Читать книгу The Taming of the Jungle - Doyle Charles William - Страница 4

A few nights after the finding in the jungle of Biroo, the little chamar (tanner), by Ram Deen, who drove the mail-cart from Lal Kooah, the notables of Kaladoongie were gathered round a fire in front of the police-station. The Thanadar (chief of police), as befitted his rank and dignity, sat cross-legged on his charpoi, smoking gravely, whilst the rest of the company squatted on their heels, after the manner of the natives of India, passing a hookah round the circle and discussing in a desultory fashion the current events of that section of the Terai.

A faint bugle-note far off in the jungle announced the approach of the mail-cart, and soon after the distant rumble of the wheels was heard as Ram Deen drove over the Bore bridge. When he was within a quarter of a mile of the village he blew a brave blast, and presently dashed up at full speed into the firelight, Biroo standing between his knees, and a huge pariah dog bounding along by the side of the cart. Soon after Ram Deen, followed by Biroo and the big dog, joined the circle round the fire.

"Salaam, malakoom!" said Biroo, gravely saluting the Thanadar, and including the rest of those assembled in his sweeping salute.

"Malakoom, salaam!" returned the Thanadar. "So thou hast brought in the Queen's mail safely, my Rustum?"

"Hasteen and I," began the little fellow, putting a caressing hand on the head of the great dog, who lay beside him winking at the fire, "Hasteen and I fear nought that moveth in the jungle, save only the men of Nyagong; – and then, too, there was Ram Deen."

This was said so seriously that the men sitting round the fire laughed at the little man's gravity; and Ram Deen smiled as he spread an armful of dry grass on the ground, into which he tucked the little fellow, and wrapped him up in his blanket. Hasteen settled himself beside Biroo, and they soon became oblivious of the circle round the fire.

"How likest thou the little jungle waif, Ram Deen?" inquired the Thanadar.

"Thanadar ji, he is to me as mine own son, Buldeo, come back to life; and he knoweth not fear. As we drove through the jungle yesterday and to-night he turned his face towards Nyagong and cursed that village, and sware that he would burn it to the ground when he had a beard; and 'tis like as not that he will do so when he is a man grown."

"Durga aid him in his attempt!" said fat Gunga Ram, the sweetmeat vender; "that village hath always bred rogues and budmashes, before and since Cheeta Dutt, the son of the last Jemadar (head man of the village), committed a deed of hell in the jungle thereby."

The silence of those who sat round the fire was a mute request to Gunga Ram to tell the story thus prefaced.

"Brothers," he began, "'twas in the second year after the great mutiny that a young Englishman came into the Terai to look after the sâl trees, which always seemed a foolishness to me till I learned that sâl timber is good for the building of the ships that cross the Black Water.

"And he had but little to do, save to shoot black partridge and spotted deer and watch the Padhani women crossing the ford in front of his camp; that was the evil of it.

"In those days I was but a span round the waist, and the best shikari (hunter) and tracker in these parts; and Bonner Sahib – that was his name – hired me to show him where game was to be found. But he soon tired of shikar (sport), and fell to playing the songs of the Padhani women on his cithar, the like of which I never heard before.

"One day, after he had eaten his morning meal and swam in the deep pool above the ford of the Bore Nuddee, he lay on the grass by the stream smoking, whilst I cleaned his guns by the side of his tent. Presently, when I looked up, the sahib was gazing from under his hand at certain wayfarers who came down the slope on the other side of the stream towards the ford; and on his finger there glittered a stone that took mine eye even at that distance. In front there rode on a hill-pony, loaded with household goods, Cheeta Dutt, the son of the Jemadar of Nyagong, and he wore the garments of a man who taketh his wife home for the consummation of his marriage. Behind him walked Naringi, his wife, the daughter of the Jemadar of Huldwani. She was well named 'Orange Blossom;' and though I live to a thousand years, yet shall I never see the like of her as she walked behind Cheeta Dutt with a small bundle on her head and lifted her sari as she took the ford with her bared limbs.

"Brothers, she was but sixteen years in age, and in the budding of her beauty; and it seemed as though the morning shed all its joys about her feet. What wonder, then, that even a young Faringi (Englishman) should look upon her with admiration?

"When she was half-way across the ford her foot slipped, and the bundle she bore fell into the stream. Wullahy, but these Faringis be fools! Eyes may look, and thoughts may fall about the face of a fair woman, though she be another man's wife, but only a Faringi would do what Bonner Sahib did. Kali Mai afflict the race! Women were made but to carry burdens and bear children. Nowhere can it be shown – not even in the Shastras, wherein I, Gunga Ram, have read – that a man should demean himself to serve a woman; but Bonner Sahib leapt into the stream and recovered the young woman's bundle. Worse than that, as she stood beside her husband's horse, wringing the water out of the hem of her garment, he put her bundle in her hand, and Cheeta Dutt scowled at him.

