“Of course, yes. I think that will be the best plan. You’ve some kind of hereditary influence with the little chaps, and they may listen to you when a glimpse of our uniforms would drive them wild. You’ve never been in that part of the world before, have you? Take care they don’t send you to your family vault in your youth and innocence. I believe you’ll be all right if you can get ’em to listen to you.”
“I think so, sir; but if—if they should accidentally put an—make asses of ’emselves—they might, you know—I hope you’ll represent that they were only frightened. There isn’t an ounce of real vice in ’em, and I should never forgive myself if any one of—of my name got them into trouble.”
The Colonel nodded, but said nothing.
Chinn and Bukta departed at once. Bukta did not say that, ever since the official vaccinator had been dragged into the hills by indignant Bhils, runner after runner had skulked up to the lines, entreating, with forehead in the dust, that Jan Chinn should come and explain this unknown horror that hung over his people.
The portent of the Clouded Tiger was now too clear. Let Jan Chinn comfort his own, for vain was the help of mortal man. Bukta toned down these beseechings to a simple request for Chinn’s presence. Nothing would have pleased the old man better than a rough-and-tumble campaign against the Satpuras, whom he, as an “unmixed” Bhil, despised; but he had a duty to all his nation as Jan Chinn’s interpreter; and he devoutly believed that forty plagues would fall on his village if he tampered with that obligation. Besides, Jan Chinn knew all things, and he rode the Clouded Tiger.
They covered thirty miles a day on foot and pony, raising the blue wall-like line of the Satpuras as swiftly as might be. Bukta was very silent.
They began the steep climb a little after noon, but it was near sunset ere they reached the stone platform clinging to the side of a rifted, jungle-covered hill, where Jan Chinn the First was laid, as he had desired, that he might overlook his people. All India is full of neglected graves that date from the beginning of the eighteenth century—tombs of forgotten colonels of corps long since disbanded; mates of East India men who went on shooting expeditions and never came back; factors, agents, writers, and ensigns of the Honourable the East India Company by hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands. English folk forget quickly, but natives have long memories, and if a man has done good in his life it is remembered after his death. The weathered marble four-square tomb of Jan Chinn was hung about with wild flowers and nuts, packets of wax and honey, bottles of native spirits, and infamous cigars, with buffalo horns and plumes of dried grass. At one end was a rude clay image of a white man, in the old-fashioned top-hat, riding on a bloated tiger.
Bukta salamed reverently as they approached. Chinn bared his head and began to pick out the blurred inscription. So far as he could read it ran thus—word for word, and letter for letter:
To the Memory of JOHN CHINN, Esq.
Late Collector of............
....ithout Bloodshed or ... error of Authority
Employ . only .. eans of Conciliat ... and Confiden.
accomplished the ...tire Subjection...
a Lawless and Predatory Peop...
....taching them to ... ish Government
by a Conque.. over .... Minds
The most perma... and rational Mode of Domini..
...Governor General and Counc ... engal
have ordered thi ..... erected
....arted this Life Aug. 19, 184. Ag...
On the other side of the grave were ancient verses, also very worn. As much as Chinn could decipher said: