ON THE BORDERS OF NEPAUL: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE JUNGLE
The marching for the next fortnight was delightful. Anything to equal the climate of this Indian winter Tom had never seen. Morning after morning there would be the same brisk, invigorating air; day after day the same dark blue heavens, unbroken by the lightest cloud, would overarch, like a blessing from the Almighty, the vast plains through which they were travelling; and evening after evening the same rose-lilac hue, wonderful beyond the power of words to describe, would steal over the sky. Hoosanee was their guide, and his ways afforded some amusement and occasionally a little annoyance to his master. While humble and reverent in his manner, he kept the control in his own hands. If Tom struck for independence hitches occurred. The meals were half-cooked, the beasts of burden were unmanageable, the coolies had fever. And the artful Hoosanee had adroit methods of making it appear that these annoyances were due to the disturbed arrangement. 'As his Excellency desires, very right indeed!' he would say when an order was given to him; but Tom soon saw that if it was not Hoosanee's desire also someone would suffer. So at last he gave up the struggle. At Bareilly, which lay on their route, Tom spent a few days, the Resident being an intimate friend of General Elton's. From him he heard that Lord Canning's policy was disliked by Europeans, and that there were rumours of disaffection in the magnificent army of Bengal. That this, even if it were true, would affect the security of India, of the North and North-West, did not seem likely, yet some were holding themselves on the alert. Leaving Bareilly, they crossed the Goomtee, and were soon on the borders of Nepaul proper, whence several days' quick marching brought them near the foot of the fine mountain range, within which, as in a basin, lies the heart of the valley kingdom. But the dangerous Terai—a region of marsh and jungle, difficult to traverse at all times, and in the rainy season deadly to travellers—had yet to be crossed. The road through this jungle was not so good as it has since become. Here and there it was so deeply encumbered with rank weeds and the stems of giant creepers that the coolies had literally to hack a way through for the carts, and this made the travelling slow and difficult. They accomplished it, however, without accident, encamped one night above the belt of miasma, and the next day, by dint of hard climbing, came to Sisagarhi, a peak in the second and higher of the two ranges that shut in the valley of Nepaul.
It was near sunset when they reached the camping ground. The day's march had been long and fatiguing. The gradients were excessively steep, and Tom had relieved his pony by walking for long stretches. When he reached the wished-for summit, he was so tired that he could scarcely move. But in the glory of the scene that lay before him his fatigue was speedily forgotten. Far, far below, lying in the deepest shadow, was the long fertile valley that forms the centre of the mountain kingdom. From it, as from a basin, rose the nearer mountains—range within range—green slopes running up into wild, naked crags, that flamed like beacons in the rose-red of the evening, and beyond these, radiant and awful, receding into unimaginable distance, the gleaming snow-peaks of the Southern Himalayas.
Tom was, as he would have expressed it, steeping his senses in the beauty of this marvellous spectacle, when he caught sight of Hoosanee, who was standing close by in a reverential attitude, and looking at him wistfully. 'Is anything wrong?' he asked.
'No, my lord,' answered Hoosanee.
'Then why do you look at me in that way?'
'His Excellency's dinner is served.'
'Dinner, when that is before me! Look out, man, and be ashamed of yourself!'
'If my lord will not eat, he will die,' said the Indian servant humbly, 'and then what use will these mountains do him?'
'Fine logic!' said Tom, laughing. 'And, strange to say, convincing.'
Hoosanee led the way to the table, which was at the door of his young master's tent. A dinner that would have satisfied the requirements of an alderman was spread out; but Tom was too much excited to do it full justice. 'A pity!' he said, as he pushed the untasted dishes away. 'But it can't be helped. Don't look so doleful, Hoosanee. I have taken enough, I believe, to keep me from dying until to-morrow.' Hoosanee bent his head, and was turning away. Tom called him back. 'Come here,' he said, leading him to a little distance from the camp, 'I have something to ask you.'
'It is time your Excellency should rest.'
