A FREE-WILL OFFERING.
“Kismiss,” as the natives call it, is anything but a jovial and merry season to me, and I heartily sympathize with those prudent souls who flee from the station or cantonment, and bury themselves afar off in the jungle, until the festive season has been succeeded by the practical New Year! Christmas in India is an expensive anniversary to a needy subaltern such as I am. Putting aside the necessary tips to the mess-servants, the letter-corporal, and colour-sergeant, I have my own retinue (about ten in number), who overwhelm me with wreaths and flowers culled from my garden, and who expect, in return, solid rupees of the realm. This is reasonable enough; but it passes the limits of reason and patience when other peopled body-servants, peons, syces, and all the barrack dhobies, and every “dog” boy in the station, lie in ambush in order to thrust evil-smelling marigolds under my nose, with expectant salaams! Last Christmas cost me nearly the price of a pony—this Christmas, I resolved to fly betimes with my house-mate, Jones of the D.P.W. We would put in for a week’s leave, and eat our plum-pudding at least sixty miles from Kori.
Alas! my thrifty little scheme was knocked on the head by a letter from my cousin Algy Langley. He is the eldest son of an eldest son; I am the younger son of a second son: and whereas I am a sub. in an infantry regiment, grilling on the plains of India, and working for my daily bread, Algy has run out for one cold weather, merely in search of variety and amusement.
“Why on earth should relations think it necessary to meet on one particular day, in order to eat a tasteless bird and an indigestible pudding?”
I put this question to Jones, as we sat in our mutual verandah, opening the midday dâk.
“Just look at this; it’s a beastly nuisance!” and I handed him Algy’s note, which said—
“Dear old Perky (my Christian name is Perkin),—This is to give notice that I am coming to eat my Christmas dinner with you. I arrive on the 21st, per mail train.—Yours,
“A. Langley.”
“What is your cousin like?” inquired Jones.
“Oh, a regular young London swell, who has never roughed it in his life. I suppose I shall have to turn out of my room,” I grumbled; “and I must borrow Robinson’s bamboo cart to meet him, for I believe he would faint if I put him in a bullock tonga at first—he must arrive at that by degrees!”
“Is there no chance of our getting off to Karwassa? Wouldn’t he come and have a try for the man-eater?” urged Jones.
“Not he!” I rejoined emphatically; “he is a lady-killer—that is his only kind of sport. I’m glad I have not put in for my leave; you and I will go later—the tiger will wait.”
“Yes, he has waited a good while,” retorted Jones, sarcastically; “nearly three years, and about a dozen shikar parties have been got up for his destruction, and still he keeps his skin! But, somehow, I have a presentiment that we shall get him.”
The next day Jones and I met Algy at the station. He had brought three servants, a pile of luggage, and looked quite beautiful as he stepped out on the platform, wearing a creaseless suit, Russia-leather boots, gloves, and a white gauze veil to keep off the dust. His handkerchief was suggestive of the most “up-to-date” delicate scent, as he passed it languidly over his forehead, and gave directions to have his late compartment cleared.
As books, an ice-box, fruit, a fan, cushions, and a banjo, were handed out one by one, I gathered, from Jones’s expressive glance, that he granted that my cousin was a hopeless subject for the jungle.
“Well, Perky,” he said, slapping me on the back, “I’ve got everything now—what are you waiting for?”
“Your lady’s-maid,” I promptly answered, as I nodded at the banjo, pillows, and fan.
“I like to be comfortable,” he confessed. “One may as well take one’s ease as not; it has an excellent and soothing effect on the temper.”
But I noticed that he caught sight of Jones’s grin, and coloured deeply—whether with rage or shame, I could not guess. As I drove my guest up to our lines, I secretly marvelled as to what had brought him to our little Mofussil station, a two days’ railway journey through the flattest, ugliest country. He had been staying at Government House, Calcutta, at various splendid Residencies, and had had every opportunity of seeing India from the most commanding and luxurious point of view. Why had he sought me out?
Later on, as we sprawled in long chairs in my portico overlooking a sun-baked compound,—with a view chiefly consisting of the back of my neighbour’s stables, and Jones’s little brown bear, mowing and moping, under a scraggy mango tree,—I put the inevitable question:
“Well, Algy, what do you think of India?”
“Not much,” he answered. “It is not a bit like what I have expected: it is not as Eastern as Egypt. The scenery that I have seen consists of bushes, boulders, and terra-cotta plains. I don’t care about ruins and buildings; what I want to come at are the people and customs of the land—so far, it’s all England, not India: England at the sea-side, dressing, dancing, racing, flirting; clothes are thinner, manners are easier; but it’s England—England—England!”
I did what I could for him. I took him to a garden-party, to call on the beauty of the station, to write his name in the general’s book, to mess, to a soldier’s sing-song; and still he was discontented. He had been faintly amused with our “pot” gardens and trotting bullocks; nevertheless, he continued to grumble in this style—
“Your band plays the last new coster song, your ladies believe that they wear the latest fashions, your men read the latest news not two days old, your servants speak English and speak it fluently. Your butler plays the fiddle, and he told me this morning that my banjo was ‘awfully nice.’ I desire that you will introduce me (if you can) to India without European clothes—stripped and naked. I want to get below the surface, below officialdom, and general orders, and precedence; scrape the skin, and show me Hindostan.”
“Show me something out of the common.” This was his querulous parrot-cry.
“Would you care to come out into the jungle sixty miles away,” I ventured, “to a place that has no English attributes, and help to shoot a notorious man-eating tiger? There is a reward of five hundred rupees for his skin. For the last two years he has devastated the country.”
“Like it!” cried Algy, suddenly, sitting erect, “why, it’s the very thing. I’ll go like a shot. I am ready to start to-night. What’s the name of the place?”
“Karwassa. This man-eater has killed, they say, more than a hundred people, and if we shoot him, we cover ourselves with glory; if we fail, we are no worse than half the regiment, and most of the station.”
Algy figuratively leapt at the idea; he was out of his chair, pacing the verandah, long ere I had ceased to speak.
