Читать книгу C.I.D. - Talbot Mundy - Страница 4

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WIND rolled away the steam of two weeks' rain and gave a glimpse of tumbled mountains beyond lush green jungle. Out of the jungle poured a roaring river; coffee-brown, loaded with trash; it stank of dead things. Where, two weeks ago, the shallow ford had been, and village cattle came to drink, it boiled and eddied ten feet deep—impassable. A dozen mat-and-cotton, toe-rag camps were clustered on the side towards the city; there the traveling native merchants waited for the yearly race to be first in the field, to sell goods on credit while the peasants' rain-fed optimism rose like sap in green stuff.

On the far side of the river, on a hillock, in a thatched shed built for him by villagers, Chullunder Ghose sat camped in luxury. He had crossed, before the river rose too high, on a log-raft that had been carried away by the next night's flood and left him stranded. He had exactly what he needed, and he needed extremely little. In an English Norfolk jacket, a Hindu loin-cloth and a plain black cotton turban, he looked rich enough to be important and yet not so rich that the villagers might feel afraid of him. He sat on a mat in the door of the shed; cross-legged, like a fat god, smiling. And since he paid his way, and certainly was not a tax-collector or policemen, the villagers came and talked to him between the storms of rain. Their talk was chiefly about taxes, and the priests, and the iniquitous forced labor when the Rajah needed porters for his hunting expeditions. They talked about the Prince who had come across the ford with three elephants, and who had actually paid them for firewood and elephant feed.

"A good Prince. But he came near drowning. There was with him a Madrasi, with a red stone on his finger. When the Prince fell off the elephant in mid-stream that Madrasi pretended to try to rescue him. But we saw. And it was one of us who swam into the stream and saved him. He received for that a gift of two rupees from the Prince. But from the Madrasi he received a cursing. The Madrasi said a low-caste person should not touch the Prince's person. And that is true. But what would you?"

They talked also of Gandhi. Gandhi, they had heard, was in London teaching the English how to use the hand-loom. Was it true, as some of Kali's priests said, that Gandhi intended to kick the English out and give the government to Moslems?

Chullunder Ghose was patient. He declared he had to wait until the ford was passable. He asked no questions about tigers, none whatever about Kali's priests, or about the ruined temple in the jungle near by. If he had asked, he might have heard nothing. But, as usually happens to a good-tempered man who listens but is not inquisitive, what he wished to learn began to reach his ears in driblets. He was told, among many other things, the reason why, for instance, nobody came near him after four in the afternoon, and why the cattle were driven home so early.

"He has slain six women, four men, five children, six-and-fifty goats and nineteen head of cattle. He is a male tiger. He is harder on us than the takkus [tax]. Our shikari should have set a trap or shot him, but he dared not, though he talked loud; and when we mocked him he ran away, we know not whither. It is not wise that your honor camps in this place, and if we had known how good your honor is we would have spoken. Come now and dwell in the village." Chullunder Ghose might have accepted the invitation, but the rain came down that minute, so a dozen villagers were forced to share the shed with him, and half a dozen more came running along the track at the edge of the jungle to take shelter. Five of them reached it, and the sixth was hardly fifty yards away when he suddenly screamed. A tiger leaped out from the undergrowth and struck him, seized him by the shoulder, worried him a moment and then dragged him out of sight. It was all over in ten seconds. But they heard the man scream in the jungle—once. After that, silence. It had happened phantom-fashion. Even the rain seemed silent and unreal.

All the villagers took sticks and ran to beat the jungle. But it was useless, and they knew it. One by one they came back to squat and shudder in the babu's camp-fire smoke and ask advice.

"Another widow to feed. That is the fifth man, making sixteen humans. Shall we abandon the village? But where then? There is no place for us."

"Tell the Rajah," said the babu. "Is it not his business and privilege to deal with tigers?"

"Sahib, we have sent and told him. Long ago we told him, when the tiger slew the first man."

"What else have you done?"

"We have paid much money to the priests of Kali's temple. But the priests also do nothing."

"What else?"

"To the priestess we have given money. Her name is Soonya. It is her tiger. She lives in the ruined temple yonder in the jungle. The tiger lives there also."

"Liars! Can she keep a tiger like a tame cat? If it eats you, would it not eat her?"

"Nay, not so. Is she not a priestess? She is not like other people, sahib. Furthermore, she says the tiger will continue killing us and our cattle until the Rajah keeps a promise to rebuild the temple. Nevertheless, if he should do that he would first increase the takkus; and how can we pay it, since the tiger eats us and our cattle? Will your honor not speak to the Rajah?"

"I would like to speak first to that priestess," said the babu. "Which of you will lead me to her?"

There were no volunteers. There were fifty excuses, chief of which was that the hour was growing late; it would be dark in the jungle. Some of them even admitted they were too scared.

