The Sa'-Zada Tales

by William Alexander Fraser

"For months after I was born my Mother made me hide in the Nullah. That was always in the evening. And as for hiding, how anyone can get along without stripes in his coat I can't understand. Let me hide in a grass field where the sun throws sharp shadows up and down across everything and I'll give my ration of meat for the week to anyone who can see me three lengths of my tail away."

"Where was your Mother all this time?" queried Magh, tauntingly.

"To be sure," answered Bagh, "she would be away for hours making the kill, and when she came back would lick my face, and teach me the sweet smell of new meat and hot blood. Then the next evening, just as it was getting dark, she would take me with her to the kill, which was usually a Cow, and which she had very cunningly hidden in elephant grass, or a bamboo clump, or some little Nullah. There would be still half of it left. I grew big and strong, and longed to make a kill on my own account.

"But that year a terrible thing happened to the Buffaloes and Cows upon which we depended for food. They were all down in the Flat Lands, which is close by the sea, and one day when the jungle was much torn by strong, fierce winds, a great water came over the land, and ate up all the Cattle, and many of the Men-kind. Then, indeed, we fairly starved, for the few that were left were kept close to the bamboo houses of the villagers. Night after night, even in the day-time, my Mother and I sought for the chances of a kill, for I had grown big at that time, and she took me with her. We were really starving; perhaps a small Chital (deer), or a Dog, or something came our way once in a while, but the pain in my stomach was so great that I moaned, and moaned, and I believe it was because of me that my Mother became a Man-killer."

"Horrible!" exclaimed Mooswa. "Became a killer of the Men-kind? Dreadful!"

"I, too, have killed Men," asserted Raj Bagh; "and why is it so evil, my big-nosed eater-of-grass? Your food is the leaves of the jungle, and you have it with you always. When you are hungry you walk, walk, and soon you come to where there is much food, and you eat, and with you that is all right—there is no evil in it. As Sa'-zada has said, it is our way of life to kill our eating. When there is no Chital we kill Sambhur; when there are no Deer we kill Pigs, or even Buffalo; when there is nothing but Man, and we are changed from our usual way of kill by great hunger, we slay Man. With all Dwellers of the Jungle, there is fear of the Men-kind, that is all, nothing but fear; and when once that is broken we kill the Men-kind even as any other Jungle Dweller."

"Little Brother," began Sa'-zada, "it is spoken amongst my Kind, that a Man-killer is always an old, broken-toothed Tiger, full-manged, and of evil ways; and that once having tasted human flesh he becomes a killer of nothing else."

"Ha-hauk!" laughed Bagh, "those be silly Jungle tales. Am I broken-toothed, or full of a mange, or is Raj Bagh? All a lie, Little Master, all a lie. It is but a chance of the Jungle that makes a Man-killer, even as I will tell, and the taste of the flesh is not more than the taste of meat.

"Yes," he continued, "I was with my Mother that day, the first day of the Man-kill, and in my stomach was a great pain like the biting of Red Ants. It was near the coming of night, and we crept down into the tea garden where there were many of the coolie kind working amongst the bushes. I think my Mother was looking for a stray dog, or perhaps a small Bullock; but the coolies seeing us cried aloud in their fright, 'Bagh hai!' and ran. I think it was this that made my Mother charge suddenly amongst them, for if they had stood and looked at us I'm sure we should have turned and gone away; but in the charge a Man fell. Baghni seized him by the neck, threw him on her back, and we both galloped into the jungle. After that, whenever we were hungry we went back to the tea garden in just the same way.

"But one day a coolie saw us first and ran to his master's bungalow crying with much fear. Neither of us thought anything of that, for it was as they had done before; so we went on down in the little Nullah between the hills, looking sharply for others of the Black Workers. Suddenly I heard a noise as of something approaching.