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Son of Power

by Will Levington Comfort · English · Gutenberg #19970 · 481,043 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Son of Power

Author: Will Levington Comfort
        Zamin Ki Dost


        
Release date: November 29, 2006 [eBook #19970]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19970

Credits: E-text prepared by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SON OF POWER ***


E-text prepared by Al Haines



SON OF POWER

by

WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT and ZAMIN KI DOST







Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1920
Copyright, 1920, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation
into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian
Copyright, 1919, by the Curtis Publishing Company




PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Zamin Ki Dost is a title given to one who lived in India many
years--from the time when she was little more than a child.  The tale
of tales would be her own story.  Her name is

WILLIMINA L. ARMSTRONG





CONTENTS


CHAPTER

    I  THE GOOD GREY NERVE
   II  SON OF POWER
  III  SON OF POWER (_Continued_)
   IV  THE MONKEY GLEN
    V  THE MONKEY GLEN (_Continued_)
   VI  JUNGLE LAUGHTER
  VII  THE HUNTING CHEETAH
 VIII  THE MONSTER KABULI
   IX  THE MONSTER KABULI (_Continued_)
    X  HAND-OF-A-GOD
   XI  ELEPHANT CONCERNS
  XII  BLUE BEAST
 XIII  NEELA DEO, KING OF ALL ELEPHANTS
  XIV  NEELA DEO, KING OF ALL ELEPHANTS (_Continued_)
   XV  THE LAIR
  XVI  FEVER BIRDS




SON OF POWER


CHAPTER I

_The Good Grey Nerve_

His name was Sanford Hantee, but you will hear that only occasionally,
for the boys of the back streets called him Skag, which "got" him
somewhere at once.  That was in Chicago.  He was eleven years old, when
he wandered quite alone to Lincoln Park Zoo, and the madness took him.

A silent madness.  It flooded over him like a river.  If any one had
noticed, it would have appeared that Skag's eyes changed.  Always he
quite contained himself, but his lips stirred to speech even less after
that.  He didn't pretend to go to school the next day; in fact, the
spell wasn't broken until nearly a week afterward, when the keeper of
the Monkey House pointed Skag out to a policeman, saying the boy had
been on the grounds the full seven open hours for four straight days
that he knew of.

Skag wasn't a liar.  He had never "skipped" school before, but the Zoo
had him utterly.  He was powerless against himself.  Some bigger force,
represented by a truant officer, was necessary to keep him away from
those cages.  His father got down to business and gave him a
beating--much against that good man's heart.  (Skag's father was a
Northern European who kept a fruit-store down on Waspen street--a
mildly-flavoured man and rotund.  His mother was a Mediterranean woman,
who loved and clung.)

But Skag went back to the Zoo.  For three days more he went, remained
from opening to closing time.  He seemed to fall into deep
absorptions--before tigers and monkeys especially.  He didn't hear what
went on around him.  He did not appear to miss his lunch.  You had to
touch his shoulder to get his attention.  The truant officer did this.
It all led dismally to the Reform School from which Skag ran away.

He was gone three weeks and wouldn't have come back then, except his
heart hurt about his mother.  He felt the truth--that she was slowly
dying without him.  After that for awhile he kept away from the
animals, because his mother loved and clung and cried, when he grew
silently cold with revolt against a life not at all for him, or hot
with hatred against the Reform School.  Those were ragged months in
which a less rubbery spirit might have been maimed, but the mother died
before that actually happened.  Skag was free--free the same night.

The father's real relation to him had ended with the beating.  It was
too bad, for there might have been a decent memory to build on.  The
fruit-dealer, however, had been badly frightened by the truant-officer
(in the uniform of a patrolman), and he was just civilised enough to be
a little ashamed that his boy could so far forget the world and all
refined and mild-flavoured things, as to stare through bars at animals
for seven hours a day.  In the process of that beating, hell had opened
for Skag.  It was associated with the raw smell of blood and a thin red
steam, a little hotter than blood-heat.  It always came when he
remembered his father. . . .  But his mother meant lilacs.  The top
drawer of her dresser had been faintly magic of her.  The smell came
when he remembered her.  It was like the first rains in the Lake
Country.


But that was all put back.  Skag was out in the world now, making it
exactly to suit himself.  He was in charge of himself in many ways.  A
glass of water and a sandwich would do for a long time, if
necessary. . . .  The West pulled him.  Awhile in the mountains, he
lived with a prospector; there was a period in the desert when he came
to know lizards; then there were years of the circus, when he was out
with the Cloud Brothers, animal men of the commercial type.  Ten queer,
hard years for the boy--as hard almost as for the animals.

Back in Chicago the caged creatures had been kept better--as well as
beasts belonging to the outdoors could be imprisoned, but the Cloud
Brothers didn't have fine senses like their charges.  They tried to
make wild animals live in a place ventilated for men.  There was a bad
death-percentage and none of the big cats were in show form, until the
Clouds began to take Skag's word for the main thing wrong.  It wasn't
the hard life, nor the coops, nor the travel, but the steady day in and
day out lack of fresh air.  Skag knew what the animals suffered,
because it all but murdered him on hot nights.  Of course, there are
tainted-flesh things like hyenas that live best on foul air, foul
everything, but "white" animals of jungle and forest are high and
cleanly beasts.  When well and in their prime, even their coats are
incapable of most kinds of dirt, because of a natural oily gloss.

At nineteen, Skag was in charge of the packing, moving and feeding of
all the big cats, including pumas, panthers, leopards.  He was in and
out of the cages possibly more than was necessary.  He learned that
there are two ways to manage a wild animal--the "rough-neck" way with a
club, and the fancy way with your own equilibrium; all of which comes
in more to the point later.

He was interested at the time, but not really acquainted with the
camels and elephants.  He often chatted with Prussak, the Arab, who
loathed camels to the shallow depths of his soul, but got as much out
of them as most men could.  Skag dreamed of a better way still, even
with camels.  Often on train-trips, at first, he talked with old Alec
Binz, whose characteristic task was to chain and unchain the hind leg
of the old "gunmetal" elephant, Phedra, who bossed her sire and the
little Cloud herd, as much with the flap of an ear as anything
else. . . .

No, old Alec must not be forgotten, nor his sandalwood chest with its
little rose-jar in the corner, making everything smell so strangely
sweet that it hurt.  A girl of India had given Alec the jar twenty
years before.  The spirit of a real rose-jar never dies; and something
of the girl's spirit was around it, too, as Alec talked softly.  All
this was unreservedly good to Skag--thrilling as certain few books and
the top drawer that had been his mother's. . . .  But something way
back of that, utterly his own deep heart-business, was connected with
the rose-jar.  It was breathless like opening a telegram--its first
scent after days or weeks.  If you find any meaning to the way Skag
expressed it, you are welcome:

"It makes you think of things you don't know--"

"But you will," Alec had once answered.

The more you knew, the more you favoured that old man of the circus
company,--little gold ring in his ear and such tales of India!

It was Alec who led Skag into the fancy way of dealing with animals,
but of course the boy was peculiar, inasmuch as he believed it all at
once.  Skag never ceased to think of it until it was his; he actually
put it into practice.  Alec might have told a dozen American trainers
and have gotten no more than a yawp for his pains.  This is one of the
things Alec said:

"If you can get on top of the menagerie in your own insides,
Skagee--the tigers and apes, the serpents and monkeys, in your own
insides--you'll never get in bad with the Cloud Brothers wild animal
show."

There wasn't a day or night for years that Skag didn't think of that
saying.  It was his secret theme.  So far as he could see, it worked
out.  Of course, he found out many things for himself--one of which was
that there is a smell about a man who is afraid, that the animals get
it and become afraid, too.  Alec agreed to this, but added that there
is a smell about most men, when they are not afraid.

For hours they talked together about India--tiger hunts and the big
Grass Jungle country in the Bund el Khand, until Skag couldn't wait any
longer.  He had to go to India.  He told Alec, who wanted to go along,
but couldn't leave old Phedra.

"I've been with her too long," he said.  "She's delicate, Skagee.  I'm
young, but she couldn't stand it for me to go.  Times are hard for her
on the road, and the little herd needs her as she needs me. . . ."

Skag understood that.  In fact, he loved it well.  It belonged to his
world--to be straight with the animals.  Gradually as the distance
increased between them, the memory of old Alec began to smell as sweet
as the sandal-wood chest in Skag's nostrils--the chest and the rose-jar
that never could die and the old friend became one identity. . . .

India didn't excite Skag, who was twenty-five by this time.  In fact,
some aspects of India were more natural to him than his own country.
Many people did a lot of walking and they lived while they walked,
instead of pushing forward in a tension to get somewhere.  Skag
approved emphatically of the Now.  The present moving point was the
best he had at any given time.  He thought a man should forget himself
in the Now like the animals.

Besides they didn't regulate dress in India; in fact, they dressed in
so many different ways that a man could wear what he pleased without
being stared at.  Skag hated to be stared at above all things.  You are
beginning to get a picture of him now--unobtrusive, silent, strong in
understanding, swift, actually in pain as the point of many eyes,
altogether interested in his own unheard-of things.

Alec told him how to reach the jungle of all jungles, ever old, ever
new, ever innocent on the outside, ever deadly within--the Grass Jungle
country around Hattah and Bigawar--the Bund el Khand.  The Cloud
Brothers had paid him well for his years; there was still script in his
clothes for travel, but Skag had a queer relation to money, only using
it when the law required.  Not a tight-wad, far from that, though he
preferred to work for a meal than pay for it; much preferred to walk or
ride than to purchase other people's energy, having much of his own.

He came at last to a village called Butthighur, near Makrai, north of
the Mahadeo Mountains in the Central Provinces.  On the first day, on
the main road near the rest-house, there passed him on the street, a
slim, slightly-stooped and spectacled young white man.  The face under
the huge cork helmet, Skag looked at twice, not knowing why altogether;
then he followed leisurely to a bungalow, walked up the path to the
steps and knocked.  The stranger himself answered, before the servant
could come.  He looked Skag over, through spectacles that made his eyes
appear insane, at times, and sometimes merely absurd.  Finally he
questioned with soft cheer:

"And what sort of a highbinder are you?"

Skag answered that he was an American, acquainted with wild animals in
captivity, and that he had come to this place to know wild animals in
the open.

"But why to me?" the white man asked.

"It seemed well.  I have looked into many faces without asking anyone.
There is no chance of working for the native people here.  They are too
many, and too poor."

"You do not talk like an American--"

"I do not like to talk."

The white man was puzzled by Skag's careful and exact statements and
remarked presently:

"An American asking for work would say that he knew about everything,
instead of just animals in captivity."

"I have not asked for work before.  I can do without it.  I like it
here near the forests."

"You mean the jungles--"

"I thought jungles were wet."

"In the wet season."

"Thank you--"

The slim one suddenly laughed aloud though not off-key:

"But I haven't any wild animals in captivity for you--"

Skag did not mind the mirth.  He appreciated the smell of the house.
It was like a hot earthen tea-pot that had been well-used.

"I will come again?" he asked tentatively.

"Just do that--at the rest-house.  I drop in there after dinner--about
nine."

That afternoon Skag went into the edge of the jungle.  It was a breath
of promised land to him.  He was almost frightened with the joy of
it--the deep leaf-etched shadows, the separate, almost reverent
bird-notes; all spaciousness and age and dignity; leaves strange, dry
paths, scents new to his nostrils, but having to do with joys and fears
and restlessness his brain didn't know.  Skag was glad deep.  He took
off his boots and then strode in deeper and deeper past the maze of
paths.  He stayed there until the yellow light was out of the sky.  At
the clearing again, he laughed--looked down at the turf and laughed.
He had come out to the paths again at the exact point of his entry.
This was his first deep breath of the jungle--something his soul had
been waiting for.

At dinner in the village, Skag inquired about the white man.  The
native was serving him a curry with drift-white rice on plantain
leaves.  After that there was a sweetmeat made of curds of cream and
honey, with the flavour and perfume of some altogether delectable
flower.  In good time the native replied that the white man's name was
Cadman: that he was an American traveller and writer and artist, said
to be almost illustrious; that he had been out recently with a party of
English sportsmen, but found tiger-hunting dull after his many wars and
adventures.  Also, it was said, that Cadman Sahib had the
coldest-blooded courage a man ever took into the jungle, almost like a
_bhakti yogin_ who had altogether conquered fear.  Skag bowed in
satisfaction.  Had he not looked twice at the face under the
helmet--and followed without words?

"How far do they go into the jungle for tigers?" he asked.

"An hour's journey, or a day, as it happens.  Tigers are everywhere in
season."

"Within an hour's walk?" Skag asked quietly.  The other repeated his
words in a voice that made Skag think of a grey old man, instead of the
fat brown one before him.

"Within an hour's walk?  Ha, Ji!  They come to the edge of the village
and slay the goats for food--and the sound cattle--and the children!"

Skag laughed inwardly, thinking how good it had been in the deep
places.  However, it was now plain that these native folk were afraid
of tigers--afraid as of a sickness.  He walked out into the street.
Though dark, it was still hot, and the breeze brought the dry green of
the jungle to him and life was altogether quite right.

That night he met Cadman Sahib.  They talked until dawn.  Skag was
helpless before the other who made him tell all he knew, and much that
had been nicely forgotten.  Sometimes in the midst of one story, the
great traveller would snap over a question about one Skag had already
told.  Then before he was answered fully, he would say briefly:

"That's all right--go on!"

". . . Behold a phenomenon!" he said at last.  "Here is one not a liar,
and smells have meanings for him, and he has come, beyond peradventure,
to travel with me to the Monkey Forest and the Coldwater Ruins!"

It had been an altogether wonderful night for Skag.  Talking made him
very tired, as if part of him had gone forth; as if, having spoken, he
would be called upon to make good in deeds.  But he had not done all
the talking and Cadman Sahib was no less before his eyes in the morning
light--which is much to say for any man.


These two white men set out alone, facing one of the most dangerous of
all known jungles.  The few natives who understood, bade them good-bye
for this earth.

Many stories about Cadman had come to Skag in the three or four days of
preparation--altogether astonishing adventures of his quest for death,
but there was no record of Cadman's choosing a friend, as he had done
for this expedition.  Skag never ceased to marvel at the sudden
softenings, so singularly attractive, in Cadman's look when he really
began to talk.  Sometimes it was like a sudden drop into summer after
protracted frost, and the lines of the thin weathered face revealed the
whole secret of yearning, something altogether chaste.  And that was
only the beginning.  It was all unexpected; that was the charm of the
whole relation.  Skag found that Cadman had a real love for India; that
he saw things from a nature full of delicate inner surfaces; that his
whole difficulty was an inability to express himself unless he found
just the receiving-end to suit.  Indian affairs, town and field, an
infinite variety, Cadman discussed penetratingly, but as one who looked
on from the outside.

"She is like my old Zoo book to me," he said, speaking of India their
first night out.  "A bit of a lad, I used to sit in my room with the
great book opened out on a marble table that was cold the year round.
There were many pictures.  Many, many pictures of all beasts--wood-cuts
and copies of paintings and ink-sketchings--ante-camera days, you know.
All those pictures are still here--"

Cadman blew a thin diffusion of smoke from his lungs, and touched the
third button down from the throat of his grey-green shirt.

"One above all," he added.  "It was the frontispiece.  All the story of
creation on one page.  Man, beautiful Man in the centre, all the
tree-animals on branches around him, the deeps drained off at his feet,
many monsters visible or intimated, the air alive with wings--finches
up to condors.  That picture sank deep, Skag, so deep that in
absent-minded moments I half expected to find India like that--"

There were no better hours of life, than these when Cadman Sahib let
himself speak.

"I haven't found the animals and birds and monsters all packed on one
page," he added, "but highlights here and there in India, so that I
always come back.  I have often caught myself asking what the pull is
about, you know, as I catch myself taking ship for Bombay again.  Oh, I
say, my son, and you never got over to the lotus lakes?"

"Not yet," Skag said softly.

"There's a night wind there and a tree--I could find it again.  I've
lain on peacock feathers on a margin there--unwilling to sleep lest I
miss the perfume from over the pools. . . .  And the roses of Kashmir,
where men of one family must serve forty generations before they get
the secrets; where they press out a ton of petals for a pound of
essential oil!  And that's where the big mountains stand by--High
Himalaya herself--incredible colours and vistas--get it for yourself,
son."

It was always the elusive thing that Cadman didn't say, that left
Skag's mind free to build his own pictures.  Meanwhile Cadman as a
companion was showing up flawlessly day by day.


At the end of a long march, after many days out, they smelled the night
cooking-fires from a village.  A moment later they passed tiger tracks,
and the print of native feet.

The twilight was thick between them as they hastened on.  Cadman Sahib
stepped back suddenly, lifting his hand to grasp the other, but not
quite soon enough.  That instant Skag was flicked out of sight, taken
into the folds of mother-earth and covered--the bleat of a kid
presently identifying the whole mystery.

Skag fell about twelve feet into the black earth coolness.  He was
unhurt, and knew roughly what had happened before he landed.  His rush
of thoughts: shame for his own carelessness, gladness that Cadman Sahib
was safe above, the meaning of the kid's cry and the tracks they had
seen; this rush was broken by another deluge of earth that all but
drowned the laugh of Cadman.  Skag had jerked back against the wall of
earth to avoid being struck by the body of his companion who coughed
and laughed again faintly, for his wind was very low.

"You couldn't ask more of a friend than that, son.  I couldn't get you
up to me, so I came down with you--"

Of course, it was an accident.  Cadman presently explained that he had
set down his dunnage and crept close on his knees to look into the pit
when the dry earth caved.  Doubtless it was intended to do so, since
this was a native tiger-trap baited with live meat.  But Cadman had not
considered fully in time. . . .  Dust of the dry brown earth settled
upon them now; the grey twilight darkened swiftly.  The chamber was
about nine by fifteen feet, hollowed wider at the bottom than the top,
and covered with a thin frame of bamboo poles, upon which was spread a
layer of leaves and sod.  The kid had been tethered to escape the
stroke if possible.

"It's all night for us," Cadman remarked.  "They won't look at the trap
until morning.  My packs are above--rifle and blanket--"

"I have the camera," Skag chuckled.

Cadman's thin hand came out gropingly.

"The cigarettes are in the tea-pot," he said in a voice dulled with
pain.

"I have the pistol," Skag added dreamily.  Something of the situation
had touched him with joy.  If he spoke at such times, it was very dryly.

"Doubtless you have our bathing-suits," Cadman suggested.

"And my cigarette-case has--" Skag felt in the dark, "has
one--two--three--"

"Go on," the other said tensely.

"Three," said Skag.

"Let's smoke 'em now.  They're calling me already."

Skag passed him the case, saying; "I'm not ready.  I do not care just
now."

The other puffed dismally.

"I don't always quite get you, son," he said.  "But it's all right when
I do--"

Skag mused over this.  He was hungry and he put the thought away.  He
was athirst and he put that thought away also.  The wants came back,
but he dealt with them more firmly.  The two men talked of appetites in
general, and Skag explained that he handled his, just as he had handled
the wild animals in the circus, being straight with them and gaining
their friendliness.

"Don't fight them," he said.  "Get them on your side and they will pull
for you in a pinch."

