by Ruskin Bond
"In this way, Sahib, I had consumed two or three 'biris', strolling about some times to see if the master was in sight; and the horse meanwhile had finished his bag of hay.
"There was no sign of the Sahib, and we must have been out more than an hour—he usually dined by half-past-eight—so I walked all round the Gardens. After waiting another short while, I drove back to the 'kothi' without him, then inquired at Smythe Memsahib's, who sent me back to the Gardens at once to look for my master; but I did not stay there more than a few minutes. To tell you the truth, Sahib, we poor country folk are very frightened. And what was the use of waiting? So I went again to the Memsahib, after having called first at your house; and then she gave me the letter to you."
To such a narrative I had no comments to make, and waited rather curiously for Mrs. Smythe's account, which she gave me in the presence of her husband.
"We stayed dinner very long for Mr. Clancey," she said, after apologising for having called me away. This, she said, she would not have done but for the fact that Mr. Clancey had been rather unwell during the day.
"Oh," I remarked, "I didn't know that. He seemed all right when I saw him this evening."
"It's a funny thing, Mr. Warton," she went on. "A kind of fits, perhaps; though I have never seen anything like it before. At breakfast Mr. Clancey complained of feeling very hot. He said his skin was burning. I suggested 'prickly heat'; but he assured me it wasn't that, and began to eat quite heartily. Suddenly we saw his face go as red as a turkey-cock's; he jumped from the table, tearing off his collar and unbuttoning his coat. 'Fiends alive, Fiends alive, Mrs. Smythe!' he shouted, grabbing at his clothes. 'I'll go home!' 'No, go into the bedroom, Mr. Clancey,' I said. 'What's the matter?' throwing off his coat, he went inside, supported by my husband."
"With his shirt off", added Mr. Smythe, "he ran straight to the bathroom, and ducked his head in the tub. 'I'm on fire, Smythe,' he cried. 'Splash it on hard!' and we drenched him to the waist with mugfuls of cold water, you could see the very blood glowing under his skin, but it soon got back its natural whiteness, and he sat down with us and finished his meal."
Mrs. Smythe continued the account.
"We saw him again at tea time," she told me. "He had just come from his round at the Station, as usual. He ate very little, but drank an enormous quantity of tea, saying there was nothing like tea for cooling the system. It has been a very hot day, as you know, and we did not think too much of Mr. Clancey's discomfort. However, I took his temperature before he went home; he had no fever."
"In that case," I said, rising impatiently, "it might be that poor Clancey is lying in an apoplectic fit, or something of the kind— I wonder whether this man looked properly!—I had better go to the Gardens and see."
Smythe offered to accompany me, and we set off to the Roshanara Gardens. On the way I had more details of my friend's misfortune.
"My wife had not time to tell you," began Smythe; "but what has been troubling her most is damn queer—the sort of thing you might have no patience with; I have little time myself for these tales—But I may as well tell it to you. Now, these queer symptoms of Clancey's, when he complained of his flesh being on fire—these may be anything at all. But he told us blandly that he thought it was the jogi's curse."
"The jogi's curse?" I said.
"Yes," reiterated Smythe, "the jogi's curse. And when he said this, my wife became very solemn, telling him it was not right to jest about such things. But let me explain.
"Now, you know how hot-headed Clancey is. It appears that last evening he maltreated one of these religious mendicants—he told us about it at dinner. He was driving through the Station garden when he noticed this sadhu fellow on the grass-plot. The man had set up a few bricks, lit a fire, and was preparing his evening meal. What Clancey said to him I don't know, and he probably had good reason to be annoyed, for he has practically made that garden with his own hands; but he should not have struck the fellow,—though he told us about it very sadly afterwards. As a matter of fact, he is too fond of that horsewhip of his, using it on the Station staff at times; in spite of it, they are fond of him. Anyhow, he says the jogi was insolent, that he laughed and went on with his cooking. The Station Master riled that his authority should be so flouted, dismounted from his dog-cart, whip in hand, and ordered the trespasser out of the garden; when he still would not go, Clancey lashed the smiling Hindu three or four times across the back. The jogi poured some water on to the fire, and, drawing out the moistened ashes from his 'chulah', threw it in handfuls over his naked body, applying the emolient especially to his smarting wounds. Then, holding up his skinny hands and pointing heavenward, he muttered something which Irishman took to be oaths and curses. He says the man finally gathered up his things, spat on the ground, and went away, but not without looking round at Clancey and saying: 'The Almighty has a Lash of Retribution! Its thongs are Flames of Fire!"
