by Talbot Mundy
A rut-worn red earth track began to ribbon out behind them. The forest closed in on either hand, and with it the stifling breath of trees with interwoven smells that are an open book to all the animals and some men. Ommony brushed the flies away with a horsetail switch and wallowed in contentment, while the driver tossed back for his consumption snatches of fact — true journalism — a bulletin of forest happenings since Ommony went away.
“There was a little fire near the place where Govind’s pony broke a leg two seasons back. Dhyan Singh took a gang from the village and put it out.”
“That shall be remembered.”
“Govind has offended all the gods. It is true that his pony’s leg mended, which was wonderful. But the beast was lame, nevertheless, and three days back a panther sprang at twilight.”
“Which panther?” demanded Ommony.
“The black one, sahib, who slew the old boar in the millet patch beyond the charcoal-burner’s. He slew the pony and ate the throat part—”
“That one always did begin at the throat.”
“As the sahib says. Govind went to see what might yet be recovered. While he was gone Govind’s wife ran away with Hir Lal, son of the blacksmith.”
“I warned Govind he would beat that woman once too often.”
“True. I heard the furious names the sahib called him. Mahommed Babar, seeing the sahib was absent, went after Hir Lal and made him give the woman back. Hir Lal recovers, but there is no skin or comfort on the backs of his thighs and loins.”
“Did Mahommed Barbar use my riding-whip?”
“Surely, sahib. How else should he have authority? He took it from its nail in the sahib’s bedroom, daring greatly lest a greater evil happen. And now Mahommed Babar knows not how to mend the broken whip. Nevertheless, Govind has his woman back.”
“What else?”
“Govind beat her. She is as weary of blows as Hir Lal, who is a great rascal.”
“There are others! What else has happened?”
“Shere Ali has changed his hunting-ground. He hunts now near the village and the people fear he will kill cattle. So they send six men when the cows go grazing, and work which needs doing is not done, because, though they bring the cows home too early, the six men say they are weary, which is a lie, but who shall prove it?”
“I’ll interview Shere Ali!”
“Soon, sahib! Soon! That tiger grows too bold. The wolves have been hunting over Guznee way of late.”
So it went, detail by detail the account of all the little things that, multiplied ad infinitum by the little things of elsewhere, make a world of news.
King screwed himself back into his corner and reveled in the only genuine rest, which is anticipation of the good time coming. Every great natural gift includes the consciousness of spaces in between events. The music of the spheres is not all noise. There are interludes. Only the men who understand true time can leap into action at exactly the right moment.
The forest closed in, and in, until they drove in a golden shaft between walls of darkness. The rank, lush after-monsoon smell had begun to yield to the hot-weather tang that gives birth to fire without rhyme or reason and keeps the naked gangs alert. Suddenly the drive curved and opened into a wide clearing with Ommony’s house in the midst, and all the evidence of a white man’s twenty-year-long vigil in a dark man’s country. An obvious bachelor’s house. The flowers and vegetables stood in straight, alternate rows. Saddles and such things, polished to perfection, rested on brackets on the front veranda, where three dogs were chained. A boy loosed the dogs as soon as the tonga came in sight, and the next few minutes were a tumult punctuated by shouts of “Down, sir! Down! Get off my chest!”
There was the first so-called police dog ever imported into India, an Irish wolf-hound nearly as high at the shoulder as a native pony, and the inevitable, quite iniquitous wire-haired terrier.
Then came the servants, observing precedence — butler, hamal, dog- boy, dhobie, sweeper, three gardeners — all salaaming with both hands, and Mahommed Babar standing straight as a ramrod over to the right because he was of the North and a Moslem, and would not submit to comparison with Hindus. He gave the military salute, although he was not in any kind of uniform; and in his left hand, that the world might see he was not afraid, he held the broken riding-whip. Having saluted his master he came to pay homage to King, who promptly shook hands with him.
“Are you satisfied?” King asked him.
“Surely. There is no such sahib as Ommony bahadur. But for these Hindus—”
“But for the night, it would be all daytime, wouldn’t it?” King answered, laughing.
“Sahib, speak a word for me.”
“Are you out of favor?” King answered. “What have you done?”
“Sahib, I am a Moslem of the North, and these—”
“You must face your own music,” King answered. “I’m your friend to the gallows’ side, if need be. I can’t save you from yourself.”
“The sahib is still my friend?”
King nodded.
“Enough. I am the sahib’s friend.”
King and Ommony went into the shuttered sitting-room, where several hundred faded books in glass cases provided most of the furniture. But there was a tiger-skin on one wall, three deep wicker arm-chairs, and a desk crowded with papers under lead weights. Through an open door was a view of Ommony’s iron bed with its legs set in jam-pots filled with insect poison. The dogs came and flopped down on the floor with their legs out straight, panting. In his own house at last Ommony opened up.
“Here I am,” he said. “Now. Tell me first why you left the army.”
“Too many things a soldier can’t do. Too many over you. They spoil every game by wanting to know at the wrong moment,” King answered.
“How did you solve the money problem?”
“Found an American millionaire whose passion is pulling plugs. To use his own term, he hired me. I’ve a free hand.”
“You didn’t come all this way just to tell me that,” said Ommony. “Do you want some good advice? There isn’t any! I can show you what I consider a good example, but you’ll have to be the judge of it.”