"'Protector of the Poor,' said I to the sahib, as I dried his feet and changed his shoes, 'thou hast not done well.'

"'Wherefore?' he replied, sending the smoke of his cheroot skywards.

"'Because Cheeta Dutt (well is he named Hunting Leopard) may repay thee hereafter in his own way for thy service to his wife this day. Belike, he may render her nakti (noseless), and so send her back to her father's house. But the sahib is a great lord, and a nakti Padhani woman more or less concerneth him not, for they be bought and sold like cattle, and the sahib hath the price of many such on his little finger. – But I speak like a fool, sahib, for I am a poor man and know nothing, save how to serve thee.'

"But he only laughed and stroked the yellow beard on his upper lip.

"A moon thereafter our camp was pitched near Nyagong. As ye know, the Terai thereby is full of shikar, and I showed Bonner Sahib where to find black partridge. One day, as we set our faces campwards, – I following the sahib with his spare gun and the morning's kill, – the voice of a young woman singing a Padhani song suddenly rose from a thicket near by, and the jungle became silent to listen to her. Bonner Sahib parted the tall grass with his hands, and I, looking over his shoulder, beheld Naringi, the wife of Cheeta Dutt, seated on a fallen tree trunk in an open glade, tending a flock of goats. As she sang she strung together flaming cotton-wood flowers, whereof she had placed one behind each ear.

"When she had finished her song the sahib took it up, stepping at the same time into the clearing; and Naringi fled like a roe hunted by wolves.

"'The shikar is shy, Gunga Ram,' said the sahib.

"'Tis dangerous hunting, Protector of the Poor,' I replied. But the sahib only laughed and lit a cheroot.

"And thereafter he sought the black partridge unattended by me, for he set me morning tasks to fulfil within the camp. But, brothers, he brought not so much as a jungle-fowl home for more than a week, and I was fain to know what the sahib hunted.

"So I followed him unperceived one morning, and he went straightway to the clearing wherein we had seen Naringi with the goats. When I looked through the grass, behold! I saw Bonner Sahib seated on the fallen tree trunk, wearing a necklace of red flowers, and Naringi sat on his knee with an arm round his neck! Toba, toba! what fools these Faringis be, who know not that the birds of the air carry messages when a sahib stoops to a woman of our people."

"The jungle hath many eyes," said the Thanadar, sententiously.

After Gunga Ram had refreshed himself with the circling hookah, he went on: "As I looked and listened there was a rustling in the grass on the other side of the clearing, and the sahib's dog dashed into the jungle in pursuit of something. The next moment it yelped as a dog that is sorely stricken, but the sahib, who was toying with Naringi, heard nothing.

"Then Naringi, stroking the sahib's golden beard, said, 'My Lord, Cheeta Dutt beat me last night because I spake thy name in my sleep. Look,' and she lifted the hair from her forehead, whereon was a bruise; and as she turned her face to the sahib I saw that she had been weeping, for her eyelids were swelled.

"'He is swine-born,' said the sahib; and as he spake his face flushed like the morning sky. Then he folded her in his arms and saluted her mouth after the manner of Faringis; and when she was comforted he said, 'Naringi, my Blossom, thy husband is a dog. To-night will I take thee hence and make thee envied of the mem-sahibs of Naini Tal. Wilt thou trust thyself with me?'

"For answer she threw herself before him and clasped his feet, but the sahib raised her up, saying, 'Beloved, I will come for thee to-night on the stroke of the tenth hour by the village bell. Gunga Ram – my shikari – and I will wait for thee with a covered byli (cart) at the foot of that tall sesame tree thou seest yonder on the open plain. And for pledge that I shall be here, see, I set on thy finger this ring, which all the villages in the Kumaon Terai could not buy; and if I fail to come my punishment is in thy hands. It is a thousand years till I see thee again, little one.' Then he folded her in his arms once more and set his face homewards, shouting to her from the end of the glade, 'Fail me not, my Wild Rose!' For answer, she swept the ground with her salaams.

"Hastening campwards by a path that skirted the other side of the glade, I came across the sahib's dog. It was shorn in twain by the stroke of a khookri, and I knew that Cheeta Dutt, The Leopard, was a-hunting.

"'What shikar?' asked I of Bonner Sahib when he returned to his tent.

"'Thou art a liar, Gunga Ram. The jungle hereabout is barren of game, and it is in my mind to send thee with a note to the Thanadar of Kaladoongie commending the soles of thy feet to the bamboo staff of one of his men;' and, laughing, he threw himself into a long chair.

