JUNGLE TALES
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
" Mrs. Croker has already achieved a secure foothold in that temple of Anglo-
Indian fiction whereof Mr. Rudyard Kipling is the high-priest. Her tales have
"These tales are really original and excellent work. Mrs. Croker knows her
India minutely, and proves her knowledge by a thousand delicate touches."
Woman.
" Mrs. Croker writes of India as one knowing it well, and with deep sympathy
for the people among whom her time was spent, for the village sorrows and
tragedies she was able to share. And in a considerable measure she succeeds in
bringing home to readers at home the daily life of the East." Glasgow Herald.
"The stories are all written from a peculiar knowledge of the life they
describe, and with a lively eye directed to its picturesqueness. They make an
interesting and entertaining book, which will be heartily enjoyed by every one
who reads it." Scotsman.
''The magician's car of fiction next transports us to India, the magician
being that very competent and attractive writer Mrs. B. M. Croker. Her
'^Village Tales' are so good that they bracket her, in our judgment, with Mrs.
F. A. bteel in comprehension of native Indian life and character." Times.
" Mrs. Croker makes the tales interesting and attractive, and her ready
sympathy with the Indian people, whom we are gradually coming to know
through the interpretation of some of our very best writers, strikes the reader
afresh in this volume." World.
" Mrs. Croker shows once more a pretty talent, and her volume is replete with
sentiment and romance. Her animal stories are really touching." Globe.
"Mrs. Croker's volume is bright and readable. She has done good work
already in other fields ; one expects a story of hers to be at any rate pleasant
reading. These Indian tales are no exception." North British Mail.
" Mrs. Croker's stories show her grasp of Indian character, and her realisation
of the nameless charm which casts its glamour over the East and its peoples.
'Two Little Travellers,' the last story^ is exquisitely pathetic." Star.
has
Literary World.
"A pretlily got-up book containing seven Indian tales, well told, with
abundant evidence of a_ thorough knowledge of the country and its people. . . .
There is not a dull line in the book, and in its perusal the desire for more keeps
growing, even to the end of the last beautiful tale of Indian life." Asiatic
Quarterly Keview.
" Mrs. Croker's seven little tales of native India are such very quick and easy
reading that many persons will probably overlook the skill to which the result is
due. The authoress evidently knows both what a short story ought to be, and
how to make one." Graphic.
" Brilliant pictures of Indian life and manners. Mrs. Croker possesses the
pen of a ready writer united to the imagination of a true artist." Liberal.
"The tales are simple in themselves and plainly told, with an unmistakable
atmosphere of truth and reality about them." Guardian.
"The quality of Mrs. Croker's work is at this time sufficiently well known,
and it is enough to say that in her last volume are to be found all those qualities
which have secured for its predecessors a welcome at the hands of the public."
Tablet.
HER BLACK EYES BLAZED WITH EXCITEMENT.
O O O O
O O O O
O OO %
O O O O
O O O O
O O O O
EXooooooOOOooeP oO Oo*ooooOO =
Kv,oooooooOOOoo o O O o "oooQOOO
|JooooooOOOoo 0%0 O O 0<]0 ocoOOOc
JUNGLE
TALES
BY
B. M. CROKER
Author of
' Pretty Miss Neville,' ' Diana Barrington '
' The Spanish Necklace '
' In Old Madras,' etc.
A NEW IMPRESSION
WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY JOHN CHARLTON
LONDON
HOLDEN & HARDINGHAM
1913
oooOOoo 0o o O c oOOOOOo
ooOOOooo So O o ,/coOOOo
ooOOOoooc O Oo oOOOOOc
* Ah ! what a warning for thoughtless maa,
Could field or grove, could any spot of earth,
Show to his eye an image of the pangs
Which it hath witnessed ! "
WORDSWORTH.
Stack
ftnnex
THESE TALES AEE INSCRIBED
TO
OLD FRIENDS
IN THE CENTRAL AND NORTH-WEST PROVINCES
IN SIEMOEY OF
MANY PLEASANT HOURS IN CA3IP AND CANTONMENT.
B. M. 0.
CONTENTS.
A FREE-WILL OFFERING ... ... ... ... ]
"THE Missus." A DOG TRAGEDY ... ... ... 37
THE BETRAYAL OF SHERE BAHADUR ... ... ... 63
"PROVEN OR NOT PROVEN?" THE TBUE STORY OF NAIM
SING. RAJPOOT ... ... ... ... ... 96
AN OUTCAST OF THE PEOPLE ... ... ... 124
AN APPEAL TO THE GODS ... ... ... ... 146
Two LITTLE TRAVELLERS... ... 166
VILLAGE TALES
AND
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES.
A FREE-WILL OFFERING.
" KISMISS," as the natives call it, is any-
thing but a jovial and merry season to
me, and I heartily sympathize with those
prudent souls who flee from the station or
cantonment, and bury themselves afar off
in the jungle, until the festive season has
been succeeded by the practical New Year !
Christmas in India is an expensive anni-
versary to a needy subaltern such as I am.
Putting aside the necessary tips to the
mess-servants, the letter-corporal, and
colour-sergeant, I have my own retinue
(about ten in number), who overwhelm me
with wreaths and flowers culled from my
L
2 VILLAGE TALES AND
garden, and who expect, in return, solid
rupees of the realm. This is reasonable
enough ; but it passes the limits of reason
and patience when other people's body-
servants, peons, syces, and all the barrack
dhobies, and every " dog " boy in the
station, lie in ambush in order to thrust
evil-smelling marigolds under my nose,
with expectant salaams ! Last Christmas
cost me nearly the price of a pony this
Christmas,. I resolved to fly betimes with
my house-mate, Jones of the D.P.W. We
would put in for a week's leave, and eat
our plum-pudding at least sixty miles from
Kori.
Alas ! my thrifty little scheme was knocked
on the head by a letter from my cousin
Algy Langley. He is the eldest son of an
eldest son ; I am the younger son of a
second son : and whereas I am a sub. in an
infantry regiment, grilling on the plains
of India, and working for my daily bread,
Algy has run out for one cold weather,
merely in search of variety and amusement.
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 3
" Why on earth should relations think it
necessary to meet on one particular day,
in order to eat a tasteless bird and an
indigestible pudding ? "
I put this question to Jones, as we sat in
our mutual verandah, opening the midday
dak.
"Just look at" this; it's a beastly
nuisance ! " and I handed him Algy's note,
which said
" DEAR OLD PEEKY (my Christian name
is Perkin), This is to give notice that
I am coming to eat my Christmas dinner
with you. I arrive on the 21st, per mail
train. Yours,
"A. L ANGLE Y."
"What is your cousin like?" inquired
Jones.
" Oh, a regular young London swell, who
has never roughed it in his life. I suppose
I shall have to turn out of my room," I
grumbled; " and I must borrow Bobinson's
bamboo cart to meet him, for I believe he
4 VILLAGE TALES AND
would faint if I put him in a bullock tonga
at first he must arrive at that by degrees ! "
" Is there no chance of our getting off to
Karwassa ? Wouldn't he come and have a
try for the man-eater? " urged Jones.
" Not he ! " I rejoined emphatically ; " he
is a lady-killer that is his only kind of
sport. I'm glad I have not put in for my
leave ; you and I will go later the tiger
will wait."
"Yes, he has waited a good while," re-
torted Jones, sarcastically ; " nearly three
years, and about a dozen shikar parties
have been got up for his destruction, and
still he keeps his skin ! But, somehow, I
have a presentiment that we shall get him."
* * * #
The next day Jones and I met Algy at
the station. He had brought three servants,
a pile of luggage, and looked quite beautiful
as he stepped out on the platform, wear-
ing a creaseless suit, Russia-leather boots,
gloves, and a white gauze veil to keep off
the dust. His handkerchief was suggestive
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 5
of the most " up-to-date " delicate scent, as
he passed it languidly over his forehead,
and gave directions to have his late com-
partment cleared.
As books, an ice-box, fruit, a fan, cushions,
and a banjo, were handed out one by one,
I gathered, from Jones's expressive glance,
that he granted that my cousin was a
hopeless subject for the jungle.
"Well, Perky," he said, slapping me on
the back, "I've got everything now what
are you waiting for ? "
"Your lady's-maid," I promptly answered,
as I nodded at the banjo, pillows, and fan.
" I like to be comfortable," he confessed.
"One may as well take one's ease as not;
it has an excellent and soothing effect on
the temper."
But I noticed that he caught sight of
Jones's grin, and coloured deeply whether
with rage or shame, I could not guess.
As I drove my guest up to our lines, I
secretly marvelled as to what had brought
him to our little Mofussil station, a two
6 VILLAGE TALES AND
days' railway journey through the flattest,
ugliest country. He had been staying at
Government House, Calcutta, at various
splendid Residencies, and had had every
opportunity of seeing India from the most
commanding and luxurious point of view.
Why had he sought me out ?
Later on, as we sprawled in long chairs
in my portico overlooking a sun-baked com-
pound, with a view chiefly consisting of the
back of my neighbour's stables, and Jones's
little brown bear, mowing and moping,
under a scraggy mango tree, I put the
inevitable question :
"Well, Algy, what do you think of
India?"
"Not much," he answered. "It is not
a bit like what I have expected : it is not
as Eastern as Egypt. The scenery that I
have seen consists of bushes, boulders, and
terra-cotta plains. I don't care about ruins
and buildings ; what I want to come at
are the people and customs of the land so
far, it's all England, not India : England at
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 7
the sea-side, dressing, dancing, racing, flirt-
ing; clothes are thinner, manners are easier ;
but it's England England England ! "
I did what I could for him. I took him
to a garden-party, to call on the beauty
of the station, to write his name in the
general's book, to mess, to a soldier's sing-
song; and still he was discontented. He
had been faintly amused with our "pot"
gardens and trotting bullocks ; nevertheless,
he continued to grumble in this style
"Your band plays the last new coster
song, your ladies believe that they wear
the latest fashions, your men read the
latest news not two days old, your servants
speak English and speak it fluently. Your
butler plays the fiddle, and he told me this
morning that my banjo was ' awfully nice.'
I desire that you will introduce me (if you
can) to India without European clothes-
stripped and naked. I want to get below
the surface, below officialdom, and general
orders, and precedence ; scrape the skin,
and show me Hindostan."
8 VILLAGE TALES AND
" Show me something out of the
common." This was his querulous parrot-
cry.
" Would you care to come out into the
jungle sixty miles away," I ventured, " to
a place that has no English attributes, and
help to shoot a notorious man-eating tiger ?
There is a reward of five hundred rupees for
his skin. For the last two years he has
devastated the country."
" Like it ! " cried Algy, suddenly, sitting
erect, " why, it's the very thing. I'll go
like a shot. I am ready to start to-night.
What's the name of the place ? "
" Karwassa. This man-eater has killed,
they say, more than a hundred people, and
if we shoot him, we cover ourselves with
glory ; if we fail, we are no worse than half
the regiment, and most of the station."
Algy figuratively leapt at the idea; he
was out of his chair, pacing the verandah,
long ere I had ceased to speak.
" How soon could we start ? "
" As soon as I obtained leave," I replied.
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. 9
" Oh, bother leave!" he retorted, im-
patiently.
" Still, it is a necessary precaution," I
answered. "If I go without it I shall he
cashiered, and that would be a bother."
"All right; put in for it at once. The
sooner we are off the better," cried Algy.
" Let us get the first shikari in the province,
and if he puts us fairly on the tiger, the
five hundred rupees shall be his. I pay all
expenses."
" But Jones wants "
" Yes, Jones, by all means," he inter-
rupted ; " you had better lay your heads
together without delay. He told me he
was a born organizer, so you might, perhaps,
leave the transport and commissariat in
his hands, whilst you secure leave, and
the keenest and best shikari. Money no
object."
"You are keen enough, Algy," I re-
marked; "but, of course, you have no
experience of big game. Can you shoot ? "
" I can hit a stag, and I've accounted for
io VILLAGE TALES AND
crocodile, but I have never seen a tiger in
a wild state."
" Ah ! and you'll find a tiger is quite
another pair of shoes," I assured him im-
pressively.
The day before Christmas we started in
the highest spirits. Algy wore a serviceable
shikar suit, strong blue putties, and shooting-
boots, and looked as workmanlike as possible.
Our destination, Karwassa, lay sixty miles
due north, and we travelled forty-five miles
along the smooth trunk road in a dogcart,
with relays of horses, and arrived early in
the afternoon at Munser Dak Bungalow a
neat white building, in a neat little com-
pound, that was almost swallowed up by the
surrounding jungle. Here we experienced
our first breakdown. Jones prided himself
on doing everything on a " system "
but the system failed ignominiously. Our
luggage and servants were fifteen miles
behind, and we could not proceed that
night, so we resigned ourselves into the
hands of the Dak bungalow khansamah,
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. n
who slew the usual Dak bungalow dinner
for our behoof. There was a fair going on
in the village, and we strolled across to
inspect it. A fair of the kind was no novelty
to me; but Algy was childishly delighted
with all he witnessed, and stood gazing in
profound amazement at the stalls of Huka
heads, pewter anklets, bangles, and coarse,
bright native cloths for turbans and sarees ;
the money was chiefly copper pice and
cowrie shells the shell currency was a
complete revelation to our Londoner, as
was a tangle-haired, ash-bedaubed fakir,
with his head thrust through a square iron
frame, so devised that rest was impossible.
He could never lean back, never lie down,
never know ease. He had worn this
instrument of torture for twelve years, and
was a most holy man so Nuddoo, the
shikari, informed us.
" But what is the good of it ? " demanded
Algy. ' ' What the dickens does he do it f or ? "
" For a vow," was the solemn reply.
" I'd rather be dead than have to wear an
12 VILLAGE TALES AND
iron gate round my neck," rejoined Algy t
"But I suppose he thinks he is doing the
right thing, and probably he is a good
sort."
And he gave the good sort five rupees.
Next morning we started in real earnest,
for the real jungle each on a separate
little cart or chukrun, drawn by a pair of
small trotting bullocks ; the driver rode on
the pole, and behind him there was just room
for one person, if he curled himself up, and
sat cross-legged. We formed quite a long
procession, as we passed down the village
street, and all the population came out to
speed the sahibs, " who were going to try
and shoot the Karwassa man-eater." Judg-
ing by their looks, they were by no means
sanguine of our success.
Our road was a mere track, up and down
the sides of shallow water-courses, across
the dry beds of great rivers, over low hills,
and through heavy jungle. The country
grew wilder and wilder ; here and there we
scared a jackal, here and there a herd of
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 13
deer ; villages were very few and far be-
tween, and we had passed two that were
absolutely deserted: melancholy hamlets,
with broken chatties, abandoned ploughs,
and grass-grown hearths now the abode of
wild dogs. We were gradually approaching
our destination, a cattle country, below a
long range of densely wooded hills ; having
halted at midday to rest our animals for a few
hours, we then set out again. But twenty
miles is a long distance for a little trotting
bullock, especially if his head be turned from
home. The eager canter, or brisk trot, had
now become a mere spasmodic crawl ; for
the last mile Algy the most keen and
energetic of the party had been belabour-
ing and shouting at his pair. What a sight
for his club friends, could they have beheld
him, the elegant Algy, hoarse, coatless, and
breathless ! In spite of his desperate exer-
tions, his cattle came to a full stop, and
suddenly lay down an example promptly
followed by others. " Darkness was com-
ing," urged Nuddoo, pointing to the yellow
i 4 TILLAGE TALES AND
sunset. " We were near an evil country,
and it was about his usual time. Karwassa
was two koss further, and we had best camp
and light fires, and spend the night where
we had halted. The sahibs could sleep
tinder the carts, their servants were in
waiting, also their food all would be well."
I must honestly confess that I thought
this a most sensible proposition ; but Algy,
who had suddenly developed an entirely
new character, would not listen to it.
During his short sojourn in India, he had
picked up a wonderful amount of useful
Hindostani words, which he strung together
recklessly, and by means of some of them,
accompanied by frantic gesticulation, he
informed all present that " lie was not
going to sleep under a cart, but was re-
solved to spend the night at Karwassa.
He would walk there."
After a short, but stormy, altercation, my
cousin carried his point, and set out, ac-
companied (with great reluctance) by Jones,
Nuddoo the shikari, and myself. Algy took
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 15
command of the party, and got over the
ground at an astonishing pace. The yellow
light faded and faded, and was succeeded
by a grey deathly pallor that rapidly settled
down upon the whole face of nature. We
marched two and two, along the grass-grown,
neglected roads, glancing askance at every
bush, at every big .tuft of elephant grass (at
least, I speak for myself). At last, to my
intense relief, the smoke and fires of a
village came in view. It proved to be
Karwassa Karwassa strongly entrenched
behind its mud walls and a bamboo pali-
sade. After some parley we were admitted
by the chowkidar (or watchman), and
presently surrounded by the villagers, a
poverty-stricken crew, with a depressed,
hunted look.
" Once more a party of sahibs come to
shoot the man-eaters," they exclaimed.
"Ah, many sahibs had come and come and
gone, and naught availed them against the
Bagh. He was no Jan war but an evil
spirit."
1 6 VILLAGE TALES AND
" But two days ago," said the Malgoozar,
or head-man a high-caste Brahmin, with a
high-bred face " he had taken a boy from
before his mother's eyes, as she tilled the
patch of vegetables; the screams of the
child he had heard them himself. Ah,
ye-yo ! "
And he shook his enormous orange
turban, and his handsome dignified head,
in a truly melancholy fashion. u Moreover,
the tiger had taken the woman's husband-
there was not a house in the village that
had not lost at least one inmate."
" Why did they not go away ? " I asked.
" Yea truly, others had abandoned their
houses and lands, and fled but to what
avail ? The thing was not a Janwar, but
a devil."
A murmur of assent signified that the
villagers had accepted their scourge, with
the apathetic fatalism of their race. We
were presently conducted to an empty hut,
provided with broad string beds and a
light. Our Christmas dinner was simple ;
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 17
it consisted of chuppatties and well water,
and our spirits were in keeping with our
fare ; the surrounding misery had infected
us. We were even indebted for our present
lodgings to the tiger he had dined upon
its former tenant about a month previously.
By all accounts he was old, and lame of
one hind leg, and had discovered that a
human being is a far easier prey than
nimble cattle, or fleeting deer. He had
studied the habits of his victims, and
would stalk the unwary, or the loiterer,
like a great cat. Alas ! many were the
tragedies ; with success he had grown
bolder, and even broad noonday, and the
interior of the village itself, now afforded
no protection from his horrible incursions.
The next morning our carts arrived,
and we unpacked (the salt, tea, and cork-
screw had been forgotten). Afterwards
we set out to explore, first the vegetable
patches, then the meagre crops, and finally
we were shown the dry river bed, the tiger's
high-road to Karwassa. We tracked him
1 8 VILLAGE TALES AND
easily in the soft, fine, white sand ; there
were his three huge paws, and a fainter
impression of the fourth. Also, there were
marks of something dragged, and several
dark brown splashes ; it was here that he
had carried off the wife of one of our
present guides, who had looked on, heing
powerless to save her.
Needless to say, we were filled with a
raging thirst for the blood of this beast
Algy especially. He jawed, he bribed, he
gesticulated, he held long conferences with
the villagers, with Nuddoo the shikari an
active, leather- skinned man, with a cast
in his left eye, who spoke English fluently,
and wore a tiger charm. Algy accom-
modated himself to circumstances with
astonishing facility. Most of the night we
sat up in a machan, or platform in a tree,
over a fat young buffalo, hoping to tempt
the man-eater after dark. Subsequently
Algy slept soundly on his native charpoy,
breakfasted on milk and chuppatties, and
sallied forth, gun on shoulder, to tramp
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 19
miles over the surrounding country. He
was indefatigable, and easily wore me out.
As I frankly explained, I could not burn
the candle at both ends, and sit curled up
in a tree till two o'clock in the morning,
and then walk down game that self-same
afternoon. He never seemed to tire, and
he left the champagne and whisky to us,
and shot on milk or cold cocoa. His newly
acquired Spartan taste declined our im-
ported dainties (tinned and otherwise), and
professed to prefer, in deference to our
surroundings, a purely vegetable diet.
It was an odd fancy, which I made no
effort to combat. Naturally there was
more truffled turkey and pate de foie gras
and boar's head for us ! Algy was a suc-
cessful shot, and reaped the reward of his
energy in respectable bags of black buck,
hares, sand grouse, chickhira, bustard, pea-
cock no, though sorely tempted, he re-
frained from bagging the bird specially
sacred to his hosts. Days and nights went
by, and so far we were as unsuccessful as
20 VILLAGE TALES AND
onr forerunners. In spite of our fat and
enticing young buffalo, whom we some-
times sat over from sunset until the pale
wintry dawn glimmered along the horizon,
we never caught one glimpse of the object
of our expedition. Algy was restless,
Nuddoo at his wits' end, whilst Jones
had given up the quest as a bad job !
One evening we all gathered round the
big fire in the village " chowk " (for the
nights were chilly), having a " bukh " with
the elders, and, being encompassed by a
closely investing audience of the entire
population including, of course, infants
in arms our principal topic was the brute
that had so successfully eluded us.
" He will never be caught save by one
bait," remarked a venerable man, wagging
his long white beard.
"And what is that, my father?" I
asked.
"A man or a woman," was the startling
reply ; " and those we cannot give."
" Yea, but we can ! " cried a shrill voice.
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. 21
There was a sudden movement in the
crowd, and a tall female figure broke out
of the throng, and pushed her way into
the open space and the full light of the
fire.' She wore the usual dark red petti-
coat, short-sleeved jacket, and blue cloth
or veil over her head. This she suddenly
tossed aside, and, as she stood revealed
before us, her hair was dishevelled, her
black eyes blazed with excitement ; but
she was magnificently handsome. No flat-
faced G-ond this, but a Marathi of six-and-
twenty years of age supremely beautiful.
" Protectors of the poor," she cried, fling-
ing out her two modelled arms, jingling
with copper bangles, "here am I. I am
willing, and thou shalt give me. The
shaitan has slain my man and my son.
When the elephant is gone, why keep the
goad ? This devil of tigers has eaten more
than one hundred of our people, and I
gladly offer my life in exchange for his.
Cattle ! no " with scorn. " He seeks not
our flocks ; he seeks us I Have we not
22 VILLAGE TALES AND
learned that, above all, lie prefers women
folk and young ? Therefore, behold I give
myself " looking round with a dramatic
gesture of her hand " to save all these."
"It is Sassi," muttered the Malgoozar,
" the widow of Gitan. Since seven days
her mind hath departed. She is mad."
" Nay, my father, but I am wise ! Truly,
it is the sahib's shikari who is foolish, and
of but little wit. He knows not the ground.
There is the stream close to the forest and
the crops. The sahibs shall sit above in
the old bher tree, with their guns. They
shall tie me up below. Lo, I will sing,
yea, loudly, and perchance the tiger will
come. He is now seven days without
food from our village. Surely he must be
an-hungered. I will sing, and bring him
to the great lords' feet even to his
death and mine. Then will my folk be
avenged, and my name remembered Sassi
the Marathi, who gave her life for her
people ! "
She paused, and every eye was fixed
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 23
upon her as she stood amidst a breath-
less silence, awaiting our answer, as im-
movable as a statue.
" Truly, what talk is so foolish as the
talk of a woman ? " began the Malgoozar,
fretfully. " Small mouth, big speech "
" Nay, my father," interrupted Nuddoo,
eagerly, "but she speaks words of wisdom,
and 'tis I that am the fool. The lord
sahib returns in two days' time and we
have done naught."
As he spoke, his best eye was fixed on
Sassi with an expression of ravenous greed
not to be described. Apparently he saw
the five hundred rupees now within a
measurable distance !
" She can lure him, she shall stand on
the stack of Bhoosa that pertains to
Ruckoo, the chowkidar ; she will sing
the nights are still. The Bagh will hear,
he will come, and, ere he can approach,
the sahibs will shoot him. After all "
with a contemptuous shrug " it is but a
mad woman and a widow."
24 VILLAGE TALES AND
" Nuddoo," shouted Algy, " if I ever
hear you air those sentiments again, I'll
shoot you. We don't want that sort of
bait ; and, if we did, I would sooner tie
you up, than a woman and a widow."
Nuddoo's eager protestations, and Algy's
expostulations, were loud and long, and
during them a stern-faced old hag placed
her hand on Sassi's shoulder, drew her out
of the crowd, and the episode was closed.
Our expedition that, night was, as usual,
fruitless. We climbed into our tree plat-
form, the now accustomed buffalo dozed
in his place undisturbed. Evidently Algy's
mind dwelt on the recent scene at the
chowk, and he harangued me from time
to time, in an excited whisper, on the sub-
ject of Sassi's heroism, her wonderful
beauty, and Nuddoo's base suggestion.
He was still whispering, when I fell asleep.
