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Son of Power

His Indian name was given to Skag in the great Grass Jungle; but he did not know the meaning of the words when they first fell upon his ear. There India herself first opened for him the magic gates that seal her mystery. But he did not know it was her glamour that made him utterly forget outside things, in the unbelievable loveliness of Grass Jungle days; did not know it was just as much her spell that made him forget his own birthright, in the paralysis of perfect fear.

A part of her mystery is this forgetting—while she reveals canvas after canvas of life—uncovers layer beneath layer of her deeper marvels. Skag was involved with his animals—and interests peculiarly personal—till it all came to seem like a dream. Yet underneath his surface consciousness it was working in him, as the glamour of India always does, to colour his entire future—as the magic of India always will.

After their night in the tiger pit-trap, Cadman and Skag had wandered southeast-ward—still searching for the Monkey Forest and the Coldwater Ruins—and had become lost to the world and the ways of civilisation in the mazes of the Mahadeo mountains. They had found a dozen jungles full of monkeys, but none of them looked to Cadman like his dream. The monkeys were all so melted-in to everything else; and there was so much too much of everything else.

As for Ruins, the thing they found was too old. It was like an exposure of the sins of first men—alive with bats and smaller vermin. The monkeys there had preserved from age to age the germs of all depravity. Without words the two Americans turned away from that spot, to forget it.

Skag was learning that his training in the circus had been but a mere beginning in the study of wild animals. It seemed impossible that there could be a jungle anywhere with more beasts or greater variety, than they heard at night.

It was as hard to come in good view of any wild creature—excepting monkeys—as it had been hard at first to sleep, on account of the voices of all creation after sundown. To approach undiscovered, and to lie out and watch undiscovered, taxed and developed all their faculties; the fascination and excitement of it stretched their powers; and their successes enriched them both for a life-time.

After the first eagerness to get twenty different positions of a tigress playing with her kittens, Cadman had become a miser of material and an adept in noiseless movement. Finding that he was in danger of going short on sketching paper, he used it more and more as if it were fine gold, till his outlines were not larger than miniatures. Also, he learned to glance for the flash of approval in Skag's eye.

The two men had grown into a rare comradeship. This time of year, sleeping in the open was luxury. They had not suffered for food, excepting in the memory of such things as had once been most common. Well above fever-line, no ailment had touched them. So, eating simply, sleeping deeply and working hard, they toughened in body and keened in mind—the days all full of quickening interests, every next minute due to develop surprise.

It was by a little headlong mountain stream, that the revelation came. Skag was looking to see which was the business-end of his tooth-brush that morning when Cadman broke his sheath knife. The accident was a calamity, because Skag's was already worn out cutting step-way to climb out of khuds, and this was all they had left to serve such a purpose.

"That settles it, we must go," said Cadman, looking ruefully at the stump of his old blade. "Our nearest kin wouldn't know us, but we are still recognisable to each other, and I'm not exactly ready to quit—are you?"

"No," Skag answered absently—unwilling to realise the necessity.

Cadman studied the crestfallen face—they had loved this life together and equally.

"But do you realise, my son," he asked, "that others will have to see us, before we can ever again be clothed and groomed properly?"

Now Skag looked at his friend with seeing eyes and blushed.

"It's not the clothes, so much as—" Skag stopped.

Cadman focused on Skag's face through his queer spectacles, then he laughed as only Cadman could laugh.

So they climbed down and took train for Bombay. Like fugitives they dodged the sight of correctly dressed Englishmen all the way; stopping over more than seven hours at Kullian—so as to reach the great city at night.

Next morning two clean-faced and very much alive Americans arrived at the Polo Club for late breakfast. Indeed they were good to look at, being in the finest kind of health and full of initiative. That breakfast was royal in every flavour; they felt like young spendthrifts squandering their patrimony. Just as they were finishing, a distinguished looking Englishman came across the room and greeted Cadman:

"Now this is my own proverbial good luck! Come away up to the house and give account of yourself. Where are the pictures? We'll take 'em along."