"You talk like a Hindu holy man--"

"Do they talk like that?" Skag asked quickly. . . .  "It was my old
friend with the circus--who taught me these things.  He taught me to
make friends with my own wild animals.  It is true that he was many
years in India. . . ."

"He was the one that had the ring in his left ear?"

"Right ear."

The other laughed.  "It's such a novelty to find you are not a
liar--with all you know and have been through.  I'll stop that nasty
business of testing you.  Hear me, from now on, I'm done!"

Hours passed; it was after midnight.  The waning moon was rising.  They
could tell the light through the trees.  Cadman had smoked again, but
Skag still expressed an unwillingness.

"It doesn't want to, now," he said.

"Oh, it doesn't--"

"I have persuaded it to think of other things.  It is working for me."

Cadman swore softly, genially.  "I never forget anything, son," he
whispered.  "Never anything like that."

"Old Alec said I should never let a day pass without doing something I
didn't want to--or without something I wanted.  He said it was better
than developing muscle."

"Some brand of calisthenics--that.  And he was the old one with the
rose-jar?"

Skag's hand lifted toward the other and Cadman's met his.

There was a wet, meaty growl, indescribably low-pitched--but no chance
even to shout--only to huddle back together to the farthest corner.
The beast had stalked faultlessly and pounced, landing upon the thin
cross pieces of bamboo, but short of the bait.  Down the twelve feet he
came with a tearing hiss of fright and rage.  Something like a muffled
crash of pottery, it was, mixed with dull choking explosions.  The air
of the pit seemed charged with furious power that whipped the leaves to
shreds.

"The pistol, Skag--"

They were free, so far, from the rending claws.  The younger man's
brain was full of light.  Cadman Sahib's voice had never been more calm.

Skag drew a match, not the gun.  He scratched the match and held it
high in front.  They saw the great cowering creature like a fallen pony
in size--but untellably more vivid in line--the chest not more than
seven feet from them, the head held far back, the near front paw lifted
against them as if to parry a blow.

Skag changed the match from his right hand to his left.  When the flame
burned low, he tossed it on the ground, half way between them and the
tiger.  There was a forward movement of the beast's spine--a little
lower and forward.  The lifted paw curved in, but did not touch the
ground.  The last light of the match, as it turned red, seemed bright
in the beast's bared mouth.  In it all there was the dramatic reality
of a dream that questions not.

"He's badly frightened," Skag said.

No sound from Cadman Sahib.

"It's too big for him," Skag went on calmly.  "He thinks we put over
the whole thing on him.  It's too big for him to tackle.  Wonder if
he's got a mate?"

One big green eye burned now in the pit--steady as a beacon and turned
to them, enfolding them.  Cadman Sahib cleared his throat.

"All right to talk?" he asked huskily.

"Sure.  It will help--"

He cleared his throat again and inquired in an enticing tone: "You
actually don't mean to use the pistol?"

"I'm not a crack-shot," Skag said queerly.

"You might pass it to me.  I'm supposed to be--"

"It is bad light."

"And then again, you might not," Cadman laughed softly.  "I've got you,
son--"

"I will do as you say," Skag said steadily.

Cadman hiccoughed.  "The eye moved," he explained.  "There--it did it
again.  I got a feeling as if an elevator dropped a flight.  What were
you saying?"

"That I am here to take orders."

"I'm taking orders to-night, son.  I wouldn't risk your good opinion by
shooting your guest--"

"He is perfect--not more than four or five years--got his full range,
but not his weight."

Skag stopped abruptly, until the other nudged him.

"Go on--it's like a bench-show--"

"We called them Bengalis--but that is just the trade-name--"

"You intimated he might have a lady-friend--do they hunt in couples?"

The boy didn't answer that.  "You've never been in a tiger's cage?" he
asked suddenly.

"I'm telling you not, so you'll excuse my apprehensions about our
lodging--in case Herself appears.  The fact is, there isn't room--"

"She won't come near, if we keep up the voices--"

"It becomes instantly a bore to talk," Cadman answered.


Sometime passed before they spoke again.  The tiger didn't seem to
settle any; from time to time, they heard the tense concussion, the
hissing escape of his snarl.  The kid had either escaped or strangled
to death.

"Will he stand for it until morning?" Cadman asked abruptly.

"He may move a little to rest his legs."

"And won't he try for the top?"

"I think not.  He has already measured that.  He sees in the dark.  He
knows there's no good in making a jump."

"Nothing to jump at--with us here?"

"We have put it over on him.  You have helped greatly."

"How's all that?"

"You don't smell afraid--"

"Ah, thanks."

Long afterward Cadman's hand came over to Skag's brow and touched it
lightly.

"I was just wondering, son, if you sweat hot or cold."

There was a pause, before he added:

"You see, I want to get you, young man.  You really like this sort of
night?"

"It is India," said Skag.

Every little while through the dragging hours, Cadman would laugh
softly; and if there had been silence for long, the warning snarl would
come back.  The breath of it shook the air and the thresh of the tail
kept the dust astir in the pit.

"There is only one more thing I can think of," Cadman said at last.

The waning moon was now in meridian and blent with daylight.  The beast
was still crouched against the wall.

"Yes?" said Skag.

"That you should walk over and stroke his head."

"Oh, no, he is cornered.  He would fight."

"There's really a kind of law about all this--?"

"Very much a law."

After an interval Cadman breathed: "I like it.  Oh, yes," he added
wearily, "I like it all."

It was soon after that they heard the voices of natives and a face,
looking grey in the dawn, peered down.  Cadman spoke in a language the
native understood:

"Look in the tea-pot and toss down my cigarettes--"

At this instant the tiger protested a second time.  The native vanished
with the squeak of a fat puppy that falls off a chair on its back.  For
moments afterward, they heard him calling and telling others the tale
of all his born days.  Three quarters of an hour elapsed before the
long pole, thick as a man's arm, was carefully lowered.  Skag guided
the butt to the base of the pit, and fixed it there as far as possible
from the tiger.  This was delicate.  His every movement was maddeningly
deliberate, the danger, of course, being to put the tiger into a
fighting panic.

"Now you climb," Skag said.

"No--"

"It is better so.  I am old at these things.  He will not leap at you
while I am here--"

"You mean he might leap, as you start to shin up the pole--alone?"

"No, that will be the second time.  It will not infuriate him--the
second one to climb."

"I'll gamble with you--who goes first."

"You said that you were taking orders," Skag said coldly.

"That's a fact.  But this isn't to my relish, son--"

"We do not need more words."


Cadman Sahib had reached safety.  The natives were around him, feeling
his arms and limbs, stuttering questions.  He bade them be silent,
caught up his rifle and covered the tiger, while Skag made the tilted
pole, beckoning the rifle back.

"It's been a hard night for him," he said.

The two men stood together in the morning light.  Cadman's face was
deeply shaded by the big helmet again, but his eyes bored into the
young one's as he offered his cigarette-case.  Skag took one, lit it
carelessly.  Cadman was watching his hands.

"You've got it, son," he said.

"Got what?"

"The good grey nerve. . . .  Not a flicker in your hand.  I wanted to
know. . . .  Say, cheer up--"

Skag was looking toward the tiger trap.

"Ah, I see," said Cadman Sahib.

"The circus is a hard life," Skag said.


That was a kind of a feast day. . . .  At noon the natives had the
tiger up in sunlight, caged in bamboo.  Skag presently came into a
startling kind of joy to hear his friend make an offer to buy the
beast.  Negotiations moved slowly, but the thing was done.  That
afternoon the journey toward Coldwater Ruins was continued with eight
carriers, the tiger swung between them.  Skag was mystified.  What
could Cadman mean?  What could he do with a tiger at the Ruins or in
the Monkey Forest?  The natives apparently had not been told the
destination, but they must know soon.  It was all strange.  Skag liked
it better alone with his friend.  Halt was called that afternoon, the
sun still in the sky.  The two white men walked apart.

"You get the drift, my son?"

Skag shook his head.

"Of course, the natives won't like it; they won't understand.  But
we're sure he isn't a man-eater--"

Skag's chest heaved.

"I never knew a more decent tiger--" Cadman went on.  "Besides, he's a
friend of yours, and not too expensive--"

"You bought him to--"

"I bought him for you, son--a tribute to the nerviest white man I ever
stepped with--"

That evening a great whine went up from the bearers.  It appears that
while some were cutting wood, others preparing supper and others
gathering dry grass for beds, the younger white man, who had made magic
with the tiger in the pit, suddenly failed in his powers.  The natives
were sure it was not their fault that the cover had not been securely
fastened.  The bearers repeated they were all at work and could find no
fault with themselves.  They were used to dealing with white men who
did not permit bungling.  Their wailing was very loud. . . .  To lose
such a tiger was worth more than many natives, some white men would
say. . . .  But Cadman Sahib was rich.  He fumed but little; being of
all white men most miraculously compassionate. . . .  Also it was true
the beast, though full grown, was not a man-eater. . . .

"And to-morrow we shall go on alone--it is much pleasanter," said Skag,
after all was still and they lay down together.




CHAPTER II

_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."

"If I may answer for my friend, I belive [Transcriber's note: believe?] I
can tell you, Doctor."  Cadman saw consent in Skag's eye and went on: "He
has found the lure of creatures.  He has entered into the spell of a
young tigress playing with her kittens, in her own place.  He has watched
another tigress fight her mate to a finish, defending her little ones
from their sire.  He has listened to the symphonies of night and seen the
drama of the wild.  He lives in the clean glamour of the primeval jungle."

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."




CHAPTER III

_Son of Power (Continued)_

They left the train at Sehora and struck out through rough country,
following Dickson Sahib's directions.  They camped in full jungle--wild
beast voices ringing through the night.

Next day they came into a valley like Eden, nourished by a small river.
On its banks--near a mud-walled, grass-thatched village--Cadman
discovered a devout man of great learning, who rested on the path of a
long pilgrimage.  The devout man was approachable and spoke perfect
English; so they asked him about the land ahead.

"The Grass Jungle, sons?  It is the place of secret ways.  Only the very
innocent of men-things dwell there; those not soiled by the wisdom of
evil.  To the wise of the world, it is the place of plague and pestilence
and fear; and swift death by heat--and the shedding of blood.  Past all
else--to such--it is the place of the shedding of blood."

He stopped a moment, musing; then in softer tones went on:

"The days are all still there.  The creature-multitude sleeps in hidden
lairs--black and gold and brown and grey--all veiled in golden gloom.
The little men-things go their ways, on their own man-paths, which they
only know; remember this--they only know.

"When you go in, they will send boys with you from one village to the
next; but only in the early hours, or in the late hours of day.  See that
you do not persuade them otherwise.  The full-day heat is called 'blight'
because it robs men of their wits."

Skag scarcely breathed, till the Learned spoke again.

"At night--I speak who know--at night the earth rises up to the heavens
on the voices of the wild and the ears of the gods are offended.
Creatures go out on their own paths--as the men-things go on theirs by
day.  They rend and contend, they kill and are killed; but they do not
cease till dawn."

The devout man's head sank low upon his breast and he was very still.

"It's romance, Skag," whispered Cadman, "but that's not saying it's our
romance.  The man's off again in his abstractions; but I'm going to try
once more."

Skag nodded.

Touching the wise man's foot with reverence and speaking in the form of
utmost respect, Cadman asked:

"Is it well that we go in?  We search for one who sings as the
super-human sing; we search for the sake of sick hearts--her heart and
others.  Is it well?"

The eyes that lifted were not abstract; they were very deep and keen.
Both the Americans felt winnowed before he spoke again.

"Ignorance is not good, but innocence is the supreme defence.  If it is
the will of the beneficent gods that you find the unmothered woman of
great beauty in time, then it shall be so.  But be patient.  Move slowly
through the little peoples, forgetting your search--I say forgetting your
search, as you go.  Be kind; haste will not delay the sacrifice--kindness
may.  The way lies before you.  Peace."

Cadman rose at once.  They had been dismissed with a benediction; nothing
further could be obtained.  Otherwise Skag would have been a
question-mark before that poor old man till morning.

"But he knows!"

The words seemed wrung out of Skag, as they sat apart.

"He does; there's no gamble about that.  But if we challenge him, the
chances are--he'll revoke that benediction!" Cadman speculated
whimsically.  "Then we'll have all the people against us--which is to
say, every prospect of success would go glimmering.  No, there's nothing
for it but to go ahead, as fast as we can--slowly."

"But what do you suppose he meant by 'forgetting'?" Skag asked.  "That we
mustn't let the natives know we're looking for her?"

"I believe you've got it!" Cadman assented.

"Then I've forgotten!" Skag said with decision.

"I will have forgotten, by morning," Cadman answered.

They were on their way as soon as it was light enough to see their
compass.  They slept at two villages; and early the third day came out of
sketchy mountains into full view of the great Grass Jungle itself.  In
long low waves, it billowed away from them to the dim rugged line of
Vindha against the sky.  It looked like massed plumes of feathers--all
golden-green.

That day they walked down toward it with few words.  To Skag it was
perfectly natural enchantment--veiling the mystery of Dhoop Ki Dhil.  He
never thought of it as a death-trap for himself.

Under the late afternoon sun, the rolling waves of golden-green took on
an aspect of measureless distance; clean reaches, absolutely unbroken by
anything save their own majestic undulations.  The most innocent
landscape on earth, more enticing than the sand-desert--its softer
mystery breathed forth the faint searching perfume of growing things.
Its undertone was well-being.  Its overtone was peace.

"Do you suppose they're doing any harm to her, in there?" Cadman asked.

"No," Skag answered, but his face was grim as he spoke.

When they came into it, they found not grass but bamboo, twelve to
sixteen feet high, standing root to root.  They camped at a village in
its edge; and before they slept, twenty lads were ready to lead them in
the man-paths, next morning.

The villages had not been visible from the mountain-side, being solidly
double-thatched with bamboo.  Garden and fruit-stuffs were underneath;
and animals for milk and butter.

The people were semi-primitive.  Physical degeneration was not found.
Indeed their bodily perfection was extraordinary.  In mind, they were
like children; happy and friendly, joyful to teach all they knew--joyful
to show all they had.  The days rang with clean, childish laughter; but
there was no philosophy.  There was no deep concern, no lasting grief, no
hate.

"Skag, my son," said Cadman solemnly, "if a man really wants to depart
from sin--this is the place to come!"

By this time they had passed through several villages, camping
under double-thatch and inside heavy stockade guards.  Being unable
to release himself from the thrall of his life-quest, even while
every element of his manhood was deep in the thrall of a "singing
nautch-girl--undefamed--" Skag's trained ears had been extending his
education in what was the cult of cults to him.  He had listened longer
than Cadman at night, to those voices of the wild by which the ears of
the gods are offended.

Surely his secret consciousness--during those night-watches--had grappled
with the unknown ahead, reaching impatient fingers to find and save Dhoop
Ki Dhil in time.  But he let no flicker of that thought colour his answer.

"I don't know," he said dubiously, "if I'm not mistaken, I've heard some
sinful language at night."

As they got further in, two names attracted their attention--spoken
together like one word--Dhoop Kichari-lal and Koob Soonder.  Of course
Koob Soonder--Utterly Beautiful--they first thought could mean none other
than the Bombay nautch-girl whom they sought--yet later they were to
learn the truth.  But the last part of the first name--Kichari-lal--they
did not know.  Yet no one would interpret it to them; the innocent people
looked frightened when they asked.

Still, the name recurred; and like following golden threads through
meshes of green--all this life was gold and green--they became fascinated
by the tracing of it.

Then they heard of a man who "knew everything and was able to tell it."
They found him strangely clothed in soft brown, surrounded by youngsters;
and asked for all he knew about Dhoop Kichari-lal and Koob Soonder.
(Their request would have been made in different form, if they had
recognised his order at first glance.)  He eyed them keenly, before
speaking:

"Dhoop Kichari-lal?  That is the name of a colour which the woman from
far wears; she whom Jiwan Kawi loved and would have wed.  And Koob
Soonder--small sister of Jiwan Kawi--our strong young man who went away;
she whose mother was taken by Fear when she was a babe, she who was
stricken by the blight when she began to run--she who was named for her
perfect beauty, before the Grass Jungle had seen beauty more perfect--"

"Do you know all the story?" Cadman interrupted, with dry lips.

"All," said the man.  "Am I not here to teach the little people with the
telling of tales?  Jiwan Kawi was sent on the great adventure, to change
our silks for cotton cloths--which the people consider more desirable."
(There was the hint of a tender smile on his lips, as he said the last
words.)  "Jiwan Kawi was the most strong, the most beautiful of all our
young men when these same leaves were small, in the spring."  He paused,
seeming to forget them--his eyes on the leaves.

Then his manner changed, taking on a quality of austere impressiveness,
as he continued:

"Jiwan Kawi returned from the great adventure; but a woman came after
him--sunrise to sunset behind.  She had followed him from the place of
the multitudes, where all the people dwell together.  He had seen her
there; he had loved her there; he had fled in fear from her beauty; he
had fled in distraction away back to his own place.  Now--his joy showed,
past telling.  But she had come without a mother to give her in marriage;
and marriage cannot be, otherwise.

"If it had not been for her so great beauty!  Surely our women are
beautiful--as the gods know how to make common women.  But when they saw
her--they went back into their houses and covered their faces from the
light of her eyes.

"That was the calamity; for a woman must be given in marriage by the
heart of a woman--sincere and unafraid.  And there was not one without
fear.  Jiwan Kawi went out into the jungle that night; and he never came
back.  Fear may have taken him."

The man looked away toward the horizon.

"Then she put on her body the one garment of hindu-widowhood, unadorned;
but without marriage.  She said, 'I will mourn for the children that have
not been--that are not--that cannot be.'  The women heard the voice of
her mourning; and they forgot her too-great beauty, to serve her
too-great pain--when it was late.

"They gave her the little Koob Soonder, to mother.  Now it is that the
child, who has no wit and little reason, goes out into the place of
sacrifice to find Fear; and the woman in a widow's garment goes after, to
fetch her back.  Then the woman who mourns for unborn children, goes out
into the night-paths--as Jiwan Kawi went--and the little Koob Soonder
follows, to fetch her back.

"So they are going, always going out into the place of sacrifice--where
Fear lives.  Some day or some night--Fear will take them."

"What kind of fear?" Cadman asked, with a dry throat.

"Fear is name enough.  There is none other."

The man's reply was spoken in conclusive tones.  He sat as if oblivious,
for several minutes.  Then searching them both earnestly with haggard
eyes, he spoke direct:

"Have you looked on Dhoop Ki Dhil, for whom you come so far?  Have you
heard her voice?"

Both the Americans shook their heads.

"Will you look on her in the paths of my understanding?  Will you render
yourselves to know her in the currents of my blood?"

"We will," Cadman answered tensely.

The man lifted his face toward the night-sky, becoming perfectly still
before he spoke:

"She is the breath of the early spring-time, when the pulse of the earth
awakes.  She is the midnight moon of all summers, in all lands.  The rose
of daybreak is in her smile; the flames of sunset in her face.
Lightnings of the monsoon break from her eyes; and she mothers the
mothers of men with their tenderness.  Her body moves like flowing water;
and she is the joy of all joy and the sorrow of all sorrow, in motion."

The man lifted his hand, as if to interrupt himself.