“How soon could we start?”
“As soon as I obtained leave,” I replied.
“Oh, bother leave!” he retorted, impatiently.
“Still, it is a necessary precaution,” I answered. “If I go without it I shall be cashiered, and that would be a bother.”
“All right; put in for it at once. The sooner we are off the better,” cried Algy. “Let us get the first shikari in the province, and if he puts us fairly on the tiger, the five hundred rupees shall be his. I pay all expenses.”
“But Jones wants——”
“Yes, Jones, by all means,” he interrupted; “you had better lay your heads together without delay. He told me he was a born organizer, so you might, perhaps, leave the transport and commissariat in his hands, whilst you secure leave, and the keenest and best shikari. Money no object.”
“You are keen enough, Algy,” I remarked; “but, of course, you have no experience of big game. Can you shoot?”
“I can hit a stag, and I’ve accounted for crocodile, but I have never seen a tiger in a wild state.”
“Ah! and you’ll find a tiger is quite another pair of shoes,” I assured him impressively.
The day before Christmas we started in the highest spirits. Algy wore a serviceable shikar suit, strong blue putties, and shooting-boots, and looked as workmanlike as possible. Our destination, Karwassa, lay sixty miles due north, and we travelled forty-five miles along the smooth trunk road in a dogcart, with relays of horses, and arrived early in the afternoon at Munser Dâk Bungalow—a neat white building, in a neat little compound, that was almost swallowed up by the surrounding jungle. Here we experienced our first breakdown. Jones prided himself on doing everything on a “system”—but the system failed ignominiously. Our luggage and servants were fifteen miles behind, and we could not proceed that night, so we resigned ourselves into the hands of the Dâk bungalow khansamah, who slew the usual Dâk bungalow dinner for our behoof. There was a fair going on in the village, and we strolled across to inspect it. A fair of the kind was no novelty to me; but Algy was childishly delighted with all he witnessed, and stood gazing in profound amazement at the stalls of Huka heads, pewter anklets, bangles, and coarse, bright native cloths for turbans and sarees; the money was chiefly copper pice and cowrie shells—the shell currency was a complete revelation to our Londoner, as was a tangle-haired, ash-bedaubed fakir, with his head thrust through a square iron frame, so devised that rest was impossible. He could never lean back, never lie down, never know ease. He had worn this instrument of torture for twelve years, and was a most holy man—so Nuddoo, the shikari, informed us.
“But what is the good of it?” demanded Algy. “What the dickens does he do it for?”
“For a vow,” was the solemn reply.
“I’d rather be dead than have to wear an iron gate round my neck,” rejoined Algy. “But I suppose he thinks he is doing the right thing, and probably he is a good sort.”
And he gave the good sort five rupees.
Next morning we started in real earnest, for the real jungle—each on a separate little cart or chukrun, drawn by a pair of small trotting bullocks; the driver rode on the pole, and behind him there was just room for one person, if he curled himself up, and sat cross-legged. We formed quite a long procession, as we passed down the village street, and all the population came out to speed the sahibs, “who were going to try and shoot the Karwassa man-eater.” Judging by their looks, they were by no means sanguine of our success.
Our road was a mere track, up and down the sides of shallow water-courses, across the dry beds of great rivers, over low hills, and through heavy jungle. The country grew wilder and wilder; here and there we scared a jackal, here and there a herd of deer; villages were very few and far between, and we had passed two that were absolutely deserted: melancholy hamlets, with broken chatties, abandoned ploughs, and grass-grown hearths—now the abode of wild dogs. We were gradually approaching our destination, a cattle country, below a long range of densely wooded hills; having halted at midday to rest our animals for a few hours, we then set out again. But twenty miles is a long distance for a little trotting bullock, especially if his head be turned from home. The eager canter, or brisk trot, had now become a mere spasmodic crawl; for the last mile Algy—the most keen and energetic of the party—had been belabouring and shouting at his pair. What a sight for his club friends, could they have beheld him, the elegant Algy, hoarse, coatless, and breathless! In spite of his desperate exertions, his cattle came to a full stop, and suddenly lay down—an example promptly followed by others. “Darkness was coming,” urged Nuddoo, pointing to the yellow sunset. “We were near an evil country, and it was about his usual time. Karwassa was two koss further, and we had best camp and light fires, and spend the night where we had halted. The sahibs could sleep under the carts, their servants were in waiting, also their food—all would be well.”
I must honestly confess that I thought this a most sensible proposition; but Algy, who had suddenly developed an entirely new character, would not listen to it. During his short sojourn in India, he had picked up a wonderful amount of useful Hindostani words, which he strung together recklessly, and by means of some of them, accompanied by frantic gesticulation, he informed all present that “he was not going to sleep under a cart, but was resolved to spend the night at Karwassa. He would walk there.”
After a short, but stormy, altercation, my cousin carried his point, and set out, accompanied (with great reluctance) by Jones, Nuddoo the shikari, and myself. Algy took command of the party, and got over the ground at an astonishing pace. The yellow light faded and faded, and was succeeded by a grey deathly pallor that rapidly settled down upon the whole face of nature. We marched two and two, along the grass-grown, neglected roads, glancing askance at every bush, at every big tuft of elephant grass (at least, I speak for myself). At last, to my intense relief, the smoke and fires of a village came in view. It proved to be Karwassa—Karwassa strongly entrenched behind its mud walls and a bamboo palisade. After some parley we were admitted by the chowkidar (or watchman), and presently surrounded by the villagers, a poverty-stricken crew, with a depressed, hunted look.
“Once more a party of sahibs come to shoot the man-eaters,” they exclaimed. “Ah, many sahibs had come and come and gone, and naught availed them against the Bagh. He was no Janwar—but an evil spirit.”
“But two days ago,” said the Malgoozar, or head-man—a high-caste Brahmin, with a high-bred face—“he had taken a boy from before his mother’s eyes, as she tilled the patch of vegetables; the screams of the child—he had heard them himself. Ah, ye-yo!”