Cadman presented Skag to Doctor Murdock of the University, explained that it was imperative for them to do some general outfitting, but promised to bring his friend in the afternoon.

"Doctor Murdock is an extraordinary man, Skag," said Cadman, as the Englishman hurried away. "Beside his chair in the University, he is said to be top surgeon of Bombay. Barring none, he has more of different kinds of knowledge than any man I know; becomes master of whatever he takes up—authority, past question."

"I wondered why you promised to take me along," Skag put in.

"You'll be glad to have met him. He'll be interested in you," Cadman answered. "He's quite likely to take us to see some of the Indian nautch-girls. They're one of his fads—for their beauty. He has specialties in art as well as in science; but he's clean stuff—nothing rotten in him."

They forgot time in the Bombay bazaars; first looking for bags, to be easily carried on their own persons; and then giving themselves to quality and workmanship in things designed for their special uses. There was no hurry. All life stretched before them, in widening vistas.

Doctor Murdock's house was high on Malabar Hill. Their hired carriage came in behind his trim little brougham, as it turned on the driveway into his compound.

"My fortune again!" the Doctor called. "I've been detained by a case and properly sweating for fear you'd reach my den first."

Tea was served on a verandah entirely foreign and tropical and strange looking to Skag. A field of palm-tops stretched away from their feet to the sea. They told him the city of Bombay was hidden under those fronds.

"And now you understand, Cadman," the Doctor was saying, "there's your own room and one next for your friend Hantee. Your traps will be up before you sleep, which may not be early, for I've a tamasha on for you this night—you remember, I enjoy dinner in the morning?"

That tamasha was a maze of strange colour, strange motion and stranger perfume to Skag; not penetrating his conscious nature at all—feeling unreal to him.

"I've been watching you without shame this night, young man," the Doctor said to him, as they finished the after-midnight meal. "My entertainment fell dead with you. Sir. You've been 'way off somewhere else. I'm simply consumed to know what you have found in life, to make your eyes blind and your ears deaf to the lure of human beauty. You're not to be distressed by my impudence—it's innocent."

The Doctor's eyes widened for seconds; then they gloomed as he spoke:

"Between you, you challenge modern manhood. We have not conceived that 'clean glamour' since men were young—forgotten ages past. No, there was no human beauty to-night to make a man forget those tigresses. … She was not there. I am one of many who miss her, but I would give—" The Doctor broke off, searching their faces before he spoke again: "There is no hope you will know the depth of the calamity; the bitterness of the loss. Speaking of clean things—"

"Who was she?" Cadman asked.

"She was the most beautiful thing on earth. She was indeed the most marvellous thing on earth, being a Bombay singing nautch-girl—undefamed. There has been no one else, these ages."

The Doctor sat smoking, apparently oblivious of his guests.

"The Spartan Helen?" Cadman suggested.

"Hah! The Spartan Helen was not invincible!"

"The Noor Mahal?"

"The Noor Mahal was always in seclusion."

"Her name?" Skag questioned.

"She had no name," the Doctor answered, "but she was called 'Dhoop Ki Dhil'—Heart-of-the-Sun; possibly on account of her voice. There has been none like it. The master-mahouts of High Himalaya, their voices pass those of all other men for splendour; but I tell you there was none other in the world, beside hers. Rich men in Bombay would give fortunes to anyone who would find her."

"Then she is not dead?" Skag spoke startled.

"We do not know that she is dead," the Doctor answered. "We would suppose so, but for a curious happening four days before she disappeared. Down in the silk-market a dealer was buying silk from an up-country native—a man from the Grass Jungle. The native was exceptionally good to look upon. Dhoop Ki Dhil came into the place to make some purchase. Her eye fell on the jungle man and she stood back. She was a valuable customer, so the silk-merchant made haste to signal her forward. But she shook her head and moved further back."