"'I am sorry for thee, sahib,' I said in reply, 'for not only art thou empty handed this day, but thou hast lost the great stone that shone on thy finger when thou wentest forth this morning. Toba, toba!'

"'Tis in my pocket, O Chattering Jay.'

"'Perchance the sahib shot his dog this morning, seeing that the game was scarce?' I said.

"'Hath he not returned, Gunga Ram?'

"'Ere I answer thee, sahib, 'twere well to drink some brandy-pani;' and I mixed the liquor as he had taught me.

"'It is well, Provider of the Poor,' I went on, 'it is well to be young and well favored, and the special care of thy gods who have bestowed on thee wealth and a moonstone that all the villages in the Kumaon Terai could not purchase,' – hereat the sahib looked at me out of the corner of his eye, – 'but it is not well to look for partridges where great beasts hunt. Thy dog was slain in the jungle this morning by a leopard. He lieth outside the tent, and 'twere well the sahib should see what a leopard can do.'

"Following him out of the tent, I uncovered the dead dog. The sahib clutched at his throat and would have fallen, so I put my arm round him and laid him on his bed.

"'This is the work of Cheeta Dutt, sahib. Said I not that perchance he would hunt some one hereafter for thy service to his wife at the ford last month?'

"Rising from the bed, the sahib drank another draught of the strong waters. 'Cheeta Dutt's back shall smart for this,' he said.

"'And then, sahib, he will slay his wife because of thy ring in the pocket of her bodice.'

"'Budmash, thou hast been playing the spy!' and turning upon me like a wild boar, his face aflame, he caught me by the beard.

"'Sahib,' I said, 'I am but a poor man, and thou of consequence in the Terai, but, man to man, thou durst not lay thy hand on my beard in the jungle and away from thy camp. I fear not to tell thee, sahib, that I did, indeed, watch thee this morning; but the jungle is full of eyes, not the least keen being those of Cheeta Dutt, who slew thy dog this morning, and who will slay the woman thou lovest, or do worse to her, ere he sleepeth, as is his right.'

"'Gunga Ram, thou art a man, and I ask forgiveness of thee for blackening thy face, but I am moved from myself by great fear for what may befall the woman. Tell me what is to be done, for thou knowest the ways of these jungle folks better than I;' and the sahib walked the floor as one distraught.

"'Will one thousand – will ten thousand rupees save the young woman?' asked the sahib.

"'The honor of a Brahmin is not to be appraised in money, sahib,' I replied.

"'Will he fight, Gunga Ram, as a Faringi would under like circumstances?'

"'He will fight, assuredly, sahib; but he will fight after the manner of his kind, and in the dark.'

"Much talk had we, but we could only hope that Cheeta Dutt may not have witnessed the meeting that morning."

Gunga Ram stopped to "drink tobacco" once more, whilst the little bullock driver, who would start in the morning with freight for Moradabad, said, "That was a poor hope, O Seller of Cates, for the jungle hath ears and tongues as well as eyes."

"Therefore, byl-wan," rejoined Gunga Ram, "I saw to it that my gun was properly loaded as we went in the byli that night to the place of meeting.

"The moon was almost in mid-heaven, in an unclouded sky, when we reached the sesame tree, and it was a time for the deeds of Kama, but Kali Mai was abroad in the jungle that night.

"The sound of the distant village bell striking the hour of ten had scarcely died away when there rose from the glade the voice of a young woman singing a Padhani song.

"'Heart of my Heart, she cometh!' said the sahib. 'Oh, Gunga Ram, she is safe!' and he lifted up his voice, singing the refrain of her song.

"He had scarcely ceased by a breath, when he was answered by the scream of a woman who looks upon Terror and Pain hunting together.

"Like an arrow from a bow he sped across the plain and entered the glade, I following with what haste I could. As I set foot therein there arose a yell the like of which was never made by jungle beast, and, brothers, my heart stood still with fear. I could hear the sahib crashing through the underbrush, and I followed, but the glade was in deep darkness by reason of the thick foliage of the trees overhead that stayed the moonlight, and my pace was slow.

"Presently I saw the sahib in the open space where was the fallen tree trunk that had served him for a seat that morning. He stopped suddenly within a few paces of the log, like a stricken man. Falling on his knees and clasping his hands together, he bowed his head thereon; and in that instant a dark figure leaped upon the sahib from behind a tree, and I saw the flash of a khookri in the moonlight.

"I raised my gun and fired as I ran, but I was too late.

"When I came up to the sahib his head lay two paces from his body.

"On the fallen tree trunk, with the sahib's moonstone glittering on its forefinger, was the small hand of a woman that had been lopped off above the wrist, and which still dripped blood."