"But," I protested, "Clancey wouldn't understand all that."
"I believe one of his babus overheard, and translated it for him," explained Smythe.
"An eloquent piece of nonsense!" I said. "But, of course, it's just possible Clancey has been ailing from the weather. It has been a particularly hot day."
In this part of India the Monsoon is often very feeble. Here we were at the end of July, and still panting for the rain. The sky, however, had been overcast all day, which made the heat the more unbearable.
It was pitchy dark in the Gardens; but with the aid of a couple of railway lanterns, we eventually went over the grounds very thoroughly by eleven o'clock. During this search Smythe and I walked right under a huge peepul tree that grew on the verge of the Tank. Under this tree we missed the light from the second lantern, and, calling to the syce who carried it behind us, we saw that he stood at some distance away. He said that he would not go under that tree for love or money, and begged that we would not ask him to do so. So Smythe took the lamp from him, and we passed on after examining the ground under the tree, as we did with every other dark patch and corner of the Gardens.
There was nothing for it now but to begin a long vigil on the spot where my friend had left his dog-cart, when he had commenced his walk. About midnight Smythe went home to his wife, so I was left with the syce for company. He sat cross-legged on the grass near me, while I reclined on the cushion seat which had been removed from the trap.
Feeling the urge to engage him in conversation, there was one question that came to me at once. (The more important matter of his master's encounter with the jogi we had already thrashed out; he had been with Clancey at the time and corroborated that story). In fact, the question I put to my companion now was just an idle one, for I guessed the likely answer, knowing the minds of these rustic folk regarding such things as phantoms and spooks. The tree he had been so afraid of, I thought, is probably haunted by a she-devil, the well-known 'churail'. Anyhow, "Syce", I said, "why wouldn't you come under that peepul tree with us?"
"No Hindu would, Sahib," he answered, "unless he were a stranger in Delhi."
"No? And why not?"
"How shall I tell you? You white people laugh at these things. But you must have heard it when you were under the tree."
"Heard what?"
"Didn't you hear him smoking his hookah?.... T-oo-r-r-.... T-oo-r-r-r?"
"What?" I said. "In the branches of the tree?—That was a night-bird of some kind!" And I laughed.
"For this reason," he said indignantly, "I did not wish to say anything about the cursed tree."
However certain I felt that this simple-minded Hindu had mistaken the croaking of some nocturnal creature for the bubbling and gurgling drawl of a hookah, I was ready to hear any old story, and cajoled him into telling me a rather good one.
"In the first place," I said, "why do you call it a cursed tree? The peepul is sacred to you Hindus."
"Yes," he agreed "but this particular peepul has been cursed. It came about in this way: In the time of the Emperor Aurungzeb, a certain 'pir' took up
this abode under this tree, and began to persecute the poor Hindu people who used to come to the sacred tree to offer their 'poojahs' and to bathe in the Tank. He would throw away the flowers, sweets and fruits of their sacrifices, desecrate their altars, and beat the devotees off if necessary".
"The Hindus," I commented, "were very meek to allow the high-handed behaviour of this Mohamedan!"
"You know the fanatical Muslim Aurungzeb was," he said. "The poor Hindus could hope for no redress. And so things went on at this peepul tree, till, making a virtue of necessity, the Hindus of the neighbourhood abandoned their sacred tree to this wicked man. In fact, their veneration grew to loathing—it was considered to have been defiled. And when, eventually, the holy pir was buried on the spot where he had made his home, under the tree for some forty years, the curse was thought to be complete, and no Hindu would think of sacrificing under this peepul. One night, they say, a band of daring youths (Hindus) went to the pir's grave, exhumed the recently-interred body, and threw it into the Tank, where it remained. Since then, Sahib, the soul of that wretched pir haunts the old peepul. I heard him to-night, worse luck! You heard him too. And he is always there at the top of the tree at night, pulling away at his hubble-bubble."