"The majesties of High Himalaya are in her voice; and distances of
star-lit night."

He stopped, seeming to listen to something they could not hear.

"The tides of the seasons flow through the blood of common men," he went
on; "they carry the gold of delight away; and the rock-stuff of strength.
Then men are old.  It is not so with her.  Bitter waters of grief have
drenched her, they have covered her as the deep covers the lands below;
but her ascending flames of life consume them all.  She rises like a
creature made of jewels, to enlighten men against the snares of that same
deep from which she has come up--wearing splendours of loveliness for
garmenture.

"The people weep their tears for her pain; but she heals their hurts with
a look.  She restores their dead memories of youth to old men--their
memories of dead loves.  She restores the eyes of girlhood to the elder
women, who have long been weary with yearning after dead little
ones--after dead men.  She has taught the little people who cannot
think--the child-hearted people--that Love-the-transcendent can never die!

"Dhoop Ki Dhil?  She is youth, eternal!  She is motherhood--the divine
lotus of the world!"

Turning to face Cadman and Skag, the man said gently:

"The way lies before you.  Go swiftly now.  Peace."

And rising softly in the dead hush, he moved away.

Cadman sat long meditating, before he spoke at all; then it was like
thinking aloud:

"A mystic brother of the Vindhas--one with the old man outside; not
leaving these little semi-primitives alone--identifies himself with
them--that's good business!"

"Let's get on!" breathed Skag.

They made the utmost speed possible, till they came to the village that
startled them.  The childlike care-freedom was gone.  Light-heartedness
was quenched.  Apprehension took its place; low tones, no laughter--a
look of helpless suffering like the large-eyed wonder in the face of a
grieved child.

They asked about the next village.

"Fear lives there," they were told.

"What fear?" Cadman asked.

"Do you know the king of all serpents--he who comes over any wall, he who
goes through any thatch?  He dwells there.  He feeds upon the children of
men and upon their creatures.  He comes only to the edge, but he eats!"

The boy who told them this was so different from other boys they had
seen, that Cadman asked him direct:

"Who are you?"

"I am here under a master, doing a certain work in my novitiate," the boy
said simply.

"Will you take us there in the morning?" Cadman asked.

The boy looked at them intently, before he answered:

"It is just inside the nesting-place of all the serpents in the world;
but Fear is their king.  We who are here to serve, have no weapons; and
we cannot overcome malignant things with kindness.  If you will deliver
the people from that serpent-king, by destroying his evil life, all the
snakes will go further back into the jungle.  For many generations--if
the gods will, for always--the innocent people will be safe.  I will take
you there, if you will kill him."

"We will try," Cadman said, not even turning to look at Skag.

They found the village in total paralysis of all natural activities.  It
was like a deadly pall.  This was no new terror; it was old
devastation--bred into the bone of consciousness.

A little girl came near to watch Cadman, who was getting out his gun.
She had never seen one before.  He whispered to her--it seemed not right
to speak aloud in this place--and asked her where was Dhoop Ki Dhil.  The
child shook her head, but answered him:

"Wherever you will see the sun-melted red."

"What is that?" he wondered.

"That?  That is the long-long, wide-wide cloth that covers all her body.
It is made of so-thick silk" (she showed him six fingers), "that many
times as thick as we know how to make."

"What is the name of the boy who led us here?" he asked next.

"We call him _Dhanah_ and many other names; but he is not a small boy, he
is a man--very wise and sad."

At that moment they heard a voice like golden 'cellos and golden clarions
and golden viols--calling "Koob Soon-n-der, Koob Soon-n-der!" and the boy
came past, running hard.

"Soon!" he shouted.

But Skag was at his heels and Cadman followed close, the short
firing-piece in his hands.

The paths were narrow, the bamboo dense; the boy leaped into a curve and
was lost.  They raced after him, till the path broadened at the top of an
elevation.  Pausing an instant to listen, they saw--directly in front of
them a little way distant--a tall post; a dark post, seven or eight feet
above the bamboo tops, stiff and straight.

It held their eyes by its strange sheen.  It began to lean stiffly toward
one side--as if falling.  It straightened and leaned the other way.  Then
undulation crept into it, till the top-end followed the outline of a
double loop--like a figure-of-eight.

The snake had chained them this long.  Skag recovered with an inward
revulsion that rent him.  He plunged down the path, his faculties
surging--thought, feeling, realisation, volition--tearing him.

He met Dhanah carrying an utterly limp girl in his arms--the boy's face
gone grey.

As Skag fled on past Dhanah, the whole story of Dhoop Ki Dhil was eating
in his brain like fire.  She was somewhere in there ahead of
him--somewhere near that monster snake.

The weaving of the serpent's head, looping in long reaches above the
bamboo tops--looking over them, looking down into them, looking for its
prey--had frozen him to the marrow of his bones.

Dhoop Ki Dhil had come out into this blind maze to find and save the
heat-blighted child from--that death.  He knew what that death was
like--he had seen a big snake kill a goat once, in the circus, for food.
. . .  The frost in his bones bit deeper, because this was Dhoop Ki
Dhil--the wonder-woman--who was in there, somewhere close to that snake.
He heard the Bombay Doctor's tones again, as he ran; and the words of the
brown-robed mystic went like flame and acid through his blood.

. . . Why couldn't he hear Cadman?  Cadman had the gun.  But if he
himself could only reach her before the snake--if he could only--  And a
soft blur of sun-melted red loomed ahead of him.

Dhoop Ki Dhil did not walk, she did not run; but her glide was almost as
swift as Dhanah's flight.

When Skag met her face to face, he shivered with a shock of
realisation--her ineffable beauty glowed like coals in a trance of some
unearthly devotion.  Her human mind was not there--an incomparable calm
reigned in its stead.

"Come!" he urged strangely.

She moved with him, tilting her beautiful head to indicate something
behind.

He looked--the snake was coming through the long narrow path, coming on;
huge undulations, touching the ground but coming through the air, without
any look of haste.  The path was plenty wide for it, there was plenty
time for it--it was overtaking them as if they stood still.

Then, for one eternal moment, Skag knew fear.  It was
cold--long--metallic.  It was invincible--without pity.  He heard human
voices and the sound of running water--in a dream.  Near by, he heard a
low sweet laugh.  The eyes of fathomless splendour beside him were not
looking into his, but they were full of that love which transcends fear.
And the birthright of Sanford Hantee rose up in him.

"That's right, come on!" he cried to her.

She looked up; and he followed her glance--one great undulation swayed
above them--surging in oozy motion--curving down; just higher than their
faces--a broad flat head--thin lateral lips--stark lidless eyes.

Skag ran with his arm about Dhoop Ki Dhil's shoulders.  He ran as fast as
he could--and still look up.  He dared not loosen his eyes from those
eyes of evil--he must hold them with what strength he had.

They were utterly patient--those eyes of unveiled malice; as if there had
never been strength in the universe but that of sin--as if sin looked
down for the first time on something different.

Skag was perfectly definite in his intention; he meant to hold the snake
if he could.  Some of his training had been in the use of his eyes to
control animals under stress.

So he ran with his arm about Dhoop Ki Dhil's shoulders, the flame of his
volitional power burning straight up into those pitiless, lidless
eyes--till he came into a sentiency that had no cognisance of time.

. . . The raw curse of wickedness and the bitter length of hate, beat
down upon him--out of the great snake's naked eyes.  The deadly stench of
old corruption, poured down upon him--in the great snake's breath.

It challenged the manhood and womanhood of his humankind, with all the
crimes of violence they had ever done.  Skag met it wistfully at first,
with knowledges of loving-kindness; then a rising force that almost
choked him, of confidence in ultimate good.

. . . Cadman had found the right path at last.  What he saw blotted
everything else out.  Calling his reserves of control, he sighted with
the utmost care.  His big-game bullet shattered the serpent's head.  It
launched backward and Skag heard a heavy stroke on the ground, almost
before he realised that the lidless eyes of ancient evil had disappeared
from so near his face.

A mighty shout went up from the people, as the monster coils began to
thresh living bamboo into pulp.  No one saw the hands of the two
Americans grip.

Then the majesties of High Himalaya and the distances of star-lit night,
poured forth from Dhoop Ki Dhil's lifted lips.

Cadman and Skag followed her among the people going back to the village.
Once she whirled with an inimitable movement, flinging her fingers toward
Skag, in a gesture that seemed to focus the eyes of the whole world upon
him.  (And in that instant, the American men could not have spoken a
word--for the richness of her in their hearts.)

The light of intelligence flooded her face; her mind had returned to her,
unmarred--a radiant scintillance.

"She is naming you 'Rana Jai' for the generations to come," Cadman
interpreted.  "She says no mortal man ever held the king of all serpents
from his stroke--ever delayed him from his chosen prey--this thing they
have seen you do.  It is your tradition for the future.

"She says I am your guardian, sent by the gods, to destroy the
serpent--for your sake--so saving the people."  Cadman finished huskily.

"But I didn't reach him, Cadman," Skag protested.  "I didn't touch
him--inside!"

As they all came into the village enclosure, Dhoop Ki Dhil slipped into a
house near by, saying that Dhanah thought the child slept too deeply--she
would care for her.

The people were beside themselves with joy.  But presently Dhoop Ki Dhil
came out, looking straight up.  Her hands were palm to palm, reaching
slowly upward from her breast to their full stretch; there she gently
opened them apart.  A perfect hush fell on all.

"The child is gone," Cadman said, in an undertone.

Then the people began a low chant.  It was not mourning.  It was as if a
great multitude sang a great lullaby together.

"Boy, boy!  This is a hard knock at our civilisation!"

Cadman was not aware that he had spoken.  Skag shook his head.

"God! how I love it!" burst from him; and he had no shame of that love.

Little Koob Soonder's body--in heavy silks of gleaming blue--was laid on
a bamboo pyre.  Dhoop Ki Dhil tenderly sprinkled flower-petals and
incense-oils over all, and lighted the four corners for the motherless
one, herself.  Cadman and Skag watched the clean flames, till only silver
ashes were on the ground.  And all the while the people sang their great
soft lullaby, without tears or any sign of mourning.

Hours later, the voice of Dhoop Ki Dhil rose on the night--far away.  It
seemed to compass the planet with its golden power and to descend from
the empyrean of sound; further and further--transcending the voices of
the wild--the very heart of love, the very soul of light.  But they saw
no more of her; and the people next morning made no reply to Cadman's
natural enquiry; no one would tell what had happened to Dhoop Ki Dhil.

All the way to the edge of the great Grass Jungle, where they had come
in, a multitude went before and after--establishing the tradition of
their deliverance.  Finally Cadman asked the people why they spoke no
word of Dhoop Ki Dhil, excepting as to things finished.  The people bowed
their heads and one answered for them all:

"It is finished.  When we of the Grass Jungle mourn, we do not use words."


As they walked slowly into the open, listening to the voices of the
child-people, the name "Rana Jai" recurred often.

"I haven't heard what that word means yet," Skag said.

"Rana Jai?" Cadman repeated.  "The exact translation is Prince of
Victory; but Dhoop Ki Dhil made her meaning clear--Son of Power; a great
deal more."

After that, they had little to say.  Certainly Cadman would never forget
the length of time he had seen the looming head--less than two feet from
Skag's face--the incredible power that flamed up out of the young man's
eyes.  Certainly Skag was full of content as to the safety of the people.
But all realisations were lost in a gnawing depression about Dhoop Ki
Dhil.

When they came to Sehora, the station-man held out a letter in quaintly
written English; it read:


_From the wayside Dhoop Ki Dhil sends greetings to Son of Power, most
exalted; and to his guardian, most devoted._

_She pays votive offerings from this day, at sunrise and at sunset, for
those men--incense and oils and seed--to safety from all evil, and
fulfillment of their so-great destiny._

_The gods, all-beneficent, have preserved him--Jiwan Kawi, the man of
men!  He met her in the night-paths; and he goes now with her--to her own
people.  Jiwan Kawi, the man of men!_

_The Grass Jungles are in her heart, like dead rose-leaves; their perfume
in her blood, is forever before the gods--remembering Son of Power and
his guardian._

_Dhoop Ki Dhil touches their holy feet._


The two Americans looked into each other's eyes, without words--the
Calcutta-bound train was alongside.

"Remember, I'm responsible for you from now on, son!" Cadman said, as he
loosed Skag's hand.




CHAPTER IV

_The Monkey Glen_

Skag and Cadman were back in Hurda where Dickson Sahib lived, and the
younger man was disconsolate at the thought of Cadman's leaving for
England.  During those few last days they were much together in the
open jungle around the ancient unwalled city; and once as they walked,
two strange silent native men passed them going in toward the
wilderness.

"The priests of Hanuman," Cadman whispered.

Skag enquired.  He had a new and enlarged place in his mind for
everything about these men.  Cadman explained that these priests serve
the monkey people: to this purpose they are a separate priesthood.
Abandoning possessions and loves and hates of their kind, they live
lives of austerity, mingling with the monkey people in their own
jungles; eating, drinking with them; sleeping near; playing and
mourning with them--in every possible way giving expression to
good-will.  All this they do very seriously, very earnestly, with
reverence mingled with pity.

"The masses here think these men worship the monkeys," Cadman added.
"It's not true.  Most Europeans dismiss them as fanatics--equally
absurd.  I've been out with them."

Skag had actually seen the faces of the two men just passed.  The
impression had not left his mind.  They were dark clean faces, grooved
by much patient endurance, strong with self-mastery and those fainter
lines that have light in them and only come from years of service for
others.

Cadman certainly had no scorn for these men.  He had passed days and
nights with their kind in one of the down-country districts.  His tone
was slow and gentle when he spoke of that period.  It wasn't that
Cadman actually spoke words of pathos and endearment.  Indeed, he might
have said more, except that two white men are cruelly repressed from
each other in fear of being sentimental.  They are almost as willing to
show fear as an emotion of delicacy or tenderness.

"The more you know, the more you appreciate these forest men," Cadman
capitulated and laughed softly at the sudden interest in Skag's face as
he added: "I understand, my son.  You want to go into the jungle with
these masters of the monkey craft.  You want to read their lives--far
in, deep in yonder.  Maybe they'll let you.  They were singularly good
to me. . . .  It may be they will see that thing in your face which
knocks upon their souls."

"What is that?"

Cadman laughed again.

"In the West they know little of these things; but the fact is, it's
quite as you've been taught: the more a man overcomes himself, the more
powers he puts on for outside work.  And when a man is in charge of
himself all through, he has a look in his eye that commands--yes, even
finds fellowship with the priests of Hanuman."

"Would these priests see such a look?"

"Of course!"

"But why?"

"Because they have it themselves.  It's evident as sun-tan, to the
seers, who are what they are because they rule themselves.  Your old
Alec Binz had it right.  You handle wild animals in cages or afield
just in proportion as you handle yourself.  Those who command
themselves see self-command when it lives in the eye of another. . . .
They called me--those priests did--years ago.  I almost wanted to live
with them for a while; but it was too hard."

"How was that?"

"They said I must forsake all other things in life to serve the monkey
people--that I must stay years with them, winning their faith, before I
would be of value--that all life in the world must be forgotten."

Cadman laughed wistfully.  "I wasn't big enough," he added, "or mad
enough, as you like.  Perhaps they'll know you at once, or it might
take labour and patience to convince them you have not an unkind
thought toward any of their monkey friends and no scorn of them because
they serve in such service."

The out and out staring fact of the whole matter, Skag realised, was
that these priests believed the monkeys to be a race of men who have
been far gone in degeneration.  They gave their lives to help the
return progress.  The order of Hanuman had already endured for many
generations.  The value of their work was hardly appreciable from any
standpoint outside; they counted little the years of a man's life; they
were trained in patience to a degree hardly conceivable to a Western
mind.

". . . Of course they work in the dark," Cadman said.  "The natives try
to obey in these matters, but do not understand; and one young European
with a rifle can undo a whole lot of their devoted labour among the
tree-people.  You see, the priests work with care and kindness,
following, ministering, accustoming the monkeys to them, never
betraying them in the slightest--"

Skag nodded, keenly attentive.  He knew well from his experience as a
show trainer what it means to get the confidence of the big cats; and
how months of careful work could be ruined in a moment by an ignorant
hand.  Deep, steady, inextinguishable _kindness_ was the thing.

"Yes, to be kind and square," Cadman resumed.  "And one of the
strangest and most remarkable things that ever came to me in the shape
of a sentence was from one of these priests.  He was an old man, grey
pallor stealing in under the weathered brown of his face.  He had that
look in his eye that has nothing to do with years, but means that a man
is so sufficient unto himself that he can forget himself utterly. . . .
He spoke of the condition of the tree-folk, of the incommunicable
sorrow of them--as if it were his own destiny.  The one sentence of
his, hard to forget--in English would be like this:

"_'After a man has lived with these monkey people for a long time, and
always been kind, one of them may come and stand before him and let
tears roll down his hairy face.  And this is all the confession of
sorrow he can make!'_"

Skag caught the deep thing that had stirred Cadman.  The latter added
with a touch of scorn:

"Once I told this thing, as I have told you, to a group of Europeans in
a steamer's smoking room.  And two of them laughed--thought I was
telling a funny story. . . .  These priests are apt to be very bitter
toward one who wrongs one of their free-friends.  They believe that it
is a just and good thing to make a man pay with his life, for taking
the life of a monkey; because it impedes his coming up and embitters
the others.  One way to look at it?"


Skag was in and out of the jungle most of the days after Cadman left
for Bombay to sail.  Closer and closer he drew to the deep, sweet
earthiness and the mysteries carried on outside the ken of most men.
One dawn, from a distance he watched a sambhur buck pause on the brow
of a hill.  The creature shook his mane and lifted up his nose and
sniffed the dawn of day.

Skag knew that it was good to him, knew how the sensitive grey nostrils
quivered wide, drinking deep draughts of cool moist air.  The grasses
were rested; the trees seemed enamoured of the deep shadows of night.
The river gurgled musically from the jagged rocks of her mid-current to
the overleaning vines and branches of her borders.

This was a side stream of the Nerbudda.  Already Skag shared with the
natives the attitude of devotion to the great Nerbudda.  She was sacred
to the people, and to every creature good, for her gift was like the
gift of mothers.  When all the world was parched and full of deep
cracks, yawning beneath a heaven white and cloudless, and rain forsook
the land, and every leaf hung heavy and dust-laden; when heat and
thirst and famine all increased, till creatures crept forth from their
hot lairs at evening and moved in company--who had been enemies, but
for sore suffering--then would she yield up her pure tides to satisfy
their utmost craving. . . .

Skag lived deep through that morning.  The rose and amber radiance of
dawn fell into all the hearts of all the birds; and wordless songs came
pulsing up from roots of growing things.  The sambhur lifted high his
head again and spread the fan of one ear toward the wind, while one
breathed twice.  Then there fell a sudden rustling on the branches; and
swift along the river's brim, the sharp, plaintive cry of monkeys,
beating down through all the startled stillness with their wailing
voices.  These turned, hurrying away in one direction, with fearless
leaps and clinging hands and ceaseless chattering.  Their cries at
intervals, bringing answers, until the air was a-din with monkeys,
leaping along the highways of the trees.