'Leave that to my excellent self, Hoosanee, and do as I tell you. Now, then, sit down! This is a quiet corner, where none of them will see or hear us. Don't crouch, man; sit! and don't, for heaven's sake, look at me in that pitiful way, as if you thought I was bent on committing suicide to-morrow! I can assure you I have a thousand reasons for wishing to live a little longer. But tell me—why do you take such an interest in me?'
'Am I not my lord's servant?' said Hoosanee in a troubled voice.
'Of course you are; but that doesn't account for it altogether. Can love and devotion like yours spring up in a day?' The bantering tone in which Tom had begun to catechise his servant had gone. He was very much in earnest.
'The faithful servant is born, not made,' said Hoosanee.
'That is no answer,' persisted Tom. 'Speak to me plainly. Is it for my own sake or for the sake of others that you are so anxious about my safety?'
'It is for my lord's sake.'
'But how can it be?'
'Is it possible that my lord does not know?'
'I know nothing, my good friend. Enlighten me!'
Swaying himself to and fro, and speaking in a subdued whisper, Hoosanee said: 'When my master, the rajah, was dying he sent for me. Chunder Singh had been with him, and received his last wishes. I was sad that no word had been given to me, for not even his foster-brother loved my master as I did. He looked up, and saw that I was sad. He smiled, for he was ever glad that we should love him. "Chunder Singh," he said, "will tell my Hoosanee everything." And with that, Excellency, he fell back and died.'
There was a pause. The light of the evening had faded, and the glory of colour had gone. Pale and livid, like ashes of burnt-out fires, lay against the horizon the palaces of snow and ice; overhead, entangled in a wreath of vapour, flitted a white ghostly moon, and the little stars were twinkling out above the hills. Tom shivered, and drew his cloak about him.
'And what did Chunder Singh tell you?' he said, with a poor pretence of indifference.
'What he said, my lord, will sound strange in the ears of one of your Excellency's people. To them there is one life upon earth, and beyond is the infinite, and the man who misses his chance here is lost beyond the power of even the Supreme Spirit to redeem. Is this not true?'
'It is, at least, what some of our religionists teach,' said Tom. 'But how did you learn all this, Hoosanee?'
'From my master, Byrajee Pirtha Raj, who would often let his servant be present when he spoke of these things with wise men from the West. Sahib, our belief is not as theirs. We do not so limit the power of the Supreme. It is taught by our saints and sages that the life we lead here is but one in many—that we come and go, changing into new forms perpetually. While we are low, so they tell us, we have no power over these changes. Unconsciously we work out our destiny, and expiate the offences of which we have no memory. But to those who rise in being it is given to rise also in knowledge. These see behind them the path by which they have come, and the road they must travel on their way to the Supreme lies open in front of them. To this stage my master, the rajah, had come. Once more, it was revealed to him that he should return to the earth.'
Here Hoosanee stopped, and looked at his master in a strange, wistful way, like one pleading for a boon.
'Well!' said Tom. 'Go on! How was your master to return?'
'Does not my lord know? Has not his own heart told him?'
'I know this—that if I listen to you much longer I shall go mad. I was a fool to ask you anything.' So saying, Tom started up and strode off into the darkness.
He turned after a few moments, and saw Hoosanee following him. 'Come here,' he said, in a hoarse voice, 'and tell me who I am!'
'You are my master, Sahib.'
'Which master, Hoosanee? Him who has gone?'
'I see no difference, my lord.'
'Then I am both. Is that what you say?'
'I say nothing. Will not my lord rest?'
'You have put a maggot in my brain, Hoosanee, which will keep me from resting, I expect,' said Tom, speaking now in English.
But he was wrong. Contrary to Hoosanee's advice, his bed was laid out under the stars; and when, after an interval that seemed like a moment, he opened his eyes, to see a pale white dawn, ghastly as the face of the dead, stealing over the sky, and touching with cold fingers the gleaming tabernacles of snow and ice in front of him, he was conscious of having slept for many hours, and of feeling extraordinarily strengthened and refreshed.
So that day they went down to the foot of the hills, travelling thence by a good carriage road to Katmandu, the capital of Nepaul.