And he shook his enormous orange turban, and his handsome dignified head, in a truly melancholy fashion. “Moreover, the tiger had taken the woman’s husband—there was not a house in the village that had not lost at least one inmate.”
“Why did they not go away?” I asked.
“Yea—truly, others had abandoned their houses and lands, and fled—but to what avail? The thing was not a Janwar, but a devil.”
A murmur of assent signified that the villagers had accepted their scourge, with the apathetic fatalism of their race. We were presently conducted to an empty hut, provided with broad string beds—and a light. Our Christmas dinner was simple; it consisted of chuppatties and well water, and our spirits were in keeping with our fare; the surrounding misery had infected us. We were even indebted for our present lodgings to the tiger—he had dined upon its former tenant about a month previously. By all accounts he was old, and lame of one hind leg, and had discovered that a human being is a far easier prey than nimble cattle, or fleeting deer. He had studied the habits of his victims, and would stalk the unwary, or the loiterer, like a great cat. Alas! many were the tragedies; with success he had grown bolder, and even broad noonday, and the interior of the village itself, now afforded no protection from his horrible incursions.
The next morning our carts arrived, and we unpacked (the salt, tea, and corkscrew had been forgotten). Afterwards we set out to explore, first the vegetable patches, then the meagre crops, and finally we were shown the dry river bed, the tiger’s high-road to Karwassa. We tracked him easily in the soft, fine, white sand; there were his three huge paws, and a fainter impression of the fourth. Also, there were marks of something dragged, and several dark brown splashes; it was here that he had carried off the wife of one of our present guides, who had looked on,—being powerless to save her.
Needless to say, we were filled with a raging thirst for the blood of this beast—Algy especially. He jawed, he bribed, he gesticulated, he held long conferences with the villagers, with Nuddoo the shikari—an active, leather-skinned man, with a cast in his left eye, who spoke English fluently, and wore a tiger charm. Algy accommodated himself to circumstances with astonishing facility. Most of the night we sat up in a machan, or platform in a tree, over a fat young buffalo, hoping to tempt the man-eater after dark. Subsequently Algy slept soundly on his native charpoy, breakfasted on milk and chuppatties, and sallied forth, gun on shoulder, to tramp miles over the surrounding country. He was indefatigable, and easily wore me out. As I frankly explained, I could not burn the candle at both ends, and sit curled up in a tree till two o’clock in the morning, and then walk down game that self-same afternoon. He never seemed to tire, and he left the champagne and whisky to us, and shot on milk or cold cocoa. His newly acquired Spartan taste declined our imported dainties (tinned and otherwise), and professed to prefer, in deference to our surroundings, a purely vegetable diet.
It was an odd fancy, which I made no effort to combat. Naturally there was more truffled turkey and pâté de foie gras and boar’s head for us! Algy was a successful shot, and reaped the reward of his energy in respectable bags of black buck, hares, sand grouse, chickhira, bustard, peacock—no, though sorely tempted, he refrained from bagging the bird specially sacred to his hosts. Days and nights went by, and so far we were as unsuccessful as our forerunners. In spite of our fat and enticing young buffalo, whom we sometimes sat over from sunset until the pale wintry dawn glimmered along the horizon, we never caught one glimpse of the object of our expedition. Algy was restless, Nuddoo at his wits’ end, whilst Jones had given up the quest as a bad job!
One evening we all gathered round the big fire in the village “chowk” (for the nights were chilly), having a “bukh” with the elders, and, being encompassed by a closely investing audience of the entire population—including, of course, infants in arms—our principal topic was the brute that had so successfully eluded us.
“He will never be caught save by one bait,” remarked a venerable man, wagging his long white beard.
“And what is that, O my father?” I asked.
“A man or a woman,” was the startling reply; “and those we cannot give.”
“Yea, but we can!” cried a shrill voice. There was a sudden movement in the crowd, and a tall female figure broke out of the throng, and pushed her way into the open space and the full light of the fire. She wore the usual dark red petticoat, short-sleeved jacket, and blue cloth or veil over her head. This she suddenly tossed aside, and, as she stood revealed before us, her hair was dishevelled, her black eyes blazed with excitement; but she was magnificently handsome. No flat-faced Gond this, but a Marathi of six-and-twenty years of age—supremely beautiful.
“Protectors of the poor,” she cried, flinging out her two modelled arms, jingling with copper bangles, “here am I. I am willing, and thou shalt give me. The shaitan has slain my man and my son. When the elephant is gone, why keep the goad? This devil of tigers has eaten more than one hundred of our people, and I gladly offer my life in exchange for his. Cattle! no”—with scorn. “He seeks not our flocks; he seeks us! Have we not learned that, above all, he prefers women folk and young? Therefore, behold I give myself”—looking round with a dramatic gesture of her hand—“to save all these.”
“It is Sassi,” muttered the Malgoozar, “the widow of Gitan. Since seven days her mind hath departed. She is mad.”
“Nay, my father, but I am wise! Truly, it is the sahib’s shikari who is foolish, and of but little wit. He knows not the ground. There is the stream close to the forest and the crops. The sahibs shall sit above in the old bher tree, with their guns. They shall tie me up below. Lo, I will sing, yea, loudly, and perchance the tiger will come. He is now seven days without food from our village. Surely he must be an-hungered. I will sing, and bring him to the great lords’ feet—even to his death and mine. Then will my folk be avenged, and my name remembered—Sassi the Marathi, who gave her life for her people!”
She paused, and every eye was fixed upon her as she stood amidst a breathless silence, awaiting our answer, as immovable as a statue.
“Truly, what talk is so foolish as the talk of a woman?” began the Malgoozar, fretfully. “Small mouth, big speech——”
“Nay, my father,” interrupted Nuddoo, eagerly, “but she speaks words of wisdom, and ’tis I that am the fool. The lord sahib returns in two days’ time—and we have done naught.”
As he spoke, his best eye was fixed on Sassi with an expression of ravenous greed not to be described. Apparently he saw the five hundred rupees now within a measurable distance!