Women of the villages, children tending goats, labourers among the
driftings of the hills and on the open slopes, holy men and those who
toiled at any craft--heard the shrill calls along the margins of the
jungle and knew that some evil had fallen on a leader of his kind among
the monkey people.

Then Skag saw two priests of Hanuman rising up from the denser shadows
where the river was lost in the jungle.  Quickly girding themselves,
they followed the multitudes.  Skag did not miss their stern faces, nor
the instant pause as they dipped their brown feet with prayers into the
river.  He dared to follow.  The priests turned upon him, silent,
frowning; but he was not sent back.

Skag recalled Cadman's words, but also that he was known among the
natives as one white man not an animal-killer.  His name Son of Power
had followed him to Hurda; word about him had travelled with mysterious
rapidity.  To his amazement Skag found that the people of Hurda knew
something of the story of the tiger-pit and his part in delivering the
Grass Jungle people from the toils and tributes of the great
snake. . . .  He was not sent back.

For a long time, until the forenoon was half spent, the three marched
silently.  One halted at length to pick up from the leaves a white silk
kerchief, bearing in one corner two English letters wrought in
needle-work.  This was lifted by the elder of the priests and folded in
the thick windings of his loin-cloth.  Deeper and deeper into the
jungle they travelled, never far from the river.

Suddenly the branches parted, the path ceased; a smooth, perfect carpet
of tender, green grass spread out before them and reached and clung to
the lip of a deep, clear pool--beaten out through the ages, by the
weight of the stream falling on a lower ledge of rock from the brow of
a massive boulder.  The mighty trees of the forest stretched their huge
arms over this spot, as if to keep it secret, so that even the fierce
sunshine was mellowed before it touched the earth.

In the midst of rich grasses, in the shadow of an overleaning rock, a
wounded monkey lay stretched upon fresh leaves.  The two priests went
near him, softly, while the tree-branches filled in and swayed--under
weight of monkeys finding places.  Here and there a local chattering
broke the stillness for a moment, where some dry branch snapped,
refusing to bear its burden.

For minutes the two hesitated, considering the wounded one; then the
elder priest drew out the kerchief.  Skag did not understand all the
words spoken, but he made out that this kerchief was a token that
should find the hand that caused the wound "_and seal it unto
torment_."  The second priest's lips moved, repeating the same
covenant.  The elder then turned back toward the city, signifying that
Skag might follow.

After they had walked some time, the old priest halted and drew forth
the kerchief again.  He examined the monogram woven with a fine needle
into the corner.  To him the shape of the first English letter was like
a ploughshare, and the second was like the form in which certain large
birds fly in company over the heights of the hill country.  The priest
looked long, then hid the kerchief once more, and they hurried on.

Near the unwalled city, the priest sat down before the pandit, Ratna
Ram, whose seat was under the kadamba tree by the temple of Maha Dev.
Ratna Ram was learned in the signs of different languages and could
write them with a reed, so that those who had knowledge could decipher
his writing, even after many days and at a great distance: Ratna Ram,
to whom the gods had given that greatest of all kinds of wisdom,
whereby he could hold secretly any knowledge and not speak of it till
the thing should be accomplished.  (The pandit was well known to Skag
who studied Hindi before him for an hour or more, on certain days.)

Taking the reed from Ratna Ram, the old priest carefully reproduced the
letters he had memorised--A. V.--explained that he had found a
kerchief, doubtless fallen from some foreigner as he walked in the
jungle. . . .  Did the pandit know the man whose name was written
so? . . .  Now the priest spoke rapidly in his own tongue, repeating
the covenant Skag had heard him pronounce in the monkey glen.

For a while Ratna Ram sat silent.  The priest waited patiently, knowing
that the pandit's wisdom was working in him and that he was considering
the matter.

Then Ratna Ram spoke to the priest:

"Oh, Covenanted, you are learned in many things and I am ignorant.  But
knowledge of some things has pierced to my understanding like a sharp
sword.  Consider, oh, Covenanted, Indian Government, who is lord over
all this land, over the Mussulman and over us also, over our lands and
over all our possessions, in whose hand is the protection of our lives
and the safety of our cattle.  The foreigner has no honour to the life
of any creature of the jungle, neither in his heart, nor in his
understanding, nor in his laws.  But know this and understand it; to
Government the life of one human is heavier to hold in the hand than
all the lives of all the tribes of the people of Hanuman.  This is a
good and wise thing to remember at this time, for there is no safe
place to hide from Government in all this land; no, not even in the
rocks, if he be searching for those who have taken one of his lives;
and there is no force to bring before him to meet his force; and there
is no holding the life from him, that he will take in punishment; and
if many lives have taken his one life, he will have them all.  Consider
these sayings."

When Ratna Ram had ceased speaking, the priest sat without answering
for a short space; then he inquired:

"Has Government force enough to put between, that we should not
accomplish to take the slayer alive?"

"No.  His armies are not here; but it would not be many days before
they would reach this place."

"Not before our purpose could be fulfilled?"

"It may be, not _before_.  But soon after."

"That is well.  We fear not death.  Shall we not surely die?  What
matters it?  Our covenant stands."

Ratna Ram begged the priest to rest a little under the kadamba tree.
Rising up, he gathered his utensils of writing and put them in a
cotton-bag; and with a glance at Skag to follow, left the place walking
toward the city.  Skag knew by this time, that his teacher, the pandit,
considered the matter of serious import.  They reached the verandah
steps of an English bungalow and Skag would have retired, but Ratna Ram
would not hear, wishing him to keep a record of this affair.

"The priest of Hanuman trusts _you_," he said, "and my righteousness to
him, as well as to Government, must have witness."

He knocked.  A girl came to the door.  All life was changed for
Skag. . . .  The girl, seeing the shadowed face of the pandit, inquired
if he sorrowed with any sorrow.

"Only the sorrow that over-shadows thy house, Gul Moti-ji."

Ratna Ram explained that he had come in warning, but also in equal
service for the priests of Hanuman who wanted the life of her
cousin--A. V.--the young stranger from England.  The fact that the
young man was away from Hurda this day was well for him, because he had
shot and wounded a great monkey, the king of his people.

In the next few minutes Skag missed nothing, though his surface
faculties were merely winding spools, compared to the activity of a
great machine within.  He grasped that A. V. stood for Alfred Vernon,
the girl's cousin, a young man recently from England. . . .  Yes, A. V.
had occasionally gone into the jungle with a light rifle.  Sometimes he
had brought in a wild duck, or a grey _marhatta_ hare; once a
black-horned gazelle, but usually a parrot, a peacock or a jay. . . .
Yes, sometimes he had been gone for hours. . . .  Yes, she had told him
about the evil and also the danger of shooting monkeys.

Skag now recalled the young man with the rifle--a well-fed,
well-groomed, well-educated young Englishman, thoroughly qualified
sometime, to make a successful civil engineer and a career and fortune
for himself in India.

The girl apparently had not seen Skag so far.  The pandit had called
her Gul Moti-ji.  So this was the Rose Pearl--the unattainable! . . .
And now the pandit informed her that though the cousin might be
scornful, it would only be because he was foolish with the foolishness
of the ignorant.

"But I am not scornful.  I understand--" the girl said.  "I am only
considering swiftly what can be done."

"They are waiting the death of the great monkey--"

The girl's eyes were filled with shadows and great energies also.

"If his life could be saved?"

"Then his life could be saved, Gul Moti-ji," the pandit replied
briefly, but Skag knew he meant the life of the cousin.

"Is it far?"

"Yes, two hours' walk."

Someone within the door of the bungalow now spoke, saying: "Carlin,
dear, I may be a bit late--you must not be troubled about me."

The girl answered the voice within. . . .  So her name was also Carlin.
She had many names surely, but Skag liked this last one best.  She
turned to the pandit now, speaking slowly:

"Did one of the priests of Hanuman come to you with this story--just
now?"

"Yes, Gul Moti-ji."

"Is he waiting?"

"Yes."

"Will he take me--to the place of the wounded one?"

The pandit considered.  Skag felt very sure that the priest would do
this.

"I will ask him.  I can do no more.  If the monkey still lives--your
cousin's only hope will be in your healing power, Hakima."

"Wait--I will go with you, now."

Skag released his breath deeply when she had re-entered.  Apparently
she had not seen him so far.


The old priest arose as the three approached the kadamba tree.

"Peace, Brother," the girl said to him.

"Unto thee also, peace," he replied.

Skag marvelled at the inflections of her voice--low trailing words that
awoke at intervals into short staccato utterances.  It was all awake
and alive with feeling.  She did not ignore a fact the English often
miss, that there are certain unwritten laws of these elder people which
are as potent and unswerving as any mind-polished tablets that have
come down to England from Greece and Rome.

It was an hour of marvelling to Skag.  He saw something that he had not
seen so far in India.  To her face the darker Indian blood was but a
redolence.  Doubtless it was because of this--some ancient wonder and
depth of lineage--that Skag had looked twice.  He had never looked upon
a woman this way before.  No array of terms can convey the innocence of
his concept. . . .  She was tall for a girl--almost eye to eye with him.

He didn't quite follow her words of Hindi, but his mind was running
deep and true to hers, in meanings.  She told the priest that she had
come to save her cousin, who never could be made to understand what he
had done, even though he lost his life in forfeit.  She said the monkey
people would be devastated, if he paid his life; that the priests of
Hanuman would be driven deeper and deeper into the jungles; that her
heart was with them in soundness of understanding, for she was of India
who hears and understands.  She held up a little basket saying she had
brought bandages, stimulants, nourishments, and had come asking
permission to go with the priests now, to the wounded one, to care for
him with her own strength. . . .

Skag saw that her scorn for the ignorance that had caused the wound was
a true thing; that she felt something of the mystery of pity for the
monkey people; that she could be very terrible in her rage if she let
it loose, but that she loved this stupid cousin also.  All Skag's
faculties were playing at once, for he perceived at the same time this
girl would see many things of life in terms of humour and it would be
good to travel the roads with her because of this. . . .  Apparently
she had not seen him, Sanford Hantee, to this moment.

The priest weighed her words and spoke coldly, saying that his order
did not consider consequences to men, when they took life.  A monkey
king had been shot.  The wound was eating him to death.  It was
unwritten law which may never be broken, for the life of one who kills
a monkey to be taken by the priests of Hanuman.  Up through the ages
this law had not served to destroy the monkey people, but to protect
them.

The girl said gently: "Let me go to him.  Do you not see that I am
indeed of this land, with its blood in my veins?"


Ratna Ram had taken his seat once more under the kadamba tree.  It was
early afternoon and the three were travelling through the jungle.  The
girl Carlin was always looking ahead--one thing only upon her
mind--time and distance and words, as clearly obstructions to her, as
the occasional branches across the path.  Once when Skag fixed a big
stone for her to pass dry across a shallow ford, she turned to thank
him, but her eyes did not actually fill with any image of himself.  He
missed nothing--neither the standpoint of the priest, nor of the
English, nor the vantage of this girl who stood between.

It was a queer breathless day for him, altogether to his liking, but
more intense than he understood.  The girl's lithe power, the
tirelessness of her stride, the quick grace, low voice and
steady-shaded eyes full of, full of--

Skag hadn't the word at hand.  Cadman Sahib would know. . . .  That
look of the eyes seldom went with young faces, Skag reflected; in fact,
he had only found it before in old mothers and old nurses and old
physicians.  Certainly it had to do with forgetting oneself in
service. . . .

The priest began to talk or chant as he strode along.  It was neither
speech nor song.  It did not bring the younger two closer together,
though they saw that monkeys were following, up in their tree-lanes.
At times when Skag dropped behind, he wondered why the girl did not see
the things that delighted him--a sparkling pool, the gleam of damp
rocks, the velvet moss with restless etchings of sunbeam.  Yet he knew
that it was only to-day she looked past these things; that these really
were her things; that she belonged to the jungle, not to the
house. . . .  She must greatly love this stupid cousin. . . .  Skag
never tired watching the firm light tread of her--like the step of one
who starts out to win a race. . . .  There was jubilant music of a
waterfall--the priest reverently stopped his chanting.

Then they came to the great rock and the second priest arose, his eye
glancing past Skag and Carlin to the eye of his fellow of the order of
Hanuman.

For an instant the silence was of an intensity that hurt.

"Is he--?" Carlin began.

The priest who had brought them answered, though there had been no
words:

"No, the king yet lives."

Under the shadow of the overleaning rock, stretched on fresh wet
leaves, the monkey king was lying.  His eyes were bright, but the haze
of fever was over them; thin grey lips parted and parched; a strained
look about the mouth.  He breathed in quick, panting breaths--too far
gone to be afraid, as Carlin leaned over; but there was a forward
movement in the over-hanging branches, a swift breathless shifting of
the monkeys.

She opened the little basket.  Skag watched her face as she first laid
her hand on the monkey's head.  He saw the thrill of horror and
understood it well, for this was alien flesh her hand touched--not like
the flesh of horse or dog or cow which is all animal.  She struggled
with a second revulsion, but put it away.  She found the wound in the
shoulder and asked for hot water, which a priest quickly prepared and
brought in an earthen jar.  She bathed the wound, and put some liquid
on his dry lips.  The tree man was too full of alien suffering to be
cognisant, as yet; but the great test was now, when under her hands
appeared a little instrument of jointed steel. . . .  She was talking
to him softly as to a sick child.  He drew a quick breath--his eyes
wide as a low cry came from him, and the whole forest seemed to quiver
with a suffocating interest, monkeys ever pressing nearer.  Skag saw
one little brown hand stretch (twisting as if to bury its thumb) and
lay hold of Carlin's dress. . . .  Then he sighed, like a whip of air
when a spring is released and Skag saw the bullet in the instrument.

It was held before him.  She dropped it into Skag's hand thinking it
was the priest's. . . .  Then she dressed the wound, giving medicine
and nourishment until the tree king slept.

The afternoon was spent.




CHAPTER V

_The Monkey Glen (Continued)_

In the lull Carlin appeared to have no thought of going back to Hurda.
The younger priest made her comfortable with dry leaves.  Skag brought
a log for her to lean against.  For the first time she appeared to
notice that he was not one of the priests of Hanuman. . . .  She did
not speak.  Dusk was falling.  At intervals she would look into his
face.  The priests brought fruit and chapattis.  Delicate sounds of a
wide stillness began to steal through the shadows.  Creatures of the
forest crept out from their lairs and called, one to another.  Down
towards the river a tiger coughed; and there was a shiver along the
branches where the monkeys sat.  The priests had merely glanced at each
other.  Carlin had not seemed to hear.

Three torches were kept blazing through the night, and by their light
the girl gave medicine and nourishment to the wounded one from time to
time.  She did not speak to Skag, who often sat before her for an
interval, but she would occasionally look into his face, her eyes
dwelling with a curious calm upon him.

In the morning the wounded one was conscious.  That day the suffering
wore upon him, and they brought wet leaves as the sun rose higher and
kept them changed beneath him, for coolness. . . .  The fever left him
after the heat of noon.  Not until then, did Carlin look upon Skag and
speak at the same time.

"Have I seen you before? . . .  Who are you?"

When Skag heard himself answer, he realised his voice had something in
it he had never known before.


. . . That afternoon Carlin went back to Hurda, but came again for an
hour late in the afternoon.  The next morning early, she came once more
and Skag was there.  That afternoon, the elder priest said:

"He will live."

"Yes," Carlin repeated softly.

"But you don't seem glad," Skag said.

She was looking back toward the city.

"I was wondering if I could make them see what it means to spend the
afternoon in the jungle with a rifle."

"Couldn't they understand that this work of yours has delivered your
cousin from death?"

"Oh, no, they would laugh at that.  They would remind me that I have
always been strange.  Even if my cousin lost his life, they would not
learn.  The priests would be called fanatics and would be made to
suffer and all the monkey-peoples--"

Skag could see that.

"Why do you not leave them?"

"Oh, I do not hate my people.  I have many brothers, real men; and then
you must know English Government does wonderful things."

They were starting back toward the city leaving the two priests.  Most
strangely, as no one Skag had ever met, Carlin could see the native and
the English side of things.  He felt that Cadman would say this of her,
too.  He wanted sanction on such things, because he felt that already
his judgment was not cold--on matters that concerned her.  Everything
about her was more than one expected.  She seemed to have an open
consciousness, which saw two or all sides of a question before speech.


A great weakness had come upon Skag.  It was in his limbs and in his
voice and in his mind.  It had not been so when the priests were near,
nor when there was work to do.  Now they were alone; the jungle was
vast with a new vastness.  The girl was taller and more powerful--her
sayings veritable, equitable.  There were golden flashes among the rich
shadows of her mind, like the cathedral dimness of the jungle on their
right hand as they walked, slanting shafts of sunlight raining through.

They walked slowly.  Skag reflected that since his first sight of the
sambhur, he had watched and done nothing.  All his life had been like
that.  Yet this girl watched and worked, too.  She loved the English
and the natives, too.  She had skilled hands, a trained body, a
cultured mind--certainly a wonderful mind, as full of wonder as this
jungle, with a sacred river flowing through.

Moreover, she could ask questions like Cadman--the spirit of things.
He told her of his mother, of his running away from school when he
first saw the animals at Lincoln Park Zoo, how they enveloped him, so
that he thought nothing but of them, lived only for animals later as a
circus trainer, and had come to India to see the life of the wild
creatures outside of cages. . . .  His tongue fumbled in the telling.

"But I do not see yet, why the priests of Hanuman let you go with
them--"

"Nor I," said Skag.

"But they know you are not an animal-killer--"

They walked rather slowly. . . .  Night was upon them when they reached
the edge of the jungle and heard voices.  The back of Skag's hand
nearest Carlin was swiftly touched and she whispered breathlessly:

"My people.  They are coming for me--good-bye---"

The last few words had been just for him; the tone might have come up
from the centre of himself.

Skag was alone, but he did not hurry into the city.  There was more in
the solitude than ever before, more mystery in the jungle, more in the
dusty scent of the open road.  Greater than all, in spite of all
doubting and realisation of insignificance, there was unquestionably
more in himself.

Early the next morning, Skag was abroad in the city and saw the two
priests of Hanuman approach Ratna Ram.  They raised their hands in
silent greeting as he came near and immediately arose and turned toward
Carlin's bungalow.  Skag was glad to follow, when they signified he
might, for the thing at hand was his own deep concern.  There was a
catch in his throat as Carlin appeared on the verandah.  Her eyes met
Skag's before she spoke to the priests.

"Is he worse?"

The elder spoke for both, as is the custom:

"Peace be on thee, thou of gentle voice and skillful hands.  We greet
thee in the name of Hanuman; and are come, to render up to thee the
forfeit life, even according to our covenant; for thou hast saved the
wounded king, and he will not die.  Behold the cloth with the shape of
the foreigner's sign in it; this we held for a token that the
foreigner's life was ours: this we render now to thee.  His life is
thine and not ours."

The old man laid the silk kerchief at Carlin's feet.

Skag had thought the danger over yesterday, but he saw that the young
Englishman's life held in ransom, had only just now been returned to
the girl. . . .  That forenoon was the time to Skag of the great
tension.  Carlin had stood for a moment longer than necessary on the
verandah, after the priests had turned away.  It was as if she would
speak--but that might signify anything or nothing.  It was just a point
that made the hours more breathless now, like the sentence of quick low
tones last night, when the voices of her people were heard at the edge
of the jungle.  Were these everything or nothing--glamour or life-lock?
Often he remembered that her eyes had sought his to-day, even before
looking to the priests for news.