And now it had come to our last day but
one. Jones looked upon further effort as
supreme folly. He wanted, for once, a
night's unbroken rest, and at six o'clock
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. 25
we left him lying on his string bed, on
the flat of his back, smoking cigarettes
and reading a two-shilling novel a novel
dealing with smart folk in high life a
book that carried his thoughts far, far
from a miserable mud village in the C.P.
and its living scourge. How I envied
Jones ! I would thankfully have excused
myself, but Algy was my cousin ; he had
taken command of the trip, and of me,
ever since we had quitted the great trunk
road and I was entirely under his orders.
Nuddoo was not above accepting a hint ;
this time our machan was lashed into a
big pepul tree on the border of the forest,
and the edge of a stream that had its home
in the hills. We were about two miles
from Karwassa as the crow flies, and, as
we were rather early, we had ample time
to look about us ; the scene was a typical
landscape in the Central Provinces. To our
left lay the hills, covered with dense wood-
lands, from whose gloomy depths emerged
the now shallow river, which trickled gently
26 VILLAGE TALES AND
past us over its bed of dark blue rock and
gravel. Beyond the stream, and exactly
facing, us, lay a vast expanse of grain
jawarrij gram, and vetches as far as the
eye could reach, the monotonous stretch
being broken, here and there, by a gigantic
and solitary jungle tree. To the right, and
on our side of the bank, was an exquisite
sylvan glade, a suitable spot to which the
forest fairies might issue invitations to
the neighbouring elves to " come and
dance in the moonbeams." Between the
great trees, the waving crops, and the
murmuring brook, I could almost have
imagined myself in the midlands of Eng-
land save for certain tracks in the sand
beneath our tree. Its enormous roots were
twisted among rocks and boulders, and,
where a spit of gravel ran out into the
clear water, were many footprints, which
showed where the bear, hyena, tiger, and
jackal had come to slake their thirst. I
noticed that Nuddoo seemed restless and
strange, and that his explanations and
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 27
answers were incoherent, not to say
foolish.
" This looks a likely enough place," said
Algy, with the confidence of a man who
had heen after tiger for years. "But, I
say, Nuddoo, where's the chap with the
buffalo where is our tie-up ? "
" Buffalo never started yet plenty
time coming by-and-by, at rnoonrise,"
stammered Nuddoo ; and, as I climbed into
the machan, and he took his place next
me, with our rifles, it struck me that
Nuddoo was not sober. He smelt power-
fully of raw whisky our whisky his lips
were cracked and dry, and his hand shook
visibly. What had he been doing ?
" It will be an awful sell if there is no
tie-up, and the tiger happens to go by,"
said Algy, irritably.
" The gara will be here without fail,
your honour's worship. It will be all right,
I swear it by the head of my son. More-
over, we will get the tiger to-night he
touches his last hour."
2 8 VILLAGE TALES AND
There was no question that Nuddoo, for
the first time in my experience, was very
drunk indeed. Presently the full rnoon
rose up and illuminated the lonely land-
scape, the haunted jungle, the crops, the
glade, and turned the forest stream to
molten silver. It was nine o'clock, and,
whilst Nuddoo slumbered, Algy and I held
our breath, as we watched a noble sambur
stag come and drink below us. He was
succeeded by an old boar, next came a
hyena ; it was a popular resort ; in short,
eveiy animal appeared but the one we
wanted and he was undoubtedly in the
neighbourhood, for the deer seemed uneasy.
It was already after ten, and Algy was
naturally impatient, and eagerly looking
out for our devoted " gara." He and I
were bending forward, listening anxiously;
the forest behind us seemed full of stealthy
noises, but we strained our ears in vain
for the longed-for sound of buffalo hoofs
advancing from the front. Nuddoo still
slept soundly, and at last Algy, in great
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 29
exasperation, leant over and shook him
roughly.
"Ay," he muttered, in a sleepy grunt,
r * it is all right, sahib, the gara will come
without fail."
Even whilst he spoke, we heard, not fifty
yards away, the voice of a woman
singing in the glade, and Nuddoo now
started up erect, and hegan to tremble
violently.
It was light as day, as we beheld Sassi
advancing slowly in our direction, singing
in a loud clear voice an invocation to Ma-
hadeo the Destroyer !
When she had approached within earshot
she halted, and, raising her statuesque face
to her namesake the moon, chanted
" great lords in the pepul tree, whereto Nuddoo,
the drunkard, hath led you,
Behold, according to my promise, lo ! I have come.
I sing to my gods, and perchance I will bring the
tiger to your honours' feet."
For the space of three heart-beats, we re-
mained motionless paralyzed with horror,
30 VILLAGE TALES AND
and then Nuddoo, who was gibbering
with most mysterious terror, gave me a
sudden and an involuntary push.
There, to the left, was something coming
rapidly through the crops ! The grain
parted and waved wildly as it passed; in
a moment a huge striped animal, the size
of a calf, had crossed the river with a
hurried limp.
" Kubberdar ! Bagh ! Bagh ! " roared
Algy to the woman. To me, " You've got
him ! "
Undoubtedly it was my shot, but I was
excessively flurried it was new to me to
have a human life hanging on my trigger ;
as he sprang into the open glade I fired
and missed. I heard my cousin draw in
his breath hard ; I saw the woman turn
and face us. The tiger's spring and Algy's
shot seemed simultaneous ; as the echo
died away, there was not another sound
the great brute lay dead across the corpse
of his victim. I was now shaking as much
as Nuddoo ; my bad aim had had a frightful
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 31
result. Before I could scramble down,
Algy, with inconceivable rashness, was
already beside the bodies, where they lay
in the middle of the glade the monster
stretched above his voluntary prey.
The news spread to the village in some
miraculous manner. Had the birds of the
air carried the great tidings ? The entire
community were instantly roused by the
intelligence. Man, woman, yea, and child,
came streaming forth, beating tom-toms
and shouting themselves hoarse with joy.
They collected about the tiger who was
evidently of far more account than the
woman they kicked him, cursed him, spat
on him, and secretly stole his whiskers
for a charm against the evil eye. They
thrummed the tom-toms madly as they
marched round and round Algy the hero
of the hour.
Nuddoo had now entirely forgotten his
tremors, he was almost delirious with ex-
citement; the five hundred rupees were
his, he could live on them and on his
32 VILLAGE TALES AND
reputation as the slayer of the great
Karwassa man-eater for the remainder of
his existence. He talked till he frothed
at the corners of his mouth, he boasted
here, he boasted there. He declared that
" lie had encouraged Sassi, and given her
an appointment as the gara, or tie-up.
Yea, she had spoken truly there was no
other means ! "
Released from his honours and the trans-
ports of the tom-toms, these fatal words
fell on Algy's ears, and he went straight for
Nuddoo. What he said or did, I know
not, but this I know, that from that
moment I never saw Nuddoo again until
weeks later, when he came to me by stealth
in Kori, exceedingly humble and sober, and
received, according to Algy's instructions,
" five hundred rupees ; but if he asks
you for a chit," wrote Algy, " kick him
out of the compound."
The tiger was big and heavy, he required
twenty coolies to carry him back to Kar-
wassa for his last visit. Sassi was borne
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 33
on the frame of our machan ere she
was placed there, an old hag covered the
beautiful dead face with her veil, and
slipped off her sole ornaments, the copper
bangles, in a business-like fashion.
" Give me one of those," said Algy, who
was standing by. " I will pay you well.
Were you her mother ? "
" Her grandmother," replied the crone.
" She was mad. Lo, now she is gone, I
shall surely starve ! " and she began to
whimper for the first time. Truly, she knew
this sahib was both rich and open-handed.
Algy and I slept soundly for the re-
mainder of that eventful night ; but it is
my opinion that the villagers never went
to rest at all. The moment we set foot
in the street the next morning, a vast
crowd surged round my cousin ; every
one of them carried a string of flowers or
highest compliment a gilded lime.
Women brought their children, from the
youngest upwards, and Algy was soon the
centre of the village nursery. All these
o
34 VILLAGE TALES AND
little people were solemnly requested " to
look well upon that honoured lord, and
to remember when they were old, and to
tell it to their children, that their own
eyes had rested on the great sahib who
had killed the shaitan of Karwassa."
Algy was loaded with honours and
flowers ; I must confess that he bore them
modestly, and he, on his side, paid high
tribute to Sassi the Marathi. He com-
manded that she should have a splendid
funeral. The most costly pyre that was
ever seen in those parts was erected, the
memory of the oldest inhabitant was vainly
racked to recall anything approaching its
magnificence. The village resources, and
the resources of three other hamlets, were
strained to the utmost tension to provide
sandal-wood, oil, jewels, and dress. If
Algy's London "pals" could hear of him
spending fifty pounds on the burning of a
native woman, how they would laugh and
chaff him ! I hinted as much, and got a
distinctly nasty reply. He was quite right ;
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 35
roughing it had a bad effect upon his
temper. At sundown the whole popula-
tion assembled by the river bank to witness
the obsequies of Sassi the widow of Gitan ;
they marvelled much (and so did I) to
behold my cousin standing by, bare-headed,
during the entire ceremony.
We set out on our return journey that
same evening travelling by moonlight had
no dangers now ! Algy distributed im-
mense largesse among his friends, viz. the
entire community (he also paid all our
expenses like a prince). He and the in-
habitants of Karwassa parted with many
good wishes and mutual reluctance ; in-
deed, a body of them formed a running
accompaniment to us for nearly a dozen
miles. Our spoil, the tiger's skin, was a
poor specimen. The stripes had a dull,
faded appearance ; but it measured, with-
out stretching, a good honest ten feet from
nose to tip of tail. Once we were out of
the jungle, and back in the land of bunga-
lows, daily posts, and baker's bread, Algy
36 VILLAGE TALES AND
relapsed from a keen and intrepid sports-
man into an indolent, drawling dandy.
The day after our return to Kori, he took
leave of me in these remarkable words
" Well, good-bye, Perky. You are not
a bad sort, though you are not much of a
chap to shoot or rough it. However, I
have to thank you for taking me off the
beaten track, and showing me something
which I shall never forget, and that was
entirely out of the common."
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 37
"THE MISSUS."
A DOG TKAGEDY.
WHEN the Eoyal British Skirmishers were
quartered in Bombay, their second in
command was Major Bowen, a spare,
grizzled, self-contained little soldier, who
lived alone in one of those thatched
bungalows that resemble so many mon-
strous mushrooms, bordering the race-
course. " The Major," as he was called par
excellence, was best described by negatives.
He was not married. He was not a ladies'
man. Nor was he a sportsman ; nor hand-
some, young, rich, nor even clever in
short, he was not remarkable for anything
except, perhaps, his dog. No one could
dispute the fact that Major Bowen was
the owner of an uncommon animal. He
38 VILLAGE TALES AND
and this dog had exchanged into "the
Skirmishers ' ' from another regiment six
years previously, and though the pair were
at first but coldly received, they adapted
themselves so admirably to their new
surroundings that ere long they had gained
the esteem and goodwill of both rank and
file ; and, as time wore on, there actually
arose an ill-concealed jealousy of their old
corps, and a disposition to ignore the fact
that they had not always been part and
parcel of the gallant Skirmishers. Although
poor, and having but little besides his
pay, the Major was liberal both just and
generous ; and if he was mean or close-
fisted with any one, that person's name was
Eeginald Bowen. He had an extremely
lofty standard of honour and of the value
of his lightest word. He gave a good tone
to the mess, and though he was strict
with the youngsters, they all liked him.
Inflexible as he could look on parade or
in the orderly-room, elsewhere he received
half the confidences of the regiment ; and
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 39
many a subaltern had been extricated from
a scrape, thanks to the little Major's
assistance monetary and otherwise. He.
was a smart officer and a capital horse-
man, and here was another source of his
popularity. He lent his horses and ponies,
with ungrudging good faith, to those
impecunious youths who boasted but the
one hard- worked barrack " tat ; " and many
a happy hour with hounds, or on the polo*
ground, was spent on the back of the
Major's cattle. Major Bowen did not race
or hunt, and rarely played polo ; in fact,
he was not much interested in anything
although upwards of forty, he was supremely
indifferent to his dinner ! the one thing he
really cared about was his dog : a sharp,
well-bred fox-terrier, with bright eyes and
lemon-coloured ears, who, in spite of the
fact that her original name was " Minnie,"
had been known as "the Missus" for the
last five years. This name was given
to her in joke, and in acknowledgment
of her accomplishments; the agreeable
40 VILLAGE TALES AND
manner in which she did the honours of her
master's bungalow, and the extraordinary
care she took of him, and all his property.
It was truly absurd to see this little creature
of at most sixteen pounds' weight-
gravely lying, with crossed paws, in front
of the Major's sixteen hands " waler,"
whilst he was going round barracks, or
occupied in the orderly-room. Her pose
of self-importance distinctly said, " The
horse and syce are in my charge ! "
She went about the compound early
every morning, and rigorously turned out
vagrants, suspicious-looking visitors to the
servants' quarters, and all dogs and goats !
She accompanied her master to mess, and
fetched him home, no matter how late the
hour and through the rains (and they are
no joke in Bombay) it was just the same ;
there was the chokedar, with his mackintosh
and lantern ; and there was also, invariably,
the shivering, sleepy little Missus. It was
of no avail to tie her up at home ; not
only were her heartrending howls audible
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 41
for a quarter of a mile, but on one occasion
she actually arrived under the dinner-table,
chain and all, to the discomfort of the
Colonel's legs, the great scandal of the
mess-sergeant, and her own everlasting
disgrace ! So she was eventually suffered
like wilful woman to have her way.
Her master's friends were her friends,
and took the Missus quite seriously but
she drew the line at dogs. It must be
admitted that her manners to her own
species were not nice. She had an un-
ladylike habit of suddenly sitting down
when she descried one afar off, and sniffing
the, so to speak, tainted air, that wag
nothing more nor less than a deliberate
insult to any animal with the commonest
self-respect ; many a battle was fought,
many a bite was given and received. The
Missus was undeniably accomplished ;
she fetched papers and slippers, gave the
paw, and in the new style on a level
with her head, walked briskly on her
hind legs, could strum on the piano, and
42 VILLAGE TALES AND
sing, accompanying herself to a clear, some-
what shrill, soprano. There was a little
old pianette in the Major's sitting-room,
on which she performed amid great applause.
It was not true that the instrument had
been purchased solely for her use, or that
she practised industriously for two hours
a day. No the pianette had been handed
over to her master by a young man (who
had subsequently gone to the dogs) as the
only available payment of a sum the Major
had advanced for him. Battered old tin
kettle as it was, that despised piano had cost
one hundred pounds ! But no one dreamt
of this when they laughed at its short-
comings. The Missus was passionately fond
of music, and escorted her owner to the
band ; but she escorted him almost every-
where to the club, round the barracks,
the race-course, to church here she was
ignominiously secured in the syce's
" cupra," as she had a way of stealthily
peeping in at the various open doors, and
endeavouring to focus her idol, which
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 43
manoeuvre joined with her occasional
assistance in the chanting proved a little
trying to the gravity of the congregation.
Of course she went to the hills where she
had an immense acquaintance ; she had
also been on active service on the Black
Mountain, and when one night a prowling
Atridi crept on his hands and knees into
the Major's tent, he found himself un-
expectedly pinned by a set of sharp teeth,
he carried the mark of that bite to his
grave.
Major Bowen was not the least ashamed
of his affection for his dog. She was his
weak point even the very Company's
dhobies approached him through her
favour. He was president of the mess,
and in an excellent manner had officiated
for years in that difficult and thankless
office ; a good man of business prompt,
clear-headed, methodical, and conscien-
tious. No scamping of accounts, no pecu-
lations overlooked, a martinet to the
servants, and possibly less loved than
44 VILLAGE TALES AND
feared. But this is a digression from the
Missus. Her master was foolishly proud
of her good looks very sensitive respect-
ing her little foibles (which he clumsily
endeavoured to conceal), and actually
touchy about her age !
When the Missus had her first, and onlj',
family, it was quite a great local event.
The Major's establishment was turned
completely upside down ; there was racing
and chasing to procure two milch goats
for the use of the infants and their mother,
and a most elegant wadded basket was pro-
vided as a cradle. But, alas ! the Missus
proved a most indifferent parent. She
deserted her little encumbrances at the
end of one day, and followed her master
to the Gymkana ground. He was heartily
ashamed of her, and positively used to
remain indoors for the sake of keeping up
appearances. He could not go to the club,
and have the Missus waiting conspicuously
outside with the pony, when all the world
knew that she had no business to be there,
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 45
but had four young and helpless belongings
squealing for her at home ! She accorded
them but little of her company, and
appeared to think that her nursery cares
were entirely the affair of the two milch
goats ! One of her neglected children
pined, and dwindled, and eventually died,
was placed in a cigar-box, and buried in
a neat little grave under a rose-bush in
the compound, whilst its unnatural mamma
looked on from afar off, a totally unin-
terested spectator ! The three survivors
were handsome puppies, and the Major
exhibited them with pride to numerous
callers, and finally bestowed them among
his friends (entirely to please their mother,
whom they bored to death). They were
gratefully accepted, not merely on their
own merits, but also as being a public
testimonial of their donor's high opinion
and esteem.
*****
It was towards the end of the monsoon,
when the compound was almost afloat, and
46 VILLAGE TALES AND
querulous frogs croaked in every corner of
the verandahs, that Major Bowen became
seriously ill with low malarious fever. He
had been out ten years " five years too
long," the doctor declared; a he must go
home at once, and never return to India."
This was bad news for the regiment, and
still worse for the invalid, who helped a
widowed sister with all he could spare from
his colonial allowances. There would not
be much margin on English pay !
He was dangerously ill in that lofty,
bare, whitewashed bedroom in Infantry
Lines. He would not be the first to die
there. No, not by many. His friends were
devoted and anxious. The Missus was de-
voted and distracted. She lay all day long
at the foot of his cot, watching and listen-
ing, and following his slightest movement
with a pair of agonized eyes.
At length there was a change and for
the better. The patient was promoted into
a cane lounge in the sitting-room, to solids,
and to society as represented by half the
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. 47
regiment. He looked round his meagrely
furnished little room with interested eyes.
There was not a speck of dust to be seen,
everything was in its place, to the letter-
weight on the writing-table, and the old
faded photos in their shabby leather frames.
Missus's basket was pushed into a far corner.
She had not used it for weeks. He and
Missus were going home, and would soon
say good-bye for ever to the steep-roofed
thatched bungalow, the creaking cane
chairs, the red saloo purdahs, to the
verandahs, embowered in pale lilac " rail-
way " creeper, to the neat little garden
to the regiment to Bombay. Their
passages were taken. They were off in
the Arcadia in three days.
* * . * # *
That afternoon, the Major had all his
kit and personal property paraded in his
sitting-room, in order that the packing
of his belongings (he was a very tidy
man) should take place under his own
eyes. The bearer was in attendance, and
48 VILLAGE TALES AND
with him his slave and scapegoat the
chokra.
The bearer was a stolid, impassive-look-
ing Mahomedan, with a square black beard,
and a somewhat sullen eye.
"Abdul," said his master, as his gaze
travelled languidly from one neatly folded
pile of clothes to another from guns in
cases to guns not in cases, to clocks, re-
volvers, watches, candlesticks the collec-
tion of ten years, parting gifts, bargains,
and legacies " you have been my servant
for six years, and have served me well.
I have twice raised your wages, and you
have made a very good thing out of me,
I believe, and can, no doubt, retire and
set up a ticca gharry, or a shop. I am
going away, and never coming back, and
I want to give you something of mine as
a remembrance something to remember
me by, you understand ? "
The bearer deliberately unfolded his arms,
and salaamed in silence.
" You may choose anything you like out
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 49
of this room," continued the Major, with
unexampled recklessness.
Abdul's eyes glittered curiously it was
as if a torch had suddenly illumined two
inky-black pools.
" Sahib never making joke sahib making
really earnest ? " casting on him a glance
of almost desperate eagerness. The glance
was lost on his master, whose attention
was fixed on a discarded gold-laced tunic
and mess-jacket.
"Of course," he said to himself, "Abdul
will choose them," for gold lace is ever
dear to a native heart, it sells so well
in the bazaar, and melts down to such
advantage.
" Making earnest! " repeated the invalid,
irritably. " Do I ever do otherwise ? Look
sharp, and take your choice."
" Salaam, sahib," he answered, and
turned quickly to where the Missus was
coiled up in a chair. " I take my choice
of anything in this room. Then I take
the dog."
5 o VILLAGE TALES AND
" The dog!" repeated her owner, with
a half-stupefied air.
" Verily, I am fond of Missy. Missy
fond of master. The dog and I will re-
member the sahib together, when he is
far away."
The sahib felt as if some one had suddenly
plunged a knife in his heart. In Abdul's
bold gaze, in Abdul's petition, he, too late,
recalled the solemn (but despised) warning
of a brother-officer :
" That bearer of yours is a vindictive
brute ; you got his son turned out of the
mess, and serve him right, for a drunken,
thieving hound ! But sleek as he looks,
Abdul will have it in for you yet ; " and
this was accomplished, when he said,
" The dog and I, sahib, will remember
you together."
Major Bowen was still desperately weak,
and he had just been dealt a crushing
blow; but the spirit that holds India
was present in that puny, wasted frame,
and, with a superhuman effort, he boldly
JUNGLE TEAGED1ES. 51
confronted the two natives the open-
mouthed, gaping chokra, the respectfully
exultant bearer and said, " Atcha " (that
is to say, " good "), " it is well ; " and then
he feebly waved to the pair to depart from
him, for he was tired.
Truly it was anything but " good." It
seemed the worst calamity that could have
befallen him. He was alone, and face to
face with a terrible situation. He must
either forfeit his word, or his dog, which
was it to be ?
In all his life, to the best of his know-
ledge, he had never broken his faith, and
now to do it to a native ! that was abso-
lutely out of the question. But his dog
his friend his companion with whom
he never meant to part, as long as she
lived (for she had given her to him). He
sat erect, and looked over at the Missus,
where she lay curled up; her expressive
eyes met his eagerly.
Little, Missus, do you guess the fatal
promise that has just been made, nor how
5 2 VILLAGE TALES AND
largely it concerns you. Her master lay
back with a groan, and turned his face
away from the light, a truly miserable
man ! His faithful Missus ! to have to
part with her to one of the regiment
would have been grief enough ; but to a
Mahomedan, with their unconcealed scorn
of dogs ! He must have been mad when
he made that rash offer ; but then, in
justification, his common sense urged,
" How was he to suppose that Abdul
would choose anything but a silver watch, a
gun, or the worth of fifty rupees ? " Major
Bowen was far from being an imaginative
man, but as he lay awake all night long,
and listened to the wild roof-cats stealing
down the thatch, and heard them pattering
back at dawn, one mental picture stood
out as distinctly as if he was looking at
it with his bodily sight, and it was actually
before him.
A low, squalid mud hut in a bazaar;
a native string bed, and tied to it by a
cord the Missus. "The Missus," with
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 53
thin ribs, a staring coat, and misery
depicted on her little face, the sport of the
children and the flies starved, forlorn,
heartbroken dumbly wondering what had
happened to her master, and why he had so
cruelly deserted her ! Oh, when was he com-
ing to fetch her ? Not knowing, she was at
least spared this that he would never come.
What an insane promise ! As he recalled
it, he clenched his hands in intolerable
agony. Why did he not offer his watch
his rifle ? he would give Abdul a thousand
rupees, gladly, to redeem the dog, but
his inner consciousness assured him that
Abdul, thanks to him, was already well-
to-do, and that his revenge was worth
more to him than money. This would
not be the case with most natives, but
he knew, to his cost, that Abdul's was a
stern, tenacious, relentless nature. At one
moment, he had decided to poison the
Missus with his own hands prussic acid
was speedy; at another, he had resolved
to remain in India, doctors or no doctors.
54 VILLAGE TALES AND
"And sacrifice your life?" again breathed
common sense. "Die for a dog!" True,
but the dog was not a dog to him. She
was his comrade, his sympathizer, his
friend. Meanwhile, the object of all these
mental wrestlings and agonies slept the
sleep of the just, innocent, and ignorant ;
but in any case, it is a question if a dog's
anxieties ever keep it awake. Her master
never closed his eyes ; he saw the dawn
glimmer through the bamboo chicks ; he
saw Abdul, the avenger, appear with his
early tea, and Abdul found him in high
fever ; perhaps Abdul was not greatly
surprised !
Friends and brother-officers flocked in
that day, and sat with the Major, and they
noted with concern that he looked worse
than he had done at any period of his
illness. His naturally pinched face was
worn and haggard to a startling degree.
Moreover, in spite of the news of the high
prices his horses had fetched, he was
terribly " down," and why ? A man going
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 55
home, after ten years of India, is generally
intolerably cheerful. They did their best to
enliven him, these good-hearted comrades,
and unfailing topic of interest they dis-
coursed volubly and incessantly of the
Missus.
" She is looking uncommonly fit," said
young Stradbrooke, the owner of one of
her neglected children. " She knows she
is going to England. She was quite grand
with me just now ! She hates boating like
the devil ! I wonder how she will stand
fourteen days at sea? "
There was a perceptible silence after this
question, and then the Major said in a
queer voice
" She is not going."