"Humph!" I said, and thought I would like to go over to the tree and throw a few stones at the croaking bird which had given rise to the syce's funny story. I might have made the test, but that we had to take shelter presently under an open pavilion near by, for the long-promised rain had come at last, though at an awkward time. A high wind blew the sand into our faces, there were quick flashes of lurid lightning, and we had only just enough time to unyoke the Waler before we realised that we were exposed to an Indian sandstorm. I thought the horse would have kicked down the wooden posts of the pavilion, and that the zinc roof would have been blown over our heads, while we struggled to make the animal share the small shelter with us. Soon the elements became calmer, and so did the horse. But suddenly, as if from nowhere, there was a bluish-yellow flash and a crashing report. Looking in the direction of the sound, I heard a splashing.
"Sahib," whispered the syce, with his hand on my arm, "that is the peepul tree! It has been struck!"
These sandstorms are fiercer than they are lasting, so in a few minutes we were able to go out and examine the tree, the syce keeping at a very safe distance. Almost half of it had seen torn down and lay immersed in the water of the Tank. The other part stood gaunt and lifeless on a charred and blackened trunk. This was easily discernible, for the bark of the peepul is of a glistening light grey colour.
I had had enough of strange stories, and now had come an uncanny experience. How this fitted into a chain of apparently occult influences was shown the next morning. After an anxious night of waiting and watching, informing the police, and having no rest, we began dredging operations at the Tank; the clue for the search was Clancey's horsewhip.
Like a lost fishing-rod, it was seen to be sticking up out of the weeds close to the fallen tree. The syce recognised it at once; he said the Sahib always took the whip with him in these little walks.
About mid-way the body of my poor friend was brought out, with all the ordinary signs of drowning apparent. The water was certainly weedy; yet Clancey could swim well. But how and why he got into the water shall never be known. And just before his body was found, one of the men brought up a vessel covered over and filled with a loamy black soil form the bottom of the Tank; when the mud was removed, the object revealed itself to be an old copper hookah.
"Throw it back!" cried the syce. "It belonged to the wicked pir!"
Whether he was right or not will also never be known.
From the Indian State Railway Magazine (June 1933)
Panther People
by C.A. Kincaid
LEC BRIGGS, A TALL POWERFULLY BUILT MAN IN THE middle thirties, was driving through the Dharwar forest one cold weather morning in an ancient but still quite efficient touring car. He was superintendent of forests in the Kanara District and was on his way to confer with other forest officers, English and Indian, in Dharwar. He had come up the Ghats1 and had a bare twenty miles to go before he reached the open plain. He knew the road well; only a few weeks before he and an English friend had driven along it and at a bend had suddenly come face to face with a tiger. The tiger had stepped with a low growl to one side; Briggs pressed the accelerator and the car shot past. A mile or so farther on they had met two or three forest women picking up sticks for fuel. Greatly excited, they had shouted to them to get into the car and escape; a tiger was close by. The women had declined the invitation with a smile. "The old tiger," they said, "why, we see him every day. He is quite harmless; he never hurts anyone." Indeed in their indulgent contempt they even neglected to call him 'they'—the royal privilege to which all tigers are entitled. Briggs smiled at the recollection and looked at the trees which surrounded him on all sides and, but for the road to guide him, would have soon engulfed him in their midst.
Just then out of a small clearing in front stepped an Englishman. He had no topi and he was dressed in a suit of a curious grey material, old but well cut and serviceable. Briggs wondered what on earth the man was doing in this wild haunted forest. He threw the gear lever into neutral, pressed his brake and pulled up close to the newcomer. As he came nearer, Briggs noticed his curious build. He must have stood six feet two, but his legs and his arms were quite short; indeed, out of all proportion to his great height. On the other hand, his body was beautifully formed with a strange catlike grace that quite made up for the shortness of his limbs.