He stood at the edge of the jungle at high noon.  The city was filmed
in heat.  Faint sounds seemed to come out of the sky.  Skag was
watching one certain road.  The trance of stillness was not broken.  He
turned back into the green shade. . . .  He would not delay in Hurda.
He would not linger.  His friend Cadman had been gone for some days.
Yet about going there was a new and intolerable pain.

Skag forced himself back from the clearing.  He felt less than himself
with his eyes fixed upon that certain road; a man always does when he
wants something terribly.  Still he did not enter the deep jungle.  At
last he heard a step.  He turned very slowly, not at all like a man to
whom the greatest thing of all has happened. . . .  Carlin had come and
was saying:

". . . I heard voices in the house this morning when you came.  Someone
was listening, so I could not speak. . . .  Something keeps
growing--something about our work in the jungle.  I want to go to the
monkey glen again--now."

It was like unimaginable riches.  There were moments in which he had
counterpart thoughts for hers in his own mind; as if she spoke from
another lobe of his own brain.  Her words expressed himself.

"I thought you would be here," she told him presently.  "I wanted to
see you again."

She was flushed from crossing the broad area tranced in noon heat; and
now the green cool of the jungle was sweet to her, and they were close
together, but walking not so slowly as last night. . . .  Loneliness
came to them when they reached the empty place where the wounded one
had lain in the shelter of the rock.  They felt strangely excluded from
something that had belonged to them.  All the wide branches above were
empty.  Still that was only one breath of chill.  Tides of life brimmed
high between them; they had vast mercies to spare for outer sorrows.

"He may not have done so well after being moved," she whispered.

Skag was thinking of the cough he had heard.  The monkeys had
understood that. . . .  Just now the younger of the two priests of
Hanuman appeared magically.  There was quiet friendliness deep in his
calm, desireless eyes.

"All is well," he told them.  "They have carried their king to a yet
more secret place, where we may not--"

He did not finish that sentence but added: "Only we who serve them may
go there.  All is well.  They would not have moved him, had they not
been sure that life was established in him."

The priest did not linger.  Then Carlin wanted to know everything--how
India had called Skag at the very first. . . .  Was it all jungle and
animal interest; or was he called a little to the holy men?  Did he not
yearn to help in the great famine and fever districts; long to enter
the deep depravities of the lower cities with healing?

Skag had listened in a kind of passion.  Wonderful unfoldment in regard
to these things had come to him from Cadman Sahib, but as Carlin
touched upon them, they loomed up in his mind like the slow approach to
cities from a desert.  Carlin's eyes, turned often to his, were like
all the shadows of the jungle gathered to two points of essential dark,
and pinned by a star veiled in its own light.

"I thought it was only the wild animals that called to me, but now I
know better," he said.  "And my friend Cadman, who has gone, opened so
much to me.  He often spoke of the holy men, until one had to be
interested--"

Carlin halted and drew back looking at him with a kind of still
strength all her own.

"You do not know that the natives think _you_ are something of the
kind?"

"I--a holy man?"

"I heard them speak of you last night.  You see they have heard of your
deliverance of the Grass Jungle people."

Skag was learning how wonderfully news travels in India.

"Of course, it was all easy to believe, after what I saw--"

"What did you see?" he asked.

"That the two priests of Hanuman permitted you to follow them here--"

Then Carlin verified what Cadman had said, that the priests make no
mistakes in these things. . . .  Presently Skag was listening to
accounts of Carlin's life.  He was insatiable to hear all.  In some
moments of the telling, it was like a phantom part of himself that he
was questing for, through her words.  Her story ran from the Vindhas to
the Western Ghat mountains, touching plain and height and shore (but
not yet High Himalaya), touching tree jungle, civil station, railway
station and cantonments; stories including a succession of marvellous
names of cities and men; intimations that many great servants of India
and England were of her name; that she had seven living brothers, all
older; all at work over India.  Finally Skag heard that Carlin had
spent eight years in England studying medicine and surgery, and again
that the natives called her the _Gul Moti_, which means the Rose Pearl;
or _Hakima_, which means physician.  But her own name was Carlin!

When they came back to the edge of the jungle again, it was the hour of
afterglow.  Its colours entered into him and were always afterward
identified with her.  Carlin left him, laughingly, abruptly; and Skag
was so full of the wonder of all the world, that he had not thought to
ask if he should ever see her again.


As night came on, Skag thought more and more of the parting; and that
there had been no words about Carlin's coming again.  He felt himself
living breathlessly towards the thought of seeing her; and it was not
long before this fervour itself awoke within him a counter resistance.
Manifestly this pain and yearning and tension--was not the way to the
full secret.  As carefully stated before, Skag approved emphatically of
the Now.  The present moving point was the best he had at any given
time.  He thought a man should forget himself in the Now--like the
animals.

Yet the hours tortured.  That night had little sleep for him, and the
marvels of Carlin--face and voice, laugh, heart, hand--grew upon him
contrary to all precedent.  This was a battle against all the wild
animals rolled into one; most terribly, a battle because there seemed
such a beauty about the yearning which the girl awoke in him.

He was abroad early next day.  The thought had come, that she might
find him in the jungle at noon or soon afterward as yesterday.  As the
dragging forenoon wore on, Skag was in tightening tension.  He hated
himself for this, but the fact stubbornly remained that all he cared
for in the world was the meeting again.  It seemed greater than
he--this agony of separation.  It brought all fears and
self-diminishing.  It told him that Carlin would run from him, if she
knew he wanted her presence so.  He knew her kind of woman loves
self-conquest--the man who can powerfully wait and not be victimised by
his own emotions. . . .

So it was that Skag fled from himself, when there was still a half hour
before noon.  He could not meet her, longing like this.

There was sweat on Skag's forehead as his limbs quickened away from the
place of meeting yesterday.  The more he left it behind, the more sure
he became that Carlin would come.  It seemed he was casting away the
one dear and holy thing he had ever known--yet it resolved to this:
that he dared not stand before her with his heart beating as if he had
run for miles and his chest suffocating with emotions--the very
features of his face uncertain, his voice unreliable. . . .  If a man
entered the cage of a strange tiger, as little master of himself as
this--it would be taking his life in his own silly hands.  Skag
couldn't get past this point, and he had a romantic adjustment in his
mind about Carlin and the tiger--one all his own.


Deeper and deeper into the jungle he went, along the little river, but
all paths appeared to lead him to the monkey glen; and there he sat
down at last and remembered all that Alec Binz had told him about
handling himself in relation to handling animals, and all that Cadman
Sahib had told him from the lips of wise men of India . . . but all
that Skag could find was pain--rising, thickening clouds of pain.

He kept seeing her continually as she entered the jungle (walking so
silently and swift, her face flushed from crossing the open space this
side of the city in the terrible heat of noon)--and then not finding
him there.  Something about this hurt like degrading a sacred thing,
but he didn't mean to.  He repeated that he didn't mean to hurt
her. . . .  Then suddenly it occurred to him that it was all his own
thinking about her coming at noon.  There had been no word about it.
She might not have thought of coming again.  This was like a cold
breath through the jungle.  It was as intolerable as the other thought
of her disappointment.

. . . There was an almost indistinguishable _slithering_ of soft pads
in the branches.  Skag looked up suddenly and the air seemed jerked
with a concussion of his start.  The monkeys were back.  They had been
watching, the branches filling.  When he looked up, the whole company
stirred nervously.

Skag laughed.  It was good.  There was but one formulated thought--that
Carlin would be glad to hear this; she would appreciate this.  The
return of the monkeys had a deep significance to Skag, because he had
really first seen the wonder of Carlin just here--working over the
wounded one.  The immediate tree-lanes were filled with watchers in
suffocating tension then.  It was curiosity now--nothing covered, but
playful.  Skag wished he could chant like the priests, for the
monkey-folk.  He wished he had many baskets of chapattis to spread out
upon the grasses for them. . . .  As he sat, face-lifted, he heard that
tiger-cough again.

The monkeys huddled a second--it was panic--then they melted from
sight.  It was like the swift blowing away one by one, of the top
papers of a deep pile on a desk.

Skag was now essentially absorbed.  It couldn't be a mistake.  The
monkeys knew.  He himself knew from days and nights with the big cats.
There was no cough just like that.  It was in a different direction
from before, back toward the city this time, but as before, muffled and
close down to the riverbed. . . .  Nothing of the cub left in that
cough; neither was there hurry or hunger or any particular rage or
fear.  A big beast finishing a sleep, down in some sandy niche by the
river; a solitary beast full of years, a bit drowsy just this moment,
and in no particular hurry to take up the hunt.  Such was the picture
that came to Skag with a keen kind of enjoyment.  The thrill had lifted
his misery for a minute.  This was something to cope with.  It took
away the heart-breaking sense of inadequacy.

It wasn't the thrill of a hunt that animated Skag.  The fact is, he
hadn't even a six-shooter along.  This was the closeness of the real
thing again--the deep joy, perhaps, of testing outside of cages once
more, the power that had never failed.  And just now along the river
and beyond the place where the cough came from--Carlin was coming!

The last of the monkeys had flicked away.  Skag arose and held his hand
high, palm toward her.  She beckoned, but still came forward.  Skag
moved without haste, but rapidly.  All the beauty and wonder of Carlin
was the same; it lived in his heart, integrate and unparalleled as
ever, but some power had come to him from the cough of the tiger.
Around all the fear, even for her life, was the one splendid
thing--that she had followed him into the monkey glen.

She was nearing the place where the cough had come from, yet Skag did
not run.  A second time he held up his hand, palm outward, but she
still came forward laughing.

"You ran from me?"

"I did not think of you coming so far--to-day."

Skag had stepped between her and the river, turning her toward the
city, but Carlin drew back.

"I have come so far.  I want to go to our--to the monkey glen!"

She was watching him strangely.  Skag understood something that moment:
that he might know of Carlin's delight through her eyes, of all joy and
good that he might bring, but that he should never know from her eyes
if he brought hurt.  Skag put this back into the deep place of his mind.

"All right.  We'll go back," he said.  "They were here--the whole
troupe.  Just a minute ago, they swung away--"

He saw for an instant her wonderment that he had come alone.  She would
have been very glad to see the monkey people again; she could not quite
see why she should have missed this; she did not understand his
words--that he had not expected her to follow into the glen.

She was sitting down on her own log, but he stood.  Skag was driven to
speak.  The need had now to do with one of his favourite words.  It was
a matter of _equity_ that he speak.  The words came in a slow ordered
tone:

"I was waiting for you there--back at the edge of the jungle--but it
came to me that I was not ready."

Carlin had been looking away into the three-lanes.  Her eyes came up to
his.

"Not ready?" she said.

"All night I could only remember one thing--"

"What thing?"

"That you had not told me you would come again."

Carlin's shoulders lifted a little.  She cleared her throat, saying:

"I thought of it."

"This morning the idea occurred that you might come to the jungle at
noon--like yesterday, but the hours wouldn't pass after that.  I met
something different that would not be quiet--"

"Where?"

"I mean in myself."

Carlin's eyes widened a little, but she only said:

"Oh!"

"It would not rest.  I could not wait in calm.  I was afraid you
wouldn't come--yet I was afraid of your coming.  My face worked of its
own accord, and my words would not say what I knew--"

"When was that?"

"It was worse when I reached the jungle a little before noon and began
to watch for you."

"And--you ran away?"

"I was not good to look upon."

"But you are not like that now--quite controlled--like blue ice--"

Skag turned his eyes slowly back the path by the river where the cough
had come from.

"I am better now," he said.

"I wonder if anyone ever thought of running away like that?"

"It is not a good feeling to be at the mercy of oneself," Skag said.

Carlin caught a quick breath.  There was a steadiness in his eyes.  It
was steadier than anything she knew.  The light of it was so high and
keen that it seemed _still_.

"Nothing like this has happened before," he said quietly.

Carlin arose.  Their eyes met level.

"Everything is changed," he went on.  "It was like a grief that you
were not here--when the monkeys came in. . . .  I'm not right.  I did
not know before that a girl was part of me.  It was all animals before.
I'm not ready--but I will be!  You are good to listen, but really you
had to--"

Carlin let her lids fall a second.

"I mean I couldn't stop when it started."

There was silence before he finished: "I know everything better.  I
know all the creatures better--all the cries they make.  And yet I'm
less--I'm only half--"

It was then her hand came out to him.

"Does it mean anything to you?" he asked.

"Yes--"

"_Does it mean everything to you--too?_"

Her voice trailed.  It was closer.  It was everywhere.  It was like a
voice coming up from his own heart:

"Yes, everything--especially because you could run away. . . .  But
I--came!"


They were walking toward Hurda among the shadows, Skag closer to the
river. . . .  The night was coming with a richness they had never
seen--tinted shadows of purple, orange and rose--almost a living gleam
to the colours; the evening air cool and sweet.

Carlin told him that her family must understand and be considered and
give approval. . . .  There was an eldest brother in Poona who must be
seen. . . .  All arrangements must be made with him.  Skag said he
would go to Poona at once. . . .

They were lingering now at the edge of the jungle; its spices upon them
in the dry air.

". . . And I will wait here in Hurda," Carlin was saying.  "You may be
gone many days.  You may not find him at once, and you will have to
wait at Poona, but I shall know when you come.  The train coming _up_
is before noon.  Listen!  You will not find me at the bungalow.  No,
that would not be the way for us. . . .  This will be perfect.  I will
be waiting for you--our place--back in the monkey glen."

"It is the perfect thought, but you must not go back there alone," he
said.  "I had not meant to tell you now, but it was that--made me
steady--a tiger back there.  He gave me nerve for your coming--a good
turn it was, the most needful turn! . . .  Yes, a tiger lying down on
the river margin, as we talked--do not go in deeper, when I am
away. . . .  And on the day I come, meet _me here_ at the edge of the
jungle and we will go in there to our place--together."




CHAPTER VI

_Jungle Laughter_

It was while Skag was waiting near Poona, for Carlin's eldest brother
Roderick Deal, that he became toiled in the snare of his own interest
in jungle laughter.  It is a strange tale; lying over against the mud
wall of the English caste system in India.  It is to be understood that
a civil officer of high rank in that country is a man whose word is
law.  His least suggestion is imperative.  The usages of his household
may not be questioned by a thought, if one is wise.

Police Commissioner Hichens was such a man.  He was stationed in Bombay
and there is nothing better in appointment in all India.  His
responsibilities were heavy like those of an empire.  Personally he was
austere--entirely unapproachable.  Of his home life no one knew
anything whatever, outside the very few of equal rank.  It was
understood that the mother of his two small children had died more than
a year ago.  Some indiscreet person had mooted that she was not sent
Home in time.  Still, European women do not live long in that climate
anyway; and it is common knowledge that to maintain a family requires
several successive mothers.

The present Mrs. Hichens was but recently a bride; a mere girl and
lovely; but within a few weeks of her landing, Bombay fever had begun
to destroy the more tangible qualities of her beauty--which could not
be permitted.

It does not take long for the most exalted official to discover that
Bombay fever resembles the Supreme Being in that it is no respecter of
persons.  Yet it was not even so nearly convenient to send this Mrs.
Hichens Home, as it had been to send that Mrs. Hichens Home; and that
had been quite out of the question.  But the Western Ghat mountains
furnish a very good barricade against Bombay fever.  (Devoutly inclined
persons have even intimated that they were specially placed there for
the convenience of men who are much attached to their homes.)

Extending a thousand miles parallel with the coast, from five to forty
miles inland, built mostly of pinnacles and peaks rising a few hundred
or a few thousand feet from near sea level, more rugged than any
mountains of their size in the world, the Western Ghats are like a
section of Himalaya in miniature.  The railway line up has a
reversing-station proclaimed far and wide to be the most splendid piece
of railway engineering on earth.  (That there are several more splendid
in the Rocky Mountains is unimportant.)

Just over the top, about seventy miles from Bombay, is Khandalla and
Lanowli and further on, Poona.  Poona is a military station, sometimes
too far.  Lanowli is a railway station--which means that no one lives
there who is fit to associate with a police commissioner's wife.  But
Khandalla is no station at all, being only a small mountain village
with three or four abandoned bungalows far apart from each other.
Heaven knows who built them in the beginning, but whoever it was, they
must have done it too late, because there is a neglected grave or two
near each one.

The native agents got in every good argument for the bungalows, but
Police Commissioner Hichens was not persuaded.  He seemed to have a
constitutional antipathy to those bungalows.

No, the bungalows might be safer and dryer and warmer at night; they
might be cleaner and healthier and more comfortable all the time; but
he wanted a tent and he meant to put it where he wanted it.  So, at
great expense of time and labour on the part of natives, but very
little expenditure of money on his part, he succeeded in hoisting a
tent from Bombay to the top of the Western Ghat mountains, of a size
and of an age and of a strength which suggested a military mess-camp.

The tent was set up in the Jungle at the edge of Khandalla.  The
servants would find quarters in Khandalla village; a cook, a cook's
servant-boy and a butler for the entire household; a boy for the small
son, an ayah for the wee girl and a very expensive ayah for the lady
herself.

If an ayah is expensive enough, she is usually a very intelligent
person, thoroughly informed on most general subjects pertaining to her
own country and entirely competent to impart that information.  It is
understood she will always interpret the native standpoint relative to
any matter under discussion.  Her value as a servant may be great, but
her value as an instructor will be greater.  It was necessary that each
of the ayahs should be wife to one of the men servants, but it is
always possible to make a temporary arrangement of that sort to
accommodate the customs of a high official.

So the present Mrs. Hichens was to be established in the tent, very
comfortably matted as to the floor and furnished with all necessary
appointments of a satisfying quality and wealthy appearance.  Men of
high rank must do all things with a certain pomp and circumstance,
otherwise the ignorant might sometimes forget their rank.  And rank
must never be allowed to be forgotten.

Police Commissioner Hichens would spend all week-ends with her; that is
to say, he would leave Bombay by the first train going up after Court
closed on Saturday and would be obliged to take the Sunday evening
train down.  The two children so recently come into the care of a
second mother, would be occupied and entertained by their servants; and
the little girl, not quite three years old, would be under the
additional guardianship of a Great Dane dog who had once belonged to
her own mother.

It will be observed that the Great Dane dog is spoken of as a
personality.  He was so.  He seemed to have quite fixed conclusions
about the family.  He ignored the servants (excepting Bhanah the cook,
who was a servant as far out of the ordinary as the lady's own ayah).
He tolerated the small boy.  He approved of the new lady.  He never
ceased to mourn for his dead mistress; especially in the presence of
the man.

He would extend his great length on the floor in a low couchant
position, not too close to where the man sat--and search the strong
human face with eyes more strong.  Without the twitch of a muscle
anywhere in his whole body, he would endure the man's gaze as long as
the man chose, with a level look of cold, untiring rebuke.  There was
no anger in it, no flash of light, no flame of passion--but it had a
way of eating in.

The servants bear common witness that it is the only thing they have
ever known to drive the Sahib away from the delightful relaxations of
his own home, which he claimed as sanctuary from the stress and grind
of his official days.  But the Great Dane Nels had done it more than
once.  Afterward the Sahib would sometimes take Nels on a
hunting-furlough.