" Not going ? " An incredulous pause,
and then some one exclaimed : " Come,
Major, you know you would just as soon
leave your head behind."
" All the same I am leaving her "
" And which of us is to have her ? " cried
the Adjutant. "Take notice, all, that I
5 6 VILLAGE TALES AND
speak first. You won't pass over me, sir.
Missus and I were always very chummy,
and I want her to look after my chargers
and servants, fetch my slippers, bring me
home from mess and to take care of me
and keep me straight."
" I have already given her away to
the rest of the sentence seemed to stick
in the Major's throat, and his face worked
painfully.
"Away to whom?" repeated young
Stradbrooke. " Say it's to me, sir. I've
one of the family already and Missus
likes me. I know her pet biscuits, and
there are heaps of rats in my stables-
such whoppers ! "
" Given her to the bearer Abdul," he
answered, stoutly enough, though there
was still a little nervous quivering of the
lower lip.
If the ceiling had parted asunder and
straightway tumbled down on their heads,
the Major's audience would not have been
hah so much dumfoundered. For a whole
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 57
mii>ute they sat agape, and then one burst
out
" I say, Major, it's a joke you would
not give her out of the regiment ; she is
on the strength."
" She is promised," replied the Major,
in a sort of husky whisper.
Every one knew that the Major's promises
were a serious matter, and after this answer
there ensued a long dismayed silence. The
visitors eventually turned the topic, and
tried to talk of other matters the last
gazette, the new regimental ribbon, of
anything but of what every mind was full,
to wit, "the Missus."
The news respecting her bestowal
created quite a sensation that evening at
the mess far more than that occasioned by
a newly announced engagement, for there
was an element of mystery about this
topic. Why had the Missus been given
away ?
" Bo wen must be off his chump," was
the general verdict, "poor old chap, to
58 VILLAGE TALES AND
give the dog to that rascal Abdul, of all
people ! " (One curious feature in Anglo-
Indian life, is the low opinion people gene-
rally entertain of their friends' servants.)
" The proper thing was, of course, to buy
the dog, and keep her in the regiment;
and when the Major came to his right
senses, how glad he would be, dear old
man ! "
The Adjutant waylaid Abdul in the road,
and said, curtly
" Is this true, about the dog ? that your
sahib has given her to you ? "
Abdul salaamed. How convenient and
non-committal is that gesture !
" What will you take for her ? "
" I never selling master's present," re-
joined the bearer, with superb dignity.
" What does a nigger want with a dog ? "
demanded the officer, scornfully. "Well,
then, swop her that won't hurt your deli-
cate sense of honour. I'll get you an old
pariah out of the bazaar, and give you fifty
rupees to buy him a collar ! "
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 59
" I have refused to-day one thousand
rupees for the Missy," said Abdul, with
increased hauteur.
"You lie, Abdul," said the officer,
sternly ; "or else you have been dealing
with a stark, staring madman."
" I telling true, Captain Sahib. I swear
by the beard of the Prophet."
"Who made the offer?"
"Major Bone " the natives always called
him "Major Bone."
" Great Scott ! Poor dear old chap " (to
himself) : "I had no idea he was so badly
touched. It is well he is going home,
or it would be a case of four orderlies and
a padded room. So much for this beastly
country! >: Then to Abdul, "Look here;
don't say a word about that offer, and
come over to my quarters, and I'll give
you some dibs the sun has been too much
for your sahib and mind you be kind to
the Missus ; if not, I'll come and shoot
her, and thrash you within an inch of
your life."
60 VILLAGE TALES AND
" Gentlemen Sahib never beating ser-
vants. Sahib touch me, I summon in police-
court, and I bring report to regimental
commanding officer. Also, I going my
own country, Bareilly, and I never, never
selling kind master's present."
" I know lots of Sahibs in a pultoon
(i.e. regiment) at Bareilly, and I shall get
them to look out for you and the dog,
Mr. Abdul. You treat ' kind master's
present ' well, and it will be well with you,
if not, by Jove, you will find that I have
got a long arm. I am a man of my word,
so keep your mouth shut about the Major.
To-night my bearer will give you ten
rupees." And he walked on.
" Bowen must be in a real bad way,
when he gives his beloved dog to a native,
and next day wants to buy it back for a
thousand rupees," said Captain Young to
himself. "I thought he looked queer
yesterday, but I never guessed that he was
as mad as twenty hatters."
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 61
The hour of the Major's departure
arrived ; he had entreated, as a special
favour, that no one would come to see
him off. This request was looked upon
as more of his eccentricity, and not worthy
of serious consideration ; he would get all
right as soon as he was at sea, and the
officers who were not on duty hurried
down to see the last of their popular
comrade. He drove up late, looking like
death, his face so withered, drawn, and grey,
and got out of a gharry, promptly followed
by Abdul, carrying the Missus. The steam-
launch lay puffing and snorting at the steps
the other passengers were aboard there
was not a moment to lose. The Major bade
each and all a hurried farewell; he took
leave of the Missus last. She was still in
Abdul's arms, and believed in her simple
dog mind that her master was merely bound
for one of those detestable sails up the
harbour. As she offered him an eager paw,
little did she guess that it was good-bye
for ever, or that she was gazing after him
62 VILLAGE TALES AND
for the last time, as he feebly descended the
steps and took his place in the tender that
was to convey him to the P. and 0. steamer.
He watched the crowd of friends wildly
waving handkerchiefs ; but he watched,
above all, with a long, long gaze of in-
articulate grief, a dark turbaned figure, that
stood conspicuously apart, with a small
white object in his arms : watched almost
breathlessly, till it faded away into one
general blur. The Bengal civilian who sat
next to Major Bowen in the tender, stared
at him in contemptuous astonishment. He
had been twenty-five years in the country
(mitigating his exile with as much furlough
sick, privilege, and otherwise as he
could possibly obtain), and this was the first
time he had seen a man quit the shores
of India with tears in his eyes 1
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 63
THE BETRAYAL OF
SHERE BAHADUR.
I AM merely the wife of a British subaltern,
whereas my aunt Jane is the consort of a
commissioner. One must go to India, to
realize the enormous and unfathomable gulf
which yawns between these two positions.
Take, for instance, that important dif-
ference the difference in pay. On the
first of each month, Aunt Jane's lord and
master receives several thousand and odd
rupees a heavy load for two staggering
peons to carry from the treasury whereas
my husband's poor little pittance, of two
hundred and fifty-six rupees and odd annas,
our bearer swings in a lean canvas bag,
and in one hand, with an air of jaunty
contempt !
64 VILLAGE TALES AND
At dinner-parties and other grand func-
tions, I see my aunt's round-shouldered
back, and well-known yellow satin, leading
the van, with her hand on the host's arm,
whilst I humbly bring up the rear one
of the last joints in the tail of precedence.
Afterwards after coffee, conversation,
and music not a woman in the room may
venture to stir, until my little fat relative
has " made the move" and waddled off to
her carriage. Mr. Eadcliffe, my uncle by
marriage, rules over a large district ; he is
a stout, puffy, imposing-looking man, at-
tended by much pomp and circumstance,
and many scarlet-clad chuprassis. His
wife rules him as well as the station ;
manages every one's affairs, acts as the
censor of public morals, and may be im-
plicitly relied upon to utter the disagreeable
things that ought to be said, but that no
one but herself is willing to say. The
Eadcliffes have no family, and therefore
she has ample time to indulge her fine
powers of observation, organization, and
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 65
conversation. When I married, and was
about to come to India, a year ago, my
people remarked on an average once a
week
" If you are going to Luckmee, you will
be quite close to your aunt Jane at Baja-
pore, and only think how delightful that
will be for you ! " but I was by no means so
confident of this supreme future joy. Raja-
pore is a large mixed military and civil
station ; Luckmee is on the same line of
rail, a run of a couple of hours ; a small
and insignificant cantonment, which looks
up to Eajapore as its metropolis, and does
all its shopping there. No, I did not find
it at all delightful, being within such easy
hail of Aunt Jane. She made unexpected
descents as a rule, early in the morning
driving up from the station in a rickety
"ticca gharry," to spend what she called
"a good long day." First of all, she went
over the bungalow precisely as if it was to
let furnished, and she was the incoming
tenant; then she cross-examined me closely,
D
66 TILLAGE TALES AND
read my home letters, looked at my bazaar
account, sniffed at my new frocks, snubbed
my friends, and departed by the last train in
the highest spirits, leaving me struggling
with the idea that I was still a rather
troublesome schoolgirl in short frocks and
a pig-tail. Now and then I returned the
visit by command drove with Aunt Jane
in her state barouche, in which she sat
supported by a pair of rather faded Berlin
wool cushions, great eyesores to my critical
English taste, which largely discounted the
fine carriage, big bay walers, fat coachman
(an Indian Jehu of any pretension must be
corpulent), the running syces, and splendid
silver-mounted chowries or yak tails.
I also was present at various heavy tiffins
and dinners, in the capacity of deputy
assistant hostess and niece. I had come
in now, to wait upon Aunt Jane and " take
leave," as she was just off to England, and
had imperatively summoned me to report
myself ere she started. I found the great
square white bungalow externally gay with
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 67
Bignonia vinusta, internally in the utmost
confusion. The hall was littered with straw
and bits of newspapers, the drawing-room
was full of packing-cases, half the contents
of the cellar were paraded on the floor, and
dozens of tins of " Europe " stores were also
on review, all being for sale. Aunt Jane
was seated at a writing-table, revising lists
with a rapid pen.
" You discover me," she exclaimed, offer-
ing a plump cheek, " sitting like Marius
among the ruins of Carthage."
I was dumb. I had no idea until now
that Marius was a stout little elderly
woman, wearing a shapeless grey wide-
awake and blue spectacles.
" I feel almost fit for the poggle khana
(mad-house)," she continued. " Just look
here ! Here is my list of furniture, come
back from making the round of the station,
and all that has been taken is a watering-
pot, six finger-glasses, and a pie-dish 1 "
(The truth was that people were tired of
my aunt's lists.) " And here are dozens of
68 VILLAGE TALES AND
servants clamouring for chits and a man
waiting to buy the cows. I wish to good-
ness some one would buy your uncle's
shikar camel," reading aloud from list,
" ' young, strong, easy trot and walk, with
saddle, Es. 200.' Your uncle is going to
chum with Mr. Jones. He does not intend
shooting this season even he finds it an
expensive pursuit," this in a significant
parenthesis. " I've not put away the orna-
ments, nor sold off my stores, nor packed
one of my own things."
I muttered some sympathetic remark,
but I knew that Aunt Jane enjoyed these
" earthquakings " immensely. . She was con-
stantly uprooting her establishment, and
taking what she called " a run home."
" And you go on Monday ? " I inquired.
"Yes, child; though I don't believe I
shall ever be ready. Your mother, of
course, will want to know how you are ?
I must candidly tell her that you are look-
ing dreadfully pasty. Ah ! I see you have
got a parcel."
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 69
"Only a very little one," I pleaded
apologetically.
"Well, well, I suppose I must try and
take it ; and now what are your plans ? "
" Tom has got two months' leave, and
Charlie is coming up from Madras ; we are
going away on a trip into the real jungle."
" For what ? " she asked tartly.
" Well, to see something different from
the routine of cantonment life, something
different from the band-stand and D.W.P.
pattern church to see real India."
" What folly ! Eeal India, indeed ! " she
snorted ; " as if you would ever see it ! It
makes me wild to hear of people talking, and
worse still, writing ahout India, as if one
person could grasp even a .small corner of
it. Here am I, twenty-five years in the
country, speaking the language fluently,
and what do I know ? " she paused dramati-
cally. " The bazaar prices, the names of
the local trees and flowers, the rents of the
principal houses up at Simla." (I have
reason to believe that my aunt did herself
70 VILLAGE TALES AND
gross injustice ; she knew the private affairs
of half the civilians in the provinces, and
was on intimate terms with their " family
skeletons.") "As to the character of the
people ! I cannot even fathom my own
ayah, and she is with me eleven years."
" I believe some people know a great
deal about India," I ventured to protest.
" Stuff! " she interrupted. " One person
may know a little of one part of the con-
tinent, but there are twenty Indias ! all
different, with different climates, customs,
and people. What resemblance is there
between a Moplah on the west coast and
a Leucha from Darjeeling, a little stunted
Andamanese and a Sikh ; a Gond from the
C.P. and a Pathan from the frontier ; a
Bengali Baboo and a bold Rohilla ? " (Aunt
Jane was now mounted on her hobby, and
I had nothing to do but to look and listen.)
" Every one thinks his own little corner is
India. You, as an officer's wife the wife of
a subaltern in a marching regiment " (she
always insisted on the prefix " marching")
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 71
" have better chances than a civilian,
for they live in one groove ; you are shot
about from Colombo to Peshawar. How-
ever, much good it will do you, for you are
naturally dull, and have no talent for
observation."
" No, not like you, Aunt Jane," I
ventured with mild sarcasm : was she not
going home ?
"And where are you bound for?" she
pursued.
"About a hundred miles out, due north."
" That is the Merween district, I know
it well. We were in that division years ago.
Had you consulted me, before making your
plans, your uncle might have arranged
about elephants for you. It's too late
now," with a somewhat triumphant air.
" But we don't want elephants," I pro-
tested ; " we have our ponies."
"Id " correcting herself, "simple-
ton ! I meant for shooting from. The
district is full of long grass. Tom will get
no deer, nor indeed any game on foot. You
72 VILLAGE TALES AND
may have the shikar camel, if you like, for
his keep, and the Oontwallah's pay no ? "
as I shook my head emphatically. " Well,
I can give you one tip : take plenty of
tinned stores ; the villages are scattered,
and Brahmin. You won't get an egg, much
less a fowl at most a little ghee and flour ;
but I strongly advise you to take your own
poultry, and a couple of milch goats, also
plenty of quinine and cholera mixture ;
parts of the country are very marshy and
unhealthy. I suppose you have tents ? We
cannot lend you any."
" Yes, we have three, thank you."
" And so your brother Charles is going
with you! Tell him that / think he had
much better have stayed quietly with his
regiment, and worked for the higher
standard a boy only out two years. Of
course you are paying his expenses ? "
I nodded. Tom was moderately well
off; though we were not rich, we were not
exactly poor, and I always had a firm con-
viction that Aunt Jane would have liked
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 73
me much better if I had been a pauper !
As it was, she considered me dangerously
independent.
" Of course you think you know your
own business best ! " removing her spec-
tacles as she spoke, " but mark my words,
you will find this trip a great deal more
costly than you imagine. With us civilians
it is different, a sort of royal progress ; but
with you well, well," shaking her head,
" you must buy your own experience ! "
A week later we had set forth, Tom,
Charlie, and myself. We took Aunt Jane's
advice (it was all she had given us), and
despatched our tents and carts twenty-four
hours' ahead, so as to give them a good
start. We cantered out after them, a
fifteen-mile ride, the following day. It was
my first experience of camp life, and per-
fectly delightful ; the tent under the trees
felt so cool and fresh, in comparison with
a sun-baked bungalow. Our servants, who
appeared quite at home, had built a mud
fireplace, and were cooking the dinner ; the
74 VILLAGE TALES AND
milch goats were browsing, and the poultry
picking about in the adaptable manner of
an Indian bazaar fowl. Our next halt was
to be twenty miles farther on, at an
engineer's bungalow, which was splendidly
situated between a forest swarming with
game and a river teeming with fish. Here
we intended to remain for some time ; we
should be in the territory of the Eajah of
Betwa, and were bearers of a letter asking
for his assistance, in the way of procuring
provisions in the villages. At midday we
halted for several hours in a mango tope,
the home of thousands of monkeys, and
went forward again about four o'clock.
Our road was bordered at either side by a
golden sea of gently waving crops, for we
were in the heart of a great wheat country.
Presently we passed through the town of
Betwa, which chiefly consisted of a long
dirty bazaar, an ancient fort, and a high
mud wall, enclosing the palace of the rajah.
About a mile beyond the outskirts, we beheld
a cloud of yellow dust rapidly approaching.
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 75
"I'll bet ten to one it's the rajah,"
said Tom, as he abruptly pulled up his
pony.
I felt intensely excited. I had never seen
a real live rajah in my life ; and I held
myself in readiness for any amount of pomp
and splendour, from milk-white arabs with
gold trappings, to a glass coach. But what
was this that I beheld, as we drew respect-
fully to one side ? I could scarcely believe
my own eyes, as there thundered by a most
dilapidated waggonette, drawn by one huge
bony horse and a pony, truly sorry steeds ;
the harness was tied up with rope, and
even rags ! Seated in front was a spare
dark man, with a disagreeable expression,
dressed in a stuff coat, the colour of
Eeckitt's blue, and a gold skull-cap. He
salaamed to us in a condescending manner,
and was presumably the rajah. A fat pock-
marked driver held the reins ; in the body
of the waggonette were six men (the suite),
and their united weight gave the vehicle
a dangerous tilt backwards. The equipage
7 6 VILLAGE TALES AND
was accompanied by four ragamuffins, with
long spears, riding miserable old screws
with bell-rope bridles. They kept up a
steady tittuping canter, raising a cloud of
suffocating dust, in which they presently
vanished.
" I can't believe that that is a rajah,
much less our rajah," I remarked to my
companions.
"I can," said Tom, emphatically. " He
looks what he is an unmitigated scoundrel,
and a miser. Did you notice how close his
eyes ""were together? He is a rich man,
too ; is lord of the soil as far as your eyes
can see. His grandfather owned a great
deal more before the Mutiny, but it was
shorn from him, and he was thankful to
be left with an acre or his life."
"Why?" asked Charlie and I in a
breath.
" He came out of that bad business very
badly. When the inhabitants of Luckmee
were surprised, they sent their women and
children to him for protection, he being, as
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 77
they supposed, their very good friend ; but
he simply bundled them all out, and they
were every one massacred. The rajah then
believed that the mutineers would carry
everything before them, but after the fall
of Delhi he changed his tune, and sent on a
charger the head of the chief leader in
these parts his own nephew, as it hap-
pened, but this is a detail in order to
make his peace. Of course, he saved his
skin, but he had a bad record, and his
grandson is a chip of the old block."
" Who told you all this ? " I inquired.
" The collector. He says this man
grinds down the ryots shamelessly, and
does many a queer thing that ought to
land him in a court of law. Here is the
forest, and here, thank goodness, is the
bungalow at last."
Our halting-place proved to be a thatched
stone cottage, containing three rooms, and
bath-rooms ; there was a deep verandah all
round, excellent servants' quarters and
stables in short, it was the beau ideal of
78 VILLAGE TALES AND
a jungle residence. One verandah looked
towards the forest, with its cool, dark re-
cesses, the other commanded the river, and
beyond it, faintly on the sky line, glim-
mered the snows.
The bungalow was surrounded by about
twenty acres of park-like pasture, through
which ran a public road leading to a fine
bridge. We took in these details as we
lounged about in the moonlight after
dinner, and unanimously agreed that our
present quarters were quite perfect in every
respect.
The next day we fished a nice, lazy,
unexciting occupation. I sauntered home
early in the afternoon not being a par-
ticularly enthusiastic angler and disposed
myself in a comfortable deep straw chair in
v JL
the verandah, in order to enjoy a novel and
what I considered a well-earned cup of tea.
As I reclined at my ease, devouring fiction
and cake, sandwich fashion, my attention
was arrested by a sound of loud crashing
and smashing of branches in the usually
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 79
death-like stillness of the forest. I sat
erect, gazing intently at the violent storm
among the leaves, expecting to see emerge
a deer, a pig, or, at the very worst, a pea-
cock ! But after staring steadily for some
time, I found that I was looking at. the
back of a remarkably tall elephant.
The ayah, who was also watching, pointed
and called out, " Hathi, mem sahib, burra
hathi," as if I did not know an elephant
when I saw one !
Presently I descended the steps, strolled
across the green, and pushed aside the
bushes. There I beheld a lean native, all
ribs and turban,- busily engaged in baking
his chupatties over a fire of sticks a little
wizened man, with a sharp cruel face, and
close behind him stood a huge gaunt
elephant, or rather the framework of one,
for the animal was shockingly thin. Its
poor backbone was as sharp as a razor ; its
skin hung in great wrinkles ; its eye an
elephant's eye is small and ugly this
beast's eye gave expression to its whole
8o VILLAGE TALES AND
body, and had a woful look of inarticulate
misery, of almost desperate, human appeal.
The mahout stood up and salaamed, and
forthwith he and I began to converse that
is to say, we made frantic endeavours to
understand one another the ayah, whose
curiosity had dragged her forth, now and
then throwing in a missing word.
"By my favour, it was the rajah's state
elephant ; he had also three others ; he
sent them into the forest to feed and to
rest, when he did not require them. This,
Shere Bahadur (brave lion), was the great
processional elephant, and had a superb
cloth-of-gold canopy that covered him from
head to tail."
(" Poor brute ! " I said to myself, " other-
wise he would be a terribly distressing
spectacle.")
" Why is he so thin ? " I demanded
anxiously.
" Because he is old," was the ready
answer, " more than one hundred years.
He had been, so folk said, a war- elephant
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 81
taken in battle. He was worth thousands
and thousands of rupees once. He knew
no fear, and no fatigue. Moreover, he was
a great shikar elephant many tigers had
he faced " and here the mahout proudly
showed me the traces of some ancient
scars " even now the Sahib Log borrowed
him as an honour."
" And what had he to eat ? " I inquired.
" More than he could swallow twelve
large chupatties twice a day this .size"
holding his skinny arms wide apart " also
ghoor, and sugar-cane, and spice."
I looked about. I saw no sign of any-
thing but a few branches of neem tree, and
the preparations for the mahout's own
meagre meal.
" Hazoor, he has had his khana he has
dined like a prince," reiterated the mahout.
" Kuda ka Kussum," that is to say, " so
help me God."
Nevertheless I remained incredulous. I
went over to the bungalow and brought out
a loaf, to the extreme consternation of our
82 VILLAGE TALES AND
khansamah we being forty miles from the
nearest bazaar bakery this I broke in two
pieces, and presented it to Shere Bahadur,
who seized it ravenously. Of course it was
a mere crumb, and the wrinkled eager trunk
was piteously held out for more ; but more
I dared not give, for I was in these days
entirely under the yoke of my domestics !
I related my little adventure during dinner
small episodes become great ones in the
jungle, where we had no news, no dak.
Afterwards we took our usual stroll in the
moonlight, and Charlie and I went to visit
my new acquaintance. He was alone.
The mahout was away, probably smoking
at a panchayet in the nearest village. In a
short time we were joined by Tom, who, as
he came up, exclaimed
"By Jove, he is thin 1 I've just been
hearing all about the beast from the
shikarri; he knows him well. He was a
magnificent fellow in his day. The rajah
has not the heart to feed him in his old
age, and turns him out to pick up a living,
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 83
or starve whichever he likes. He is not
going to pay for his keep, and so the poor
brute is dying hy inches. Every now and
then, when there is a ' tamasha,' he is sent
for for a rajah without elephants is like a
society woman without diamonds."
"And the twelve chupatties, and spices,
and sugar ? " I exclaimed.
" All moonshine ! " was the laconic reply.
I thought a great deal of that miserable
famishing animal. He preyed on my mind,
in the watches of the night : I could hear
him through the open window, moving
restlessly among the bushes. I was sorely
tempted to rise and steal my own loaves,
and give him every crumb in the larder !
Next morning I boldly commanded four
enormous cakes to be made, and took them
to him myself. He seemed to know me, and
swallowed them down with wolfish avidity.
When we were fishing that same evening
I noticed the elephant down in the shallows
of the river, standing knee-deep in the
rushes ; his figure, in profile against the
84 VILLAGE TALES AND
orange sunset, looked exactly like the arch
of a bridge, so wasted was he.
In the course of a day or two we had
firmly cemented our acquaintance. Shere
Bahadur came up to the verandah for
sugar-cane and bread, and salaamed to me
ostentatiously whenever we met.
" As we are feeding the beast, we may as
well make use of him," remarked Tom, one
morning. " The mahout declares that the
rajah will let us have him for his keep, and
his own wages six rupees a month. We
can have a howdah, and the elephant will
be very useful when we get among the long
grass and the deer."
" Yes, do let us have him," I gladly
agreed. I could not endure to leave him
behind, to return to his ration of neem
leaves and semi-starvation. Tom there-
fore despatched a " chit " by the mahout to
the rajah, and the next day Shere Bahadur
came shuffling back, carrying a howdah and
his owner's sanction, also a paper which
Tom was requested to sign.
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 85
This document (written on the leaf of
a copybook, in English, with immense
flourishes) set forth " That Tom would
guarantee to hand Shere Bahadur back, in
good condition, at the end of two months,
and that if anything happened to the
elephant, short of natural death, Tom was
responsible for the value of the animal,
and the sum of two thousand rupees."