Briggs addressed him courteously and said: "Hullo! What's the matter? Can I help you at all? I expect you have lost your way."
The stranger answered in a pleasant well-bred voice: "No, I have not got lost. I know this forest well; besides I have a useful bump of locality. I am on a shooting expedition. I was just walking to my camp. Still, as it is some way off near the edge of the forest, I should be glad of a lift."
"Right-o!" said Briggs, cordially. "Come along inside. I'll tell you what. We'll drive to a glade I know of a couple of miles ahead and there we'll have breakfast. I have a tiffin basket at the back and I shall be very glad indeed if you'll join me."
"It is most awfully kind of you. My name is Savile. I used to be in the 82nd, but I retired three years ago and now I am just loafing about and shooting when I get the chance."
The car did not take long to carry the forest officer and his guest to the glade of which the former had spoken. Briggs opened the door and got out; he lifted the tiffin basket from the back to a convenient mound. The basket was amply furnished, for its owner liked to do himself well when on the march. Two large flasks held hot tea. Polished white dishes, cups, saucers, plates and cutlery of all kinds offered every aid to the consumption of cold chicken and tongue, ham, pressed beef, currant cake and fruit that awaited the hunger of the travellers.
Briggs carved the chicken and gave his newly-found friend an ample portion. Savile snatched the plate so greedily that Briggs thought to himself 'the poor devil must be starving.' Certainly Savile polished off his helping in no time and was quite ready for a second before Briggs, stout trencherman though he was, had really started on his first. Then Savile said in his clear well-bred voice: "Are you not afraid to go through this forest alone?"
"No," said Briggs with some surprise, "why?"
"Well, of course, it may only be idle gossip; but I have heard from some trustworthy natives that there are panther people about."
Briggs began to wonder whether his guest was not an escaped lunatic; so, instead of asking him incredulously what the devil he meant, he said as calmly as he could: "No, I have never heard that; but what are panther people exactly?"
"They are men and women who have the power to turn themselves into panthers at will; or perhaps they may be panthers that have the power to turn themselves into men and women. After all it does not matter much, for it comes to the same in the end, doesn't it?" And Savile smiled whimsic
ally.
Briggs began to grow deeply interested: "You surely have never met such people, have you?"
"Well, yes. I was so unfortunate some four years ago as to marry one of them."
This was more than Briggs could stand: "I wish the deuce, old chap, you wouldn't try to pull my leg. You cannot expect me to believe such a yarn as that."
Savile's courteous manner never changed. "Well, such a statement does seem rather tall in cold blood; but if you like I'll tell you my story and then you can believe it or not, as you please...."
"Yes, do."
"Some eight years ago I had just got my majority and I thought it was time to marry. Subalterns, you know, are expected to remain bachelors. Married captains are not always popular; but majors are more or less required to have wives. So I began to look for a suitable lady."
"When a man begins to look for a wife, it is wonderful how soon he finds a lady who seems to be his long-looked-for ideal. I met my soul's mate at Dhulia in Khandesh, where her father held a post on the railway. After her marriage she insisted on spending our honeymoon shooting the great jungles of Western Khandesh; and she never seemed so happy as when we were camping in the forest. After our honeymoon we went to Mhow, where my regiment was stationed and the rainy season passed very pleasantly with polo, cricket and tennis—the usual military life, you know. My wife was a bit of a flirt; but I did not mind that. She had only just come out when I married her and I realised that she was wild to enjoy to the full the new life she had just begun to know."
"Among her favourite squires was a Civil Servant, a man called Trevelyan, who was in the Political Department and was officiating as first assistant to Sir William Thompson, the Agent to the Governor-General in Central India. Trevelyan was a good-looking, well-set-up man and I liked him personally so much that I never dreamt of being jealous of his friendly relations with my wife. When in November we received and invitation to spend ten days at Christmas in the Agent's camp at Bundelkhand, I guessed, and rightly, that Trevelyan had got us the invitation. My wife was delighted at the idea of camping in Central India. I was overjoyed at the thought of bagging my first tiger."