It was the first Mrs. Hichens who took the puppy with her, when she
went to India with Police Commissioner Hichens; and before she died he
was made to promise her on his honour, that he would care for and
protect Nels as if Nels were his own son, so long as Nels should live.
There was no help for it.

Especially as it was quite well known among the servants, that on the
very day of her death she had made the Sahib with his own hands lay the
sleeping child over on the bed underneath Nels' out-stretched paws;
because this was done in the presence of Baby's ayah and of her own
ayah also, and therefore two witnesses had heard her say:

"Nels, I am giving my baby to you.  The Sahib her father is not able to
be with her, much.  But you are to care for my baby for me.  Do you
understand, my dear?"  She often called Nels "my dear" with a peculiar
inflection on the _dear_ and an upward lilt of tone.

And Nels had agreed, because he pressed the little body hard and lifted
up his big grey head and cried a long, low cry.  And the lady had
laughed a little and wiped glistening tears from her death-misted face,
for her baby would be--not _quite_ alone.

So all the servants knew that Nels had owned the child from that day.
Now it is not a wise thing to antagonise a body of East Indian servants
in matters which they consider sacred; and Police Commissioner Hichens
was a lawyer and a judge and a wise man.  He might fear Nels as he
feared death itself, the two being equivalent in his mind, but he might
not destroy Nels with his own hand, nor let it be known that he had
caused the great dog's death.  Still, if he took Nels with him on
hunting-furloughs, as often as possible setting him to charge most
deadly game, there was always the possibility of an accident.

To many it seemed strange that the present Mrs. Hichens, a regal young
English thing, was made to live in a lonely tent, well back among dense
jungle growths, quite out of sight or call away from any human
habitation, with her husband's little son and littler daughter and the
Great Dane dog.  Certainly the servants were about during the daytime;
as much out of sight as possible, according to their good teaching.
But at night there were no servants about; they were all far away at
the other end of the village, because the natives who lived at this
side were low caste.

And it was at night the thing developed.  A slow-driving inquisition,
night after night.  It drove her through and beyond the deadly fever
lassitude.  She was not building up out of it; she was beaten down
below it.  She was beaten through all the successive stages of breaking
nerves.  She used all the known arguments, all the intellectual methods
to sustain pure courage, to hold herself immune.  She used them all up.

At first, when her husband came up for his weekends, he was quite
evidently pleased with his arrangement.  And it would take a
self-confidence which had long since gone a-glimmering out of her, to
break in on his enthusiasm with any criticism of his provisions for her
comfort; certainly no criticism on any basis of noise.  It has been
said that Police Commissioner Hichens was an unapproachable man; and
some things are impossible.  One can die, you know, any death.  But
some things are entirely impossible.

The day came when she dragged her weary weight up from the couch and
drove her unsteady frame along the new pathway through jungle thickets
toward the village.  The idea had been gnawing in her consciousness for
days; to find the nearest house or hut or any kind of place where human
beings lived, so as to have it in her mind where to run when the time
came.  It had come to that.  It went in circles through her brain; when
the time came to run, she positively must know where to run.

Her progress was slow and painful.  When her limbs shook so she could
not stand alone, she leaned against a tree.  She must not lie down on
the ground on account of the centipedes and scorpions.


"Hello--"

Startled a little, she turned toward the voice.  A man's voice, very
low.  It came from somewhere behind her.  She broke away from her
support and the fever-surge caught her and whipped her from head to
foot.  Her balance was going--

"I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to frighten you."

She was kept from falling by the arm of the stranger.

"No.  It's the fever.  I assure you it's the fever."

Now he just steadied her with one hand.  The fever was filling her
brain with a dull haze. . . .  He was slender and not tall.  He was
much bronzed.  She could see only his eyes and his mouth.  He spoke
again:

"Why are you alone in this jungle--with such a fever?"

The words dropped into her consciousness; even, smooth, like pebbles
gently released into water.

Then the blackness of outer darkness came up between.


. . . That was how the present Mrs. Hichens began to know Skag.

He carried her back along the path, fresh-marked by her own footsteps,
to the tent.

Next afternoon he called to learn how she was.  He had a sheaf of wild
mountain lilac-blooms in his hand.

"Oh, lovely!  I haven't seen lilacs since England."

"They make me think of my mother," he said, giving the flowers into her
hands.

"I would so much like to hear about your mother."

Skag had not the habit of much speaking, but he found it easy to tell
this English girl about the mother who had died when he was a child.
She leaned against banked pillows and watched the changes flow across
his face.  They were almost startling and yet so clean, so wholesome,
that she felt inwardly refreshed, as by a breath from mountain heights.

Naturally he went on to tell her about Carlin; but when at last he
spoke her name, the English girl interrupted him:

"Is it possible you are meaning Doctor Carlin Deal?"

"Yes; do you know her?" Skag asked.

"I have met her several times--quite frightened at first, because I had
heard about her--you know she is very learned, even for one much older."

"I know she is a physician."

"Yes; London Medical.  But it's not just her profession; it's herself.
She's really wonderful; her sweetness is so strong and--all her
strengths are so lovely."

"She is wonderful to me," Skag said.

"I'm congratulating you, you understand?"  The present Mrs. Hichens
smiled as she added: "I've heard that she has a fine discernment of
men."

He went before sunset.  After he had gone she asked her ayah to find
out about who he was and whatever concerning him.

When Police Commissioner Hichens came up that week-end, he was so
seriously dissatisfied with the tediousness of her recovery, that she
had no inclination to tell him about having gone out from the tent on
her own unsteady feet, at all.  Certainly it would be calamitous for
him to hear of her having been carried in by a perfect stranger.  For
which reason she called her ayah, while the Sahib was in his bath
before dinner and said to her hurriedly:

"Ayah, will you do a thing for my sake?"

"To the shedding of my blood, Thou Shining."

"Then guard from the master that he shall not learn of my going out, or
of the stranger who appeared."

"He shall never learn.  Never while he lives shall he learn, unless
from your own lips."

"Will all the other servants help you, Ayah dear?"

"It is already considered and determined among us.  He shall never
learn from us."

"Why are you all good to me?"

"Because by the hand of our master, who is our father and our mother,
our bodies live; but by the grace of thy soul our hearts are glad.  _It
is better to have joy in the heart one day than to endure upon the
fatness which grows out of a full stomach for ten years._"

"Oh, Ayah, don't tell me things like that, because they are never to be
forgotten."

"That is a great saying, oh Flower-of-Life.  A saying come down from
many generations.  My people have found in it much food.  The most poor
among us go empty many days by the strength in it.  And it is known
that holy men have lived long years of holy life, without any
satisfaction to the body at all, dwelling in that courage by which the
unutterable of suffering may be endured, entirely by the _memory of one
day_."

The ayah's voice finished in the tones of ceremony; and she moved
smoothly from the room, unconscious that she had not been dismissed.

The following evening, after the police commissioner had gone down, the
ayah brought report concerning the stranger.  His name was Sanford
Hantee Sahib.  He was an American Sahib.  He did not consort with any
of his own people, nor with Europeans.  Of all human beings he had only
one friend and associate, Cadman Sahib, who was a great man among
men--as was well known by even the ignorant.  Cadman Sahib had been
heard to call him "Skag," but Cadman Sahib would permit no one to call
him by that title excepting himself; therefore it was a sealed title,
to pronounce which few are worthy.  Five days ago Sanford Hantee Sahib
had come by train from far in the interior, beyond the Grass Jungle
country, to meet an Indian Sahib of high rank in the railway service,
at Poona.  It was an appointment personal to himself; no one knew the
purpose.  Also, why Cadman Sahib had not come together with him was not
known, unless--

"Oh, Ayah!  I don't care a bit about Cadman Sahib--_will_ you be good
enough.  What about the man?  Now go on."

"Most illustrious lady, the thing is an exaltation.  I am poor and
ignorant.  My head is at your feet.  One like I am should not approach
power like his save turning fresh from a bath."

"Ayah dear!  I am prepared."

"He has the power to control all wild animals.  So great is his power
that not long ago, when he and his so-fortunate friend Cadman Sahib had
both fallen into a tiger pit-trap and a mighty young tiger in his full
strength had come after them, falling bodily down upon them and being
full of fright and fury, had turned upon them to destroy them,
beholding his master's face, the beast had become subject to him in the
instant and had sat quietly before him the whole night, without moving
to hurt them.  What man will require more than this?"

"For Heaven's sake!  What a tale.  But Ayah, what sort of man is he?"

"Who will be able to know what sort of man?  Is it not enough?"

"We require much more than that."

"Lady, I--who am not as you are--I have not bathed since dawn.  Surely
calamity will fall on me, if I set my tongue to the nature of such an
one."

"If he is holy, then he will be willing to help."

"The knowledge of him among men is that he _is that_."

"Then, Ayah, I will take the danger of calamity away from you, for I
have need.  Speak."

"It is known that he resembles the most high masters themselves, in
that he is _always kind_.  And yet there was a strange saying, that he
permitted his friend Cadman Sahib to destroy the head of a mighty
serpent who had feasted upon the creatures and children of a Grass
Jungle village.  Now these things could not both be true at the same
time, unless he had taken a vow to protect the children of men.  In
that case his presence in the land was a benediction beyond the
benediction of twenty years of full rains.  He might even be one of the
high gods, incarnated to serve Vishnu the Great Preserver, if what they
said was true, that he had been recognised by Neela Deo, the Blue
god--king of all the elephants--in _his own place_."

"Then, Ayah, fasten it all into one word."

"That he is a very great mystic.  Not one of the yogis who are unclean
and scrap-fed, but a true mystic; a master and an adept in one of the
greatest of all powers."

"_Have no fear_.  I alone shall carry the burden of speaking."

Since there are few more potent benedictions than "Have no fear," the
ayah withdrew in deep content.


While Skag sat in the tent next day, the police commissioner's wife
said to him:

"I have learned that you are a wonder man."

"That is a mistake."

"Is it true that you and a friend spent the night in a pit-trap with a
living, unchained tiger and that he did not hurt you?"

"A part of the night, yes."

"Will you explain it on any ordinary grounds?"

"Maybe not quite ordinary.  I travelled several years with a circus in
America; and I learned to handle animals, especially big cats of
different sorts."

"How do you do it?"

"A man does it by first mastering the wild animals in himself.  Then he
must have learned never to be afraid."

"Is that all?"

"He must always be fair to them.  I mean he must never take advantage
of them; never do anything to them that would make him fight back, if
he were in their place."

"I am thinking what a difference there is between your standpoint and
that of the hunters of wild animals I know.  But tell me--have you ever
been afraid?"

"Yes, once."

"Really afraid?"

"Yes."

"I want to hear about it some day, if you will be so good; but first I
want to tell you a story of fear; two kinds of fear.  There has been no
one I could speak to--and I am in need of help."

"I would like to help you.  Tell on."

"Do you know much about hyenas?"

"I know they are the most unclean of all beasts.  I have never heard
that they are dangerous to men."

"Sometimes they are.  Only a little way from where we sit in this
jungle, a woman was killed and eaten last year, by a hyena.  But I am
not afraid for myself.  I have said my fear is of two kinds.  First, I
am seriously concerned for the children; especially the baby.  She is
frail at her best and if it were not for her long afternoon naps, I am
unwilling to think what would come to her just from the sort of thing
which has been happening.  She is highly organised; and one has heard
that any kind of nerve-shock is most dangerous to such children.  Then,
there is a different kind of fear, _quite_ different; it is for her
Great Dane dog."

"Won't he charge them?"

"That is the most awful part of it.  Of all creatures I have ever
known, I may as well say of all people I have ever known, he has the
most splendid courage.  One night in every week he is taken to Bhanah's
own quarters, so that his master shall not be disturbed.  The change
seemed to relieve him, at first.  But--one who had not seen could never
conceive how gradually, through the long, long nights--I have watched
his almost super-human courage--breaking."

Skag opened his lips to speak, but she put up her hand.

"This is hard to tell because I have never known that I could be
afraid.  I have always supposed that I had perfect courage.  But while
Nels' courage has been in the wrecking, my own has been wrecked--quite!"

Her voice was very low and very bitter.

"I don't believe it's as bad as that."

She glanced up and smiled the slow smile of extreme age upon extreme
youth.

"My husband, the police commissioner, has hunted in India more than
twenty years; some of his friends longer than that.  I suppose they are
as familiar with the natures and doings of most animals in this country
as foreign hunters can become.  But of course the natives know jungle
creatures even better.  We have two servants, born in these hills, my
ayah and Bhanah the old cook; I have much from both of them.  But my
experience here in this tent, has--as the natives would
say--established it all in me.  You will have heard that hyenas are
almost always the scouts for tigers."

"Yes, Mr. Cadman told me that."

"Jackals run with them.  The hunters say that between the hyena, whose
stench is beyond description awful, and the jackal, whose stench is
strong dog, they obliterate the tiger smell and so prevent the
desperate panic coming in time to the hunted creatures, who fear the
tiger more than anything."

"Hyenas in captivity do not smell so exceptionally bad."

"One has heard that all flesh-eating animals in captivity are fed clean
meat, reasonably fresh--"

"They are; and for the moment I forgot their reputation--that would
make a difference."

"It is claimed here, that they eat only two kinds of flesh, at
once--human and dog.  They say that the hyena entices and betrays to
the killing, the tiger kills and eats his fill, then the jackals come
in and leave only bones and tendon-stuff for the hyena.  This is what
he devours as soon as it is old enough to suit his taste."

"Are all these animals here in this jungle?"

"Plenty of jackals; but the tigers have been killed out of all this
part of these Ghats by the European sportsmen of Bombay and Poona.  The
hunters disregard hyenas; so there are many left, with no killer to
kill for them."

"That might make them dangerous."

"And they will tell you that when a hyena is forced to kill for
himself, he invariably hunts for a dog.  It has become very important
to me that dog flesh is their first choice.  And dogs never fight
hyenas; never even to defend their own lives.  They may bark or howl
while the hyena is some distance away, but as soon as it comes near
they are silent; and when it approaches them, they simply cower and
submit.  Not only that, but it is beyond question that hyenas have the
power to call dogs to them. . . .  For five weeks I have been alone in
this tent six nights in every week all night, with two children and the
spartan soul of Nels the Great Dane dog; and I have seen and I have
heard the _process_ of the hyena's lure."

"That is what I want to hear about."

"You shall hear; but will you be good enough to remember, please, Nels
is no average dog.  There is nothing better in lineage than his.  Also,
he is a thoroughly trained hunting dog.  My husband, the police
commissioner, has used him in hunting tigers and cheetahs, black
panthers and leopards of the long sort, the big black bears of Himalaya
and jungle pigs, which we call wild boars at Home.  To different famous
hunting districts of the country he has taken Nels, on many
hunting-furloughs; and Nels' courage stands to him and to his friends,
the very last word in courage.  I have often heard him say he does not
know a man with courage to equal that which has never once failed in
Nels."

"I should like to know that dog."

"You shall certainly meet him; and it may be you are the one to know
him.  I am confident no one does, now."

"About the hyenas?"

"The hyena has three kinds of call.  The most common is the bark of a
puppy.  (If you ever hear it you will not wonder why mother dogs go out
to it, to their death.)  Presently the bark breaks into a puppy's cry.
It whimpers, then it climbs up into heart-breaking desolation; the
wailing cry of a lost puppy.  It snaps out in distraction futile little
yappings; then it whimpers again, like sobbing.  So on for hours.

"The next most common is a laugh; a harsh, senseless laugh.  The effect
is to terrorise, to paralyse its prey.  It is wicked.  It climbs up
into piercing, high, falsetto tones; all maniacal. . . .  So insane
that though one knows perfectly well what it is, it chills one's blood.
This keeps on a long time, with variations.  Every change seems worse
than the last.  But sooner or later it brings one up standing with a
laugh impossible to describe, unless it is devilish--so clear, so keen,
so intelligent, so beyond expression malicious.  Toward morning this
sometimes brings sweat.  Oh, maybe not if one were alone; but with
Nels, watching Nels--indeed yes!

"The last and least often heard--I mean they do not do it every night,
sometimes not for several nights, sometimes they do all three in one
night--is the cry of a little native baby; the cry of a lost baby; the
cry of a deserted baby; the cry of a baby alone out in the jungle
shadows and frightened to death."

She stopped and lay quite still; seeming to forget he was there.

"And what then?"

"Nothing, only it keeps on sometimes the rest of that night.  They
never mix the three kinds together.  Even when they do them all in one
night, they are usually in this order as I am telling you.  Sometimes
the baby is still for a few minutes; then it begins again and goes on."

Again she stopped a long time.  Suddenly she flung up her hand and
spoke faster:

"No, there's nothing more about that little deserted native baby's cry,
excepting that I've started up in broad daylight afterward, with a cold
panic in my heart that it had really been a baby, a true baby and I had
failed to go and save it.  And--the nights, the long nights I have
fastened my weight on Nels' neck to keep him inside of this door!"

She pointed to the opening by her couch.

"Why don't you chain him?"

"He goes on a leash perfectly, but he has never been taught to be
chained up.  My husband has never permitted the servants to do it.  I
tried it here myself, but he suffers and cries; and that keeps both the
children awake.  It would jeopardise Baby's life to force him.  On
account of the ceremony which occurred a few hours before her mother
died, the servants believe she belongs to Nels.  They claim that he
acknowledges the ownership.  I will admit that he behaves like it.  She
has often kept him back.  He goes from this tent door to her cot
yonder, to look at her.  But always he comes back to the door.  Some
night my weight will not be sufficient.  That is my fear."

"The situation is clear and I think I can manage it, if you will leave
it to me for a night or two.  These beasts must be kin to a big snake I
met in the Grass Jungle country.  My friend Mr. Cadman shot him.  That
was when I found fear--"

At that moment Skag heard the clear, treble tones of a child's voice:

"Nels-s, Nels-s, Nels-s!"

And the veriest fairy thing his eyes had ever looked upon came flying
in the tent door before him.  Her head was a halo of gold made of the
finest kind of baby curls.  She was unbelievable.  She was like a
flame, beside the couch.

"This is Betty, our baby."

The child lifted intensely blue eyes and while Skag smiled into them,
he was without words before the vivid whiteness of her face.  She was
sent with her ayah to the back of the tent for her nap.  Then Nels came
in.

Skag had never seen such a dog.  For size, for proportions, for power,
for dignity, he was quite beyond comparison.

"This is Nels, one of the four greatest hunters in India."

Nels came to him at once.  With a searching regard he looked into
Skag's face one long moment, then a glow came up in his eyes and he
swung about and stretched himself alongside Skag's chair, reached his
arms out before him and laid his chin on them, almost touching the
man's foot.  Skag leaned over and stroked the big head.  It felt like
sealskin, but it was soft clean grey colour.

"Nels has adopted you, Wonder Man!"

The lady on the couch spoke like a small child, marvelling.

"I am glad to have his friendship.  But I wish, if you will excuse me,
I wish that you wouldn't call me by that name.  Skag is not my real
name, but the few friends I have call me Skag.  I'd be pleased if you
would call me that."

"That's very nice of you, but do you much mind?  I like Wonder Man
better."