"Well," said Tom, "it is fair enough,
though I doubt if the poor old bag of bones
is worth two hundred rupees. He will be
well fed, and returned in good case, and if
he dies now on our hands, after living a
century, it will be a base piece of ingratitude
for all your kindness ; however, there is life
in the old boy yet. You and he are great
chums. He is a splendid shikar elephant,
though a bit slow. I think it is a capital
bunderbast." And he signed.
The mahout (now our servant) was full of
zeal and zest, and came and laid his head
on my feet, and assured me that " I was his
father and his mother, and that he was my
slave."
86 VILLAGE TALES AND
I took care to see Shere Bahadur fed
daily. He now really received a dozen
thick chupatties, and plenty of sugar-cane
and ghoor, and his expression lost its look
of anguish and famine, though it was early
days to expect any improvement in his
figure. When we marched, he accompanied
us, and I rode in the howdah and enjoyed
it. He picked his way so cleverly, and
thrust branches aside from our path so
carefully, and seemed (though this may be
a wild flight of imagination) to like to work
for me. He .was capital at going through
jungle, or over rough ground, but in marshy
places the poor dear old gentleman seemed
to have great difficulty in getting along,
and to have but little power in his hind
quarters.
Six weeks of our leave had melted away,
as it were time had passed but too rapidly.
Shere Bahadur proved invaluable out shoot-
ing. Thanks to him, Tom had got a fine
tigress, and Charlie some splendid head of
deer. They looked so odd in the high
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 87
elephant grass no elephant to be seen, but
merely two men, as it were sailing along
in a howdah. Our last days were, alas !
drawing near; our stores were becoming
perilously low. It was the end of March,
the grass and leaves were dry as tinder
and brittle as glass, as the hot winds
swept over them. Yes, it was imperative
to exchange these charming tents for the
thick cat-haunted thatch of our common-
place bungalow. We were all sunburnt,
happy, and somewhat shabby. I had con-
trived to see something of India, after all.
I knew the habits of some of the birds and
beasts the names of flowers and trees. I
had gazed at my own reflection in lonely
forest pools, that were half covered with
water-lilies, and from whose sedgy margin
flocks of bright-plumaged water-fowl had
flashed.
I had met the peacock and his wives
leisurely sauntering home after a night of
pillage in the grain fields. I had seen, in
a sunny glade, a wild dog playing with her
88 VILLAGE TALES AND
puppies. I had watched the hig rohu turn-
ing lazily over in the river; the sly grey
alligator lying log-like on the bank ; the
blue-bull, or nilgai, dashing through the
undergrowth. In short, I had seen a good
deal, though I was dull.
Twice a day I visited my dear friend
Shere Bahadur. I had become quite
attached to him, and I firmly believe that
he loved me devotedly. One evening I
arrived rather earlier than usual on my
rounds, and discovered the mahout in
deep converse with another man, a stranger,
who brought his visit to an abrupt close,
and said, as he hurried away, "Teen
Boze" (i.e. " three days"), to which the
mahout responded, "Bahout Atcha" (i.e.
"good").
"It is my Bhai," he explained. Every
one seems to be every one else's brother,
especially suspicious-looking acquaintances.
" He has come a long journey with a
message from my father my father plenty
sick, calling for me." An every-day excuse
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 89
for " taking leave," only second to the
death of the delinquent's grandmother.
On the afternoon of the third day we
found it too hot to go out early, and were
sitting in our dining-room tent fanning
ourselves vigorously and playing " spoof,"
when we suddenly heard a great commo-
tion a sound of shouting and running and
trumpeting. A tiger, or a "must " elephant,
was my first idea. Yes, there it was ! A
cry of " The elephant ! the elephant I " It
was an elephant my elephant. We hurried
to where a crowd of all our retainers had
collected. A quarter of a mile away there
was a sudden dip in the ground, a half-
dried-up pool of water, covered with a
glaze of dark blue scum, surrounded by
an expanse of black oozy mud, fringed with
rushes and great water-reeds, the sort of
place that was the sure haunt of malarious
fever and struggling in the midst of the
quagmire was Shere Bahadur. He had
already sunk up to his shoulders, whilst
his mahout lay on the bank tearing his
9 o VILLAGE TALES AND
hail-, beating his head upon the ground,
and shrieking at intervals, " My life is
departing ! my life is departing ! " Tom
angrily ordered him to arise, and get to
his place on the animal's hack, and en-
deavour to guide him out at the safest
part ; but it appeared to be all quag-
mire, and quivered for yards at every
movement of the elephant. The mahout
gibbered, and sobbed, but complied. He
scrambled on to Shere Bahadur's neck, and
yelled, gesticulated, urged, and goaded. No
need; the poor brute was aware of the
danger he was labouring now, not for other
people's profit or pleasure, but for his own
life. Every one ran for wood, wine-cases,
or branches, and flung them to the
elephant ; and it was pitiful to see how
eagerly he snatched at them, and placed
them beneath him, and endeavoured to
build himself a foothold. After long and
truly desperate exertions, he got his fore-
legs right up on the sound ground, ropes
were thrown to him, but, alas ! it was all
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 9'
of no avail; the morass was a peculiarly
bad one, and his powerless hind quarters
were unable to complete the effort and
land him safely. No, the cruel quagmire
slowly, surely, and remorselessly sucked
him down ; and. after a most determined
effort on the part of the spectators, and
a frenzied but impotent struggle on his
own, Tom turned to me and exclaimed
" Poor old boy ! it's not a bit of good ;
he will have to go ! "
" Go where ? " I cried. " He can be
saved ; he must be saved," I added,
hysterically.
" Impossible ; he has not sufficient power
to raise himself; the ground is. a sort of
quicksand. If there was another elephant
here, we might manage to haul him out ;
but, as it is, it is a mere question of time
he will be gone in half an hour."
I wept, implored, ran about like one
demented, begging, bribing, entreating the
natives to help. And, I must confess, they
all did their very best, nobly led by Tom
92 VILLAGE TALES AND
and Charlie. But their efforts were fruit-
less. Shere Bahadur's hour had come.
He had escaped bullets, grape-shot, and
tiger, to be gradually swallowed down by
that slimy black quagmire, and horrible
thought buried alive ! At the end of a
quarter of an hour he had sunk up to his
ears, and had ceased to struggle. His
trunk was still above the mud. His poor
hidden sides ! we could hear them going
like the paddle-wheels of a steamer. It
appeared to me that his eye sought mine !
Oh, I could endure the scene no longer,
I left the crowd to see the very end, rushed
back to the tent, flung myself on my bed,
covered up my head, and wept myself nearly
blind. It seemed hours and hours twenty-
four hours before Tom came in, and said,
as solemnly as if he were announcing the
death of a friend, " It is all over."
*****
The detestable mahout over-acted his
part ; at first he simulated frenzy, his grief
far surpassed mine, he gibbered, wept, and
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 93
beat his breast, and rolled upon the ground
at our feet in a paroxysm of anguish, as
he assured us that the rajah was a ruthless
lord, and that when he returned to Betwa
without the Hathi he would certainly be
put to torture, and subsequently to death.
And then Tom suddenly bethought himself
of the terms of the agreement. The elephant
had not died a natural death. No, he had
" gone down quick into the pit." He was
dead, and Tom was bound to pay two
thousand rupees (about ,150). He looked
exceedingly glum, but there was no other
alternative ; yes, he must pay even if he
could not contrive to look pleasant. He
most reluctantly sent the rajah a cheque
for the amount on the Bank of Bengal,
and the mahout departed with somewhat
suspicious alacrity, leaving the howdah
behind him.
Afterwards, we became acquainted with
two extraordinary facts. One was that the
rajah had carefully arranged for the death
of the elephant, even before we left our first
94 VILLAGE TALES AND
camp ; that the mahout's so-called brother
was simply a special messenger, who had
been despatched to " hurry up " the
tragedy. Discovery the second, that the
mahout had been seen by our shikarri and
several other men deliberately goading and
urging the elephant into the quagmire.
The wise animal had at first steadily re-
sisted, but putting implicit faith in his
rider who had driven him for years and
being the most docile of his race, he had
ultimately yielded, and obediently waded
in to his death. At first we indignantly
refused to credit these stories, and declared
that they were merely the ordinary mali-
cious native slander ; but subsequently a
slip of copy-book paper was discovered in
the pocket of the howdah, which, being in-
terpreted by Tom, read as follows
" Make no delay. Bad quagmire. Give
fifty rupees. BETWA."
And Shere Bahadur was betrayed for
that sum.
We received in due time an effusive
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 95
letter from the Kajah of Betwa, written,
as usual, on the leaf of a copy-book, and
inscribed with numerous ornamental flou-
rishes. He also enclosed a formal stamped
receipt, which is on my bill-file at the
present moment, and is not the least re-
markable of the many curious documents
there impaled. It says
" Eeceived from Mister Captain Thomas
Hay, the sum of two thousand government
rupees, the value of one War elephant
lost ! "
96 VILLAGE TALES AND
"PROVEN OR NOT PROVEN?"
THE TRUE STOEY OF
NAIM SING, EAJPOOT.
LOOK around, and above, with your mind's
eye, and behold high hills and deep narrow
valleys valleys overflowing with corn, and
hills speckled with flocks; no, these are
not the Alps, nor yet the Andes; the
sturdy brown people have the Tartar type
of face, their stubborn, shaggy ponies are
of Thibetan breed. You stand on the
borders of Nepaul, and among the lower
slopes of the great Himalayas a remote
district, but tolerably populated and pros-
perous. There are many snug, flat-roofed
houses scattered up and down the niches
in these staircase-like heights, encom-
passed with cowsheds, melon gardens,
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 97
groves of walnut trees, and a few almost
perpendicular acres of murga (grain) ; their
proprietors are well-to-do, their wants in-
considerable, the possession of a pony, half
a dozen goats, and a couple of milch
buffaloes, constitutes a man of means, who
is as happy in his way as, perhaps happier
than, the English or Irish owner of a great
landed estate. Moreover, this pastoral life
has its pleasures : there are holy festi-
vals, fairs, feasts, wrestling-matches, and
occasionally a little gambling and cock-
fighting. But even in these primitive
mountain regions, life is not all Arcadian
simplicity ; there are black spots on the sun
of its existence, such as envy, hatred,
malice, jealousy, false-witness, and murder.
Peaceful, even to sleepiness, as the dis-
trict appears, serene and immovable as the
grand outline of its lofty white horizon,
nevertheless this remote corner of the
world has been the scene of a renowned
trial a trial which outrivalled many a
notorious case in far-away Europe for
E
98 VILLAGE TALES AND
exciting violent disputes, disturbances, and
bloodshed a trial which convulsed Ku-
maon, Kali Kumaon, and Ghirwalh whose
effects, as it were the ripples from a stone
cast into still waters, are experienced to
the present hour in the shape of curses,
collisions, and feuds. At the root of the
trouble was, as usual, a woman.
Durali (which signifies ' darling ') was the
grandchild and only surviving relative of
Ahmed Dutt, a thriftless, shrivelled old
hill-man, who smoked serrus (or Indian
hemp) until he brought himself into a con-
dition of imbecility, and suffered his worldly
affairs to go to ruin ; his hungry cattle and
goats strayed over his neighbours' lands,
he cared not for crops, nor yet for wor-hos
(boundary marks), he cared for nought but
his huka, and his warm padded quilt, and
abandoned the beautiful Durali, like the
cattle, to her own devices. Now, accord-
ing to Durali, these devices were supremely
innocent : she spun wool, kept fowl, laboured
somewhat fitfully in the fields, and tended
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 99
the jungle of dahlias and marigolds which
threatened to swallow np the little slab-
roofed dwelling that was all. So said
Ahmed Dutt's granddaughter, hut public
opinion held a different view ; it lifted up
its voice (in a shrill treble), and declared
that Durali, being by general consent the
most beautiful woman in Kumaon, had
wrung the hearts of half the young ay,
and old men in the province ; that of a
truth her suitors were legion ; but that she
turned her back on all of them as she
would have fools to believe no !
Her grandfather was indigent, as who
could deny ? Whence, then, the rich silver
necklet, the bangles, the great belt of un-
cut turquoise, blue as the spring sky-
whence the strong Bhootia pony? Had
Ahmed Dutt been otherwise than a smoke-
sodden idiot and a dotard, he had, accord-
ing to custom, sold this valuable chattel a
full year ago, and received as her price
three hundred rupees, yea, and young asses,
perchance, and buffaloes. As it was, Durali
ioo VILLAGE TALES AND
ruled him tyrannically, flouted all humble
pretenders for her hand, and at eighteen
years of age was her own mistress,
fancy-free, poor, ambitious, and beautiful
miraculously beautiful ! since her wondrous
loveliness stirred even the leathern hearts
of these hill-men ; and she possessed a
face, figure, craft, and coquetry, amply
warranted to set the whole of Kumaon in
a blaze. Yea, the saying that " to be her
friend was unfortunate, to be her suitor
beckoned death," deterred but few. It
was undeniable that Farid Khan had
fallen over the khud, on the bad road to
Pura ; do not his bones lie, to this day,
unburied and bleaching, at the foot of that
awful precipice ? Who said that his rival,
Jye Bhan, had pushed him in the dark ?
Who could prove it ? At any rate, he was no
more. As was also Kalio Thapa, carried away
by a mighty flood in the Sardah river how
it befell, who could say ? And there was,
moreover, Phulia, who had certainly hanged
himself because Durali had spurned him.
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 101
Many were her adorers, and exceedingly
bitter the hatred they bore to one another.
Durali was tall, erect, and Juno-like, with
a skin like new wheat, features of a bold
Greek type, abundant jet-black hair, and a
pair of magnificent eyes. Other women
declared that there was magic in these
certainly they spoke with tongues, they
commanded, exhorted, entreated, dazzled,
and bewitched.
But Durali owed nothing to the fine
feathers which enhance the attractions of
so many fine birds. She wore a dark-blue
petticoat and short cotton jacket, a few
bangles and a copper charm the ordinary
attire of an ordinary Pahari girl ; dress could
add but little to her superb personality.
The handsome granddaughter of Ahmed
Dutt was well known by reputation in the
surrounding villages, her name was in
every one's mouth, her fame had penetrated
even as far as Almora itself. At the sacred
feast of the Dusserah, where crowds
assemble to behold the yearly sacrifice,
102
there Durali appeared for the first time, and
in gala costume^ wearing a short-sleeved red
velveteen bodice, an enviable silver necklet,
and a flower behind each ear. The eyes
of half the multitude were riveted on the
hill beauty instead of the devoted buffalo,
which had been tied up for days, at the
quarter guard of the G-hoorkas, and now
innocently awaited its impending fate.
Yes, people actually thronged, and pressed,
and pushed, and strove, in order to obtain
a good look at the famous Durali, for whom
men had contended, and fought ay, and
died.
* * * * #
There was a sudden lull in the loud
hum of voluble Pahari tongues, and all
attention was concentrated on a renowned
athlete, who stepped forward with the huge
Nepaulese sacrificial knife in his hand, and
with one swift dexterous blow severed the
buffalo's ponderous head from his body.
Immediately ensued a frenzied rush on the
part of the spectators, in order to dip a
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 103
piece of cloth in the smoking blood. There
was also a determined, nay, a ferocious
struggle between two young men, as to
which should have the privilege of plung-
ing Durali's handkerchief, on her behalf,
into the holy stream. This coveted office
fell to Nairn Sing, who wrung the cloth
from the feebler grasp of Johar, the son
of Turroo. This contest over a blood-
stained rag was noted at the time. It was
an evil omen, and more than one old crone
shook her grey head, as she muttered,
" Mark ye, my sisters, there will be yet
more trouble between the strivers yea,
bloodshed."
The victor was the son of Bhowan
Sing, who lived in the village of Beebadak,
and cultivated a considerable amount of
fertile land. He had three sons Umed
Sing, Eattan Sing, and Nairn Sing ; the
latter was the Benjamin of the family, a
handsome youth, with a lithe, symmetrical
figure, bold eloquent grey eyes, and crisp
black locks, the champion wrestler of his
io 4 VILLAGE TALES AND
pergunnah (and of the district) ; possessed
not merely of an active and powerful body,
but an active and powerful mind. His
appearance, his age, and his stronger
character, were not the only reasons that
made him looked up to by his brethren
and neighbours, and a ruler in his father's
house ; some two years previously, whilst
digging a well, he had discovered a pot
of coins, and was now the owner of twenty
pairs of pearls, fifty gold mohurs, four
ponies, and a herd of milch buffaloes.
Happy the woman whom Nairn Sing would
take to wife !
Johar, the son of Turroo, was a sturdy,
square-faced youth, honest and cheerful,
who had nought to cast into the bal-
ance against prowess, ponies, and pearls,
save one slender accomplishment, and his
heart he played somewhat skilfully on a
whistle, which was fashioned out of the
thigh-bone of a man, and profusely studded
with great rough turquoises. He was in
much request at all the revellings within
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 105
thirty miles that is to say, Johar with
his whistle.
Not long after the Dusserah, the vener-
able Ahmed Dutt smoked himself peacefully
out of this world, and was duly burnt, with
every necessary formality. His grand-
daughter being left forlorn, now took an
old woman to live with her in the little
stone house under the edge of the Almora
road, as you go to Loher Ghat. Durali
was in straitened circumstances ; the
murga crop had failed, three of her lean
kine were dead, but she was befriended by
Nairn Sing, who evinced much sympathy
for her desolate condition; and it was a
matter of whispered gossip that Johar was
also secretly performing acts of kindness
secretly, indeed, for none dared to put
themselves into competition with the for-
midable Nairn Sing, and it was believed
that he was the favoured suitor.
At harvest-time, Nairn Sing was com-
pelled to be absent for ten days, on an
urgent mission to the foot of the hills.
106 VILLAGE TALES AND
Immediately on Ms return, he hastened
to Durali's hut, and found her absent.
Wearied by a rapid march of thirty miles,
he cast himself down among the long rice
stalks at the foot of a choora tree, and
there impatiently awaited the reappearance
of his divinity. As he lay half dozing in
the heat, his practised ear heard steps and
voices, and looking through the rice stalks
he beheld a couple leisurely approaching.
The man was playing on a bone whistle,
and the woman carried sheaves of wheat
upon her stately head. There was no
difficulty in recognizing Durali and Johar.
The jealous watcher lay still, listening
eagerly with quick-coming breath. It
appeared to him that the beguiling Durali
by no means discouraged her companion's
advances, which were couched in the usual
flowery terms of Oriental flattery. " Oh,
woman, thou hast sheaves on thy head, but
they appear like clusters of pomegranates
on thy shoulders. There is none like thee.
The light of thy beauty hath illumined my
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 107
soul ! As for Nairn Sing, lie is a seller of
dog's flesh. ! an owl, the son of an owl ; he
is vain as the sandpiper, who sleeps with
his legs up, in order to support the sky
at night. Listen, core of my heart !
it hath come to mine ears, that trade and
barter have nought to do with his hasty
excursions to the plains he hath a wife at
Huldwani hence his journeys."
This was too much for the endurance
of his enraged listener, who, leaping
furiously upon Johar, clove his head
with his heavy tulwar (sword). Johar
staggered, blinded with blood, and defence-
less, then, turning, ran for his life; but
his infuriated enemy, flinging the shriek-
ing girl to one side, swiftly pursued the
wounded wretch to where he had sought
refuge in a cowshed, dashed in the frail
door, and there despatched him. Presently
he returned, fierce-eyed, savage, blood-
stained, to confront the horror-stricken
and trembling Durali.
" Woman," he cried hoarsely, " I have
io8 VILLAGE TALES AND
slain him thine the sin. His death be on
thy head ! "
But she, with many tears and vows,
vociferously protested her innocence, and
in a surprisingly short time appeased Nairn
Sing's wrath. Now that the rage of his
jealousy and vengeance had been satisfied,
he began to realize the result of his passion ;
he had slain a man not the first who had
met his death at his hands. He had once
killed an antagonist in a wrestling-match
that was a misadventure ; this was well,
the Sirkar would call it murder.
The shades of evening had not yet fallen,
and until, then he dared not set about con-
cealing the corpse. He found Durali a
cunning adviser and an unscrupulous ac-
complice. Men die hard, especially wiry
hill-men, and Johar had not passed away
in silence ; his expiring groans were heard
by Bucko, the old woman, and Nairn Sing
was therefore compelled to admit her into
the secret.
When the moon rose, the three con-
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 109
spirators bound up the body and carried
it down to one of the fields, there they
carefully uprooted each stalk, each distinct
plant, growing over the surface of what
was to form the future grave, which was
next excavated, and Johar, the son of
Turroo, was dropped into the hole, his
whistle flung contemptuously after him,
and both were presently covered up with
earth and wheat.
The burying-party returned to the hut,
where Nairn Sing inflicted a small wound
on his leg with a cut of his tulwar, in
order to support the statement he proposed
making to the authorities, that Johar had
attacked him with murderous intent, and,
having failed in his effort, fled. Next
morning Nairn Sing called on the Tehel-
seldhar and made his report, and the Tehel-
seldhar despatched a tokdar (responsible
official for a cluster of villages) to take
steps for the capture of Johar, the son of
Turroo. But Johar was not to be found,
or even heard of, and his own family
no TILLAGE TALES AND
became seriously alarmed, and suspected
foul play. If he had fled and departed on
a long journey, wherefore had he left his
boots, clothes, and money behind? The
connections of Nairn Sing were powerful,
their pirohet, or family priest, his personal
friend rumour and suspicion were strangled
but there were grave whispers round the
fires in the huts, all over the hills : what
had befallen Johar, the son of Turroo ?
However, a murder was a common event.
Blood-feuds were acknowledged, and soon
the circumstance was allowed to fade into
oblivion by all but Bateeban, a lame man,
Johar 's twin brother, who took a solemn
oath at Gutkoo temple to avenge him. He
suspected Durali ; he watched her and her
house by stealth. Why was one small
corner of the wheat-field uncut ? He made
her overtures of friendship, he flattered, he
fawned; by dint of judicious questions, and
even more judicious information, Eateeban
gained his end. Oh, false love ! Oh,
treacheiy 1 Oh, = woman ! it was the
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. in
beautiful Durali who led Rateeban to his
brother's grave, who showed him the blood
splashes on the cowshed walls, who told
him the truth. Yes, jealousy is doubtless
as cruel as the grave. Durali had capitu-
lated and given her long-beleaguered heart
wholly to Nairn Sing his eloquence, good
looks, prowess, ay, and presents, had
carried the citadel, and lo ! the dead man's
words were verified. Nairn Sing had already
a wife at Huldwani, a bold dark woman of
the plains, to whom he was secretly wed
by strictest and securest ceremonial.
To the amazement and indignation of
himself and his kinsmen, Nairn Sing was
arrested and carried to Almora jail, there
to await his trial; his friends and connec-
tions (who were many and powerful) made
a desperate attempt to secure his release ;
bribes, and even threats, were used; but
what could avail against the evidence of
the treacherous Durali ? and the evidence
of the dead body? Yes, Nairn Sing, the
champipn wrestler, the leading youth in
ii2 VILLAGE TALES AND
his district, handsome, popular, rich, in the
full zenith of his days and vigour, was bound
to be despatched to the dark muggy shores
of the Salween river, and end his existence
ingloriously in Moulmein jail. Never again
would he take part in a wrestling-match, or
breast his native mountains and chase the
ibex and makor ; his beloved hills, and his
ancestral home, would know him no more.
Eateeban, Johar's lame brother, would
have preferred the blood of his enemy, but
was fain to be contented with his sentence,
" Transportation for life." He exulted
savagely in his revenge, and actually ac-
companied the gang of wretched prisoners
the whole march of ninety miles to the
railroad on foot in order that he might
enjoy the ecstasy of gloating over his foe
in chains ! Each day at sundown, when
the party halted, Eateeban came and stood
opposite to Nairn Sing, and, leaning on his
stick, mocked him. It was rumoured that
Eateeban was not the sole voluntary escort,
but that a woman, veiled, and riding a
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 113
stout grey pony, stealthily followed the party
afar off ! It was Durali, who, when it was
too late, was distracted with penitence and
anguish. Her remorse was eating away
her very heart but to what avail now ?
Huldwani is a large, populous native
town on the edge of the Terai, a few miles
from the foot of the hills, and here a frantic
creature awaited the prisoners, or rather
the prisoner Nairn Sing. She tore her
hair, she beat her head upon the ground,
and Nairn Sing was not unmoved no.
Then she lifted up her hands and her
voice, and cursed with hideous screaming
curses " that woman who had wrought this
great shame and wickedness that other
woman on the hills ! " And the other
woman, having heard with her ears and
seen wi^h her eyes, turned back and re-
traced those weary ninety miles, now more
in anger than in sorrow, for such is
human nature.
In less than twelve months, the news
came to the hills that Nairn Sing had died
ii 4 VILLAGE TALES AND
in Moulmein prison, the death certificate
said of atrophia, but his father and brethren
called it a broken heart. " He was ever
too wild a bird for a cage," proclaimed his
kinsmen and friends ; and within a short
time he was as completely forgotten as
Johar, whom he had slain, and Durali,
whom he had deceived, and who had
disappeared.