“She can lure him, she shall stand on the stack of Bhoosa that pertains to Ruckoo, the chowkidar; she will sing—the nights are still. The Bagh will hear, he will come, and, ere he can approach, the sahibs will shoot him. After all”—with a contemptuous shrug—“it is but a mad woman and a widow.”
“Nuddoo,” shouted Algy, “if I ever hear you air those sentiments again, I’ll shoot you. We don’t want that sort of bait; and, if we did, I would sooner tie you up, than a woman and a widow.”
Nuddoo’s eager protestations, and Algy’s expostulations, were loud and long, and during them a stern-faced old hag placed her hand on Sassi’s shoulder, drew her out of the crowd, and the episode was closed.
Our expedition that night was, as usual, fruitless. We climbed into our tree platform, the now accustomed buffalo dozed in his place undisturbed. Evidently Algy’s mind dwelt on the recent scene at the chowk, and he harangued me from time to time, in an excited whisper, on the subject of Sassi’s heroism, her wonderful beauty, and Nuddoo’s base suggestion. He was still whispering, when I fell asleep. And now it had come to our last day but one. Jones looked upon further effort as supreme folly. He wanted, for once, a night’s unbroken rest, and at six o’clock we left him lying on his string bed, on the flat of his back, smoking cigarettes and reading a two-shilling novel—a novel dealing with smart folk in high life—a book that carried his thoughts far, far from a miserable mud village in the C.P. and its living scourge. How I envied Jones! I would thankfully have excused myself, but Algy was my cousin; he had taken command of the trip, and of me, ever since we had quitted the great trunk road—and I was entirely under his orders.
Nuddoo was not above accepting a hint; this time our machan was lashed into a big pepul tree on the border of the forest, and the edge of a stream that had its home in the hills. We were about two miles from Karwassa as the crow flies, and, as we were rather early, we had ample time to look about us; the scene was a typical landscape in the Central Provinces. To our left lay the hills, covered with dense woodlands, from whose gloomy depths emerged the now shallow river, which trickled gently past us over its bed of dark blue rock and gravel. Beyond the stream, and exactly facing us, lay a vast expanse of grain—jawarri, gram, and vetches—as far as the eye could reach, the monotonous stretch being broken, here and there, by a gigantic and solitary jungle tree. To the right, and on our side of the bank, was an exquisite sylvan glade, a suitable spot to which the forest fairies might issue invitations to the neighbouring elves to “come and dance in the moonbeams.” Between the great trees, the waving crops, and the murmuring brook, I could almost have imagined myself in the midlands of England—save for certain tracks in the sand beneath our tree. Its enormous roots were twisted among rocks and boulders, and, where a spit of gravel ran out into the clear water, were many footprints, which showed where the bear, hyena, tiger, and jackal had come to slake their thirst. I noticed that Nuddoo seemed restless and strange, and that his explanations and answers were incoherent, not to say foolish.
“This looks a likely enough place,” said Algy, with the confidence of a man who had been after tiger for years. “But, I say, Nuddoo, where’s the chap with the buffalo—where is our tie-up?”
“Buffalo never started yet—plenty time—coming by-and-by, at moonrise,” stammered Nuddoo; and, as I climbed into the machan, and he took his place next me, with our rifles, it struck me that Nuddoo was not sober. He smelt powerfully of raw whisky—our whisky—his lips were cracked and dry, and his hand shook visibly. What had he been doing?
“It will be an awful sell if there is no tie-up, and the tiger happens to go by,” said Algy, irritably.
“The gara will be here without fail, your honour’s worship. It will be all right, I swear it by the head of my son. Moreover, we will get the tiger—to-night he touches his last hour.”
There was no question that Nuddoo, for the first time in my experience, was very drunk indeed. Presently the full moon rose up and illuminated the lonely landscape, the haunted jungle, the crops, the glade, and turned the forest stream to molten silver. It was nine o’clock, and, whilst Nuddoo slumbered, Algy and I held our breath, as we watched a noble sambur stag come and drink below us. He was succeeded by an old boar, next came a hyena; it was a popular resort; in short, every animal appeared but the one we wanted—and he was undoubtedly in the neighbourhood, for the deer seemed uneasy.
It was already after ten, and Algy was naturally impatient, and eagerly looking out for our devoted “gara.” He and I were bending forward, listening anxiously; the forest behind us seemed full of stealthy noises, but we strained our ears in vain for the longed-for sound of buffalo hoofs advancing from the front. Nuddoo still slept soundly, and at last Algy, in great exasperation, leant over and shook him roughly.
“Ay,” he muttered, in a sleepy grunt, “it is all right, sahib, the gara will come without fail.”
Even whilst he spoke, we heard, not fifty yards away, the voice of a woman singing in the glade, and Nuddoo now started up erect, and began to tremble violently.
It was light as day, as we beheld Sassi advancing slowly in our direction, singing in a loud clear voice an invocation to Mahadeo the Destroyer!
When she had approached within earshot she halted, and, raising her statuesque face to her namesake the moon, chanted—
“O great lords in the pepul tree, whereto Nuddoo, the drunkard, hath led you,
Behold, according to my promise, lo! I have come.
I sing to my gods, and perchance I will bring the tiger to your honours’ feet.”
For the space of three heart-beats, we remained motionless—paralyzed with horror,—and then Nuddoo, who was gibbering with most mysterious terror, gave me a sudden and an involuntary push.
There, to the left, was something coming rapidly through the crops! The grain parted and waved wildly as it passed; in a moment a huge striped animal, the size of a calf, had crossed the river with a hurried limp.
“Kubberdar! Bagh! Bagh!” roared Algy to the woman. To me, “You’ve got him!”
Undoubtedly it was my shot, but I was excessively flurried—it was new to me to have a human life hanging on my trigger; as he sprang into the open glade I fired—and missed. I heard my cousin draw in his breath hard; I saw the woman turn and face us. The tiger’s spring and Algy’s shot seemed simultaneous; as the echo died away, there was not another sound—the great brute lay dead across the corpse of his victim. I was now shaking as much as Nuddoo; my bad aim had had a frightful result. Before I could scramble down, Algy, with inconceivable rashness, was already beside the bodies, where they lay in the middle of the glade—the monster stretched above his voluntary prey.