"I don't believe I quite understand why."

"Partly from things I've heard about you.  But rather more on account
of what I've seen just now.  I fancy the natives are not far wrong and
you are a wonder man to them. . . .  If you do this sort of thing,
delivering people who are in danger of their lives, and getting the
devotion of creatures as hard to win as Nels, I can see that you are
going to have a great reputation in this India.  And you are not to be
in the least disturbed if I call you Wonder Man; I am believing the
title is prophetic at least."

"What I'm doing for you is only what any man would do.  If you hear me
outside to-night, don't be startled.  I'll get the beast as soon as I
can.  If there's more than one, I'll stay around till they're cleaned
out."


Soon after dusk Skag circled out into the jungle.  He carried one of
the best hunting-pieces made and plenty of ammunition.  Taking a
position in sight of the tent on the jungle side, he waited.  Within
half an hour a little puppy began to bark.  No man alive could ever
know it was anything but a puppy.  It yapped and whimpered a while and
then it began to get frightened.  He moved toward it, but it stopped.
For several minutes there was silence.  Then another one began back of
him.  He slipped through the shadows with the utmost caution, but
before he got near it, it also stopped.  This occurred several times.
At last, away in another direction, a wild, grating laugh broke out.
He turned at once and moved carefully but swiftly to come in range
between it and the tent.

This laugh-thing was torture.  It couldn't stop.  It was insane.  He
thought it would never be done.  In a few minutes it was important to
have it done.  She had said it was to paralyse its prey.  It was enough
to paralyse anything.  Then he jumped.  Now _that_ was devilish!  But
he was coming closer to the sound and getting interested, when it
stopped.  So he followed it from place to place.  Always, when he got
near possible range, it stopped.  Always it began in a few minutes in
some other spot.  There might be a dozen. . . .

And a woman, alone with two children and a dog, had endured this six
nights out of seven, night after night all night, for five weeks. . . .


Near morning, toward the front, a sick baby began to cry.  While he
made his way around, his steps quickened to the very urge of its need.
He was quite near the tent when--a clear, high, agonised shriek.  It
was the girl!  And he ran.

There was an instant when he did not realise anything.  He just saw.
Fifty feet from the tent, the Great Dane dog, his head low, almost
touching the ground, moving slowly, step by step--with a long, slender,
white figure dragged bodily on his neck.  Then he heard:

"Rodger!  Keep back!  Take care of Baby.  Nels, _Nels_!  Nels, you must
_listen_ to me. . . .  _Nels_!"

He caught hold of her and the dog at the same moment.

"Don't let him go.  _Don't let go of Nels_!"

"All right, I won't.  Now will you go back to the tent, please?  I've
got Nels.  I'm going with him."

"No, _the thing has happened_!  I tell you, he doesn't even know me!
Why do you want him to go at all?"

"Because they keep out of my range, alone.  He'll lead me to this one.
I'll take care of him.  Now go; will you please go back?"

"I don't--"

A frantic scream from a boy's throat and in the same instant the
lifting cry of a younger child.  Clear in the door-space of the tent,
behind them, two little figures clung together in the opening--and just
at one side, close to the children, a dark, ungainly shape!  Skag
sprang three jumps toward the opposite side, dropped on one knee and
fired.  The shape bounced up, crumpled over and lay still.

They both ran to the children.  Skag had just made sure the beast was
dead, when he heard:

"Nels, Nels!--He is gone!"

"If you'll shut the door safely, I'll take care of Nels."

"It won't fasten, but I'll stay."

The Great Dane was not in sight but Skag knew the direction.  He ran
almost upon them.  Nels stood, but crouched toward the ground.  A shape
rose against him--above his shoulders on the other side.  Skag slipped
around to reach it without hitting the dog.  In the same instant Nels
took a blow from the jungle beast's head.  The two swerved over toward
one side.  Skag set his gun-muzzle against the hyena's neck--he could
see that much--and blew it away from him.  (There wouldn't be much
danger but it was dead.)  Then he knelt, his hand instantly wet at
Nels' throat.  But the blood was not gushing, it was streaming.  He put
his arms underneath to lift him, but couldn't do it alone.  There was
nothing to do but go for the girl.

"I'm sorry.  I need your help.  Dare we leave the children a minute?"

"Yes, Baby is falling asleep; and Rodger is brave, he will watch
her. . . .  Tell me, is Nels killed?"

"No, I think we can save him.  But we must be quick."

She was by his side running, as he added:

"I know how to do it, when we get him to the light."

They worked together and it was all they could do, but they got Nels
into the tent.  She brought the materials he asked for, and while he
stopped the flow of blood and dressed the wound, she went to the baby.
When he rose she was leaning over the child.

"I'm afraid something has happened to her!  Her face is strange  Her
breath is not right.  I wish Ayah would come; I don't know a thing
about babies!"

"Is there a doctor near?"

"Not this side Poona."

"I can go after him."

"You're awfully good, but there will be no train before the one my
husband comes up on.  It's a holiday.  He would have been up last
evening, only he had important business.  I am not at liberty to
determine about a physician, because he will be here so soon."

"Shall I go after the ayah?"

"That might help--thank you so much!"


Skag learned in the next two hours that there is nothing in life more
difficult for a man to find, than servants' quarters in a native
village.  By full daylight he gave up and tramped back a considerable
distance.  As he approached the tent, an Englishman came out walking
rapidly toward him.  Police Commissioner Hichens had a very red face.
He spoke before Skag could see his eyes:

"Sir, I take pleasure in ordering you to leave my premises.  You will
be good enough not to be seen again in this vicinity."

"Yes?  You--are--finding--fault--with--me?"

"What occurs to mine does not in the least concern you!  You are
occupying yourself with my affairs.  I will not permit it.  Am I
explicit enough?"

"You are explicit enough."

Skag wheeled on the path and walked away from the police commissioner
under a sharp revelation that if he didn't get away at once, he would
do a thing he had never been inclined to do before.  He was amazed by
his own fury.  Unconsciously he spoke aloud:

"I never wanted to----"

"_Remember, it is not necessary to touch the unclean._"

Low tones of strange vibration.  Skag looked up.  A brown-robed man
stood before him.  (The long straight lines of the garment were made of
a material hand-woven of camel's hair, known in the High Himalayas as
_puttoo_.)  The quiet face was in chiselled lines.  The level dark eyes
were looking deep into the place where Skag's soul lived.  Skag was
intensely conscious that he stood in a Presence.  He endured the eyes.
They made him feel better.  The robed man spoke again:

"I speak to give you assurance that those you have served will be cared
for.  Also, a responsibility may fall upon you.  If you accept, a great
good will come to you in this life."

"I will do what I can."

"_Peace be with thee._"

"Shall I see you again?"

"Never."

Skag stood aside and the robed man walked toward the tent.

Skag went back to Poona.  Carlin's eldest brother Roderick Deal had not
come yet.  Still waiting, a week later, he walked one morning on the
stone causeway, which is a most attractive unit in the architecture of
Poona's great waterworks, and filled his eyes with the Ghat vistas
toward the north and west.  Joyous dog tones made him glance back.  It
was Nels, straining forward on a heavy chain-leash in the old cook's
hand.

"Let him go."

Now Skag noticed that the dog moved with some effort, possibly with
some pain; but when he arrived, Nels reared his mighty body and set his
paws on Skag's two shoulders.  Skag hugged him and eased him down.  The
old cook handed Skag a note.  It read:


To the Wonder Man, by the hand of Bhanah the cook, who is a gift to the
Man from the gods.  Together with Nels the beautiful, a gift to the Man
from Eleanor Beatrice (Hichens)--who is free!

Bhanah the cook will tell his master the rest.  Save this, that Eleanor
Beatrice is grateful with her full heart to the Man.

He is to remember that he has been adopted by Nels.  He is to walk
softly because he is on the way to be adopted--of course it is past
belief, but also it is past question--by the mightiest of all mystic
orders, whose messengers have accomplished this thing.

N.B.  The Sahib is to enquire of his servant Bhanah what is the native
meaning of "walk softly."  He will find Bhanah entirely trustworthy in
all matters of information.


Skag looked up and the old cook spoke:

"I, who am speaking to Sanford Hantee Sahib, am Bhanah--entered into
covenant before the gods that I am his servant to serve him with my
strength, so long as I endure to live.

"I bring from the shining lady who was my mistress, whom may the gods
protect! certain messages for him alone.

"The child is dead.  Her body lies deep in a metal case beside her
mother's, near one of the old bungalows."

"I am sorry to hear that."

"Death does not snare the soul.  If she were still here, Nels would not
be free to come to my master.  And my master has become his heart's
desire."

"I am glad to have him and you."

The old cook laid his hand on his forehead and bent low before Skag.

"The lady-beautiful will sail from Bombay in a few days, returning to
her own mother's house.  She is forever free from Police Commissioner
Hichens Sahib, who was my master only for her sake and for the sake of
Nels.  The lady's own ayah will go with her to her own country, to
serve her as I serve thee.

"These things are accomplished by a Power which works through those who
are seldom seen and never known of men.

"I have spoken and it is finished.  Have I permission to take Nels to
my quarters where he can rest?  He is well; but not yet fully strong.
If my master will tell us his place, we will come to him in the
morning."

Skag told them.  The recognition of Nels as a personality amused him;
but he did not quarrel with it.




CHAPTER VII

_The Hunting Cheetah_

Since Bhanah and Nels had come to him, Skag had fallen into the way of
taking Nels out quite early for a full day's tramp through the broken
shelving Ghats.  (This helped to bear the weight of the days till
Carlin's eldest brother should reach Poona.)  The contours were
different from anything he had seen along the top or toward the sea; as
if in the beginning the whole range had been dropped on the planet and
its own weight had shattered the eastern side, to settle from the
cracks or roll over upon the plains.  Nels would travel close beside
him for hours; but if he ever did break away, Skag had only to call
quietly, "Nels, steady!" and Nels would return joyfully.  He never
sulked.

Every morning now, Bhanah carefully stowed in Skag's coat, neat packets
of good and sufficient food for himself and the dog at noontime.  Skag
had never been cared for in his life; he had neither training nor
inclination to direct a servant.  But there was no need.  Bhanah knew
perfectly well what was right to be done; and he was committed with his
whole heart to do it.

The order of Skag's life was being softly changed; but he only knew his
servant did many kind things for him which were very comfortable.  He
was a little bothered when Bhanah called him "My Master"--having not
yet learned that servants in India never use that title, excepting in
affection which has nothing to do with servitude.

The morning came, when Roderick Deal arrived.  Carlin had said that all
arrangements must be made with her eldest brother; and some tone within
her tone had impressed Skag with concern which amounted to
apprehension.  But when he walked into Roderick Deal's office and met
the hand of Carlin's eldest brother--there was a light in his eye which
that Indian Sahib found good to see.

Roderick Deal overtopped the American by two inches.  He was slender
and lithe.  His countenance was extraordinary to Skag's eye for its
peculiar pallor; as if the dense black hair cast a shadow on intensely
white flesh--especially below the temples and across the forehead.
There was attraction; there was power.  Skag saw this much while he
found the eyes; then he saw little else.  He decided that Sanford
Hantee had never seen really black eyes before; the size startled him,
but the blackness shocked.  (It was in the fortune of his life that he
should never solve the mystery of those eyes.)  Skag felt the impact of
dynamic force, before he spoke:

"You will not expect enthusiasm from me, my son, when as the head of
one of the proudest families in all India, I render official consent,
upon conditions, to your marriage with my sister Carlin. . . .  You are
too different from other men."

Skag had something to say, but he found no words.

"You are to be informed that the only sister of seven brothers is a
most important person.  She is called the Seal of Fortune in India;
which is to say that good fortune for all her brothers is vested in
her.  If calamity befalls her, there is no possible escape for them.
This is the established tradition of our Indian ancestors.

"We smile among ourselves at this tradition, as much as you do; but
there are reasons why we choose to preserve it, among many things from
those same Indian ancestors.  We have no cause to hate them.  Hate is
not in our family as in others of our class; but we never forget that
it is _our class_."

The brooding pain in the man was a revelation.  Carlin had said, ". . .
there are things you must understand."

"You are already aware that we are English and Indian.  But you do not
conceive what that means.  It is my duty to speak.  All life appears to
me first from the English standpoint; but you see the _shadow of India
under my skin_.  All life appears to my sister first in the Indian
concept; but you will not easily find the shadow of India under her
skin.  We have one brother--darker than the average native. . . .  Are
you prepared to find such colour in one of your own?"

The question was gently spoken, but the eyes were like destiny.

"Any child of hers will be good to me," Skag answered softly.

A glow loomed in the blacknesses and Roderick Deal flashed Skag a smile
which reminded him, at last, of Carlin.

"European men, in the early days, were responsible for the branding,
now carried by thousands in India--carried with shame and the bitterest
sort of curses.  But our line is unique in this regard.  We are
conditioned by a pride, as great as the shame I have spoken of.  On
account of it, no one of us may enter marriage without public ceremony
of as much circumstance as is expedient."

The storm-lights had gone down and a half-deprecatory, half-embarrassed
expression, made the face look so quite like any other man's, that Skag
smiled.

". . . Because we are descended from two extraordinary romances, both
of which were celebrated by the marriage of an imperial Indian
woman--one Brahmin, one Rajput--with a British man of noble family--one
Scotch, one Irish.  Carlin will tell you the stories; she loves them."

Again the smile like Carlin's.

"So she must come down to Poona, where she was born; and the ceremony
must be performed in the cathedral here, by the Bishop himself--who is
a real man by the way, as well as distinguished."

. . . That was all right.

"You are to be published at the time of your marriage, in all the
English and vernacular printed sheets throughout India, specifically as
a scientist whose research will take you much into jungle life."

Roderick Deal paused for reply.  Skag considered a moment and said
tentatively:

"If my work will come under that head?"

"Oh, quite! there is no question.  And now I am come to the explanation
of my delay.  There have been preparations to make; dealings with
Indian government.  As you will understand, Government would be
entirely unapproachable by any man himself desiring such an
appointment.  But influence is able to set in operation the examination
of his records; and if they are good enough, the rest can be
accomplished.

"Carlin convinced me that you would make no serious protest; and I am
assuring you that these conditions are really good fortune to you.  But
they are imperative; it must be this way or not at all."

Skag was given opportunity to speak, but he had nothing to say, yet.

"You must enter the service of Indian government in the department of
Natural Research.  The appointment will give you distinction not to be
scorned and a salary better than my own--which is very good."

After a moment's thought, Skag said:

"Will it tie me up?"

"Not in the least.  On the contrary, it will make you free."

"What about my obligations?"

"Your obligations will be entirely vested in reports, which you will
turn in at your discretion.  I understand that you already have
materials which would be considered highly valuable.  Also, I hear that
you have fallen heir to Nels, the great hunting dog.  Of the four that
are well known, he is easily the best.  And he is young; he will bring
you experiences out of the jungle such as no man could find alone.
What the Indian Research department wants, is _knowledge of animals_."

"That's exactly what I want."

"Your Department will facilitate you, immensely.  I speak positively,
because the initial work is finished; there remains nothing, but that
you shall come with me to the department offices and become enrolled.
However, not before you are properly outfitted.  My tailoring-house
will take care of you."

"A uniform?"

"Not a uniform exactly, but strictly correct; rather military, but more
hunting; perfectly suitable and very comfortable.  You'll be quite at
home in it.  It's the sort for you."

The eyes measured Skag's outlines appraisingly, but betrayed nothing.

"We have not finished.  The matter of clothing is adjacent to another
not less important.  A foreigner in this country is nothing better than
a wild man, without a servant."

"I have one--" Skag spoke with inward satisfaction: "--Bhanah the old
cook, who did serve Police--"

"Not Police Commissioner Hichens' _Bhanah_?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"He came to me."

"Did you negotiate with him?"

"No."

"Then will you kindly tell me, why?"

"I do not know."

There was a marked pause.  The eyes had become wide.

"Well--really . . .  _Are_ you the sort-of-thing I've been hearing
about?"

Roderick Deal's expression was kindly-quaint; and Skag answered the
look rather than the words:

"How should I know what that is?"

"You _have_ astonished me.  And I am pleased.  From Bombay to Calcutta
and from Himalaya to Madras--you will find no more valuable man, than
that same Bhanah.  He is called old, but he is not old.  If you have
noticed, the term is always spoken as if it were one with his
name--because of his learning.  He is the man of men for you.  _How_
did he come to you?"

"He brought Nels with the note, that the dog was a gift.  When he
spoke, he said he was committed before the gods to serve me as long as
he lived."

"How did his voice sound?"

"A queer, level tone."

"There is no doubt.  _It is enough for one day_."

The words were spoken with almost affectionate inflections.  Skag was
puzzled.  Roderick Deal stepped to the door and spoke to a servant;
returning to his seat, he smiled openly into Skag's eyes before
speaking:

"Now you will come with me.  We must lose no time."

"Yes, I want to get back to Hurda as soon as I can."

"Not before the monsoon breaks.  It is due any day now, any hour.  Till
ten days after it has broken, no sane man will take train."

"I want to get back.  I think I will risk it."

"You will pardon me, you are not allowed."

The tone was perfect authority.  The eyes smouldered, but the lips
smiled.

"You are not used to be in any way conditioned, I understand that; but
I am not willing to be responsible to my only sister for the smashed
body of her one man.  Oh, I assure you _not_!  And you may one day
grant that the guardianship of an elder brother is not a bad thing to
have.  Why--I beg your pardon, but of course you are not here long
enough to know the situation."

He stopped abruptly and looked away, considering.

"I will put it in one word and tell you that _one_ moment _any_ train,
on _any_ track, may be perfectly safe; and the next moment, it may be
going down the khud with half a mountain.  Again, we exercise the
utmost care in all bridge-building--with no reservation of resources;
but almost every year a bridge or more goes with the crash."

"The crash?"

"The reason why we say the great monsoon 'breaks' is not because itself
breaks, but because--whatever happens to be underneath, you understand."

The floor of protest had dropped away.  Skag's face said as much.

"The tailors will need till the rails are safe to get you fitted; and
before the monsoon comes, I suggest that you take your hunter up into
the cheetah hills.  Cheetahs are not supposed, by those at Home, to
attack men.  Many of them will not; but they are unreliable.  The
forfeits they have taken from unbelief have made them a bad reputation,
among the English."

"The cheetahs I have seen in cages have been mild, compared with
tigers."

"Cheetah kittens are snared and broken at once by hard handling;
meaning that it is not the cheetah himself, but what is left of him,
one sees either in the kennels of the princes or in the foreign cages.
You will remember my warning about his character?"

"Thank you, yes."

"Good.  I have known men to prefer not . . .  Then you will carry
yourself alert in any kind of jungle.  If you sight a cheetah, be
prepared; he may _not_ attack.  He may.  Few men have eyes good enough
to follow him after his first spring.  One should be a perfect shot;
are you that?"

"I am a good shot, but I don't like to kill animals."

"Then I am the last man to commend you to the cheetah hills . . . if it
were not for Nels.  He is entirely competent to take care of you,
unless in one possible emergency.  They sometimes, but rarely, work in
pairs.  If ever the dog should be occupied with one and another should
be in _sight_--be sure your unwillingness to kill does not delay you to
the instant of charge."