*****
After a lapse of twenty years, two men
belonging to the village where Rateeban
lived, returned from a pilgrimage, and an-
nounced that at the great fair at Hard war,
on the Ganges, they had seen Nairn Sing
who had saluted them as Brahmins. He
had with him three horses, and a woman-
Ms wife and looked in good health, and
prosperous. Rateeban, at first angrily in-
credulous, finally determined to investigate
this matter in person, and once more
travelled the wearisome ninety miles which
lay between his home and the railway.
Though every step was painful, he heeded
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 115
it not, such is the power of hate ! With
inexhaustible patience, he followed clue after
clue ; he searched for nearly three months,
and was at last rewarded by success. Back up
to the hills, to a distant village in Grurwalh,
among the spectators at a great wrestling-
match, he tracked and found Nairn Sing 1
Nairn Sing, surprisingly . little changed.
Where were the signs of convict labour,
the marks of irons, and of that life that
burns into a man's soul ? He looked
somewhat older, his temples were bald,
but his figure was as upright, his foot as
firm, his eye as keen as ever. Eateeban
swore to him, with fervour, as an escaped
convict, and had him instantly arrested.
There was no doubt of his identity; there
was the self-inflicted scar on his leg, the
bone in his arm which had been broken by
wrestling. The criminal was brought back
to Almora, in order to be arraigned for un-
lawful return from transportation, and tried
under section 226 of the Indian Penal
Code.
n6 VILLAGE TALES AND
The tidings of the resurrection and re-
turn of Nairn Sing was passed by word of
mouth from village to village. His father
and brethren, his friends and relations, and
those of Johar and Eateeban, and, in short,
everybody's friends, flocked into Almora to
attend the trial. The case was heard in
the court-house, which stands within the
old fort ; and not only was the court itself
crammed to suffocation, but the crowds
overflowed the surrounding enclosure, even
down the narrow stone steps, and away into
the streets. Thousands and thousands
were assembled, and as the days went on
the interest quickened, and the case became
a matter of furious contention between two
factions for and against : the party who
declared the culprit was indeed the real,
true, and only Nairn Sing, and the party
who swore that he was not. Fierce feuds
were engendered, torrents of abuse and
angry blows were exchanged, blood was
freely shed.
All Kumaon and Gurwalh had encom-
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 117
passed Almora like an invading army, and
Kumaon, Gurwalh, and the respectable
Goorka station itself, were in an uproar,
and seething like a witches' cauldron.
The prisoner stood up boldly, as befitted
the namesake of the lion, and confronted
his accusers with a haughty and impassive
mien. But surely surely those keen grey
eyes were the eyes of Nairn Sing !
"I am not the criminal," he declared.
"Who is this Nairn Sing this murderer?
and what hath he to do with me ? Behold
I am Krookia, and my father is Eusool Sing,
who lives in the village of Tolee ; my star
is Jeshta and Eas, and my horoscope is
with G-unga Josh, if he be yet alive."
Moreover, he brought witnesses, and the
certificate of Nairn Sing's death in Moul-
inein jail.
" The people of the pergunnah, which
you aver that you belong to, do not know
you," said the Crown prosecutor. " But
Eateeban recognized you; how can you
explain that ? "
n8 VILLAGE TALES AND
" There be two Eateebans," was the glib
answer, " and one is mine enemy."
" Strange that Kateeban, the enemy of
Nairn Sing, is your enemy also."
" I doubt not that the lame dog may his
race be exterminated ! hath many foes. I
know him not. He hath been the means
of sending one man to prison for life, and
now, behold, he would despatch another. It
is a vicious ambition. As for the people of
.my village, lo ! many years ago, I found a
treasure, and my neighbours quarrelled and
beat and robbed me. They have no desire
to recall their own black deeds, nor my face.
I fled to the plains, where I have taken
road contracts for the Sirkar, and
prospered."
"Nairn Sing also found a treasure," said
the advocate. " Does the land in these
hills yield so many of these crops ? "
" By your honour's favour, I cannot tell.
I found one treasure, to my cost. Money
is a man- slayer."
Many witnesses recognized or repudiated
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 119
the prisoner, and there was hard swearing
on both sides.
At length a young Baboo from Allahabad
was put forward a keen, intelligent, brisk-
looking youth, wearing a velvet cap and
patent leather boots, embellished with
mother-of-pearl buttons.
" Twenty years ago I dwelt in Bareilly,"
he said. " There were four of us children,
my mother, and my father, who was sick
unto death. The jail daroga, who was his
kinsman, came to him privily one night,
and whispered long. I was awake, being
an-hungered, and heard all that was said.
" ( Lo ! Gunesheb, thou art my kinsman.
Thou art poor and sick, thy days are
numbered ; wouldst thou die a rich
man?'
" ' Would I die in Paradise ? ' said my
father.
" ' A gang of convicts pass here to-morrow,
on their way to Calcutta and Moulmein
beyond the sea. Wilt thou take the place
of one of them? Thou art his size and
120 VILLAGE TALES AND
height ; thou hast not long to live, he
has a strong young life ; and in return
for thy miserable body he will give four
hundred rupees, ten pairs of pearls, one
pair of gold bangles, and three ponies.'
" My father went forth that same hour
with the jail daroga, and returned no
more. Next day my mother wept sore ;
yea, even though she had gold bangles
on her arms, very solid, and pearls and
silver in a cloth ; also there were three
ponies, strong and fat, in our yard. Later,
she took us to see when the convicts
passed along the road, and we rode on
the ponies beside them for two days. She
told the warders she had a brother, falsely
accused, who was in the gang. He wore
a square cap pulled far over his eyes, and
he coughed as he marched. As we left,
he embraced me tenderly, by favour of the
warders. I knew he was my father.
Afterwards we went south, and returned
to Bareilly no more."
Thus G-unesheb had bartered away his
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 121
few remaining months of life for the benefit
of his family, and Nairn Sing had spread
a hold free wing, and enjoyed his liberty
for twenty years ! He had the ceaseless
craving of a born hillman to return to
the mountains. The line of snows edging
the burnt-up plains had drawn him like
a magnet. Slowly but surely, becoming
reckless with time and impunity, he had
cast fear and caution to the winds, as once
more the smell of the pine-needles and
of the wood smoke crept into his blood !
As he sat in the dock, the prisoner
deliberately scanned every face with an
air of lofty indifference. He swore to the
last that " he was Krookia, the son of
Kusool Sing," but no respectable land-
owner identified him under that name.
Moreover, the wife of Nairn Sing had been
recognized at her native place wearing her
rings and bangles, sure and certain token
that her husband was alive; and in the
face of overwhelming evidence, the culprit
was sentenced for the second time on the
122 VILLAGE TALES AND
same spot to be transported beyond the
seas for the term of his natural life.
Then Nairn Sing arose, tall and erect,
a dignified and impressive figure, carrying
his two-score years with grace, and made
a most powerful and thrilling appeal in
his own defence an appeal for an innocent
man, who was about to be banished for
ever from his home and country, because,
forsooth, his features had the ill fortune
to resemble those of a dead murderer !
During his speech, one could almost hear
a leaf fall outside the court. The previous
quiet had now changed to what resembled
a hush of awe. The audience within and
without the windows and doors stood
wide, and exhibited an immense sea of
human heads hung with avidity on each
sonorous syllable. Not a gesture, not a
glance was lost. So stirring and impas-
sioned was his eloquence, that every heart
was shaken, and many were moved to
tears. But the condemned man pleaded
his cause in vain ; in fact, his silver tongue
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 123
afforded but yet another proof of his
identity. His fate was sealed. Fearing a
public tumult, he was removed secretly
ere dawn, marched down the mountain
sides for the last time, despatched to the
Andamans, and there he died.
So ended a trial that lasted many days,
that was more discussed and fought over
than any law-suit of the period ; a case
which is fiercely argued and hotly debated
even to the present hour; a cause which
has divided scores of households and sepa-
rated chief friends. For there are some
who declare that the real Nairn Sing
expired in Moulmein jail khana nineteen
years previously, and that the vengeance
of Rateeban demanded two lives for one ;
also that the heavily bribed son of Gunesheb
had borne black false witness, his father
having died in his own house ; and that, of
a truth, an innocent man was condemned
to transportation and death : but there be
some who think otherwise.
i2 4 VILLAGE TALES AND
AN OUTCAST OF THE PEOPLE.
" Pushed by a power we see not, and struck by a band
unknown,
We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips
to a stone."
SIR A. LTALL.
JASODA was seventeen years of age, and fair
as a sunrise on the snows. She dwelt in
a district not far from the Goomptee river,
among the wheat and poppy fields that are
scattered over Kohilcund.
As a little girl, all had gone well with
her ; she was petted and caressed ; she
played daily in the sun with other village
children, erecting palaces and temples with
dust and blossoms; her hair was carefully
plaited and plastered with cocoa-nut oil ;
she wore a big nose-ring, anklets, and
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 125
bangles not brass or pewter, but real
silver ones, for she was married to the heir
of a rich thakur, a delicate, puny boy of
her own age. But one rains he died, and
there was sore, sore lamentation. Had
Jasoda realized what his death signified to
her, she would have wailed ten times louder
than any paid mourner ; but ignorance was
surely bliss, and she was not very sorry,
for Sapona had been greedy, fretful, and
tyrannical. He had often struck her,
pinched her, and pulled her long plaits, or
run screaming with tales to his mother a
fat woman with a shrill tongue and a heavy
arm whom Jasoda feared.
But after Sapona had been carried away
to the burning ghaut, all seemed changed ;
every one appeared to hate Jasoda, yea,
even her own grandmother. Her orna-
ments were taken off, her head was shorn,
her cloth, though white, was coarse and
old; there were no more games under the
tamarind trees, and no more sweets.
Jasoda' s life was blighted in the bud, for,
126 VILLAGE TALES AND
at the tender age of six, she was that
miserable outcast, a Braminee widow. Poor
pariah ! she would stand aloof, with wide-
open wistful eyes (ostentatiously shunned
by the other children in the courtyard),
and wonder what it all meant. She would
piteously inquire of her grandmother, as
the crone sat spinning cotton, " What she
had done. Wherefore might she not eat
with her, and why did Jooplee push her,
and strike her, if she approached her ? and
wherefore did her mother-in-law, and other
women, hold aside their clothes lest she
should touch them as she passed? "
" The shadowof a widow is to be dreaded,
and it is the custom, it is our religion,"
muttered the old woman, as if speaking
to herself. No doubt the days of suttee
were better; then the girl had one grand
hour, applauded by the world ; she was holy
and sanctified, and hers was a glorious
triumph as she walked in procession behind
the tom-toms, whilst thousands looked on
with awe, and the devout pressed forward
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 127
to touch her garments. Was not a moment
like that worth years of drudgery and
misery, blows and scorn? True, at the
end of the march, there was the funeral
pyre under the peepul tree ; but if there
was oil among the faggots, and the wood
was not too green, and the priests plied the
suttee with sufficient bhang, it was nought 1
And her screams were always drowned in
the shouting and the tom-toms. She her-
self had seen a suttee ; yes, and the girl
was forced into it. She had no spirit ; she
wept, and shrieked, and struggled, so
people had whispered, but her relations
drove her to the faggots, for the family of
a suttee are held in much esteem ! Truly
it were better for Jasoda, this child with
the beautiful face, to have died for the
honour of her people than to live to be
their scapegoat and their slave !
As years went on, and hot weather,
monsoon, and cold season passed, and crops
were sown and cut, and there were births
and marriages and deaths, Jasoda grew up.
i 2 8 VILLAGE TALES AND
She was now seventeen, and very fair to
see. Her mother-in-law hated her, as did
also her brother; and, more than all, her
brother's wife, and her sisters-in-law. In
spite of their fine silk sarees and gold
ornaments, they were but little stars, whilst
this accursed girl was as the sun at noon-
day !
Jasoda was the drudge of the family, a
large clan, dwelling, as is customary, with-
in the same enclosure. These courtyards,
built irregularly, somewhat resemble a
child's house of cards; narrow footpaths
between the mud walls compose the village
streets. You may steer your way among
these beaten tracks, and beneath these sun-
baked entrenchments, and never see a single
house ; merely various postern doors which
enclose a space, possibly containing ten
hovels, and as many families. One of the
largest courtyards in the village belonged
to Padooram, the brother of Jasoda; he
was the richest man in the whole per-
gunnah, owned land and cattle and plough
JUNGLE TEAGED1ES. 129
bullocks, and had no bunnia's claims to
disquiet Ms sleep. His wife, a fat, pock-
marked woman, boasted real gold bangles,
and a jewelled nose-ring, and was the envy
of her sex. There was Jasoda's father and
mother-in-law, and Monnee and Puthao,
their married daughters ; her younger
brother ; his wife and family ; also her old
grandmother; and Jasoda was the servant
of them all. Truly they were hard masters
and merciless mistresses. She, their slave,
arose at dawn. She drew water till her
arms ached. She ground meal, and cooked,
and polished the brass cooking-vessels ; she
carried the clothes of these households to
the ghat, and washed them ; she minded
the children, and milked the buffaloes, and
herded the cattle. More than this, when
one of the plough bullocks was sick, her
brother placed the yoke on Jasoda's
shoulders, and drove her as companion to
the spotted ox, up and down the long
furrows, and in the sight of all people. To
them it was as nought ; no one cried
F
i 3 o VILLAGE TALES AND
shame, or pitied her she was only a
widow. In the harvest season there was
much to do, from daylight till dusk, cutting
cane and corn, and carrying and stacking,
and working at the sugar-press. Some-
times, strong girl as she was, Jasoda wept
from sheer weariness. Yet, for all this toil,
she harely got enough to keep her from
semi-starvation. She was flung the scraps
that were left from meals, as well as the
rags of the family. Nor did she ever re-
ceive one kind word or look, not even from
her grandmother. However, she was amply
compensated for this cruel indifference from
another source. Many were the kind words
and looks bestowed on her hy the young
men of the village ; but Jasoda was proud.
Jooplee, her sister-in-law, famed for the
most evil mind and wicked tongue within
many koss, even she could find no cause
of offence in her drudge, save that she was
the fairest maiden in all the taluka, and
this fault she punished with the zeal and
vigour of an envious and ugly woman 1
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 131
Jasoda was desperately unhappy. What
had she done to men or gods, to be treated
thus cruelly? And there was nothing to
look forward to, even in twenty years'
time. Her present lot would only <be
altered by death and after death ? There
was no future existence for such as she.
Many a time she crept away, and poured
out all her wrongs to the squat stone idol
daubed with red paint, whose temple was
the shade of the peepul tree. She asked
him, " Why women were ever born into the
land ? " and besought his help with tears
and passionate pleadings. In vain she
cried, "Earn, ram," and took him offerings
of flowers, and gashed her arm with a sickle,
and shed her hot young blood before him.
He maintained his habitual placid pose, his
vacant stare, his graven grin, and gave no
sign. No, at the end of six weary moons
there was still no answer to her prayers.
Heart-sick, Jasoda now went and gazed
longingly at the river. She stole away to
visit it whilst her relations took their
13* VILLAGE TALES AND
midday rest in the cane-fields. Alas ! it
was very low, and fat muggers lay upon its
grey mud banks, as lazy as so many logs
of wood, though their evil little eyes were
active enough watching for floating corpses.
No, no ; a big rapid torrent in the rains,
with a strong flood, fed by the far-away
snows, rushing boldly onward, bearing great
blocks of foam on its brown bosom, into
that she could cast herself, but not into
one of these slow, slimy channels, creeping
past greasy banks, whereon ravenous alli-
gators would battle for her body.
As time advanced, the tyranny of the
family became more oppressive, and Jasoda
threw patience to the winds indeed, it had
long been threadbare. To be sent five or
six koss in the burning June sun, to gratify
the momentary whim of Taramonnee, a
child, or, rather, imp of five, was beyond
endurance, and represented the proverbial
" last straw." The domestic martyr being
hopeless and desperate, now turned on her
tormentors, as a leopardess at bay. Why
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 133
should she be as an ox, a beast of burthen,
all her days ? She gave shrill invective
for invective, accepted curses and blows
with sullen indifference, and refused to
work beyond a certain portion. Yea, they
might kill her, if they so willed ; it would
be all the better ; and she oscillated
between fits of hot passion and moods of
cold obstinacy. Her aged grandmother
could not imagine what had happened to the
household slave. She was usually so long-
suffering, so easily driven and abused. The
hag and the other women put their heads
together and took counsel, whilst the rebel
sat aloof in a dark corner of her hut, like
some wild animal in its den, her fixed dark
eyes staring out on the glaring white court-
yard with an expression of intense, hopeless
despair. She hated every one. She felt
that she could almost kill them. Truly
she had been born in an evil hour and
under an evil star, and she cursed both
hour and planet. There were Junia and
Talloo, girls who had played with her:
i 34 VILLAGE TALES AND
each had a husband and babies and
bangles ; yea, and cows of their own.
Why was she beaten and half starved, and
treated like a stray pariah dog ? She was
handsomer than either. Isa, the son of
G-anga, had told her that her eyes were
stars, her teeth as seed pearls, and her lips
like the bud of the pomegranate ; yet these
fat, ugly women slept at ease on their
charpoys, whilst she toiled in the cold grey
dawn or in the scorching noonday heat !
Above all creatures who breathed, she
detested Jooplee, her sister-in-law, the
mother of Taramonnee ; and next to her,
Taramonnee, a shrill- voiced, malignant imp,
who pinched and bit her secretly, and
who once when she was tied up and
beaten danced before her, and made
mouths at her and mocked her, clapping
her hands with fiendish ecstasy.
For many months a great fire had been
smouldering in Jasoda's heart, and woe
be to the hand that stirred it ! Once more
it was the cane-cutting season, and she was
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 135
toiling hard all day, reaping and carrying
and stacking. She was very very weary, and
whilst the carts lumhered villagewards with
the last load, she sat down under a peepul
tree to rest. It was the soft hour of
sunset, the cattle were going home, bats
were flickering to and fro, the low evening
smoke lay like a pale blue veil over the
land : smoke from fires where many hungry
people were baking the universal chupatti.
Jasoda fell fast asleep, and dreamt. Her
dreams were pleasant, for she dreamt that
she was dead. Suddenly she was rudely
awoke by an agonizing pain. No, it was
not a snake-bite ; it was a pinch from the
sharp strong fingers of Jooplee's daughter,
who, gazing intently into her face, cried
with malicious glee
" Ah, lazy one, arise and work ! I shall
tell of thee, and to-night thou shalt be
beaten. The neighbours refuse to believe
that father beats thee, because thou dost
not scream. Mother said so. But thou
shalt scream to-night, so that thy cries can
i 3 6 VILLAGE TALES AND
be heard as far as the burmia's shop. Get
up, pig I " And she pushed her with her
foot.
It needed but a touch like this to rouse
the sleeping flame. Instantly Jasoda sprang
erect, rage in her heart and murder in her
eye. At least she would rid herself of this
insect, and, snatching up a stone, she
dashed it at the child with all the force of
a muscular arm, and with the fury of years
of repressed passion. The aim was true,
and Taramonnee fell. For a second her
limbs twitched convulsively, and then she
lay still oh, tragically still.
" Eise ! " screamed Jasoda. " Kise ! and
may thine eyes be darkened, thou little
devil!"
But there was no movement; Tara-
monnee was evidently stunned. Jasoda
stooped and raised her, whilst a terrible
fear crept over her. The child's head fell
back, her hand dropped. Was it possible ?
Could she be dead ? Yes, she was dead,
though she had not meant to kill her ; and,
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 137
since she could not bring her to life, what
was she to do ? She gazed with horror at
this awful, motionless thing, whose life she
herself had taken, oh, how easily ! She
could no longer endure those staring, glaz-
ing eyes, she must put them 6ut of her
sight. Eaising the limp body with a
supreme effort, she carried it in her arms
to a dry well at some distance, and then
averting her face, she threw it down. It
struck against the sides, with a dull muffled
sound, and fell to the bottom with a
hideous crash that made her shudder. As
Jasoda went slowly homewards, she was
conscious that she was now the same as
Moola, the son of Maldhu, who had cut his
wife's throat with a sickle ; or the city girl,
who drowned her baby in the tank in the
Mango tope. She cooked the evening meal
as usual, and heard Jooplee inquire for
Taramonnee, and send to seek her at a
neighbour's ; presently she became anxious,
talked of snakes, hyenas, and devils, and
even went herself to each postern door,
i 3 8 VILLAGE TALES AND
and called, " Taramonnee, Taramonnee ; "
but she never once thought of inquiring
about her from the sullen girl who was
washing the cooking-pots. The old grand-
mother said soothingly, " Surely she hath
gone with Almonee, who lives across the
river." But this did not satisfy her anxious
parent, and the neighbourhood was sum-
moned, and a great search made. It was full
moon a splendid harvest moon and bright
as day. All night long Jasoda lay awake,
watching the moonbeams and listening to
the melancholy howl of the jackals, and the
heavy thud of the ripe banka fruit as it fell
in the courtyard. Should she run away or
stay? she asked herself. She debated the
vital question long, and finally resolved
that she would abide and await her fate !
She was weary of life. Why prolong it ?
The river was low ; best perish by the rope,
and thus end all. At least she would have
rest and peace, and perhaps a new and
better life in another world.
At daybreak, the body of Taramonnee was
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. 139
brought in and laid before her mother, who
tore her hair in a frenzy, and beat her head
against the wall. The hakim was sum-
moned, and solemnly declared that the
child had not met her death by accident.
No; behold, there was the blow on her
temple ; of a surety, she had been murdered,
and by whom ? Jooplee read the answer
in Jasoda's eyes.
"Yes, I struck her," admitted the girl
boldly. " She came to me by the cane-field,
and pinched me sorely when I was asleep.
I am glad she is dead."
She repeated the same story to four
police, who arrived at noon, and bound her
arms, and led her away to jail. She suffered
it to be believed that she had murdered the
child in cold blood, and thrown her down
the well. Jasoda's case was unusually
simple ; there was but a brief trial. The
culprit offered no defence, and had ap-
parently no friends. It was known that
she had always hated Taramonnee and her
mother ; she had found the former alone,
I 4 o VILLAGE TALES AND
had slain her, and was glad. Her own
rnouth destroyed her. The village was in a
ferment. The court was crowded ; Jooplee
and her people were ravening for revenge.
As for Jasoda's kindred, they knew she
must be hanged which thing was worse
than suttee disgrace instead of glory
would cover them ! When asked if she
had aught to say, Jasoda stood up before
the judge, a beautiful young creature, with
the passionate dark eyes and the regular
features of her race, and the form of a
Grecian nymph, and answered distinctly
" No, my lord sahib, I care not for my
life ; and, if it is the will of the sirkar, let
them take it." To herself she said, " Better
this end than the other; the river is low."
As Jasoda lay under sentence of death,
her venerable grandmother bestirred her-
self to save her. She was a shrivelled,
hideous old hag, with a ragged red chuddah
over her head, and she sat at the gate of
the judge's compound daily, and cried for
the space of two hours without ceasing.
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 141
" Do hai ! Do hai ! Do hai ! " i.e. " Mercy !
mercy! mercy!' 1 She then adjourned to
the cantonment magistrate's abode, and
shrieked the same prayer outside his gates ;
and finally to the civil surgeon's, who was
also the jail superintendent ; and to him,
for this reason, she devoted one hour extra,
and her voice never once failed. Thus
much for being the scold of the village !
There was intense excitement in the neigh-
bourhood as the day of execution drew
nigh, and lo ! one evening, when a great
gallows was raised on the maidan, there
were already collected thousands of people,
precisely as if it were some holy spot, a
scene of pilgrimage all attracted by the
same desire to see a woman hanged !
It was indeed a grand tamasha. The
crowds far surpassed in numbers those who
assembled at the yearly feast. The local
inhabitants noted with complacency the
hundreds of total strangers who came for
many miles on foot, on ponies, or in ekkas.
Old Sona ceased now to scream and beat
1 43 VILLAGE TALES AND
her breast. She felt like one of the actors
in a tremendous tragedy, and was the object
of a certain amount of curiosity and atten-
tion a position that was entirely novel,
and alas ! alas ! that it must be chronicled
secretly enjoyed. The sun rose on the
fatal day the last sunrise Jasoda would
ever see the great prison gates opened,
and a body of police marched slowly forth.
Then came Jasoda, walking between two
warders. There was a murmur among the
throng. She was surprisingly fair to behold,
and for once in her life she wore a dress
like girls of her class. A wealthy and
eccentric woman in the city had sent it to
her. Yes, she was as fair as the newly
risen dawn. She stood and steadily sur-
veyed the immense expectant multitude.
She recognized the eyes of many people
from her own village fixed upon her with a
mixture of interest and awe. She beheld
her old grandmother, and her brother, and
Moonee, and Pathoo, and Jai Singh, the
son of Herk Singh, who had compared her
JUKGLE TRAGEDIES. 143
to Parbutti herself and to the new moon.