The news spread to the village in some miraculous manner. Had the birds of the air carried the great tidings? The entire community were instantly roused by the intelligence. Man, woman, yea, and child, came streaming forth, beating tom-toms and shouting themselves hoarse with joy. They collected about the tiger—who was evidently of far more account than the woman—they kicked him, cursed him, spat on him, and secretly stole his whiskers for a charm against the evil eye. They thrummed the tom-toms madly as they marched round and round Algy—the hero of the hour.
Nuddoo had now entirely forgotten his tremors, he was almost delirious with excitement; the five hundred rupees were his, he could live on them—and on his reputation as the slayer of the great Karwassa man-eater—for the remainder of his existence. He talked till he frothed at the corners of his mouth, he boasted here, he boasted there. He declared that “he had encouraged Sassi, and given her an appointment as the gara, or tie-up. Yea, she had spoken truly—there was no other means!”
Released from his honours and the transports of the tom-toms, these fatal words fell on Algy’s ears, and he went straight for Nuddoo. What he said or did, I know not, but this I know, that from that moment I never saw Nuddoo again until weeks later, when he came to me by stealth in Kori, exceedingly humble and sober, and received, according to Algy’s instructions, “five hundred rupees; but if he asks you for a chit,” wrote Algy, “kick him out of the compound.”
The tiger was big and heavy, he required twenty coolies to carry him back to Karwassa—for his last visit. Sassi was borne on the frame of our machan—ere she was placed there, an old hag covered the beautiful dead face with her veil, and slipped off her sole ornaments, the copper bangles, in a business-like fashion.
“Give me one of those,” said Algy, who was standing by. “I will pay you well. Were you her mother?”
“Her grandmother,” replied the crone. “She was mad. Lo, now she is gone, I shall surely starve!” and she began to whimper for the first time. Truly, she knew this sahib was both rich and open-handed.
Algy and I slept soundly for the remainder of that eventful night; but it is my opinion that the villagers never went to rest at all. The moment we set foot in the street the next morning, a vast crowd surged round my cousin; every one of them carried a string of flowers or—highest compliment—a gilded lime. Women brought their children, from the youngest upwards, and Algy was soon the centre of the village nursery. All these little people were solemnly requested “to look well upon that honoured lord, and to remember when they were old, and to tell it to their children, that their own eyes had rested on the great sahib who had killed the shaitan of Karwassa.”
Algy was loaded with honours and flowers; I must confess that he bore them modestly, and he, on his side, paid high tribute to Sassi the Marathi. He commanded that she should have a splendid funeral. The most costly pyre that was ever seen in those parts was erected, the memory of the oldest inhabitant was vainly racked to recall anything approaching its magnificence. The village resources, and the resources of three other hamlets, were strained to the utmost tension to provide sandal-wood, oil, jewels, and dress. If Algy’s London “pals” could hear of him spending fifty pounds on the burning of a native woman, how they would laugh and chaff him! I hinted as much, and got a distinctly nasty reply. He was quite right; roughing it had a bad effect upon his temper. At sundown the whole population assembled by the river bank to witness the obsequies of Sassi the widow of Gitan; they marvelled much (and so did I) to behold my cousin standing by, bare-headed, during the entire ceremony.
We set out on our return journey that same evening—travelling by moonlight had no dangers now! Algy distributed immense largesse among his friends, viz. the entire community (he also paid all our expenses like a prince). He and the inhabitants of Karwassa parted with many good wishes and mutual reluctance; indeed, a body of them formed a running accompaniment to us for nearly a dozen miles. Our spoil, the tiger’s skin, was a poor specimen. The stripes had a dull, faded appearance; but it measured, without stretching, a good honest ten feet from nose to tip of tail. Once we were out of the jungle, and back in the land of bungalows, daily posts, and baker’s bread, Algy relapsed from a keen and intrepid sportsman into an indolent, drawling dandy. The day after our return to Kori, he took leave of me in these remarkable words—
“Well, good-bye, Perky. You are not a bad sort, though you are not much of a chap to shoot or rough it. However, I have to thank you for taking me off the beaten track, and showing me something which I shall never forget,—and that was entirely out of the common.”
“THE MISSUS.”
A DOG TRAGEDY.
When the Royal British Skirmishers were quartered in Bombay, their second in command was Major Bowen, a spare, grizzled, self-contained little soldier, who lived alone in one of those thatched bungalows that resemble so many monstrous mushrooms, bordering the racecourse. “The Major,” as he was called par excellence, was best described by negatives. He was not married. He was not a ladies’ man. Nor was he a sportsman; nor handsome, young, rich, nor even clever—in short, he was not remarkable for anything except, perhaps, his dog. No one could dispute the fact that Major Bowen was the owner of an uncommon animal. He and this dog had exchanged into “the Skirmishers” from another regiment six years previously, and though the pair were at first but coldly received, they adapted themselves so admirably to their new surroundings that ere long they had gained the esteem and goodwill of both rank and file; and, as time wore on, there actually arose an ill-concealed jealousy of their old corps, and a disposition to ignore the fact that they had not always been part and parcel of the gallant Skirmishers. Although poor, and having but little besides his pay, the Major was liberal—both just and generous; and if he was mean or close-fisted with any one, that person’s name was Reginald Bowen. He had an extremely lofty standard of honour and of the value of his lightest word. He gave a good tone to the mess, and though he was strict with the youngsters, they all liked him. Inflexible as he could look on parade or in the orderly-room, elsewhere he received half the confidences of the regiment; and many a subaltern had been extricated from a scrape, thanks to the little Major’s assistance—monetary and otherwise. He was a smart officer and a capital horseman, and here was another source of his popularity. He lent his horses and ponies, with ungrudging good faith, to those impecunious youths who boasted but the one hard-worked barrack “tat;” and many a happy hour with hounds, or on the polo-ground, was spent on the back of the Major’s cattle. Major Bowen did not race or hunt, and rarely played polo; in fact, he was not much interested in anything—although upwards of forty, he was supremely indifferent to his dinner!—the one thing he really cared about was his dog: a sharp, well-bred fox-terrier, with bright eyes and lemon-coloured ears,—who, in spite of the fact that her original name was “Minnie,” had been known as “the Missus” for the last five years. This name was given to her in joke, and in acknowledgment of her accomplishments; the agreeable manner in which she did the honours of her master’s bungalow, and the extraordinary care she took of him, and all his property. It was truly absurd to see this little creature—of at most sixteen pounds’ weight—gravely lying, with crossed paws, in front of the Major’s sixteen hands “waler,” whilst he was going round barracks, or occupied in the orderly-room. Her pose of self-importance distinctly said, “The horse and syce are in my charge!”
