungleaming shadow that held a heat not from the sun, as it seemed, but from the centre of the earth.
. . . Skag was away in timelessness and an unfamiliar space. This space was not fixed to one dimension, but moved back and forth. As Bhanah came to him, he saw more than Bhanah animate upon the features—like someone who had belonged always, whom he had known for ages, whom Carlin had always known. So many things struck him differently now; as if they belonged not just to this crisis, but to a crisis of eons.
Yet externals in the main were so trifling. Carlin didn't eat; people seemed to take that as significant. Malcolm M'Cord came. Margaret Annesley came. Horace Dickson's father came. Skag went to the bazaars and back again. He went to the monkey glen. It was all a blur. Once he caught himself walking on the great Highway-of-all-India; and once deep in the jungle. He passed the civil surgeon of Hurda on his own verandah; and someone said that the old "family doctor" was to come from Poona. . . . Now he was in Carlin's room and Carlin was looking at him. He saw her face the moment he entered the room, and the fact that he had come in from the fierce daylight into the shadows did, not seem to blur his eyes, even for a second.
Her people in the room—Bhanah, the ayah, the civil surgeon, Ian Deal and someone else—but the line from her eyes to Skag was not crossed. The heart of the man leaped from what he saw—the transcendent understanding which needed no words; the look of all looks that meant herself—a little lingering smile on the lips, the endless lure of her wise eyes.
But all that was whipped away as he came three steps nearer her couch. The wonder of it was not taken, but the old pain returned; rather, the pain had been there all the time, but he had forgotten for a space. He saw the ashen and frail face again and the inexpressible weariness of her eyes, too tired to tell of it, too tired to stay! Then the face of the English officer appeared for his eyes—hovering back of the people, in a background of mountains. . . .
Carlin seemed listening. What she heard came out of a grey intolerable monotony; but still her eyes held his. They seemed concentrated upon some weakness of his nature—some dementia that had been before her for years, that had confronted her in every highway of life, frightened away every opportunity and spoiled every day. Her hand lifted just slightly, the palm turned toward him:
Oh, won't you please stop those fever birds?
. . . Then one day Skag, standing in the darkened library, heard Margaret Annesley and one of her friends speaking together in the verandah.
But does she really hear anything? the friend asked.
Oh, yes; though you never hear them unless you are ill with the fever.
How strange and terrible, and is it a particular fever?
Jungle fever, dear. It comes to us sometimes of itself, but more often after a shock. . . . Carlin's night in the dark—
Skag's arm lifted in a curve to cover his face as if from a blow. . . . Yet Margaret Annesley was not quite right; for he had learned to hear what Carlin heard:
From far away very faint, curiously thin tones came to him; always repeating one word, with an upward inflection, like a question. Every repetition sounded the fraction of a degree higher than the last, till they were far above the compass of any human voice:
Fee-vur? fee-vur? fee-vur? fee-vur? — — — and on and on.
When it began, quite low, he heard infinite patience in it; gradually, it grew full of fear; then it climbed into a veritable panic of terror.
When it stopped at last, on a long distracted "u-u-u-r-r-r-r?"—he heard the male bird's answer, sounding nearer, in deep tones of utter hopelessness, with a prolonged descending inflection:
Bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r! bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r! bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r!—the Indian word for fever, repeated only three times. Then the female began again; so, day and night—night and day.
After he had once heard it, he could always hear it. So he learned that they never rest. Always, by listening, he could hear it at some point of its maddening scale—its insane assurance of the hopelessness of jungle fever.
Skag faced the ultimatum. This was different. It had nothing to do with his world of animal dangers. This was a slow devouring which he could not touch nor stay. Carlin was melting before his eyes. . . . The brothers had come in, one by one, from over India. (Margaret Annesley had attended to that.) Skag met them, moved quietly about, yet could not remember their faces one from another. He answered when spoken to, but retained no registration as to whom he had spoken, or what had been said. Sometimes he was alone for a few moments with Carlin; and when her eyes were open he was appalled by the growing sense of distance in them. Then before she spoke, he would hear what she heard:
Bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r! bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r! bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r!