It seemed to her that to be the centre of
interest to so vast a throng was almost as
fine as a suttee ! The last moment arrived,
and the superintendent asked her if she had
anything to say, any bequests to make.
"Bequests!;" and she almost laughed.
" Truly I have nothing in the world save a
few rags. But thou mayest give my body
to my grandmother; she seems sorry. I have
nothing to say. The child hurt me, and I
struck her. I meant not to kill her ; never-
theless, she died ; that is all. She is dead,
and I shall soon be dead also."
Jasoda's fortitude did not fail her no,
not when her arms were pinioned, her
petticoats tied about her feet, the cap
drawn over her face. She never once
quailed or trembled.
*****
When the body had been cut down, and
the crowd had dispersed, the superintendent
sent for the old grandmother, who came,
dry- eyed and fierce.
144 VILLAGE TALES AND
" It is somewhat against rules/' he said,
" but I am going to grant you the girl's
only request : she said you were to have
her body take it away, and burn it ! "
"I!" shrieked the harridan, "/touch
her after the dones (hangmen) have laid
their hands on her ! /, a high-caste
Braminee ! Do with the carrion as thou
wilt!" and she spat on the ground and
went her way. Thus, after death, neglect
and scorn pursued poor hot - tempered
Jasoda, even to the grave.
Nevertheless, had she but known it, her
wrongs were most amply avenged. Who
was there to do the work of the family
nay, of five families ? She who had been
their slave for years was sorely missed.
The lazy, useless womenkind had now to
cook and bake, draw water and feed cows,
and grumbled loudly and quarrelled sav-
agely among themselves yea, even to
blows though the task of one was now
portioned among so many. The patient,
graceful figure, toiling to and from the well,
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 145
or laden with wood or fodder, was no longer
to be met, and was missed by more than
her own household.
" She was the fairest girl in all the
district," said Gropal, the bunnia's son.
" There was no joy in her life, she seemed
glad to die. Truly her execution was a
grand tamasha, and brought many strangers
from afar."
This was her epitaph.
Jasoda's name is still green in the
memory of the villagers of Sharsheo ; not
that they acknowledge any special claim
on her part to beauty, virtue, or martyr-
dom, but simply because it is not easy to
forget that Jasoda, the daughter of Akin-
alloo, and the widow of Sapona, was hanged.
i 4 6 VILLAGE TALES AND
AN APPEAL TO THE GODS.
" We be the gods of the East,
Older than all ;
Masters of mourning and feast,
How shall we fall ? "
WITHIN forty miles of where the Himalayas
rise from the plains, and the sunrise unveils
the blushing snows and precisely half a
koss from the Kanat river lies the hamlet
of Haru, surrounded by a tangle of castor-
oil plants, mango trees, and tamarinds, and
standing in the midst of a fertile tract of
cane, corn, and poppy. The scarlet-and-
white poppies, the stiff, green cane, the
waving yellow wheat, also the village (which
boasted nine hundred souls at the last
census), were the joint property of two
wealthy zemindars. The northern part of
Haru including the crops sown for the
opium department was the inheritance of
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 147
Durga Pershad, a tall, dark, gaunt man,
with an unpleasant and sinister expression.
The wheat, cane, and southern end of the
town belonged to G-olab Rai Sing, who bore
but a scant resemblance to his name " the
King of Roses;" he was, in fact, a stout,
smiling, pock-marked person, with a glib
tongue, and a close fist. These two
zemindars hated one another as thoroughly
as men in their position were not only
bound, but born to do. They had not
merely been bequeathed adjoining lands,
and a whole village between them, but
a venerable blood feud, which had been
conscientiously handed down from genera-
tion to generation.
In good old days days within living
memory there had been desperate out-
breaks, dacoities, and murders, attended with
the usual sequel : hanging or imprisonment
beyond the seas. Now, in more civilized
times (although the vital question of the
well by the temple was yet in abeyance,
passed on from collector to collector), the
i 4 8 VILLAGE TALES AND
rival factions were content with pounding
each other's cattle, burning each other's
fodder, and blackening each other's
characters. Both had a large following of
tenants, relations, parasites; and he who
brought tidings that evil had befallen the
enemy was a truly welcome guest ! When
the great men met, they simply scowled
and passed on their way, and their women-
folk laid every sin to the charge of their
neighbours that it is possible for the de-
praved imagination of a practised native
slanderer to conceive.
Golab Eai Sing was the richer of the two
zemindars, though Durga Pershad owned
a larger extent of ground ; but it was
whispered that he had losfc much money in
a law-suit, and that Muttra Dass (the
soucar) held a mortgage on his best crops ;
nevertheless, he carried his head high, and
his wife had real silver tyres to the wheels
of her ekka !
It was the first moon in the new year,
and the collector's camp was pitched under
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 149
the mango tope, between the village and
the river ; he had but recently returned
from two years' furlough, and from the
whirl of politics and the turmoil of life at
high pressure ; also, he was new to the
district.
As he stood meditating on the river bank
at dawn, and saw the snows rise on the
horizon with the sun, watched the strings
of cattle soberly threading their way to
pasture, heard the doves cooing in the
woods, and the rippling of the river through
the water plants, he said to himself, " Here
at least is rest and peace." Casting his
eyes toward the red-roofed houses, half
concealed among bananas and cachar trees,
with their exquisite purple flowers
" I am not sure that these people have
not six to four the best of it," he remarked
aloud (no one but his dog received this
startling confidence), as he gazed enviously
at a group of lean brown Brahmins who were
dipping piously in the Kanat, and pouring
water from their brass lotahs ; he thought
iSo VILLAGE TALES AND
of his own tailor's and other bills, his wife's
insane extravagance, her flirtations, his hard
work, his years of enforced exile.
" Yes," he continued, " we know nothing
about it. We wear ourselves out running
after phantoms. Here is contentment,
assurance of future happiness, and present
peace."
But then, you see, he was a new man a
visionary and was totally ignorant of the
internal condition of this picturesque and
primitive hamlet.
The same day, as in duty bound, the two
zemindars, each mounted on a pony, and
followed by a crowd of retainers, waited
upon the collector sahib, apparently on the
most amicable terms. Just once a year
they were compelled to masquerade as
friends, though when they had the collector's
ear in private audience, their mutual com-
plaints were both numerous and bitter.
They bore, as offerings, fruit and wreaths of
evil-smelling marigolds (that noxious flower
BO amazingly dear to the native of India) ;
JUNGLE TE AGE DIES. 151
also Golab Eai Sing carried with him one
thing which his rival lacked, and that was
his son and only child, Soonder i.e. "the
beautiful " a lively boy of five years, who
was gaily attired in a rose-coloured satin
coat, and wore a purple velvet cap and gold
bangles. He was a sharp and unquestion-
ably spoiled urchin. He sat with his father
and friends, or with his mother and her
associates, and listening open-eared, like
the proverbial little pitcher, heard many
things that were not good for his morals
heard perpetual ridicule and abuse of
the enemy of his house ; therefore, when
he encountered Durga Pershad in fields or
byways, he made hideous grimaces at
him, squinted significantly, and called him
"dog," "pig," " robber " behaviour that
naturally endeared him to Pershad, who
yearned with irrepressible craving to find
him alone ! Subsequently the heir of Golab
Eai Sing would return to his fond parents,
boast of his performance, and receive as
reward and encouragement lumps of sticky
i 5 a VILLAGE TALES AND
cocoanut and deliciously long, wormy native
sweets.
On the supreme occasion of the yearly
reception, the child Soonder was as prettily
behaved and hypocritical as his elders.
The collector's lady noticed him and that
publicly. She knew better than to say he
was a handsome boy (for, if she had no fear
of the evil eye, it was otherwise with her
audience), but she gave him a picture
paper, and a battledore and shuttlecock,
and his father swelled, beamed, and literally
shone with pride for was not the presenta-
tion made in the face of childless Durga
Pershad, and all the elders of the people ?
And greater glory was yet in store for this
fortunate zemindar. The collector, having
looked over various papers, and heard
witnesses (many false), actually deigned to
visit the well in person, and concluded what
he considered a shamefully procrastinated
case, and finally made over the Kooah well,
and all its rights, to Grolab Kai Sing and
his heirs for ever !
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 153
That night Golab made a great feast to
all his followers, and bitter were the thoughts
of his defeated rival, as he lay sleepless
on his string charpoy, listening to the
devilish exultation implied by the ceaseless
tom-toms.
As days went on, his thoughts became
still more poignant ; it seemed to him that
his friends were showing defection. Golab
Rai had fine crops, on which there was no
lien ; he had a son to light the torch of his
funeral pyre ; he had the well. Of a truth,
he had too much ! And he, Pershad, had
been flung in the dust, like a broken gurrah.
Thus he reflected as he sat brooding on the
river-bank at sundown. The cattle were
strolling home through the marshes, the
cranes were wheeling overhead, close by
a fierce, lean, black pariah gnawed some
mysterious and ghastly meal among the
rushes, and on a sandbank lay three huge
alligators motionless as logs of wood
crafty as foxes, voracious as South Sea
sharks. Durga Pershad glanced indifferently
iS4 TILLAGE TALES AND
at the cattle, at the cranes, but as his eyes
fell on the alligators they kindled, they
blazed with a truly sinister flash the
alligators had offered him an idea !
* * * * *
It was the feast of lights or lanterns, the
festival of Lucksmi, wife of Vishnu, and
the goddess of festival. She, however,
brought naught but sore misfortune to the
house of G-olab Kai, for since sundown
the child was missing was gone, without
leaving a trace. Amongst the busy ex-
citement of preparing the illuminations and
decorations, he had vanished. His mother
supposed he was with his father, and his
father believed him to be with his mother.
Every house, byre, and nook yea, even
the well, was searched in vain. Durga
Pershad was humbly appealed to, as he sat
on his chabootra stolidly smoking his huka.
" Why question me ? " he replied. " How
should I know aught of the brat? What
child's talk is this ? "
A whole day twenty-four long hours
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 155
elapsed, and suspicion pointed a steady
finger at Durga Pershad. Of late it was
noticed that he and the child had been
friends that he had given Soonder sweets
yea, and a toy. One man averred that
he saw a pair resembling them going
towards the river about sundown. The
child was jumping for joy, and had a green
air-balloon in his hand.
This, Durga Pershad swore, was a black
lie ; he had never left the village ; his kins-
man could speak.
" For how much ? " scoffed the other side.
" What fool will credit a man's relations ? "
Four days passed, and Golab Eai had aged
by twenty years. His round, fat face was
drawn and shrivelled ; he was bent like an
aged man, and tottered as he walked.
As for his wife, she had almost lost her
senses, though both she and her husband
clung wildly to hope, and he had lavished
money unsparingly in rewards and horse-
flesh. As a last resource, the miserable
mother of Soonder came and cast her
156 VILLAGE TALES AND
dishevelled person at the feet of Durga
Pershad Durga Pershad, whom all her life
she had mocked, reviled, and figuratively
spat upon.
"Take all I possess!" she cried "my
jewels, my eyes, my very life ; hut tell me
what thou hast done with him ? Doth he
yet live ? My life, all thou wilt, for his ! "
As she spoke, a little cap was brought a
velvet cap, soaking with water. It had
been found by a fisherman three miles down
the river.
This was sufficient answer to the ques-
tion, " Doth he yet live ? " The child was
ho more, his cap bore witness ; and Gindia,
his mother, swooned as one that was dead.
Yes, Soonder had been thrown to the
alligators, without doubt ; cast into their
jaws, like a kid or a dog. In their mind's
eye, the villagers beheld the hideous scene,
they heard the shriek, saw the splash, and
the ensuing scuffle. What death should
Durga Pershad die ?
The whole place was in an uproar ; ex-
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 157
citement was at fever heat. The police were
sent for to Hassanpore, the nearest large
station, and the suspected zemindar was
marched away, and lodged in the Jail
Khana ; even his own people were dumb.
Durga Pershad stoutly avowed his inno-
cence by every oath under a Hin'doo heaven.
He engaged, at enormous expense, an Eng-
lish pleader from Lucknow. He paid much
money elsewhere. There was no case. If
one man swore he met him with the child
at sundown on the feast of lights, there
were five unshaken witnesses who had
seen him at the same hour in the village.
Therefore Durga Pershad was acquitted ;
and, moreover, in the words of the Sudder
judge, " without a stain on his character ! "
Nevertheless, matters were not made
equally agreeable for him at home. His
own partisans save his tenants held aloof
with expressive significance, and those who
were wont to assemble on his chabootra
of an evening to smoke, argue, and bukh,
were reduced by more than half.
158 VILLAGE TALES AND
But lie held his head as high as ever,
whilst that of his enemy lay low, even to
the dust. Of what avail now to Golab
Rai were his crops, his rents, his great
jars of " goor " (coarse sugar), even his
well, when he had no longer a child a
son and heir ?
The immediate effects of the tragedy
gradually faded away ; it had ceased to
be the sole daily topic, and it was again
winter- time. One chill, starlight even-
ing, as Durga Pershad was- riding home
alone among the cane-fields, he was
suddenly set upon by a number of men,
who had lain in ambush in the crops. A
cloth was thrown over his head, he was
dragged off his pony, and hustled into a
doolie, which set off immediately, and
at great speed. There were many riding
and running beside it the terrified prisoner
heard the sound of steps and hoofs and
muttered voices. It seemed to him that
he travelled for days ; but, in truth, he had
only journeyed twenty hours, when he was
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 159
suddenly set down, the sliding door was
pushed back, and he was hauled forth.
He found himself standing in a temple
(an unknown temple), and by the light of
blazing torches he recognized at least one
hundred familiar faces, including those of
Golab Eai and the priest of the village
of Haru. He was so cramped and dazed
that at first he could only stagger and
blink ; but as his hands were untied, he
found his voice.
" What foul deed is this ? " he demanded
hoarsely. " Where am I ? "
" Thou art within the most holy temple
of Orola-Gokeranath," answered the priest,
impressively. " W T e have appealed to man
for justice and in vain. Therefore, we
now approach the gods ! Is it not so, my
brothers ? "
The reply was a prolonged murmur of
hoarse assent from the quiet, fierce-eyed
crowd.
" Behold the image of Mahadeo, the
destroyer ! " continued the priest, pointing
160 VILLAGE TALES AND
to a conical stone in the middle of the
temple, on which the holy Ganges water
dripped without ceasing. " Here is the
mark of Hanuman's thumb, where he rested
on his way to Ceylon to war against the
great giant Ravan."
A venerable Mahant, or high-priest of
the Gosains, now advanced, and said, in
a voice tremulous with age
"Lay thy hand upon this spot, Durga
Pershad, and swear as I shall speak."
Durga Pershad held back instinctively,
but the pressure of fifty arms constrained
him, and he yielded.
" If I have had part or lot in the death
of Soonder, the son of Golab Bai Sing-
There was an expressive pause for a
full moment, and no sound was audible
save the slow, monotonous dripping of the
sacred stream.
Durga Pershad shuddered, but repeated
the sentence somewhat unsteadily.
" I call upon Mahadeo, the most holy,
the destroyer, to smite me with the black
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 16 1
leprosy in the sight of all men, and that
within three moons. May I die in torture,
and by piecemeal. May I be abhorrent
alike to men and gods, and after death,
may I hang by my feet for one thousand
years above a fire of chaff."
Durga Pershad echoed this hideous
sentence with recovered composure. Truly,
it was a vast relief to find that his end was
not yet his life in no present danger.
Here was a weird and. ghostly scene !
The dark, damp temple, at dead of night,
the crowd of stern, accusing countenances,
lit up by flashes of torchlight, the austere
high-priest in his robe of office, and the
haggard culprit, the central figure, glaring
defiance, with his uplifted hand upon the
cold wet stone ! There seemed to the
wretched accused some accursed power in
this holy image ; the stone clung tena-
ciously to his trembling flesh, and he was
sensible of an awful, deathlike chill that
penetrated to the very marrow of his bones.
1 62 VILLAGE TALES AND
In a few minutes the lights were extin-
guished, the wolfish-faced crowd had melted
away, and Durga Pershad found himself
alone. He stumbled out of the shrine,
and by the cold, keen starlight descried
the edge of a large tank, which was sur-
rounded by temples. He had never visited
the place of his own free will, but he re-
cognized it from description as undoubtedly
the most holy Gola, where two hundred
thousand pilgrims flocked to worship once
a year.
At daybreak he made his way to the
bazaar, and there sold a silver chain, for
he had no money. It might be imagina-
tion, but he believed that people looked
upon him with suspicious eyes. Three days
later, he was at home once more. He told
no one that he had been kidnapped no,
not even his mother or his wife.
By the end of a month, Durga Pershad
had become an altered man. He looked
wofully lean and haggard, he scarcely ate,
slept, or smoked, and appeared dreadfully
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 163
depressed. He now cared nought for taxes,
rents, or crops, and complained of a strange
numbness in his limbs. Much to the surprise
of his household, he undertook a pilgrimage
to Hurdwar, the source of the Ganges
(some one had suggested most holy Gola
some one ignorant of Durga's enforced
expedition). He had barely returned from
Hurdwar when, as if possessed by a fever
of piety, he set forth for Gadrinath, in the
Himalayas. After that long and arduous
journey, he passed rapidly down to Benares.
From thence, concluding an absence of four
months, he returned finally to Haru, and
shut himself up within his own courtyard
and in his own house, refusing to see even
his nearest of kin. And now it began to
be whispered about from ear to ear that
Durga Pershad, the son of Govindoo
Pershad, was smitten with the korh or
black leprosy.
Yes, the grasp of that terrible disease
was upon him. His features altered,
thickened, and took the fatal and unmis-
1 64 VILLAGE TALES AND
takable leonine look. In a surprisingly short
time he had lost the fingers of both hands.
To show himself abroad would simply be
to proclaim his guilt, and the judgment of
Ma-hadeo whose wrath he had invoked.
For weeks and weeks he successfully evaded
his enemies, fortified within his own house,
and protected by his wife and mother, whose
shrill tongues garrisoned it effectually.
When it became known that the hours
of Durga Pershad were numbered, a body
of the elders, led by the village priest, came
and sternly demanded an entrance. They
would take no denial. After frantic clamour
and frenzied resistance, they gained admit-
tance admittance to the very presence of
the leper, who lay in a darkened room,
huddled up on a string bed.
" Behold," cried the priest in a sonorous
voice, " the finger of Mahadeo, and the
punishment of the slayer of a child !
Speak, ere your tongue rot away, and de-
clare unto us what befell the boy at thy
hands, Durga Pershad, leper I "
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 165
" Begone ! " screamed his wife. " De-
part, devil, born with the evil eye, come
to mock at the afflicted of the gods ! "
" When he hath spoken, we will go our
ways," answered a solemn voice ; " hut
otherwise, we remain until the end."
Durga Pershad raised himself laboriously
on his charpoy ; his head was muffled up
in a brown blanket, he was nearly blind, and
cried aloud, in a shrill, piercing falsetto
" Yea, here is the answer the god's
answer " and he thrust out a leprous
arm" I did it."
" How ? Hasten to speak, vile one ! "
" I long desired his life," he panted.
" He came with me to the river-bank of
his own accord, for I had promised him a
rare spectacle. My heart was hot within
me yea, as a red-hot horse-shoe. Even
as he clamoured for my promise, I flung
him to the alligators. It was over in a
minute but I hear his scream now ! "
Then Durga Pershad covered his lace,
and lo ! as he turned to the wall, he died.
166 VILLAGE TALES AND
TWO LITTLE TRAVELLERS.
CHAPTER I.
GRAM had fallen to nine seers for the rupee,
which affected the sahibs who kept horses
and polo ponies ; and rice was down to
eight measures this affected the villagers
and ryots. The rains due at Christmas
had failed. There was talk of a great
scarcity and a sore famine in the land,
especially among the sleek, crafty bunnias,
who bought up every ounce of grain in the
district when it was cheap, and at the first
whisper of failing crops often a rumour
started by themselves locked it up re-
lentlessly, in hopes of starvation prices,
refusing to sell save at exorbitant rates.
What is a road coolie to do under these
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 167
conditions ? a man whose daily wage
never exceeds one anna and a half, no
matter how markets may fluctuate. Three
rupees' worth of grain will keep him alive
for twenty days ; but how is he to exist
for the remainder of the month ? How is
he to feed his children, to pay his tiny
rental, and the village tax ?
This was a problem that Chunnee
pondered over, as he sat on a heap of
stones at the side of the road, with his
empty basket at his feet, and a look of
despair upon his handsome, and usually
good-humoured, countenance.
Alas ! Chunnee had been born under an
evil star. Scorpio was his constellation,
and all the luck had ebbed from him, as
surely as it had flowed towards his half-
brother Zalim Sing.
Now, Zalim Sing was prosperous and well-
to-do, the proprietor of a good mud house,
a patch of castor oil, and two biggahs of
land, planted in rape and linseed ; he also
owned a huge milch buffalo, a pair of
1 68 VILLAGE TALES AND
plough bullocks, and the only ekka within
three koss. Yes, an ekka that came to him
with his wife, all lavishly decorated with
brass knobs and ornamental work, an ekka
that had yellow curtains, and was drawn
by a bay tat (a bazaar pony), with six rows
of blue beads round her ewe neck. Zalim
Sing was prouder of his turn-out than
any parvenu's wife with her first equipage ;
and perhaps it was on the strength of this,
more than his store of linseed and his plot
of land, that the village elders hearkened to
him with respect. He was a lean, shrewd-
looking man, with a cast in his eye and
a halt in his gait. Nevertheless, he had
prospered, and the world had gone well
with him, whereas it had gone ill with his
half-brother.
But Chunnee was not wise in his genera-
tion ; he had bartered away his share of the
ancestral home for two cows, a grindstone,
and some brass cooking-pots. The cows
had died the rains before last, the cooking-
pots were pawned to the local soucar; his
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 169
crop of one mango tree had failed, he had
no capital except his sturdy frame, two
horny hands, and his coolie basket.
In his hovel there were his children
Girunda, a boy aged ten, and Gyannia,
a girl of four. There was also a mat, an
old charpoy, a reaping-hook, a couple of
earthen pots, and a white cat. This was
all that Chunnee possessed in the wide
world. It might have sufficed, had he had
wisdom like his brother ; but, alas ! he had
no brains. There he sat, on the kunker
heap, that glaring February afternoon. The
land was still covered with cane crops ; the
barley was green, and in the ear ; dry leaves
were whirling along the road ; the bank a
tree was dropping red flowers from its grey,
leafless branches ; the mango tree was in
blossom. Yes, the hot weather, the time
of parching and scarcity, would be on them
soon. Suddenly he heard a rattling, and felt
a cloud of warm yellow dust. It was his
brother's ekka. Zalim Sing and a friend tore
past at a gallop, and scarcely noticed the
1 70 VILLAGE TALES AND
coolie on the side of the road, beyond a
hoarse laugh of derision. Why had fortune
been kindtoone brother andcruel to another?
Why had his cows died? his wife been
bitten by a " karite " as she cut vetches,
and expired at sundown in agonies ? Ah,
Junia was a loss nigh as great as the
cows. She cooked, and minded the children ;
she earned one anna a day for reaping ; she
was fortunate to die young ; she had never
lived to know hunger. Why had some
people stores and treasures, to whom they
were of no use, whilst others lacked a morsel
to keep them from perishing ?
Chunnee sat for half an hour with his
arms loosely folded on his breast, and
pondered this question in his heart. Pre-
sently he arose, and picked up his basket,
and took the path towards his village, where
its brown mud walls and straw roofs stood
out in strong relief against a noble tope of
mango trees ; but these mangoes were the
property of the sirkar (government). Many
an envious eye had been cast on them and
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 171
their fine yearly harvests. Despite bazaar
rumours about scarcity, it was surely what
is called a burmia's famine ; for this hungry,
handsome Kajpoot, with the form and
sinews of some Greek god, made his way
homewards between marvellous crops at
either side of the well-beaten path. The
self-same rich land was yielding gram, rape,
linseed ; whilst barley towered high above
all. Where else will the earth yield four
harvests with little manure or care ? But
not an inch of this fertile soil called
Chunnee master ! And what to him was
all this fertility ? As he strode along,
a fierce temptation kept pace with his
steps, and whispered eagerly in his ear
"There is old Turroo, thy great-uncle;
he is nigh ninety years of age, and rich ;
his head was grey in the mutiny year.
True, he favours Zalim Sing. They say he
hath even advanced him money for seeds,
because he is prosperous ; and he will not
look at thee, because thou art poor, much
less suffer thee to cross his threshold.