She went about the compound early every morning, and rigorously turned out vagrants, suspicious-looking visitors to the servants’ quarters, and all dogs and goats! She accompanied her master to mess, and fetched him home, no matter how late the hour—and through the rains (and they are no joke in Bombay) it was just the same; there was the chokedar, with his mackintosh and lantern; and there was also, invariably, the shivering, sleepy little Missus. It was of no avail to tie her up at home; not only were her heartrending howls audible for a quarter of a mile, but on one occasion she actually arrived under the dinner-table, chain and all, to the discomfort of the Colonel’s legs, the great scandal of the mess-sergeant, and her own everlasting disgrace! So she was eventually suffered—like wilful woman—to have her way. Her master’s friends were her friends, and took the Missus quite seriously—but she drew the line at dogs. It must be admitted that her manners to her own species were—not nice. She had an unladylike habit of suddenly sitting down when she descried one afar off, and sniffing the, so to speak, tainted air, that was nothing more nor less than a deliberate insult to any animal with the commonest self-respect; many a battle was fought, many a bite was given and received. The Missus was undeniably accomplished; she fetched papers and slippers, gave the paw, and in the new style—on a level with her head, walked briskly on her hind legs, could strum on the piano, and sing, accompanying herself to a clear, somewhat shrill, soprano. There was a little old pianette in the Major’s sitting-room, on which she performed amid great applause. It was not true that the instrument had been purchased solely for her use, or that she practised industriously for two hours a day. No—the pianette had been handed over to her master by a young man (who had subsequently gone to the dogs) as the only available payment of a sum the Major had advanced for him. Battered old tin kettle as it was, that despised piano had cost one hundred pounds! But no one dreamt of this when they laughed at its shortcomings. The Missus was passionately fond of music, and escorted her owner to the band; but she escorted him almost everywhere—to the club, round the barracks, the racecourse, to church—here she was ignominiously secured in the syce’s “cupra,” as she had a way of stealthily peeping in at the various open doors, and endeavouring to focus her idol, which manœuvre—joined with her occasional assistance in the chanting—proved a little trying to the gravity of the congregation. Of course she went to the hills—where she had an immense acquaintance; she had also been on active service on the Black Mountain, and when one night a prowling Afridi crept on his hands and knees into the Major’s tent, he found himself unexpectedly pinned by a set of sharp teeth,—he carried the mark of that bite to his grave.
Major Bowen was not the least ashamed of his affection for his dog. She was his weak point—even the very Company’s dhobies approached him through her favour. He was president of the mess, and in an excellent manner had officiated for years in that difficult and thankless office; a good man of business—prompt, clear-headed, methodical, and conscientious. No scamping of accounts, no peculations overlooked, a martinet to the servants, and possibly less loved than feared. But this is a digression from the Missus. Her master was foolishly proud of her good looks—very sensitive respecting her little foibles (which he clumsily endeavoured to conceal), and actually touchy about her age!
When the Missus had her first, and only, family, it was quite a great local event. The Major’s establishment was turned completely upside down; there was racing and chasing to procure two milch goats for the use of the infants and their mother, and a most elegant wadded basket was provided as a cradle. But, alas! the Missus proved a most indifferent parent. She deserted her little encumbrances at the end of one day, and followed her master to the Gymkana ground. He was heartily ashamed of her, and positively used to remain indoors for the sake of keeping up appearances. He could not go to the club, and have the Missus waiting conspicuously outside with the pony, when all the world knew that she had no business to be there, but had four young and helpless belongings squealing for her at home! She accorded them but little of her company, and appeared to think that her nursery cares were entirely the affair of the two milch goats! One of her neglected children pined, and dwindled, and eventually died, was placed in a cigar-box, and buried in a neat little grave under a rose-bush in the compound, whilst its unnatural mamma looked on from afar off, a totally uninterested spectator! The three survivors were handsome puppies, and the Major exhibited them with pride to numerous callers, and finally bestowed them among his friends (entirely to please their mother, whom they bored to death). They were gratefully accepted, not merely on their own merits, but also as being a public testimonial of their donor’s high opinion and esteem.
It was towards the end of the monsoon, when the compound was almost afloat, and querulous frogs croaked in every corner of the verandahs, that Major Bowen became seriously ill with low malarious fever. He had been out ten years—“five years too long,” the doctor declared; “he must go home at once, and never return to India.” This was bad news for the regiment, and still worse for the invalid, who helped a widowed sister with all he could spare from his colonial allowances. There would not be much margin on English pay!
He was dangerously ill in that lofty, bare, whitewashed bedroom in Infantry Lines. He would not be the first to die there. No,—not by many. His friends were devoted and anxious. The Missus was devoted and distracted. She lay all day long at the foot of his cot, watching and listening, and following his slightest movement with a pair of agonized eyes.