There were queer rifts of light in his mind, instants when he realised that all the hard moments of the past had prepared him for this. He saw clearly that he could not have endured, even to the present hour, without every experience life had shown him—especially without the difficult ones. He lived again the great moments—all the Indian afterglows that were identified with Carlin—perfect lessons of mercy she had taught him, through the very yearning of his own heart in her presence to be worthy of days with her. Never useless words from Carlin, but always the vivid meaning. He had been slow at first to see how much more magic were their days together, because she paid for them with a night-and-day readiness to go forth to the call of service to others.
Yet through all, he was utterly, changelessly desolate. Not only bitterness, but an icy bitterness, was upon all meaning and movement of life. It was almost like a conspiracy that no part in ministration was demanded of him by those who were now in his house. The doctors talked to Miss Annesley or to the servants; the brothers came and went with their fear and fidelity—but spoke to Skag of other things than the illness. Still, in his heart a concept slowly formed—that he had something which Carlin needed now; that this something had to do, though it was different, with the power he used to change animals. It seemed absurd even to think of this—with all these wise ones around him, not perceiving it. They formed a barrier of their thoughts which kept him from expression. He stood apart for hours as the days passed, thinking of his part; and yet the icy bitterness held him from action.
Sometimes his heart seemed dying; chill already upon it. Again he seemed filled with a strange vitality, other than his own. This phenomenon frightened him more than the first, so that he would hurry to look at Carlin lest the strength had come from her. He tried to think the strength back to her; to think all his own besides; but there was no drive to his mind-work because he did not have faith in himself.
At length came the night when the fever birds ceased for Carlin. Out of a great soft depth of tone which no one but Skag had heard before (which he had thought no other would hear until there was a baby in her arms), her words came with unforgettable intensity:
Oh, the jungle shadows! The jungle shadows!
After that he did not know whether it was night or day, until he heard the end of a sentence from the doctor from Poona:
. . . only four hours left to break the fever.
The room was in great still heat—heat of a burning night, a smothering heat to the couch from a distant lamp—the fire of the day coming up from the ground like flashes of anger. . . .
A strange stillness was settling on everything; the silence before had not been so heavy. The old family doctor from Poona came into it; and Margaret Annesley stood by him near the bed.
Carlin has not spoken for more than an hour, Skag heard her tell him.
It seemed long before he answered:
She has passed too far down into the shadows. She will not speak again.
The words came to Skag as if through limitless space; but the last ones penetrated deep and laid hold.
Margaret went out swiftly and the doctor followed. He looked a very, very old man—with his head bent, like that.
. . . She will not speak again!
The universe was falling into disruption.
It was all white where she lay. Only the heavy masses of her dark hair, spread on the pillows and across one shoulder, showed any colour—shadowed gold, shadowed red.
. . . She will not speak again!
Seven tall men filed into the room before Skag's eyes, and ranged on either side of her. These were her own brothers. Skag felt the vague pang again, of being alien to them.
Roderick Deal, the eldest—the one with the inscrutable blackness of eyes—leaned and kissed the white, white forehead; and a fold of the splendid hair.
One figure had gone down at the lower end of the bed—long arms stretched over her feet—slender dark hands clenching and unclenching. The detail of it cut into Skag, like a spear of keen pain through chaos. Returned away—it was intolerable.
. . . An arm fell about Skag's shoulders.
Brother? Roderick Deal's fathomless eyes drew Skag's and held them while he spoke: "We are leaving you to be alone with her—at the last!"
The arm gripped as he added:
You are to know this—we will not fail you, now! and he was gone.
They were all gone.
Faint tones of the fever bird, ascending, came from far out. Other tones, descending, came from greater distances within. . . . She will not speak again!
Bhanah touched his sleeve.
My Master! The man's nearness of spirit, as he spoke, vibrated into Skag and roused him to something different, something clearer. "A mystic from the Vindha mountains has but just reached this place. They are very powerful, having great knowledge. This man is blood-kin to her. Give me permission and I will call him."
Skag looked into Bhanah's eyes, finding the ancient friendship there; then he said only one word:
Hurry!
Bhanah leaped away across the lawn and Skag turned to stand by Carlin's side.
The silence seemed absolute now; the whiteness absolute. He remembered that she had gone down into shadows. He bent his head toward her breast and looked down.
. . . Sense of time was gone—even the endlessness of it. Sense of whiteness was gone. His vision wakened, as he groped through deepening shadows, on and on—till they turned to utter blackness. In that utter blackness appeared a thread of pure blue; he traced it back up till it entered Carlin's body. There, it was not blue any more, but a faint glow of high white light centred in her breast and shed—like moonlight—through all her person.