"You imply that it is necessary to carry a gun in any kind of
jungle--always?"

"Always wise, of _course_; but I consider it less imperative just now,
because the animals are not what we call fighting.  They are waiting
for the great monsoon.  So--you might take your dog up into the cheetah
hills--"

"I don't see how a dog--"

"He'll break the cheetah's back and cut his throat, before the real
start is made at you.  But Bhanah will tell you whatever; and he is
entirely reliable.  You may depend upon him, without reservation."

"That's a big thing to know."

"India has many good servants, but Bhanah is a rare man."

The unquenchable fires in Roderick Deal's eyes began to feed upon some
enigma in Skag's own; he endured it a moment and then interruption
became expedient:

"Does the monsoon come on schedule?"

"It does."

"What is it like?"

"It is as much an experience as a spectacle.  I'm not attempting to
describe the thing itself; it should be seen.  But across the
southwestern part of India, it includes the procession of the animals.
All animals from all covers, running together."

"There is something like that in the far north of America," Skag said.
"It is called the passage of the Barren Ground Caribou.  They move
south before the first winter storms in thousands.  I've heard that
sometimes their lines extend out of sight.  They have no food, but they
do not stop to forage.  Our northern hunters say that nothing will stop
them."

"That's interesting; immensely.  I've not heard of it."

"But I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"Our creatures move in a trance of panic, straight away from the coming
rains.  I say a trance, because they appear to be oblivious of each
other; hunter and hunted go side by side, without noticing."

The drive of Skag's life-quest was working in him, as if nothing had
ever given it pause.

"Do they go fast?"

"The timid and lumbering come out first, hurrying; they increase in
numbers, all sorts, and run faster till those near the end go at top
speed--it's a thing to see.  Bhanah will tell you when and where to
watch it; but be careful and get under good roofing in time.  And then,
after the tracks are set right, if you must reach Hurda in order to
come back with Carlin . . .  Man, God help you if you do not give my
sister the best of your gifts!"

"Why, I belong to her--"

Their hands met; and Skag's soul rose up without words, to answer a
white flame in the inscrutable eyes.


Early the following morning, Sanford Hantee Sahib said to his servant:

"Bhanah, what do you know about cheetahs?"

"Such little things as a man may know, Sahib."

"Are you willing to give some of it to me?"

"All that I am and all that I can, belongs to my master."

"Is that--the regular--"

"Nay, _nay_!  It is right for my master to consider, that I serve him
not for a price.  This is true service--as men in my land bring to
things holy.  Those who serve for the weight of silver, render the
weight of their hands."

"I don't want you to begin thinking that I'm holy though--you
understand that."

"There are meanings which will appear to the Sahib in time; it is not
suitable that they come from me.  But this much may be spoken: if my
master serves in a great service--then I, who am a poor man and
ignorant, may give something if I serve him."

"If that's what you mean, it's all right.  Then we won't go out this
morning, Nels and I.  It'll be the time to get some of that little
knowledge of yours about cheetahs."

It seemed to Skag that the uncertainty about just why Bhanah had come
to him, was cleared away; and there was a dignity about the man which
he liked.  It was all right.

"Sanford Hantee Sahib should not go to find cheetahs before he knows
his dog," Bhanah began.

"Just what are you getting at?"

"My master is a preserver of life and Nels is a great hunter."

"I've thought of that.  Is there any danger that he will kill when I
don't want him to?"

"Sahib, I, Bhanah, have known Nels since he was a puppy, I have seen
him take his training to kill; therefore I believe he will quickly be
taught to work together with my master, who is his heart's desire.
This is the chief thing, that my master is his heart's desire.  But
also I know--he will kill when there is need for him to kill."

"Does he ever fail?"

"If he had ever failed, he would not be here.  The Police Commissioner
Hichens Sahib--to whom may the gods render his due!--has many times set
him in the teeth of death; when occasion could be prepared, always."

"He did not fight the hyena."

"Now the Sahib speaks of an evil thing.  For _that_ reason he was made
to live in a tent in the Jungle."

"But what--"

"The hyena is _evil-itself_; and a dog has no hope in him to fight with
it.  We may not 'speak _a name_ in the same breath of common-judgment';
but I say that the living fear in a man's body made secret covenant
with the knowledge of this fact--because the man had long desired that
Nels should die.  The lady-beautiful and his small children--all
together--I say they were made to live in danger--that some hyena might
destroy Nels!"

Only Bhanah's voice showed feeling as he finished.

"So that's what I interfered with; and that's why he let the dog be
given to me."

"It is straightly spoken.  But the Sahib will not hold Nels less, for
courage or for power?  There is not one to equal him."

"Bhanah, we'll put that hope into Nels, against when he hears a hyena."

"That will be with the good hunting-piece in my master's hands, at
first--to teach him confidence.  Then he will fear--_not anything on
earth_.  Then it will be _all_ like the cheetah hills to him.  Sahib,
it is more satisfying than food."

"Where are the cheetah hills from here?"

"South and West; not the way the Sahib has gone before."

"You haven't told me about them before."

"Because Nels was not come to full strength, since his hurt."

"I'd hate to have him meet an accident."

"To-morrow he will go safe.  He rose up last night and listened to a
hunting cheetah's cry."

"Are they close as that?"

"Not to a European Sahib's ear; but to Nels, yes."

"Deal Sahib said you would tell me about the cheetahs."

"What I have of value is by the common wayside; but _fortune causes
wealth to flow down mountain streams for those who climb_.  There are
several things to consider, Sahib."

Skag was amused; he had not yet heard that only the ignorant teach
without apology.  As seriously as possible, he said:

"I am listening."

Bhanah spoke gravely; his words falling like weights:

"That he is--seldom seen--till it is too late--to prepare.  He is
treacherous."

"Where does he hide?"

"In the large-leaved trees which stretch their branches like that."
And Bhanah held his arms out horizontally, one above the other,
parallel.

"All right."

"That he is quicker than a man's eye."

Skag waited.

"And that he is more deadly than the tiger."

"How is that?"

"Because he is more quick.  Because he is equal in power, even when he
is not equal in weight.  Because he fights not only for food, not only
for life, but for the love of killing.  Of all living things, he is the
creature of blood-lust.  He is the name-of-fear, incarnate.  It would
not be a good thing for my master to hear, nor for his servant to
tell--the cheetah's ways with a body from which life is gone out."

"You've made a strong argument for the cheetah as a fighter, Bhanah,
but you don't seem to stand much for his character."

"Who faces the hunting cheetah, Sahib, faces death.  If the cheetah
falls upon him from above, or comes upon him from behind, he will know
death; but he will never know the cheetah.  A hunter's first shot must
do its work; he will not often have time to fire again."

"I've got that.  But I don't quite see what chance a dog has with him."

"Only four dogs in this my land, have any chance with him, Sahib."

"And the others?"

"They live because they have not met a cheetah."

"How does Nels do it?"

"My master must look upon that, to understand.  I have seen, but I
cannot show it.  It--" and a rare smile lighted the dark shadows of
Bhanah's face, "is _soon_."

"I've heard the Indian princes use them for hunting."

"Yes, Sahib, many Indian princes keep hunting cheetahs as English
Sahibs keep hunting horses.  They go out after small things; and
innocent--mostly deer, of all kinds; even the _neel gai_, the great
blue cow."

"Will Nels attack such things?"

"Nels will not attack the defenseless; he has not been used for it.
His ways are established in that; there is no fear.  If he should be
ranging at any time, he will return at the first call; but if he does
not, my Master, let him go.  Be certain, _Nels knows_."

"That's good.  I'm in this country to get acquainted with animals--"

"But to the preserving of men?"

"When I find it's necessary, I've no objection then--"

Bhanah stooped quickly and touched Skag's feet.

"Vishnu, the Great Preserver, has sent another Hand to this my India."

Skag looked into the man's face and found high light in it.


Next dawn was hot, but there was a stimulation in it; not like the
mountains, not like the sea.  The air was full of a mellow enticement,
like strange incense; or romance.  Skag enquired of his servant if the
day would be right for the cheetah hills.

Bhanah turned to the southeast and scanned the horizon line.  Then he
held up his hand, palm toward the same direction, for a minute.  At
last he walked to a shrub and looked at its leaves, closely.

"It may be that one day is left for my master to go into the cheetah
hills; but the earth makes ready for the breaking of the great monsoon."

Skag was getting interested in the Indian standpoint; he was finding
something in it.  Quite innocently, he used the subtlest method known
to learn.

"What is the great monsoon?"

"Beneficence."

"What is the earth doing?"

"Now, she is holding very still.  When it breaks, she will shake.
Having endured three days, she will rise up and cast off her old
garments, putting on new covering--entirely clean."

"Will I be able to see that?"

"Nay, Sahib!  The wall of the waters will be between your eye and every
leaf."


. . . The wall of the waters; like the tones of a bell far off, the
words sank into some deep place in Skag.  This day they would recur to
him; and in the years to come, they would recur again and yet again.

Swinging along out of Poona toward the cheetah hills, Skag was buoyant
with healthy energy.  His heart was like the heart of a boy.
Consistent with his old philosophical dogma, this present was certainly
the best he had ever known.  Carlin was in it, as surely as if she were
present.  Roderick Deal had proved to be a man to respect; and to love,
secretly . . . "the guardianship of an elder brother."

Looking back, he saw that Poona City was beautiful, lying close against
the eastern side of the Ghats, just as they begin to fold away toward
the plains.  No breath of plague or pestilence from Bombay could reach
across the ramparts of that mountain range.

The air was getting hotter every minute; but it was good.  The vistas
stretched far--all satisfying.  Bhanah said the monsoon was close.
"Beneficence"; the Indian idea of a deluge.  He liked it all.

They came up into the hills through some stretches of stiff climbing;
and on the margin of a broad shelf Skag stopped for breath.  The
panorama behind had widened and extended immensely.  The face of a
planet seemed to reach from his feet across to the eastern horizon,
descending.  He sat down on a flat rock and Nels comfortably extended
himself near by.

It was all good.  The great golden jewel back in his heart, full of
afterglows--Carlin.  The finding of a real man.  The ways, the
reservations, the revelations, of Bhanah.  The beauty and character of
the dog at his foot . . .

Nels had lifted his head.  His eyes were fixed intently on the empty
white distances of the sky.  His pointed ears were set at a queer
angle.  There was nothing unusual to be seen, nothing Skag himself
could hear.  He paid closer attention; and presently, began to get a
perfume.  It was the great, good earth-smell; richer and fuller every
minute.

Then Nels stood up and faced the southeast.  Skag looked where the dog
seemed to be looking.  Along the horizon line he saw an edge of dark
grey.  No, the horizon line was cut; this thing lay against the earth
as straight as the blade of a knife.

Now Skag began to feel something in the air.  He couldn't recognise it,
nor define it, but it was imperative--some kind of urge.  There was the
sense of emergency, perfectly clear; so much that he turned and looked
about, listening for a call.  He thought of Carlin; could she be in any
need?  He was glad she wasn't here; this was a good place to get away
from . . .  Ah, that was it!  _The urge to run_.

"How is it, Nels, old man, does the great monsoon make us feel like
moving?"

Nels stood like a thing carved out of solid pewter.  He did not hear.
He faced the southeast.  But Skag understood why the animals were due
to make a procession; the chief thing was to get away.  Then Skag
settled into a perfect calm.

Four spotted deer came trotting up the shoulder of a near incline,
almost directly toward them.  The dog watched them with a casual eye.
They went by, sixty feet away.  Nels was looking further on to where a
big brown bear ambled along, making good time for one of her
build--behind her, a yearling.  Still Nels showed no inclination to
leave his place.

As if it were a vision of the night, the whole landscape before Skag
became dotted with specks; all moving.  All moving in the same
direction, almost toward him.  As the numbers increased, he saw that
they ran straight; there was no swerving.  In spite of what Roderick
Deal had told him, his mind demanded the reassurance of his own voice.

"Nels, is it real?  Are we asleep?"

The dog was a stoic; he moved one ear, but he did not lift an eye.

Skag noticed that the hush in the air seemed to have laid a bond of
silence on all these creatures.  He had heard no calls, no cries.  And
these were the calling, crying animals of the world.

Here and there at some distance, he saw the ungainly, shambling gait of
hyenas, in twos and fours and threes together, or alone.  Once when
four passed quite near, he felt Nels' shoulder against his thigh.

"Nels, old man, buck up.  I tell you, get a grip.  They may be the
devil, but he isn't hard to kill.  I'll show you.  Do you get me, son?"

Nels looked up into the man's face, a long look.  Then he pressed his
head close, under Skag's hand.

Spotted deer ran in small groups; they came into sight and passed out
quickly.  More swift and more beautiful, were slender deer with single
horns, twisted spirally; sometimes very long.  Skag thrilled to their
pride of action; but Nels seemed in no wise interested.

There was another kind of deer seen at some distance; the bucks were
full-antlered and from where Skag stood, they looked light grey colour.
Rabbits scuttled in and out of sight constantly, all over the landscape.

Between the parallel lines of seven spotted deer on one side and a
small herd of grey deer on the other, he saw a great, low-leaping
beast; plainly yellow with black stripes--one tiger the sportsmen had
not bagged.

Evidently some mighty thing had transcended enmity and annihilated
fear--_for one day_.

Little things held his eye one while.  Creatures like monster
rats--they were really mongooses--racing for their lives.  Lizards from
two to eighteen inches long; and he saw one with rainbow colours in his
skin, mostly red.  He learned afterward it was a great-chameleon; and
angry.  He saw one small scaled thing, rather like a crocodile in
shape, but with a sharp-pointed nose; it waddled by, near enough to
show two little black beads in its face.

When Skag lifted his eyes the earth seemed to have given up a score of
packs of jackals.  Their action was not like the wolf nor like the dog;
it was a short, high leap--giving to a running pack the effect of
_bobbing_.  They were more perfect wolves than the American coyote, but
smaller; and they looked to have much fuller coats.  Searching the
location of these groups of bobbing runners, his eye lifted toward the
southeast.

. . . The grey knife-blade had cut away half the world.  It lay
straight across the earth, midway between his feet and where the
horizon line should curve.  Without any look of motion, without any
shine or sheen, smooth as a wall of dull-polished granite, it rose to
beyond sight in the sky--the utterly true line of its base upon the
ground.

. . . So this was _the wall of the waters_.

No man dare interpret it to any other man; but Skag found perfect awe.
Then he grew very quiet--his faculties alert as never before.


When he noticed the landscape again, the bobbing packs were gone.
Slender spotted things in pairs and alone, were leopards--leaping long
and low.  A great dark creature, going like the wind, was a black
panther.

Then he saw, right before him, the unthinkable.  Majesty in miniature.
A perfect East Indian musk buck--the most beautiful of living things.
The wee fellow came on, leaping to the utmost of his strength; his
nostrils wide, his lips apart, his eyes immense.  He swayed a little,
wavered and fell.

Skag ran and leaned over him--the little heart was driving out the
little life.  It seemed a pity out of all proportion. . . .  He held
the tiny breathless thing tenderly, as if it were a dead child. . . .
So he laid it down reluctantly, at last; and straightened--to see a
hunting cheetah coming toward him, not far away.

He glanced down, Nels was not there.  He looked all about, Nels was not
in sight.  Then the reserves in Skag's nature came up.  All his
training flashed across his brain.  Every nerve, every muscle in his
body, was instantly adjusted to emergency.  There was no failure in
co-ordination.

He stood quietly watching the cheetah.  It appeared not to have seen
him.  If it kept on, it would pass about seventy feet away.  But Skag
knew it would not keep on.  With his mind he might think it would, but
something in him knew it would not.

He remembered Carlin; no, he must not think of her now.  He remembered
that Nels was gone; no, he must not think of that either.  All the
weapons he had were in his heart, in his head.  He set himself in
order, ready.  Recalling, while he waited, with what joy he had been
ready to face the tiger that coughed near the monkey glen, to stand
between Carlin and it--he was aware that now he faced a hunting cheetah
_as much for her_.

The cheetah stopped, and turning toward him direct, laid itself along
the ground so tight he could see only a line of colour among the
grasses.  There it seemed to stay.

When a man deals with a cat, to allay fear or to establish any common
ground of sympathy, he ought to see its eyes.  While realising this
fact, Skag heard a piercing cat-scream, some distance back of him.  He
had not heard sounds from any of the animals before. . . .  He found
himself calculating whether the monsoon or night or the cheetah, would
reach him first.

Changing sun-rays had laid a sheen resembling silver upon the wall; not
dazzling, but softly bright.  After a while the cheetah showed, nearer
than when it settled into the grass.  The wall was moving forward
surely--as surely as time--but the cheetah would reach him first.

At last he saw two yellow discs.  Then he worked with his power--his
supreme confidence.  He had never been more quiet, never more fearless
in his life.

The hunting cheetah moved toward him without pause, till he could see
the whole body along the ground; the broad, short head; the wide,
sun-lit eyes.  And while he sent his steady force of human-kindly
thought into those eyes, they _narrowed into slits_.  In that instant
Skag knew that the beast had no fear to allay; no quality of nature he
could touch.  It was a murderer, pure and simple.

Then he thought of Carlin. . . .  Of her brother.  . . .  Of Nels.  He
opened his lips to speak, but the name did not pass his throat.

Carlin, Carlin!  It was only a question of time; and Skag folded his
arms.

And high against the wall of the waters rolled the clarion
challenge-call of Nels, the Great Dane dog.  The cheetah leaped and
settled back.  Skag turned to look the way it faced.  A grey line
flashed along the ground.  Skag did not know it, but he was racing
toward their meeting.

The cheetah lifted and met Nels, body against body, in mid-air--Skag
heard the impact.  Nels had risen full stretch, his head low between
his shoulders; the cheetah's wide-spread arms went round him, but his
entire length closed upon the cheetah's entire length--like a
jack-knife--folding it backward.  Skag heard a dull sound, the same
instant with a keen cat-scream--cut short as the two bodies struck the
earth.  When he reached them, Nels was still doubled tight over the
cheetah's backward-bent body; his grey iron-jaws locked deep in the
tawny throat.


"Sahib!  Sanford _Han_--tee Sahib!"

"Hi, Bhanah; this way!"

Bhanah came with a rain-coat in his hand.  Stooping to examine Nels a
moment and rising to glance at the wall, he spoke rapidly:

"The Sahib has seen his Great Dane Nels kill a second cheetah in one
day.  There are two cuts on each leg.  Also because Nels must not lose
his strength on a fast journey to his master's place--I, Bhanah, will
uncover mine honour in the presence of a man."

And quickly casting his turban from his head, he proceeded to tear it
down the middle.  While he worked, he talked--as if to himself--in half
chanting tones:

"Men in my country do _not_--this thing; but I do it.  Of a certainty
Nels has accomplished that I could not, though I would.  This night two
cheetahs remain not--the gods witness--to destroy little tender
children of men.  And when the so-insignificant cuts of Nels shall be
presently wrapped with the covering of mine own honour, I shall be
exalted not less!  _The gods witness_.  Then we return swiftly into a
safe place."

This was no ordinary exultation.  Skag's ears were wide open; and he
heard grief--and hate.

"How did you know where I was?" he asked quietly.

"I heard the first cheetah's death cry; and I knew h

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