The Doctor stopped to smoke.

"After a while Dhoop Ki Dhil came forward, moving like one in a trance, and said to the jungle man, 'Are you a god?' and the jungle man answered her with shame, 'No, I am a common man.'

"Now that silk-merchant will tell no more. One doesn't blame him. The natives are not patient with such a tale of her. To hear that any man had taken her eye, maddened them. She had passed the snares of desire—immune. She had turned away from fabulous wealth. She had denied princes and kings. She smiled on all men alike—with that smile mothers have for little children."

"She was a mother-thing," murmured Cadman.

The Doctor turned, questioning:

"A mother-thing? Yes, probably. But she led the singing women like a super-being incarnate. She led the dancing women like a living flame. They sing and dance yet, but the fire of life is gone out!"

"Where is the Grass Jungle?" Cadman asked.

"Nobody seems to know. As for me, I never heard of it—till this. The silk-merchants say that once in several years some strange man—one or another—in strange garments, comes down with a peculiar kind of silk, to exchange for cotton cloth. He won't take money for it and he's easily cheated. He won't talk—only that he's from the great Grass Jungle. He usually calls it 'great.'"

"It must be possible to find," said Cadman, glancing at Skag. "What do you say?"

"I'm with you," Skag answered.

"Now am I gone quite mad, or do I understand you?" the Doctor enquired.

"I think you understand us," Cadman answered.

The Doctor sprang up, exclaiming:

"I've often told you, Cadman, you Americans develop most extraordinary surprises. Most remarkable men on earth for—for developing at the—at the very moment, you understand!"

"Do you know anyone who might give us something on the locality?" Skag asked Cadman.

"That's the point. I think I do," Cadman nodded. "But we'll have to go and find out."

"My resources are at your disposal," the Doctor put in.

"Your resources have accomplished the first half," smiled Cadman. "It's fair that the rest of it should be ours."

"Then what's to do?" the Doctor questioned.

"A few things to purchase first, easily done to-day," Cadman answered, glancing out at the faint dawn. "Then, I know Dickson of the grain-foods department, at Hurda—Central Provinces. He ought to be familiar with the topography of all the inside country. We'll risk nothing by going to him."

"Then away with you to bed and get one good sleep. The boy will bring you a substantial choti-hazri when you're out of your bath at six. I have a couple of small elephant-skin bags—you'll not find the like in shops—they're made for the interior medical service."

So Cadman and Skag went up from Bombay that night on the Calcutta-bound train, facing the far interior of India. The boy in Skag found joy in every detail of his outfit; especially the elephant-skin bag, stocked with necessary personal requirements and nothing more. But somewhere, far out before him, lost in this mystery-land—was a woman. That woman must be found.

"What's the secret about the Doctor?" he asked Cadman, after they had been rolling through the night some hours.

"Nobody knows, unless it's a woman he didn't get," Cadman answered.

"What's the grip this wonder-woman has on him?"

"Beauty and music and life, in the superlative degree; when it all happens together, in one woman—she grips."

After that they both dreamed vague man-dreams of Dhoop Ki Dhil.

"There stands Dickson Sahib himself!" Cadman exclaimed, at Hurda station; and Skag saw the two meet, perceiving at once that it was a friendship between men of very different type.

Then Dickson Sahib promptly gathered them both into that Anglo-Indian hospitality which is never forgotten by those who have found it. Skag was made to feel as much at home as the evidently much-loved Cadman; not by word or gesture, but by a kindly atmosphere about everything. He met a slender lad of twelve years, presented to him by Dickson Sahib as "My son Horace," whose clear grey eyes attracted him much.

After dinner Cadman told the story of Dhoop Ki Dhil. There was perfect silence for minutes when he finished. Skag was groping on and on—his quest already begun. Dickson was smoking hard, till he startled them both:

"Of course, it's altogether right; I'd like to be with you."

"Then will you direct us?" Cadman asked.