1 72 VILLAGE TALES AND
They declare he hath a treasure buried
some that he came upon in the mutiny
year. What avails it to him? He hath
his huka and his opium, his warm bedding,
and brass cooking-pots. He only enjoys
money when he looks at it and thy
children are starving. They say that
thousands of rupees are hidden under his
floor, and one hundred rupees would make
thee a rich man. Thou mightest till that
plot of ground near the big baal tree, and
buy two plough bullocks for twenty-five
rupees. Krisna would then lend thee his
plough. Set grain not linseed, having no
mill grain at even twelve seers next year,
and thou wilt be a wealthy man ; yea, and
better than Zalim Sing, who will no longer
scoff at thee or cover thee with dust. Thou
wilt have no need to go out as coolie.
Thou wilt have plenty of flour, and dal,
and fresh tobacco in thy huka. It is easy
as easy as breathing. But to rob to rob an
old man?" inquired conscience. "True;
but thine own kinsman, who cannot cany
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 173
his money to the burning ghaut, it ought
to be thine some day. Thou art his heir,
though he hates thee men often hate
their next-of-kin. His hoarding it is of no
use to him it will save thee and thine
from death."
" But how how can I take it ? " inquired
Chunnee of the tempter.
"Behold, the nights are dark, the moon
doth not rise till morn ; thou hast thy
krooplie still ; dig through the mud wall.
They say the box is buried near the
hearth ; open it, and carry away what thou
wilt in thy cloth. The old man sleeps as
though a corpse he drinks opium. He
has no one in the house, no dog. It is so
easy ; truly, it is a marvel he hath not been
robbed before ! Take it ; be bold. Truly,
it is half thine. Thou canst keep a pony,
too, and 'buy silver bangles for Gyannia."
" But how can I account for this sudden
wealth? All the world knows that I am
but a beggar."
" Carry it forth and hide it, bury it in a
i 7 4 VILLAGE TALES AND
hole far away; for doubtless there will be
a great search. Some weeks later, take a
few rupees, and go by rail to Lucknow ; and
come back, and say thy wife's grandmother
hath died, and left thee one hundred rupees.
The gold and jewels thou wilt take in a
roll of bedding to Lucknow, and sell. It
will all be easy ; have no fear."
As these ideas were working in his brain,
and he was the sport of two conflicting
feelings, Chunnee was rapidly approaching
his little hovel, which lay on the outskirts
of the village of Paroor. It was a small
hamlet of mud houses, huddled together
most irregularly. There was no main street,
nor even an attempt at one ; no chief
entrance merely half a dozen footpaths
running into the village from various
directions. There would be a high mud
wall and doorway leading into an enclosure,
containing twenty small huts, and as many
families, all connected; here were also ponies,
calves, fowl, the property of the clan, and
perchance a bullock-cart or a sugar-press.
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 175
These enclosures were set down indis-
criminately, and joined together ; the only
village street, an irregularpath, that threaded
its way between them. There were " sets "
even here, as in higher circles ; inmates of
one mud courtyard, who owned a sugar-
press, looked down on the inmates of those
who had none.
Most people looked down on Chunnee, the
coolie even the women, although he was
a handsome, well-made fellow. What are
looks, when a man has not a pice, and
owns nought save two crying children ?
Chunnee made his way past a crowd
collected round a khooloo, or sugar-mill
a rude, wooden affair, turned by two bullocks,
fed with bits of raw cane, which it squeezes
into a receptacle in the ground, and sub-
sequently empties into another vat indoors,
where the sugar is boiled, and finally poured
off into huge jars (similar to those which con-
tained the forty thieves), and sent to middle-
men, who thereby reap much profit. Paroor
was in the midst of a sugar country, and
176 VILLAGE TALES AND
boasted half a dozen of these rude sugar-
roills.
Chunnee passed through the scattered
strips of cane, basket in hand there were
no greetings for him and, turning a corner,
dived between two mud walls into a small
hut that stood by itself. A slim, nearly
naked lad ran out to meet him, with a look
of expectation on his intelligent face, but,
alas ! his father was empty-handed. On
the mat lay a little girl with curly hair and
a fair but puny face. She was fast asleep,
holding in her arms a miserably thin
bazaar kitten or it might be a full-grown
cat stunted in size.
" She was hungry ; I fetched her some
banka fruit from cows now she is asleep,"
explained the boy. " There is a little
barley the last I made it," and he
pointed to a cake, a very small one, baking
on some embers.
" Father, what shall we do to-morrow ? "
he asked, as his father devoured the only
food he had seen that day.
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. i?7
" There is still the reaping-hook."
" Gunesh offers two annas for it."
" And it cost a rupee and a half."
" I went to-day to old Turroo, to ask
him for a few cowries, or a bit of a chupatti
for Gyannia she was crying with hunger,
and calling for food."
" And what did he give thee ? "
" He smote me a blow on the back with
his staff " pointing to a weal on his
shoulder. " He said I was a devil's spawn,
good for nothing; like thee a beggar."
"I would not be as I am, but I have
never had a chance never one chance."
And, ravenous as he was, Chunnee the
famished yielded half his cake in answer to
his son's wistful and expectant eyes.
When darkness had fallen on the village,
the inhabitants went to bed like the birds-
it saved oil though there were a few
budmashes who sat up all night and
gambled; each visiting the other's house
in turn, and providing light and drink.
Yes, drink drink, from the fatal mowra
i 7 8 VILLAGE TALES AND
tree. The fever of gambling seemed to be
all over the land. Some gambled away their
money, clothes, tools, cattle, but this gang
kept their proceedings secret yea, even
from their nearest neighbours. Chunnee
had never gambled.
As, by degrees, the children were called
in, and the houses shut, the village grew
dark and quiet. About twelve o'clock,
Chunnee rose, and felt for his krooplie (a
mattock with a short handle) ; then he
opened the door and looked forth ; there
was not a sound to be heard, save the
breathing of the children and the distant
howling of a pack of jackals. There were
the clear cold stars in the sky, showing
above the opposite wall. Should he do
it? Oh, if Heaven would but send him
a sign ! It seemed to him that his devout
wish was instantly fulfilled, for at that
moment Gyannia turned in her sleep, moan-
ing her frequent and pitiful cry when awake,
" I am hungry."
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 179
CHAPTEE II.
CHUNNEE had now received his answer ; he
stole forth, and crept like a shadow from
wall to wall, down a series of narrow paths,
till he came to a house standing alone in
an open space a notable ahode, for a tree
grew through the roof. There was no gate
to the outer yard, no dog. The door was
closed needless to try it ; he must work
his way through the mud wall at the back,
and crawl in. The baking of many seasons'
suns had effectually hardened this impedi-
ment, and he strove for an hour, listening
for sounds with intense trepidation, whilst
the sweat poured down his face. At last
he had scraped a sufficiently large aperture
he was slender to leanness. He crept
through, but his usual bad luck pursued
him ; his head came violently against a
i8o VILLAGE TALES AND
brass chattie that fell with a clang enough
to waken the dead. It effectually aroused
the old man, who awoke and struck a match,
and showed Chunnee that he had come
too late !
The light displayed a deep hole in the
floor, an empty hole. The door was ajar ;
the treasure was already stolen ; and
Chunnee stood there, krooplie in hand, with
the cavity in the wall to speak for him the
convicted thief !
Old Turroo's piercing shrieks of " murder "
and " dacoity " assembled a dozen people
in less than three minutes. Yea, truly, he
had been robbed ! A box lay outside empty,
and Chunnee the coolie, the ne'er-do-well,
had come to this !
He was caught like a rat in a trap !
There was the opening in the wall, the
muddy krooplie in his grasp ; he stood
plainly convicted. The criminal hung his
head of what avail to speak, and aver his
innocence ?- he was not innocent ! Others
had got the booty, he would suffer for them.
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 181
As he had been toiling and labouring they
had been within, and had carried off what
he too had come to seek.
Perhaps he was served rightly ; but he
never got a chance no, not even to rob.
Meanwhile old Turroo literally rent his
clothes, and tore his scanty white beard,
and howled, cursed, and gesticulated like
a madman. Zalim Sing stood foremost
amongst sympathizers (for the venerable
relative still possessed a house, cattle, and
lands), and said " that truly it did not
surprise him to find that the thief was his
blood-brother."
Nevertheless, it did astonish most of the
assembly, for Chunnee, if miserably poor,
had ever been known to be scrupulously
honest. They were amazed, moreover,
that he should begin on such a large scale 1
Chunnee offered no resistance ; he was led
away, and shut up in a cowhouse, whilst
Zalim Sing's brother-in-law, full of zeal,
ran all the way to Bugwa to fetch the
police.
1 82 VILLAGE TALES AND
The police arrived at daybreak two
men and an inspector, in their blue tunics
and red turbans all looking excessively
wise ; but their searching and cross-
examining, discovered nothing beyond the
empty box. How had Chunnee spirited
away the treasures ? Who was his accom-
plice ?
" Let him be beaten till he speaks,"
implored the venerable creature who had
been ravished of his treasure. " Let the
soles of his feet be roasted until he opens
his mouth. Where hath he hidden them ? ' '
andhe shoutedto the whole assembled village
" the two bags of rupees, the golden
bangles, the anklets, the strings of pearls
forty pair without blemish ? If he will
only give me the pearls ! " and the old
man lifted up his voice and wept.
A dirty, half-naked old man, how strange
it seemed, to behold him weeping for his
pearls ! Now, had it been a young and
lovely woman, the grief would have
seemed natural. And who would have
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. 183
believed that old Turroo had such
treasures ? Ay, he was a sly fox.
" Give me my pearls, yea, and my gold
mohurs. Thou mayst keep the rest, and
go free," he declared magnanimously.
But Chunnee could not give what he
had not got, and therefore held his peace.
His children screamed when they saw
their father's arms pinioned with ropes,
the iron things on his hands, and heard
he was going away to the Jail Khana
screamed from fear and hunger.
Meanwhile old Turroo howled and raved
like one possessed, and, pointing to his
grand-nephew, besought the police to put
him to torture by fire, then and there. In
former days strange things were done
under the mantle of the law ; but in
these enlightened times no policeman dare
venture, even for a large bribe, to practise
the question by torture.
So Chunnee was led away captive,
followed as far as the high-road by fully
half the village ; and for more than a mile
1 84 VILLAGE TALES AND
along that dusty track, two little weeping
creatures pattered behind him. At length
the girl could go no further, and fell
exhausted. Her father halted between his
guard, and said
" Girunda, take care of thy sister. Go
to thy uncle ; he will feed thee till I come
back. Go now, ere nightfall."
And if he doth not receive them, what
is to become of them ? was a thought
that harassed him all the weary march.
At a turn of the road he turned and looked
back, and saw the two small forlorn figures
standing in the straight, white highway,
watching him to the last.
Chunnee was brought up before the
magistrate that day. He had been taken
red-handed, and had not denied his guilt.
He was silent with respect to the treasure.
It had been a most daring dacoity, but, as
it was his first offence, he would be only
sentenced to two years' imprisonment in
Shahjhanpur jail.
"And his two children?" he ventured
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 185
to ask. " Who would care for them ? How
were they to live ? ' ' (There are no poor-
houses in India.)
"Oh, the neighbours, or your relations,"
said the Sudder judge, knowing how im-
mensely generous, good, and charitable
the very poorest are to one another. " You
have a brother, of course he will take
them."
Chunnee was by no means so sanguine
on this point.
He was sent on foot to jail a distance of
sixty miles and there put in leg-irons, and
a convict sacking-coat, with a square cap
to cover his shaven head. He was set to
work to pick oakum. He worked steadily,
though with a face and air of dogged
despair. But what was the good of giving
trouble ? What was the good of anything ?
The jail fare was not jail fare to him it
was better than he had at home ; and now
that he had sufficient to eat, he grew
strong. But how were his children faring ?
Were they starving ? Other convicts
1 86 VILLAGE TALES AND
robbers, gamblers, dacoits thought
Chunnee proud and sullen, he was so
silent ; or surely he was in for some great
crime?
Luckily for him, the jail daroga liked him,
and promoted him to basket-making, and
thence to the vegetable garden. His per-
centage on his earnings he did not take
out in money, or even in the Sunday smoke.
No; all went to the remission of his sentence.
Truly, life was not so bad, save for the hang-
ings every convict was forced to attend
and these executions were not infrequent,
for Shahjhanpur was in the centre of a
district notorious for murders. It was a
veritable case of " Satan finds some mis-
chief still for idle hands to do."
When all the grain of this most fertile
tract is harvested, and the sugar-cane
brakes have been cut and carried away
on bullock-carts, when the linseed is
pressed, and the sugar sold, and the wheat
threshed and ground, it is the hot weather ;
no sowing or ploughing can be done.
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 187
People must wait for the first burst of the
rains, to soften the stone-like ground. And,
oh, how sweet to the nostrils is the smell
of earth after the first wild downpour !
Meanwhile, they have money in their
hands the fruit of their labour. They
have long, hot, idle days, and no occupa-
tion, so they rake up old land-feuds, old
blood-feuds, old jealousies, and the result
is but too frequently a man's body found
in a nullah, killed by a sickle or a lathi
(heavy stick), or a woman's corpse drawn
out of some abandoned well.
The jail gardens supplied all the vege-
tables to the station, and the mem sahibs,
when the vegetable " doli " came late, knew
well the reason there had been a hanging.
Chunnee attended the first execution
with apparently more trepidation than the
criminal himself, who walked to his fate
with a jaunty air, and on being asked if
he had arranged all his affairs said
"By your favour, yea;" and then, on
second thoughts, added, with amazing
1 88 VILLAGE TALES AND
vivacity, " There is one small brass lotah
which I forgot. I desire that it be given
to my sister-in-law." And so, singing a
song to Nirvana, he ascended the gallows
and calmly met his fate.
Another young man's demeanour was
outrivalled by that of his own father and
the kinsfolk who had come to take leave
of him.
The execution was at half-past six, and
the official in charge a tender-hearted
gentleman stood waiting till the farewells
were over, watch in hand. Time was up,
but he would give this vigorous young
Brahmin yet a few more minutes of life.
He was engaged in eager conversation
with his relatives, and it was commonly
reported and suspected that he had actually
confessed to the crime, and sacrificed him-
self in order to save a near kinsman. The
official glanced at his watch once more,
and was astounded to catch the eye of
the culprit's father, and hear him say, in
a most matter-of-fact tone
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 189
" Yea, truly, my son, time is up. Thou
hadst better go at once, for, remember, we
have fifteen koss to carry thee to the
Ganges to burn and we shall not get home
till dark, and the moon is old ! "
The son, without a word, salaamed to
this more than Eornan parent, and then
turned to meet his fate without an
instant's hesitation. Chunnee had beheld
many heroes of this type, but he had also
seen others who had not had it in them
to encounter death with similar fortitude.
He had noted the wandering, terrified eye,
the ashen lips drawn backfrom the chattering
teeth, the twitching knee-caps, as the man
was led forth to die like a dog ; he had seen
it, and the sight had made his heart melt
like wax within him, and his limbs shake
as if he had been stricken with palsy. It
was his one horror, to be warned to attend
an execution.
And then there was the ever-haunting
fear about his two desolate, helpless chil-
dren were they well or ill, alive or dead ?
I9 o VILLAGE TALES AND
He was seventy- six miles from his own
pergunnah no one ever visited him with
tidings from home, no one came to see
him, and brought him bazaar news, and
sweets, a tin pot to drink from, or even a bit
of a wheaten chupatti. No, he had no
friends, either within the jail, or beyond
its walls.
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 191
CHAPTEE III.
MEANWHILE the desolate little couple had
toiled painfully back to Paroor, and halted
outside their uncle's enclosure. They
dared not venture in, and they crouched
timidly without the battered wooden door-
way, whilst Zalim Sing laid down the law,
expounded his own virtues, and denounced
Chunnee to more than half the village.
He had always been secretly jealous of
his good-looking brother, who, moreover,
was the father of a son, whilst his wife
had borne him, instead of the much-desired
heir, no fewer than seven daughters, of whom
four survived; and Zalim's enemies said
among themselves that his sins must be
many, or he would never have been punished
with seven girls ! He talked freely, know-
ing there was no one to defend the absent,
i 9 2 VILLAGE TALES AND
and the starving pair heard that their
father was a liar, a dacoit, a budmash, a
thief, and the most ungrateful kinsman
to a noble-hearted brother that ever drew
the breath of life one cannot talk for ever ;
and as the listeners gradually dropped
off, notice was naturally attracted by the
two wretched little beggars in the lane
what was to become of them ? their home
was empty, save for a reaping-hook, a char-
poy, and a cat.
Zalim Sing pulled his beard, and
scowled ; his crooked eye rolled fiercely,
till a woman in the crowd exclaimed in a
loud clear voice
" Since thou sayest thou art a benevolent
man, and the most generous of kinsmen,
why dost thou stare at the starving ones,
instead of taking them in ? "
Their dusty feet and hunger-stricken
faces touched the crowd as easily swayed
as the branch of a tree to this side and
that, by whatever wind may blow.
There was a hoarse murmur, which the
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 193
crafty Zalim quickly interpreted ; now was
the time to pose as a noble benefactor or
never ; and he drew the two children over
the threshold of the door, and shut himself
in with his detested encumbrances.
He gave them some coarse food and
water, and showed them a sort of shed
where they might sleep. " But thou mayst
not enter my house," he said, " or play
with my children ; thy father is a wicked
man, therefore ye are pariahs, but I and
my children are good."
The next day he went to his brother's
abode and sold the old charpoy, reaping-
hook, and house for the sum of seven
rupees ; but he could neither sell nor kill the
cat she sat serenely aloft in .a neem tree,
far out of his reach. Presently she dis-
covered her old owners, or they discovered
her ; they hid her secretly in their miserable
shelter, and begged a little milk in the
village. Alas ! she was their only friend.
Their cousins four sallow, ugly children,
two of whom had inherited their parent's
I 9 4 VILLAGE TALES AND
violent squint, and all of whom were laden
with anklets and bangles, and a vast sense
of their own importance condescended to
come and patronize the two wicked beggars
who lived in the old goat-shed in a corner
of the enclosure. They experienced an
intense and novel delight in patronizing,
teasing, pinching, and threatening these
little pariahs, who were better fun, and
afforded more scope for amusement, than
any of their usual games, and their sense of
their own superiority swelled to enormous
proportions. They visited the unfortunates
at all hours ; but the cat knew their voices,
and hid hastily among the thatch. Bazaar
cats are wonderfully active and cunning,
they are also marvellous thieves, and the
cat throve.
Presently Zalim Sing's wife discovered
that Girunda was old enough to be of use.
She set him to do the work of two servants,
or one pony. He had to draw water and
carry it home from the well, to grind corn,
to cut fodder, whilst his little sister cried
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 195
herself to sleep alone, for she dared not
leave the cat, lest her ever-prying cousins
should discover it and throw it down the
well. Certainly its appearance was against
it; it was lean and long and dirty- white,
with a thin rat tail; and a sharp-pointed
face a pure village type hungry, and
careless of its appearance, a merciless
mouser, but a faithful adherent.
Poor Girunda now toiled early and late,
he received nought but blows, abuse, and
the coarsest fare. Much of his utility
was unknown to his uncle who was fre-
quently from home but who scowled every
time that his glance fell upon him.
Affairs were not going quite as smoothly
as hitherto with Zalim Sing. The prices
had risen in everything, save in his own
particular commodity, linseed. There was
the prospect of an unusually hot, scarce
season, and his pony was sick. He vented
all his ill humour on the two oppressed
children "within his gates" a most ex-
cellent, comprehensive, and Eastern
i 9 6 VILLAGE TALES AND
expression meaning within the mud or
stone enclosure, where the master is
supreme, where he can shut out all the
world save his household, his oxen, and
servants shut it out by merely closing
to the street an iron-knobbed wooden door.
Within Zalim's gates his nephew became
a slave ; he was made to tend the furnace
in the wall, at the other side of which
boiled an enormous receptacle of linseed oil.
This duty was murderous in the glaring,
breathless month of April ; it was worse
than a fireman's work in June in the Eed
Sea and the fireman is relieved at his post;
no one ever relieved Girunda the name
signified " thick bread ; " but of any bread
his share was small and then he fell sick.
For two days he lay in his shed, burning
with fever, his uncle beat him repeatedly
with a thick stick for his laziness beat
him savagely too but the boy made no
moan, only his little sister screamed, and
the screams attracted the neighbours.
"He is a lazy, idle, good-for-nothing
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 197
pig ! " explained the uncle to an eager
inquirer; "he will not work aught save
his teeth. And she is half-witted."
"True," said the listener; "and it is
only a charitable man like thyself,
Zalim Sing, who would keep the beggar's
brats, and with a dearth in the land, too ;
and wheat rising every week."
Then she went back to her spinning of
coarse country cloth ; Girunda lay and
buried his head in his hands, and Gyannia
sobbed in a corner ; but his tormentor went
into the house, to confer with his wife.
"If the boy would not work, neither
should he eat. Was he himself to mind the
furnace ? " he demanded angrily.
" The boy is sickening," said the woman.
" I have seen it coming it is something
bad maybe the cholera, maybe the small-
pox. It is surely some heavy sickness."
" And he may die? "
"Yea, having given it to us and ours.
What shaU we do ? "
" Behold, to-night, when the village is
198 VILLAGE TALES AND
quiet, I will take the two of them, and set
them on the high-road. Thou canst bake
some chupattis, and I will give them four
annas, and tell them to begone, to return
here no more, for if they do, of a surety
I wiU kill them."
" They will believe thee ! " said his wife
with a laugh.
"Yea. Why should they not beg, as
others do ? And soon the boy can work,
and earn an anna a day."
" Yea, he will soon be able to work,"
agreed this treacherous woman.
The children were surprised to be left
in peace till sunset, and then to receive
some fried beans and a chupatti most
sumptuous fare for them ! But when it
was dark, save for a dying moon, Zalim
Sing entered their hut, staff in hand, and
awoke them roughly.
"Arise quickly, and come with me ; thou
shalt no more remain under my roof. I
have fed thee for three moons, now thou
mayst go forth and feed thyselves. I will
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. 199
set thee on the road, and give thee food for
two days and a little money ; get thee to
some town, and appeal to the charitable.
Eeturn here, and I will slay thee."
The children rose trembling; they had
not much delay in dressing, but G-yannia
smuggled the cat under her bit of blue,
cloth (once her mother's), and without one
word the wretched pair meekly followed
their uncle across the enclosure, past the
oil-press, the sleeping bullocks, out of the
postern, and through the silent village,
then away to the high-road. Their kinsman
walked along behind them in the powdery-
white dust, stick in hand, for nearly two
miles. It was nigh dawn ; already the
yellow light glimmered in the east ; he
must return ; so he halted abruptly, and
gave the boy some chupattis rolled in
plantain leaves, and a four-anna piece (five-
pence), and then said, " There lieth thy
road out into the world ; get thee gone, and
never let me behold thy face again," and
turning, lie walked rapidly homewards.
200 VILLAGE TALES AND
The soft tap of his stick gradually died
away, and then the children were quite
alone. They sat down, and began to
whisper. It was not a dream ; their uncle
had come to them in the middle of the
night, and brought them along the high-
road in the dark, and given them food, and
told them to begone, and never let him see
them again
After their first feeling of astonishment
had abated, they devoured a chupatti,
sharing it with the cat; and then, as the
dawn of light showed red along the horizon,
they rose and went forward.
"If they had to walk, best make the
journey now," thought the boy, who was
wonderfully sensible for his years.
" Brother, whither are we going ? " asked
Gyannia presently.
" We have no one to go to but father,"
he replied. "We will go to him to the
Jail Khana."
But he did not tell her, nor would she
have understood, that the jail in which
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 201
their father lay imprisoned was seventy
miles away. Hand-in-hand the two out-
casts went slowly along the shadeless white
roads ; several villagers on the way to their
work met them, and halted and stared at
the party a ragged little boy and girl, with
a bazaar cat running after them.
202 VILLAGE TALES AND
CHAPTEB IV.
THAT day Girunda and Gyannia walked five
miles, resting in a nullah, under tufts of
high grass, in the heat of the sun from nine
till six during which time the fierce hot
winds roared over the land, and swept the
roasted leaves up and down the roads, and
shook the branches of the cork trees. How
hot it was every living thing seemed to
have secured some shelter, save these forlorn
children. The air was like a blast from a
furnace, the very stones were scorching to
the touch, and in the shallows, where a
great river had rushed in the rains, there
were now but a few shrunken pools in a
stony bed; in these pools wallowed blue
buffaloes (their hideous noses scarcely
above water), enjoying a sort of tepid relief.
That night the travellers halted in a
village; a gwali's (cowherd's) wife was
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 203
surprised to see an exhausted-looking boy
carrying on his back a little girl, the little
girl in her turn carrying a cat. She invited
them in, and gave them milk, and asked
from whence they came.
" Paroor," replied Girunda.
" Paroor ? Lo ! it is six koss away.
Do thy people know ? " She eyed him
with suspicion.
"Yea; our uncle hath turned us out to,
beg."
" And where art thou going ? "
" To Shahjhanpur, where our father
dwells."
" Shahjhanpur ! " with a scream ; " why,
it is nigh thirty koss, and thou canst not
walk there."