At length there was a change—and for the better. The patient was promoted into a cane lounge in the sitting-room, to solids, and to society—as represented by half the regiment. He looked round his meagrely furnished little room with interested eyes. There was not a speck of dust to be seen, everything was in its place, to the letter-weight on the writing-table, and the old faded photos in their shabby leather frames. Missus’s basket was pushed into a far corner. She had not used it for weeks. He and Missus were going home, and would soon say good-bye for ever to the steep-roofed thatched bungalow, the creaking cane chairs, the red saloo purdahs, to the verandahs, embowered in pale lilac “railway” creeper, to the neat little garden—to the regiment—to Bombay. Their passages were taken. They were off in the Arcadia in three days.
That afternoon, the Major had all his kit and personal property paraded in his sitting-room, in order that the packing of his belongings (he was a very tidy man) should take place under his own eyes. The bearer was in attendance, and with him his slave and scapegoat—the chokra.
The bearer was a stolid, impassive-looking Mahomedan, with a square black beard, and a somewhat sullen eye.
“Abdul,” said his master, as his gaze travelled languidly from one neatly folded pile of clothes to another—from guns in cases to guns not in cases, to clocks, revolvers, watches, candlesticks—the collection of ten years, parting gifts, bargains, and legacies—“you have been my servant for six years, and have served me well. I have twice raised your wages, and you have made a very good thing out of me, I believe, and can, no doubt, retire and set up a ticca gharry, or a shop. I am going away, and never coming back, and I want to give you something of mine as a remembrance—something to remember me by, you understand?”
The bearer deliberately unfolded his arms, and salaamed in silence.
“You may choose anything you like out of this room,” continued the Major, with unexampled recklessness.
Abdul’s eyes glittered curiously—it was as if a torch had suddenly illumined two inky-black pools.
“Sahib never making joke—sahib making really earnest?”—casting on him a glance of almost desperate eagerness. The glance was lost on his master, whose attention was fixed on a discarded gold-laced tunic and mess-jacket.
“Of course,” he said to himself, “Abdul will choose them,” for gold lace is ever dear to a native heart, it sells so well in the bazaar, and melts down to such advantage.
“Making earnest!” repeated the invalid, irritably. “Do I ever do otherwise? Look sharp, and take your choice.”
“Salaam, sahib,” he answered, and turned quickly to where the Missus was coiled up in a chair. “I take my choice of anything in this room. Then I take—the—dog.”
“The—dog!” repeated her owner, with a half-stupefied air.
“Verily, I am fond of Missy. Missy fond of master. The dog and I will remember the sahib together, when he is far away.”
The sahib felt as if some one had suddenly plunged a knife in his heart. In Abdul’s bold gaze, in Abdul’s petition, he, too late, recalled the solemn (but despised) warning of a brother-officer:
“That bearer of yours is a vindictive brute; you got his son turned out of the mess, and serve him right, for a drunken, thieving hound! But sleek as he looks, Abdul will have it in for you yet;” and this was accomplished, when he said, “The dog and I, sahib, will remember you together.”
Major Bowen was still desperately weak, and he had just been dealt a crushing blow; but the spirit that holds India was present in that puny, wasted frame, and, with a superhuman effort, he boldly confronted the two natives—the open-mouthed, gaping chokra, the respectfully exultant bearer—and said, “Atcha” (that is to say, “good”), “it is well;” and then he feebly waved to the pair to depart from him, for he was tired.
Truly it was anything but “good.” It seemed the worst calamity that could have befallen him. He was alone, and face to face with a terrible situation. He must either forfeit his word, or his dog,—which was it to be?
In all his life, to the best of his knowledge, he had never broken his faith, and now to do it to a native!—that was absolutely out of the question. But his dog—his friend—his companion—with whom he never meant to part, as long as she lived (for she had given her to him). He sat erect, and looked over at the Missus, where she lay curled up; her expressive eyes met his eagerly.
Little, O Missus, do you guess the fatal promise that has just been made, nor how largely it concerns you. Her master lay back with a groan, and turned his face away from the light, a truly miserable man! His faithful Missus!—to have to part with her to one of the regiment would have been grief enough; but to a Mahomedan, with their unconcealed scorn of dogs! He must have been mad when he made that rash offer; but then, in justification, his common sense urged, “How was he to suppose that Abdul would choose anything but a silver watch, a gun, or the worth of fifty rupees?” Major Bowen was far from being an imaginative man, but as he lay awake all night long, and listened to the wild roof-cats stealing down the thatch, and heard them pattering back at dawn, one mental picture stood out as distinctly as if he was looking at it with his bodily sight, and it was actually before him.
A low, squalid mud hut in a bazaar; a native string bed, and tied to it by a cord—the Missus. “The Missus,” with thin ribs, a staring coat, and misery depicted on her little face, the sport of the children and the flies—starved, forlorn, heartbroken—dumbly wondering what had happened to her master, and why he had so cruelly deserted her! Oh, when was he coming to fetch her? Not knowing, she was at least spared this—that he would never come.
What an insane promise! As he recalled it, he clenched his hands in intolerable agony. Why did he not offer his watch—his rifle? he would give Abdul a thousand rupees, gladly, to redeem the dog, but his inner consciousness assured him that Abdul, thanks to him, was already well-to-do, and that his revenge was worth more to him than money. This would not be the case with most natives, but he knew, to his cost, that Abdul’s was a stern, tenacious, relentless nature. At one moment, he had decided to poison the Missus with his own hands—prussic acid was speedy; at another, he had resolved to remain in India, doctors or no doctors.
“And sacrifice your life?” again breathed common sense. “Die for a dog!” True, but the dog was not a dog to him. She was his comrade, his sympathizer, his friend. Meanwhile, the object of all these mental wrestlings and agonies slept the sleep of the just, innocent, and ignorant; but in any case, it is a question if a dog’s anxieties ever keep it awake. Her master never closed his eyes; he saw the dawn glimmer through the bamboo chicks; he saw Abdul, the avenger, appear with his early tea, and Abdul found him in high fever; perhaps Abdul was not greatly surprised!
