The Heart of Denise, and Other Tales

by S. Levett Yeats

Beeroo made no answer, and the group shortly afterwards broke up. But Gobind Ram, the canal-accountant, who knew the story of the Shagul Tree, went straight to his quarters. Here he wrote a brief note on a piece of soft yellow paper, and sealed it carefully. Then he drew forth a pigeon from a cage in a corner of the room, and fastening the letter to the bird, freed the pigeon with a toss into the air. The carrier circled slowly thrice above the neem trees, and then spreading its strong slate-coloured wings, flew swiftly towards the hills. Gobind Ram watched the speck in the sky until it vanished from sight, then he went in, muttering to himself, "The high priest will know in an hour that Beeroo the Sansi has heard of the Shagul Tree--Ho, Aladin, thou hast too long a beard and too long a tongue," and the subtle Brahmin squatted himself down to smoke.

An hour afterwards, as Aladin was taking the she-elephant to water, he saw a figure going at a long slouching trot along the yellow sandbanks of the Some, making directly towards the north. The old man shaded his eyes with his hands and looked keenly at it; but his sight was not what it was, and he turned to Mahboob, the elephant-cooly, who would step into his shoes some day, when he died, and asked: "See'st thou that figure on the sandbank there, Mahboob?"

"It is the Sansi," answered Mahboob. "Behold! He limps on the left foot, where the leopard clawed him at Kara Ho. Perchance the Sahib will not hear of the tiger to-day."

"If ever, Mahboob," answered the Mahout; "would that mine eyes were young again. Hai!" and he tapped Moula Piari's bald head with his driving-hook, for her long trunk was reaching out to grasp a bundle of green grass from the head of a grass-cutter, who was bearing in fodder for the Sahib's pony.

Mahboob was not mistaken; it was Beeroo. When the party broke up, he alone remained apparently absorbed in thought. After a time he took some tobacco from an embroidered pouch hanging at his waist, crushed it in the palm of his hand, and rolled a cone-shaped cigarette with the aid of a leaf, fastening the folds of the leaf together with a small dry stick which he stuck through the cigarette like a hair-pin. At this he sucked, his forehead contracted into a frown, and his bead-like eyes fixed steadily before him. Finally he rose quickly, as one who has made a sudden resolve.

"The tiger can wait for the Sahib," he said to himself; "but lakhs of rupees--they wait also--for me. I will go and worship at Mohonagh. The idol will surely make the convert a gift."

Laughing softly to himself, he stole off with long cat-like steps in the direction of the river. He forded the Some where it was crossed by the telegraph-line, and the water was but breast-deep. Once on the opposite bank, he shook himself like a dog, and breaking into a trot, headed straight for the hills. His way led up a narrow and steep track, hedged in with thorns over which the purple convolvulus twined in a confused network. On either hand were sparse fields of gram and corn, which ran in lozenge shapes up the low hillsides, ending in a tangle of underwood, beyond which rose the solid outlines of the forest. As the sun was setting he came to a long narrow ravine, over which the road crossed. Here he stopped, and instead of keeping to the road, turned abruptly to the right and trotted on. In the darkening woods above him he heard the cry of a panther, and the alarmed jabbering of the monkeys in the trees above their most dreaded enemy. Beeroo marked the spot with a glance as he went on: "I will buy a gun when I come back from Mohonagh," he muttered to himself, "a two-barrelled gun of English make. The Thanadar at Thakot has one for sale, a birich-lodas;[^[1]] and then I will shoot that panther." Hough! Hough! The cry of the animal rang through the forest again, as if in assent to his thoughts, and Beeroo continued his way. Just as the sun sank and darkness was setting in, he saw the wavering glimmer of a circle of camp-fires and the outlines of figures moving against the light. The flare of the burning wood discovered also a few low tents, shaped like casks cut in half lengthwise, and lit up with red the grey fur of a number of donkeys that were tethered within the radius of the fires. In a little time he heard the barking of dogs, and five minutes later was with the tents of his tribe.

One or two men exchanged brief greetings with him, and answering them, he stepped up to the centre fire, where a tall good-looking woman addressed him. "Aho, Beeroo, is it you? Is the hunt to be to-morrow?"

"The Sahib was asleep," answered Beeroo; "give me to eat."

The woman brought him food. It was a stew made of the flesh of a porcupine that had been kept warm in an earthenware dish, and Beeroo ate heartily of this, quenching his thirst with a draught of the fiery spirit made from the blossoms of the mhowra, after which he began to smoke once more, using a small clay pipe called a chillum. His wife, for so the woman was, made no attempt to converse with him, but left him to the company of his tobacco and his thoughts. Beeroo sat moodily puffing blue curls of smoke from his pipe, and with a black blanket drawn over his shoulders, stared steadily into the fire. So he sat for hours, no one disturbing him, sat until the camp had gone to rest, and the wind alone was awake and sighing through the forest. Sagoo, his big white hound, came close to him, and lay by his side, as if to hint that it was time to sleep. Beeroo stroked the lean, muscular flank of the dog, and looked around him. "In a little time," he said to himself, "I will be Beeroo Naik, with a village of my own and wide lands. Beeroo Naik," he repeated softly to himself, with a lingering pride on the title implied in the last word. Then he rolled himself up in his blanket; Sagoo snuggled beside him, and they slept.