" There is no other means."
" Hast thou any money ? "
Girunda untied a rag, and proudly dis-
played his precious four-anna bit. He had
never possessed such a sum in his life.
" It may maintain thee for two or three
days," said the woman dubiously.
204 VILLAGE TALES AND
"What work is thy father doing in
Shahjhanpur ? "
" Some one said he was making matting,"
rejoined the boy, simply. " He is in
jail."
"In jail! Oh, ye fathers 1 "
"Yea; he went three months ago."
" And what hath he done ? murder
robbery ? "
" He hath done naught. They just took
him."
" But surely he must have robbed or
plundered ? "
"Nay; he was always very poor. He
had nothing to leave us but a sickle and
this cat; but old Turroo Sing had all his
money stolen."
" I see. And now it is buried some-
where," she added significantly. " How
long will thy father be in jail ?"
" Two years."
" A great time ! Well, thoti art weary,
and must need rest. Lie here on this mat,
and to-morrow I will give thee food to take
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 205
thee on for a day or two money I have
none and God will do the rest."
The next morning the children fared
well. That good Samaritan, the gwali's
wife, secured them seats in a passing
bullock-hackery, and thus they accomplished
a considerable distance.
The following day they met no friends,
and the heat was frightful the air like a
flame. Nevertheless, Girunda tottered dog-
gedly forward, with his sister on his back,
for five miles, with long, long rests; and
at sunset they were nearing a large native
town at any rate, it seemed large to them.
They were sent to the serai a resting-
place for native wayfarers. There was a
great entrance gate leading into a wide
enclosed space, with plenty of accommoda-
tion for camels, ekkas, and horses, and little
niches, or rooms, all around, for the travel-
lers. This was indeed a new life to Girunda
his sister was asleep. He went and
watched the hairy Punjaubi dealers water-
ing and feeding their ponies ; the bearded
2 o6 VILLAGE TALES AND
camel-men giving fodder to'their screaming,
bubbling, discontented animals; the "purda
nashins," women, hidden behind a kind of
screen in a corner, from whence came much
shrill laughing and chattering. Tired as
he was, he was still more curious, and
crept forward and tried to peep, but was
rewarded with a stinging blow and a volume
of abuse from a hideous old hag. " They
were all ugly," so he assured a hawker,
who laughed at his discomfiture.
This serai, with its crowds of travellers,
and groups of animals, and imposing en-
trance, was truly a most novel aud wonder-
ful scene to this ignorant village lad.
A woman, woman-like, once more took
pity on the party the queer little group of
a boy and a girl and a cat, with no one
belonging to them, and not even possessing
a bundle of clothes. In reply to their
petition, "0 mother, will you help us?"
she gave them a ride on her jingling ekka for
about eight miles. Girunda and Gyannia
had never been in (to them) such a splendid
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 207
equipage before, and were extremely happy
as the wiry chesnut animal between the
shafts, who tasted naught but bad grass or
roadside nibblings, kept up a steady canter
mile after mile. But, alas ! the ekka's
owner was going in a different direction
from theirs, and at a certain bridge she set
them down, and took leave of them, turning
away into a " cutcha " track.
They were now in a different country,
where the road ran quite straight between
lines of neem trees, and was bounded with
burnt-up, rusty grass. The landscape was
desolate ; there were no villages peeping
out of the clumps of trees, no houses
by the roadside : but these are always
rare in India.
They halted at sundown, and crept under
the arches of a bridge over a dry water-
course, and ate raw rice and drank water.
It was plain that they must pass the night
where they were, and as they were very
tired, they were not long in falling asleep.
Gyanrtia, infant-like, slept soundly till dawn,
208 VILLAGE TALES AND
but not so her brother. At midnight he
was awoke by a cold, damp nose being
poked into his face ; he started up trembling,
and a few minutes later he heard his
visitor's melancholy cry it was only a
prowling jackal. As he sat and stared into
the grey light, his sharpened ears heard
another sound that made his heart beat
very fast the " haunk haunk " of a hyena,
The cat, too, sat up and listened. If it
came their way, he had no weapon; and
stories of children devoured by hyenas were
a common topic among the crones of Paroor
village. He had several times seen a
hyena skulking round, when he was driving
home the cow a hideous, high-shouldered,
shuffling brute ; but then his father had
been near, and he was not afraid. Now,
alas ! his father was miles away, and he
was almost sick with terror. The cry came
nearer and nearer oh, fearfully near now
it was directly overhead ! What intense
relief ! the brute was on the high-road right
above them ; yes, and the " haunk haunk "
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 209
was dying gradually away in the distance ;
but Girunda slept no more that night.
Supposing it should come back ? The cat,
too, appeared to have anxieties ; she did not
curl up, but sat bolt erect beside him.
She was a queer animal, attached to people
and not to a place, though the first day she
had followed them in a devious and uncertain
manner, uttering low mews of expostula-
tion, and even sitting down in the middle
of the road, and thus remonstrating from
afar, till they were almost out of sight,
but subsequently joining them like a whirl-
wind, with a long white tail. Lately she
had been carried, and had had "lifts" in
the bullock-cart and ekka ; so the cat was
much the freshest of the party, and seemed
to have become reconciled to the journey,
though she evidently did not approve of
sleeping out at night in the neighbour-
hood of hyenas.
It was the end of June, just before the
rains broke ; the sky was like molten brass,
the earth like stone. Who would travel
zio VILLAGE TALES AND
in such a time? who but two homeless
unfortunates, who must press forward or
else lie down and perish ! Girunda stag-
gered along, carrying his sister, at the rate
of three koss a day. The four annas were
long exhausted, and they now openly begged
their bread ! Some gave them a few hands-
ful of rice, which they ate raw some a
few cowries, which they spent at the little
bunnia shops ; they could barely keep body
and soul together ! Yes, they were like the
mendicants that had come to their own door
in the good times Girunda remembered,
when his mother was alive and the cow.
His mother he could recollect her well.
She had pretty white teeth, and she laughed
often ; but one day she came back from the
fields between two women. She was weep-
ing, and so were they, and they sent him
a'cross the river to play ; and when he re-
turned, a boy in the village ran shouting to
meet him, and cried, " Thy mother is dead ;
a snake bit her."
Sometimes Girunda thought he would
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. an
die too; he was so hot, and so tired, and
his feet were so sore. If only he could
reach his father first ! But how long the
miles had become ! How he strained his
eyes to catch sight of the next milestone !
and what an enormous time it seemed
before it came into view ! The road never
varied never turned to the right hand or
the left; sometimes, as he toiled on, his
poor tired brain imagined that it had taken
the form of a great grey serpent, and was
coming towards him to swallow him up.
They were now within five miles of Shah-
jhanpur city would he ever reach it ?
There were fine trees lining the route ; there
were plenty of ekkas and ponies ; there was
a loud-puffing fire-devil going yonder over
a bridge (he had heard of it), with a lot of
black boxes behind it; and still he was
three miles from Shahjhanpur now two.
Oh, he could never arrive there never I
2ia VILLAGE TALES AND
CHAPTEB V.
ABOUT half-past six o'clock the next morning
a gang of convicts were working on the
road near the jail, carrying stones with
much chain-clanking, all obtrusively in-
dustrious for the moment, as the keen black
eye of the jail burkundaz was fixed upon
them ; but presently his gaze was attracted
by a little group that approached him : a
policeman escorting two ragged children.
" What are these ? " he inquired.
" They were found last night near the
police thana on the Futupore Eoad. The
boy had fainted on the wayside, and I kept
them till dawn, when I brought them in on a
passing hackery. They come, they say^ from
Paroor, a village seventy miles off. The
boy has walked all the way, carrying the
girl on his back so he says."
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 213
" Truly, but it is a fable ! Of a surety,
they are beggars from our own city."
" We can easily prove them. They have
come hither to seek their father, who is in
prison here ; they aver that his name is
Chunnee Sing, of Paroor."
The convicts lagged to listen, and one
whispered to another, "It is the tall man,
who never smiles."
" Such a one is here for dacoity two
years' sentence."
" Where is he ? " inquired the bur-
kundaz of one of the gang.
"Working in the jail-garden gang,
hazoor " (i.e. your highness).
An order was given to fetch him at once.
"They had a cat, too," continued the
policeman; "I left it at the thana. What
do these beggars with a cat ? "
Meanwhile a large crowd had collected
round the children the curly-haired, pretty
little girl, and the miserably emaciated
boy, with his lacerated feet tied up in rags
a number of market coolies and officers'
2i 4 VILLAGE TALES AND
servants ; and the convicts dawdled near
as closely as they dared.
In a very short time the warder returned,
preceded by a tall convict. The children
stared with wistful, questioning eyes ; they
did not recognize Chunnee, at first glance,
in the close-fitting cap drawn well over his
ears, his loose dress, and chains ; but after
a pause of breathless amazement he cried,
" Array khoda ! Girunda and Gyannia, my
children, how came you here ? "
They rushed to him at the sound of that
familiar voice, and broke into loud cries
and sobs sobs of joy and relief.
"I walked," panted the boy presently,
" and carried her. Uncle thrust us forth
one night ; he said he would kill us if we
ever went back, so we came to thee. We
will abide with thee ; we will never leave
thee," sobbed the boy, clinging to his
hands, whilst Chunnee took the girl up in
his arms and fondled her.
"We are so tired and hungry, father;
may we not go to thy house and rest ? "
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 215
and G-yannia dropped her head on his
shoulder.
The jail official was much perplexed
here was a most unusual case : two children
clamouring for admittance into an establish-
ment which every one else was averse to
entering.
What was he to do with them? Were
they to be left at the gates, to be sent back
to Paroor ? One thing was positively certain
they could not be received inside the
jail.
A great multitude had now gathered to
behold the convict's boy, who had walked
seventy miles with his sister on his back.
It takes but little at any time to attract an
Indian audience. The crowd was about to
be dispersed by the police, when the jail
superintendent drove up in his brougham
for his morning inspection, and alighted,
and asked in amazement the reason of the
tumult.
In five minutes he was in possession of
all the facts the thread of the story much
ai6 VILLAGE TALES AND
delayed by constant exclamations and addi-
tions from excited women in the throng.
" So these are thy children ? " said the
superintendent to Chunnee.
"Yes, my lord; and it was for the sake
of these that I tried to commit that theft."
"And thy brother hath turned them
out ? "
" So they say; and it was like him."
" Why hath he done so ? "
" How can I tell thee, protector of the
poor, save that he is a bad man? His
name of Zalim Sing fits him but too
well; truly he is a tyrannical lion. If
the bountiful sirkar would only feed my
children ! "
" You cannot, of course, have these
children with you; but I will look after
them for you, at any rate, for the present.
You shall see them again to-morrow. Here,
burkundaz; send these children down to
my house on an ekka, and let this crowd
disperse."
As soon as the two objects of curiosity
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 217
had been rattled off in charge of a warder,
the assembly melted away, each to his
own avocation.
The superintendent's wife was a charitable,
gentle lady, and accepted the weary, half-
starved wayfarers into her household. A
servant one of their own caste shared
his " go-down " with them, and they were
bathed, fed, and their sores attended to.
In a short time they looked totally different
such is the effect of kindness. They went
to visit their father at stated periods, and
when Girunda related his life of toil and
blows at his uncle's hands, Chunnee's straight
brows grew very black.
The charitable lady who had given them
a shelter did more than feed and clothe
them; they were included among her
servants' children, who learnt from a
munshi, and were taught at her expense.
The munshi, with his blue spectacles, sat
in the midst of them, and every week there
were prizes of fruit, and twice a year of
clothes. They were also permitted to pick
2i8 VILLAGE TALES AND
withered leaves in the lady's lovely garden,
and Girunda was proud when he was allowed
to carry a pot ; and sometimes their father
worked there also, with a few other favoured
convicts. And oh, what a garden that was !
even to a blasd European eye, an exquisite
spot; how much more to two ignorant native
children, who have never seen any flowers
but marigolds ? The steps from the house
led down into a great spreading lawn, green
and smooth as velvet, and surrounded
by wide walks, bordered with bushes of
magnificent roses. Beyond the lawn, and
leading straight out of it, lay an avenue
of loquat trees, which was lined with
stands of maiden-hair ferns, orchids, arum
lilies, jheel plants a truly fairy-like
scene. There were long alleys overhung
with fruit trees and flowers; there were
enormous bushes of yellow roses in one
tree a pair of bulbuls had their nest
a large, square plot covered with a dense
crop of variegated sweet peas. There was,
moreover, a big vinery, a quantity of fruitful
JUNGLE TBAGEDIES. 219
peach trees, a cote of pigeons, with nearly
two hundred in the branches of a mango
tree, and a house full of white rabbits
with ruby eyes ! Truly, when they were
permitted to enter this garden, Girunda
said to his sister, " Behold, this must be
the place the preaching moola meant when
he spoke of the garden of Paradise ! "
The wheel of fortune turns, and strange
events do occur at times, even in a mud
village, in an obscure locality.
Old Turroo Sing had been wise in his
generation ; he had not grudged to offer
a considerable reward for news of, or the
recovery of, his lost treasure. For eight
weary months no tidings reached him, and
he had almost prepared to await the coming
of death, a broken-hearted man, when, lo !
one day six gay policemen I allude to
their red turbans, yellow trousers, and blue
tunics were once more seen approaching
the village. The inspector had come to
see Turroo, to confer with him privately.
When the door was closed fast, the inspector
220 VILLAGE TALES AND
drew forth a heavy gold bangle, and placed
it in the old man's withered, trembling
hands.
" Is this yours ? " he asked.
" It is ; it is ; it is ! Where are the
rest ? " clamoured Turroo.
" Patience ! This was offered for sale in
Delhi, and was about to be melted down.
The man who sold it is in the village. He
is Goora Dutt, the brother-in-law of thy
nephew, Zalim Sing."
May every curse light on him ! " screamed
the venerable Turroo.
" He was caught and convicted ; he hath
confessed. Thou wilt get nearly all thy
property back, my father ; but thou wilt be
liberal to the police ? "
" As I live, I will give much buchseesh
I swear it on the cow's tail ! "
"There is a gang of gamblers here in
Paroor. We have known it long. Goora
Dutt is the chiefest among them. They
were for all things are known to the police
without money; they were in debt, and
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 221
their creditors were hungry ; therefore they
agreed to rob thee, and they did. They
carried off thy money and jewels. Though
Chunnee Sing was convicted and sentenced
for the same, he never fingered a tolah of
gold nor one rupee."
"And where is it? where is it? Oh,
speak! "
" It is buried by a neem tree near Goora
Dutt's garden. They had no time to carry
it farther, and it is convenient to their
houses. The rupees are gone, but the gold
and pearls and carbuncles are still mostly
there. They feared to sell them, for the
size and number and marks were known."
In half an hour's time Turroo Sing's
treasure, which was buried in a kerosene-oil
tin (oh, to how many uses are those tins
put !), was dug up in the presence of the
entire village, and shown to its owner, who
wept with joy as he tore open the parcel
and counted his pearls his forty pairs
vdthout blemish. But there were some
very glum faces in the crowd four families
222 VILLAGE TALES AND
were implicated in the robbery and when
Zalim Sing had come to overwhelm his
grand-uncle with felicitations, that fierce
old person had spat at him like an infuri-
ated toddy cat.
" Thou hadst a hand in it, oh, badmash,
son of lies ! " he screamed, foaming at the
mouth. " Thy brother-in-law, Goora Dutt,
is thy shadow. 'Twas he fetched the
police for Chunnee, who hath languished in
jail for thy sins. Take this robber, and
release Chunnee Sing."
* * * *
Zalim Sing's popularity had been on the
wane for a considerable time. He had
assured his neighbours in his most plau-
sible manner, that Girunda and Gyannia
had run away, ungrateful wretches that
they were just like their father, the jail-
bird. But the neighbours believed a wholly
different tale. A ryot, living in the nearest
village, had met Zalim, one dark night,
driving a pair of children before him.
People began to whisper, and then to talk
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 223
openly, of screams heard from Zalim's
house ; of the boy Girunda being seen
carrying loads as heavy as a pony's and
now, after all these months, public opinion
set in, in full tide, in favour of Chunnee.
Zalim Sing had a presentiment that his
good days were leaving him when he saw
his friend Goora Dutt and four other men
led away between the crops, with handcuffs
on their wrists ; and many a curious glance
was cast at Zalim himself.
" How came his wife to wear a pearl
nose-ring ? How came he to possess four
bullocks and a Waterbury watch and a
pistol ? Could any one give an honest
reason? Could his crops have sold at
double the rates of ours ? " his neighbours
asked one another. Truly, he was as great
a thief as any; but his accomplices had
been staunch to him, and had held their
peace.
Of course Chunnee was released, much
to his own surprise. His ragged coat
was restored to him one morning, with a
224 VILLAGE TALES AND
"hookum," to say that lie was free. His
first duty was to return thanks to the
benevolent lady who had rescued his
starving children. He laid his head at her
feet, and touched the hem of her gown ; and
there was a mist in his eyes as he said,
"Now I understand why God suffered me
to be put in the Jail Khana. It was that
my children might know you. Eshwar,
Eshwar will bless you always."
" And where will you go, Chunnee ? "
she inquired, ere he took leave.
" Home," he answered : a native re-
turns to his ancestral village as a Swiss
turns to the mountains. "Back to Paroor
and my house. It is true that I have no
friends ; but I have no friends anywhere.
I was born there ; also my father and
grandfather. It is my country, and there
will I die."
"It is more to the purpose, how will
you live, once you are there ? "
" I have good-conduct money. I shall
hire a little bit of land, and dig it, and buy
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 225
seeds. Girunda is growing big, he can
help me."
He was not to he deterred by offers of
employment in the city. No, his heart
was set upon Paroor only Paroor ; and his
kind patroness fitted out the children with
clothes and food, and they bade farewell
to her, and her enchanted garden, with
many bitter tears.
Most of the journey was made by rail,
and in the delightful novelty of the motion
of a railway carriage they soon forgot their
sorrows. The last twenty miles had to be
accomplished on foot. Girunda stepped
out manfully beside his father, who carried
Gyannia. All lie had to carry was the cat ;
and, moreover, he had now a pair of shoes
and a stick.
They reached Paroor at nightfall, and
Chunnee went straight to his own hut. It
was occupied by an old crone, who had
bought it from Zalim Sing for six rupees,
and who felt herself a proprietress of some
importance. She thrust him out with a
226 VILLAGE TALES AND
lighted brand, and Chunnee and his family
passed the night under a stack of straw.
The following morning he went and
rapped boldly at his brother's door, and
confronted him sternly.
" So thou art back, badmash ! I wonder
thou hast come here ! " cried Zalim, with
ill-simulated scorn.
"How daredst thou sell my house ?" re-
joined the other.
" I sold it to pay for thy children's food."
" Speak not of the children you worked
as slaves, and beat, and turned out at night
to perish. Restore the money and the
house, villain ! "
Hearing loud and angry voices, the in-
evitable crowd collected. There was Chun-
nee, looking quite well-to-do, and actually
speaking in a commanding tone to his once
all-powerful brother !
" Behold, he hath sold my poor hovel, and
hath kept the money," explained Chunnee,
turning to the eager audience. " He hath
beaten and starved my children, and hath
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 227
thrust them out to die. Why do ye suffer
such a sinner among you ? "
The crowd hegan. to clamour and howl,
and Zalim Sing withdrew and barred his
door; hut the angry neighbours beat upon
it till it shook on its rusty hinges, and
Zalim Sing was forced to shout, " Go ! thou
shalt have thy house, badmash." And
for the first time in all his life, Chunnee
was beholden to the force of public opinion.
32 8 VILLAGE TALES AND
CHAPTER VI.
OLD Turroo had heard of Chunnee's arrival.
Everything is known in a short time in
a small community, save such matters as
robbery and gambling, practised under the
cover of darkness.
He sent for his grand-nephew much to
that grand-nephew's surprise and beckon-
ing him in with a long, claw-like finger,
commanded him to close the door, and be
seated on a charpoy. He then pushed his
huka towards him, and coughed, and said
*' Thou art back, and I have much to
say unto thee. How dost thou mean to
live, and keep thy children, Chunnee
Sing?"
"I hope to hire that plot of land near
Ram LalT s garden, and till it by hand,
JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. 229
and sow it with cotton, jawarri, and dal.
I have recovered my house which Zaliin
Siiig sold."
" Wouldst thou leave that dog-kennel,
and come and abide here with me ? "
" Here with thee ! " he echoed incredu-
lously ; he could not believe his ears.
" Yea. Hearken to me, Chunnee, the
son of Duloo Sing. It is in my mind to
make thee mine heir. Thou hast suffered
wrongfully for my treasure ; it shall be
thine one day."
"I did not take the money or jewels, it
is true, Turroo Sing, but it is true that
I desired to steal them not from love of
lucre and gold, or the vice of robbery, but
for the sake of my children, who were
perishing. All that day the little ones
tasted naught but cow's food. The boy
asked thee for a few cowries, and thou
gavest him blows ; and an evil spirit tempted
me as I walked in the fields at even, and
said in mine ear, ' Turroo is rich yea, very
rich. He hath a house and land and cattle,
2 3 o VILLAGE TALES AND
and warm bedding, and brass cooking-pots,
and a store of grain laid up in his granary
for many seasons. Moreover, he hath a
great treasure buried beneath his floor,
which is of no profit to him, save to handle
and to count. Behold, some of this useless
silver will feed my children and me. I will
dig through the wall, and steal, under the
cover of darkness. The man is old ; he
sleeps fast. I shall take one hundred
rupees, and be happy.' But I failed, as thou
knowest. Nevertheless, I was guilty."
" Thou wert hungry, and thy children
were crying for food; but Zalim Sing had
no such excuse he is a shaitan, the son
of a she ass. Thou shalt take his place,
and come after me ; thou shalt live here
now with thy children. Surely a strong
man, with a lathi, is better than an aged
chokedar and a dog ! I may be robbed
again ; with thee I am safe ; for doubtless
thou wilt guard thine own. Let the old
hag remain in thine hut, and bring thy
children hither."
JUNGLE TEAGEDIES. 231
So, to the amazement of the village,
Chunnee, the pauper and the prisoner, was
elevated to the right hand of the richest
man in Paroor, and rose proportionately in
every one's estimation. He tilled the land,
and sold the crops, and cut the cane,
whilst Girunda spent his time between the
fields and the village munshi as befitted
a boy who would rise in the world, and
perchance go to college 1
His grand-uncle was proud of him,
and never tired of boasting of Girunda's
seventy-mile march with his sister on his
back.
Gyannia now wears a gold nose-ring, silver
bangles, and a chain which gauds comprise
most of her toilette. She is a happy
infant, and passes her four sallow cousins
in the narrowest lane, with her head in
the air.
Her cousins and their father have resorted
to every description of clever intrigue to get
on terms with their lucky relatives, but in
vain. It is the dream of Zalim Sing's life
23 2 VILLAGE TALES AND
to bestow one of his sallow daughters in
marriage on Girunda, and thus keep the
fortune in the family ; but it is not probable
that the boy who retains a lively recol-
lection of the ladies' nips and blows and
floutings will ever meet his wishes. More-
over, Turroo has already a bride in view.
The cat prospers, though as lanky and
grimy as of old ; she must be a cat of some
breeding, or of Chinese extraction, for when,
after all her vicissitudes, she found her-
self once more in her native village, she did
not exhibit the least surprise she merely
stretched out her long body, and strolled
over and sharpened her claws in the bark
of a familiar tree. She has accepted the
transformation from poverty to wealth with
complete equanimity, and sits washing her
face outside Turroo's door, or surveys the
village from the tree that grows through
his roof, as if she had never lived elsewhere ;
she has also implanted a wholesome fear
of her displeasure in the breast of Chondi
the pariah. But then she is a cat who has
JUNGLE TKAGEDIES. 233
travelled and seen the world, and he is but
a common village cur !
Who would recognize Chunnee Sing
now ? He wears a handsome turban, and
coolies salaam to him, and address him as
"ap." He rides on a white horse yes,
a horse, not a pony with a long pink tail,
and is the leading man in those parts ; for
all he takes in hand appears to thrive.
As he passes through the villages, coquet-
tish glances from pretty dark eyes are cast
at him, and he is greeted with playful
remarks. Chunnee is as much sought after
now as he was formerly shunned. It is
a matter of common talk that a rich thakur
would gladly give him his daughter to wife ;
but Chunnee appears satisfied with his
present lot, and shows no signs of changing
his condition.
Our story is ended, and we will now take
leave of Chunnee and his charger, of
Gyannia and her ferret-faced cat, of Girunda
who is almost as precious to Turroo as
the forty pairs of pearls again buried beneath
2 3 4 VILLAGE TALES.
the floor of the envious, adder-tongued
family of Zalim Sing and cast a final
glance on the sleepy patriarchal village,
where it lies among its waving crops on
the hillside, within sight of a glint of the
sacred Ganges.
THE END.
PHINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDOX AND BECCLES.
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
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