Friends and brother-officers flocked in that day, and sat with the Major, and they noted with concern that he looked worse than he had done at any period of his illness. His naturally pinched face was worn and haggard to a startling degree. Moreover, in spite of the news of the high prices his horses had fetched, he was terribly “down,” and why? A man going home, after ten years of India, is generally intolerably cheerful. They did their best to enliven him, these good-hearted comrades, and—unfailing topic of interest—they discoursed volubly and incessantly of the Missus.
“She is looking uncommonly fit,” said young Stradbrooke, the owner of one of her neglected children. “She knows she is going to England. She was quite grand with me just now! She hates boating like the devil! I wonder how she will stand fourteen days at sea?”
There was a perceptible silence after this question, and then the Major said in a queer voice—
“She is—not—going.”
“Not going?” An incredulous pause, and then some one exclaimed: “Come, Major, you know you would just as soon leave your head behind.”
“All the same—I am leaving her——”
“And which of us is to have her?” cried the Adjutant. “Take notice, all, that I speak first. You won’t pass over me, sir. Missus and I were always very chummy, and I want her to look after my chargers and servants, fetch my slippers, bring me home from mess—and to take care of me and keep me straight.”
“I have already given her away to——” the rest of the sentence seemed to stick in the Major’s throat, and his face worked painfully.
“Away to whom?” repeated young Stradbrooke. “Say it’s to me, sir. I’ve one of the family already—and Missus likes me. I know her pet biscuits, and there are heaps of rats in my stables—such whoppers!”
“Given her—to the bearer—Abdul,” he answered, stoutly enough, though there was still a little nervous quivering of the lower lip.
If the ceiling had parted asunder and straightway tumbled down on their heads, the Major’s audience would not have been half so much dumfoundered. For a whole minute they sat agape, and then one burst out—
“I say, Major, it’s a joke—you would not give her out of the regiment; she is on the strength.”
“She is promised,” replied the Major, in a sort of husky whisper.
Every one knew that the Major’s promises were a serious matter, and after this answer there ensued a long dismayed silence. The visitors eventually turned the topic, and tried to talk of other matters—the last gazette, the new regimental ribbon, of anything but of what every mind was full, to wit, “the Missus.”
The news respecting her bestowal created quite a sensation that evening at the mess—far more than that occasioned by a newly announced engagement, for there was an element of mystery about this topic. Why had the Missus been given away?
“Bowen must be off his chump,” was the general verdict, “poor old chap, to give the dog to that rascal Abdul, of all people!” (One curious feature in Anglo-Indian life, is the low opinion people generally entertain of their friends’ servants.) “The proper thing was, of course, to buy the dog, and keep her in the regiment; and when the Major came to his right senses, how glad he would be, dear old man!”
The Adjutant waylaid Abdul in the road, and said, curtly—
“Is this true, about the dog?—that your sahib has given her to you?”
Abdul salaamed. How convenient and non-committal is that gesture!
“What will you take for her?”
“I never selling master’s present,” rejoined the bearer, with superb dignity.
“What does a nigger want with a dog?” demanded the officer, scornfully. “Well, then, swop her—that won’t hurt your delicate sense of honour. I’ll get you an old pariah out of the bazaar, and give you fifty rupees to buy him a collar!”
“I have refused to-day one thousand rupees for the Missy,” said Abdul, with increased hauteur.
“You lie, Abdul,” said the officer, sternly; “or else you have been dealing with a stark, staring madman.”
“I telling true, Captain Sahib. I swear by the beard of the Prophet.”
“Who made the offer?”
“Major Bone”—the natives always called him “Major Bone.”
“Great Scott! Poor dear old chap” (to himself): “I had no idea he was so badly touched. It is well he is going home, or it would be a case of four orderlies and a padded room. So much for this beastly country!” Then to Abdul, “Look here; don’t say a word about that offer, and come over to my quarters, and I’ll give you some dibs—the sun has been too much for your sahib—and mind you be kind to the Missus; if not, I’ll come and shoot her, and thrash you within an inch of your life.”
“Gentlemen Sahib never beating servants. Sahib touch me, I summon in police-court, and I bring report to regimental commanding officer. Also, I going my own country, Bareilly, and I never, never selling kind master’s present.”
“I know lots of Sahibs in a pultoon (i.e. regiment) at Bareilly, and I shall get them to look out for you and the dog, Mr. Abdul. You treat ‘kind master’s present’ well, and it will be well with you,—if not, by Jove, you will find that I have got a long arm. I am a man of my word, so keep your mouth shut about the Major. To-night my bearer will give you ten rupees.” And he walked on.
“Bowen must be in a real bad way, when he gives his beloved dog to a native, and next day wants to buy it back for a thousand rupees,” said Captain Young to himself. “I thought he looked queer yesterday, but I never guessed that he was as mad as twenty hatters.”
The hour of the Major’s departure arrived; he had entreated, as a special favour, that no one would come to see him off. This request was looked upon as more of his eccentricity, and not worthy of serious consideration; he would get all right as soon as he was at sea, and the officers who were not on duty hurried down to see the last of their popular comrade. He drove up late, looking like death, his face so withered, drawn, and grey, and got out of a gharry, promptly followed by Abdul, carrying the Missus. The steam-launch lay puffing and snorting at the steps—the other passengers were aboard—there was not a moment to lose. The Major bade each and all a hurried farewell; he took leave of the Missus last. She was still in Abdul’s arms, and believed in her simple dog mind that her master was merely bound for one of those detestable sails up the harbour. As she offered him an eager paw, little did she guess that it was good-bye for ever, or that she was gazing after him for the last time, as he feebly descended the steps and took his place in the tender that was to convey him to the P. and O. steamer.
He watched the crowd of friends wildly waving handkerchiefs; but he watched, above all, with a long, long gaze of inarticulate grief, a dark turbaned figure, that stood conspicuously apart, with a small white object in his arms: watched almost breathlessly, till it faded away into one general blur. The Bengal civilian who sat next to Major Bowen in the tender, stared at him in contemptuous astonishment. He had been twenty-five years in the country (mitigating his exile with as much furlough—sick, privilege, and otherwise—as he could possibly obtain), and this was the first time he had seen a man quit the shores of India—with tears in his eyes!