"Sahib, in a few months, when the sun has dried it, we will burn the jungle. There is nothing to do until that time comes."

"Except to get me an elephant. Get one. Go and do it!"

But the nearest elephant was fifteen miles away. It belonged to a zamindar* notorious for meanness; he would demand too much money. The elephant would eat the food of thirty people. The mahout and two or three alleged grass-cutters would also demand rations and money. Probably the elephant would go sick. He might even die; and who would' be blamed for it?

[* zamindar, zemindar (Hindi)—land-holder, land-owner, landlord, landed proprietor; farmer. Platt's Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. For other meanings and more information, see the Wikipedia article Zamindar. ]

"Tell me then about this Soonya whom you call a priestess," said the babu.

So they told him an endless story, that being the least they could do after refusing his other requests; and he believed some portions of it. None knew whence she first came. She was married, some said, at the age of ten years to a man so handsome that the gods were jealous of him. Therefore the gods slew him with a sickness. She wanted to die on his funeral pyre, as widows used to, and, it is rumored, that some do even to this day. But that was forbidden by the Sircar,* that is obstinate about such matters.

[* Sircar, Sirkar (Hindi, "head of affairs")—various meanings: 1) the State, the Government, the Supreme authority; also "the Master" or head of the domestic government. Thus a servant, if asked "Whose are those horses?" in replying "They are the sircar’s," may mean according to circumstances, that they are Government horses, or that they belong to his own master. 2) In Bengal the word was applied to a domestic servant who is a kind of house-steward, keeps the accounts of household expenditure, and makes miscellaneous purchases for the family; also, in merchants' offices, to any native accountant or native employed in making purchases, etc. 3) Under the Mahommedan governments, as in the time of the Mogul Empire, and later in the Deccan, the word was applied to certain extensive administrative divisions of territory. The Hobson Jobson Dictionary. ]

So she tried to starve herself to death, which also was forbidden. Sahibs took her to a hospital and fed her by force with a tube until she gave in and agreed to live. She was then sent to a Christian mission, and the padres taught her to deny caste. But she did not agree to the rest of the teaching, so she ran away. She became a sanyassin*—wandering, wandering with staff and begging bowl, and rumor had it that she went mad. But some say that the padres had already made her so.

[* sanyassin (Hindi)—a wandering religious beggar. For more information, see the Wikipedia article Sanyasa. ]

"We are all mad," said the babu. "If we were not, nobody would love us. How did she come to this place? Did she bring the tiger with her?"

Opinions varied. Some said she had come before the tiger; some said afterwards. They all agreed, however, that at Kutchdullub she had adopted the terrible creed of Kali, which serves death, not life. It worships death and sings the praises of calamity. "Our fathers told us about Thuggee, sahib. Has your honor heard of that? The Thugs slew people as a sacrifice to Kali, the Destroyer. But the Sircar also made an end of Thuggee—some say."

"I will cross the river," said the babu.

"Nay, nay, sahib! Not yet for a week, or for more than a week. It drowns men. Who can cross it?"

"I will cross now."

"Nay, nay! Tell us more about the dok-i-tar who skins eyes so that blind men see."

"Lead me to the priestess, or I go now."

"But we dare not. Is that killer not loose in the jungle? He is worse than she is."

"Then I go at once. These"—he pointed to his odds and ends of baggage—"are in your keeping. Make me a raft of goatskins — tight ones—well sewn. Bring a long rope and a pole. And if I drown I hope the tiger eats you all."

They pleaded—argued; but his mildness had vanished. He even beat them. So the goatskins that an Indian village never lacks were blown up tight and lashed together. Standing on that, the babu poled and paddled himself across, assisted by the rope that held the raft against the stream. It took him two hours. It was after nightfall, and he was almost fainting from exhaustion, when he crawled out on the far bank in a storm of wind and rain. He staggered to the nearest trader's bivouac, where a kerosene lantern made a warm glow in the darkness.

"Horses!" he commanded. "Harness up and drive me to the city!"

Mocking voices answered. "Swim, thou mudfish! Sit in the mud thou fool, and pray for miracles! Thy belly holds more food than we have here—go and fill it with frogs!"

"I am sent by Soonya," he answered.

There was instant silence. Presently a man crawled out into the rain and thrust a lantern near the babu's face.

"Who do you say sent you?"

"Ask again, thou dog, and she herself shall answer! Harness up! She orders. I pay—twenty rupees."

That was a mistake.

"So? She? A priestess offers money for a service?"

But the babu snapped back: "Atcha! I will keep my money. Ask her anything you wish to know. I will go and bring her."

He turned away into the dark rain. The lantern followed.

"Sahib! Sahib!"

Fifteen minutes later he was splashing into darkness toward Kutchdullub City in a hooded cart, behind two strong horses, munching at chapatis spread with hot spice. The driver asked no more questions.

It appeared that Soonya was someone.