They proved themselves useful in many ways, and even the old khânsâman grudgingly admitted their skill in the capture of chickens. The spectacle of a half-plucked fowl defying all the resources of the camp became a thing of the past, for Mungal or Bungal had it fast by the leg in a trice.
"Sobhan ullah!" (Power of the Lord) the old man would say piously. "But there! they were made for such work from the beginning. We all have our uses."
My first desire was naturally to distinguish Mungal from Bungal. The camp, it is true, had no such ambition. It was content to speak of them as "Yeh" or "Dusra" (This or the Other), to which they answered alternately. Thinking to effect my purpose, I gave one a necklace of blue, the other a necklace of red beads; but they were evidently suspicious of some plot, for I caught them exchanging decorations several times. Evidently no reliance was to be placed on beads, so I had a brass bangle riveted on the arm of one, and an iron bangle on the arm of the other. That succeeded for a week. At least so I thought, till I discovered that they had utilised my English files to cut through the metal so that they could slip their flexible hands in and out quite easily. Then I became annoyed, and pierced the ears of one boy. Next day the other had his pierced also. So I got the two alone by themselves, and asked them why they objected to the manifest convenience of individuality. It took me some time to worm the idea out of their small brains, but when I did, it touched me. Briefly, no one had ever made a difference between them before, not even the mysterious Creator, and in the village no one had cared. Personally, they never thought if Mungal was really Mungal, or Bungal. It was a joint-stock company doing business under the name of Mungal-Bungal. As they said this they stood, as usual when before me, in the attitude of the praying Samuel, but I noticed their shoulders seemed glued to each other, and that the whole balance of their lithe brown bodies was towards each other. In truth the tie between them was strong indeed. By day they and my big dog hunted together, and by night the trio slept in each other's arms like puppies of one litter. When they pilfered, they pilfered in pairs, and when they lied, they lied in pairs; still, through it all, the idea clung to me that perhaps only one lied and stole. But punishment of some sort being imperative, I gave in to the impartial bamboo--for which, to say sooth, neither of them seemed to care very much.
In fact, the experiment appeared so successful, the boys so happy, that the demon of self-complacency entered into me on my return to headquarters, and I determined to send Mungal and Bungal to school, and so differentiate them by their intellects. It was a disastrous experiment, both to the clothes in which I had to dress them, and to the peace of the compound; but it proved one thing, that neither Mungal nor Bungal had any aptitude for learning the alphabet. Then, as the recognised way of reclaiming the predatory tribes is to make them tillers of the soil, I set my boys to work weeding in the garden. It was a large garden, full of blossoming shrubs and shady fruiting trees, where the squirrels loved to chatter, the birds to sing, and I to watch them both. Within a fortnight neither fur nor feather was to be seen anywhere. On the other hand, Mungal, Bungal, and Co. had killed five cobras, two iguanas, and some dozens of cockroaches, rats, and mice--all of which they had eaten. It was when, failing other game, a pet parrot of the khânsâman's house disappeared, that I solemnly thrashed both boys myself, after giving them a moral lecture on cruelty to animals. The next morning the bird's cage contained a new and most highly-educated parrot,--which must have been stolen from some one,-- and when I went out into the verandah, I found a whole family of young squirrels, and two bul-buls with their wings cut, dotted about the flower stands. One of the culprits was evidently bent on restitution and amendment. Perhaps both; that was the worst of it. One never could tell; for in speech they both clung to virtue and disclaimed vice. My Commissioner's wife, who lived next door, and was a very philanthropic woman, told me she thought they needed female influence to soften and subdue their wild nature; so they used to be sent over to her twice a week. She found them quite affable, until the khitmutghâr accused one of them of sampling the lunch which had been set down on the verandah steps on its way to the cook-room. Then, instead of beating them, she locked them up without food for twenty-four hours, and begged me to continue the like discipline whenever the offence was repeated. Hunger, she said, had a gentle and humanising influence on all wild animals, who might thus be brought to eat from the hand of authority. So it seemed; for one night the lady's pet Persian kitten disappeared mysteriously from her room. I tried to persuade myself it could not be the boys, because "cat is heating to the blood," etc., etc.; but I knew they had been hungry, and that game was scarce in both gardens. And, sure enough, the police in searching their hut found some gnawed bones, poor pussy's white skin neatly stretched on a board to dry, and, of course, both the boys. They always were found together. This time they attempted excuse, the one for the other. Mungal or Bungal had been hungry; must have been hungry, or he would not have eaten cat, seeing that cat, etc., etc. So they were sentenced judicially to so many stripes apiece, and I resolved on sending them back to the walled village as incurable.
"It is a good word, indeed," said the old khânsâman pompously. "Thus the Huzoor's compound will be free from all kinds of vermin; for, as I live, the boy hath killed a snake in his Honour's henhouse every night, save the last; and that, methinks, is because there are no more to kill."
"The boy? which boy?" I asked, suddenly curious. Then it came out that every one in the place knew that either "Yeh" or "Dusra" had been locked up in the hen-house from dusk till dawn every night for a week or more, because some vermin was carrying off the chickens. Locked up from daylight to daylight! without a possibility of caticide. The fact revived all my old curiosity, all my old determination to differentiate these boys. I shall not easily forget the Deputy Inspector's face of incredulous horror when I told him that Mungal-Bungal was to remain for another trial. Even the Commissioner's wife told me she thought it conceited on my part, seeing that female influence had failed so signally.
And, as a matter of fact, I gained nothing in the end by my perseverance.
The nights were growing warm, so I slept with the doors open; secure, however, so I deemed, from fear of any kind by reason of the mastiff which was chained in the verandah,--a most ferocious beast to all save his friends. They were moonless nights, too, dark as pitch in the central room, where I slept in order to enjoy the full current of air. Hopelessly dark for the eyes as I woke one night to the touch of a small flexible hand on mine.
"Hullo! who are you?" I cried in the half-drowsy alertness which comes with a sudden decisive awakening.
"Huzoor, main Bowriah hone."