The heart of his heart called to her. . . . There was no answer.
. . . He became aware that a tall slender man stood at his side; but it did not disturb him. The man wore long straight robes of camel's hair. The sense of him was strength. At last he spoke:
Son, why do you call to her? She cannot come back—of herself. You cannot fetch her back.
Why? breathed Skag. "I ought to be able to."
No, the man said kindly, "you are not able to—I am not able to—no created being is able to."
The man emphasised the word created.
What can? Skag asked.
First you must learn not to depend on yourself; then you must know something of the law.
The man was holding one hand out, above Carlin's head—quite still, but not close, while he spoke. Skag felt his strength more than at first.
Do you want her for yourself? he asked.
Skag looked into his kind dark eyes—his own eyes speaking for him.
Do you want her for her own sake—because she loves you? Is it that you have knowledge what will be best for her? Did you create her—did you prepare her ultimate destiny, do you even know it?
I know that I am in it!
Skag answered very low, but with conviction. His eyes were agonised; but the man bored into them, without relenting.
Do you want her to come back from the margin of departure, for the sake of others—for the sake of her ministry to their need?
The answer to this last question came up in Skag—waves on waves, rolling into engulfing billows.
That answer may avail! the man said conclusively. "If it is accepted—if your love for her is perfect enough to forget itself—if you are able to make your mind altogether inactive—"
Then how shall I work—if not with my mind? Skag interrupted.
First know that you yourself can do nothing. The man spoke with soft, slow emphasis. "No created being has power to do that kind of work."
What has? Skag asked.
A Power that we are not worthy to name, the man answered, with reverence. "If it accepts your reason why she should stay—if your love is found to be without tarnish of self—it will work her restoration; not otherwise.
Make yourself still. Give your mind to the apprehension of her nature—till your mind has come to be as if it were not. . . . Peace!
The man dropped his head a moment, before he moved to stand at the food of her bed. With his eyes on her face he leaned, laying his palms over her feet; then, seeming to float backward to the wall, he sank slowly—to sit as the Hindus do.
The sense of his strength seemed to fill the whole room. It was the last outward thing Skag was aware of.
. . . It was as if Skag had passed through eons of ages trying to put away all the tender yearning anguish of his love for Carlin. He came to know her as a beneficent entity of high voltage—needed in more than one place.
It must be that he should make it possible for her to serve here, more potently than there—else she could not be held back. With all his strength, he would try.
Son, the mystic's voice rang out, "now give yourself to your love for her—with your strength!"
Presently a warm glow flowed up into Skag's feet, filling his person and extending his physical sentiency into her body. That body was utterly bound in a strange vise—very heavy; as if every particle of every part were separately frozen.
. . . It seemed to Skag as if he could not breathe.
Breathe! the mystic said, as he rose from the floor to stand on his own feet.
That instant an impact of force from him struck Skag like a blow; and the next moment his sense of strength had become like that of twenty men—it was hard to bear.
Steady—slow! It was a soft, but imperative order.
Gradually the warmth increased; not in degree, but in the rate of its flow. At last it was a surge, so intense that Skag could feel his own blood-pulse—a different kind of pulse.
The need of help was very great. There was a faintness—surely more terrible than any death!
Fear not! the mystic called tenderly. "The Supreme Power cares for her—more than you can!"
As he heard these words, a great tide rose up into Skag, penetrating his body and his mind and the uttermost deeps of his consciousness. A vast sweeping tide—it descended below all depths, it ascended above all heights, it compassed all reaches. It was ineffable love—transcendent. It was for her! But it was for him—too! Nay—it was for every living thing in this mortal condition and in all other conditions!
. . . Carlin turned her head a little, lifted one hand a little and sighed deeply. Then she moved till she lay easily on one side, just murmuring:
I think I'll sleep.
Carlin had spoken again!
Son (the mystic spoke very softly, while he drew Skag to a large couch in the same room), "it is finished. She is altogether safe now. You should be this far away; stretch yourself here and give yourself to sleep also—it will be best for her if you do.
Be at perfect rest—there is no fear. (I will give Bhanah directions.) Now—Peace be on thee; and on thy house, forever!
His words permitted no answer. He went and smiled down on Carlin. He touched her forehead with his finger-tips—he even kissed her curling hair.
Child of my brother's love! he said softly, as he turned away.
Then Skag also slept.