"As an officer in a land-department, you understand—" Dickson answered slowly, "I'm not supposed to send men into a place like that, to their death. But I want you to know that my responsibility has nothing whatever to do with my concern. Because I value your lives as men—I want to be careful. You must let me think it out loud. It's a maze. I may place you, as I get on."

"We appreciate your care," Cadman said earnestly.

"The 'great' Grass Jungle is the proper name for vast territory—not all in one piece," Dickson Sahib began. "It comes in rifts between parallel rivers among the mountains. Seepage back and forth between the streams, gives the moisture necessary for such growth—year round.

"When white men come to the edge of one of those rifts, they turn back.

It's pestilential with wild beasts. Natives call it the Place-of-Fear.

White men don't challenge it—they go round. Government has named one

part of it—over toward the eastern end of the Vindhas—the Bund el

Khand, the closed country; that name tells its own story."

Dickson Sahib stopped, frowning.

"The native with silks to exchange goes down to Bombay?" he went on. "That means, not Calcutta-way. It also means, not anywhere in the Deccan—which clears us away from large tracts. Yet he usually calls it 'great'—that should mean, the Bund el Khand. No one knows how far in; but you'll best approach it from this side. I'm not dissuading you; I'd like to be along. I'm offering you choice of my assortment of firing-pieces. I'll work you out some running lines—they'll be ready by late-breakfast time. But I'm certain your best place to leave the tracks will be Sehora."

Dickson Sahib was worrying with a match, his face troubled, as he muttered:

"Now if Hand-of-a-God—"

"What is that?" Skag asked quietly, of Cadman.

"That," smiled Dickson Sahib, "is a Scotchman. This civil station of Hurda is famous because he lives here. He is an absolutely perfect shot. Years ago he took all the medals and cups at the great shooting tournaments. He took 'em all, till for shame's sake he withdrew from contesting. He goes to the tournaments just the same—the crackshotmen wouldn't be without him—but he doesn't enter for the trophies any more."

"He is called the avenger of the people, Skag," Cadman put in, "because he goes out and gets the man-eaters; never sights for anything but the eye or the heart, and never misses."

"As I was saying," Dickson Sahib went on, "if Hand-of-a-God were here, he'd go without asking. Or even if the Rose-pearl's brother Ian were here, he's quick enough. But he plays with situations, rather."

"Don't let this situation trouble you, Dickson," said Cadman.

There fell a moment of curious silence. Cadman was a bit pale, but

Skag's face looked serene, as he questioned innocently:

"Rose-pearl?"

"Yes," Dickson Sahib began absently, "she's here when she's not visiting one of her numerous brothers; just now it's Billium in Bombay. Her degree is from London University and the medical service recognises her work among the people. She's a holy thing to them; indeed, she never rests when there's much sickness among them. But one wouldn't ask a favour of one of her brothers."

"Hold on, Dickson, I protest!" Cadman interrupted laughingly. "I'm not such a bad shot myself, you know!"

"The Grass Jungle is crowded—I say crowded—with the worst kinds of blood-eaters. You may want an extra good shot; at the very top notch of practice, what's more."

As Dickson Sahib came out with it, he noticed Skag's surprise, and challenged him:

"Bless your soul, man, I believe it's your grip that grips us!"

Skag's serene face got warm, but Cadman assented.

"Skag dwells in the fundamentals," he explained; "most of us never touch 'em. He's practically incapable of fear; and the idea of failure never occurs to him."

Early next morning Cadman got a telegram calling him to Calcutta; and afterward to England.

"We'll take time to do this big thing first, though," he said, putting the wire into Skag's hand. "They want me sooner—as you see; but they'll get me later. Come away and I'll send word to that effect."

Skag was realising what it would have meant to him, if Cadman had failed; so he asked—vaguely—something about the Rose-pearl.

"Don't let yourself get interested in her, son. That family is like a secret sanctuary; and she is the holy thing behind the altar. She's unattainable."