“I want information.”
“Ask and it shall be lied unto you. I can give you my opinions about alleged facts. I believe ’em, but I may be as wide of the mark as the pigs that perish.”
“Who’s running the ructions here in Moplah country?” King asked. “Who is at the bottom of the chimney, making smoke?”
“Whoever it is has made fire,” Ommony answered. “Moplahs are fanatics. Fire’s under ’em. I turned in a report a year ago, and was told to mind my forest. I hate to be obedient as much as any man, but I like the forest and don’t like politics. Besides, I had broken my own rule, which is never to offer advice. I lay down. If a man comes all this way and asks, he either wants to hear me talk or has something of his own to say; that’s different. There’s fire under the Moplahs. They’ll cut loose soon.”
“Did you go to Poona to say that?”
“I went on leave because short leave was due. Chose Poona, although I hate the place, because I knew Fludd would be there. He could do more than anyone else to remedy this situation. Accepted dinner at the brute’s house. Talked with his wife and daughter, who belong to all the societies for restricting other people. Hoping, of course, that he would ask for my opinion. He didn’t. Here I am again, minus my leave and eight hundred rupees for expenses. All he said on the subject of the Moplahs was that they’re sending judge Wilmshurst to investigate the rumored persecution of Hindus. He thought I’d be pleased to hear it. I didn’t try to look pleased, so he changed the subject.”
“And Wilmshurst will bring his wife,” King suggested.
“Undoubtedly. Daren’t leave her!”
“D’you care if I use this as headquarters?” King asked. “Wilmshurst will be intensely legal. He’ll hang so many, and imprison so many adjusting the proportions nicely—”
“And
brother Moplah will do the rest!” Ommony agreed. “Headquarters what for? Reception committee? I forbid Mrs. Wilmshurst the house!”
“Plug-pulling campaign. I want to keep the peace in spite of Wilmshurst.”
Ommony laughed, genuinely, making almost no noise but throwing his head back.
“All right. What else?”
“What is the matter with Mahommed Babar?”
“Nothing. He’s a first-class man. Between the devil and the deep sea. As the son of his father he wants to stand with us. As a pious Moslem owing money to a Hindu shroff he naturally believes death is the dose for Hindus and now’s the time. Why? Has he said anything?”
King repeated what the Northerner had said when they arrived. Ommony nodded.
“He’s all right. He’s being tempted almost beyond endurance, but I’d rather trust him than Wilmshurst. Have you seen him out with tiger?”
The nearest to tiger-hunting that King had done for years was stalking greased Afridis in the northern mist.
“All right,” said Ommony. “I’ll prove there’s not much wrong with Mahommed Babar. Do us all good. Mahommed’s nerve may be going if he thinks he needs speaking for — moral nerve. Physically he’s harder than either of us. Have to interview Shere Ali anyhow. Fancy any gun from that rack?”
That is as exciting as being invited to choose your own horse out of a bunch. There followed five minutes of absolute delight, Ommony remarking on the virtues of each weapon as King lifted them down in turn. He selected an Express.
“Good,” said Ommony with one of his curt nods. “I’d sooner you’d take that than any. Precaution — self-defense; that’s all. Stop him if you have to. Shere Ali’s in his prime. Preserves the jungle balance. Be a shame to kill him. Are you ready? No, no dogs this trip. No, no shikarris. No, no bearers. Only Mahommed Babar and the jungli.”
The jungli needed no summons. Naked except for a leather belt, he lived, moved and had his being within earshot in hope of a command from Ommony, and, like the dog, followed unless forbidden.
CHAPTER 4. “Fear and the heart of a fool are one.”
Roughly speaking, Ommony’s forest is fan-shape, with his bungalow in a clearing near the handle of the fan. The jungle is hilly and in many places impenetrable, but fire-lanes have been cut through and through it, and the local villagers’ main source of revenue is laboring to keep those clear. They are also the best feeding-ground for the village goats, which is the reason why Ommony set forth to interview Shere Ali.
None of the lanes went straight, because of the conformation of the ground. They could seldom look back two hundred yards and see anything but solid jungle with heat shimmering up from it toward a brassy sky. Except the two white men, followed by Mahommed Babar and trailed by the naked jungli, the only moving objects were kites circling above the trees, who followed the view of two rifles on general principles. The jungli displayed scant interest, his bronze head was like a gladiator’s, too familiar with fanged death to treat it seriously until face to face — unintelligent, perhaps, in some ways.
On the other hand, Mahommed Babar’s manly Northern features — rather hawk-eyed he was, rather hook-nosed; and the corners of his mouth, scarcely suggested under the dark beard, were rather cynical — appeared preoccupied. Not nervous. Not in the least nervous. Bent on something — perhaps arguing with himself.
“We may have to execute Shere Ali,” said Ommony. “I hope not. He shall have fair trial. His dam came down from Khalsa ghaut and hunted the forest for nine years before she killed a woman at the water-hole, and I had to do my bit. That’s her skin on the wall in my sitting-room. I had this fellow in my arms when he was about the size of a family cat. Huh! He’d purr when you stroked him and claw and bite you the moment you stopped. The jungli found him, and we fed him chickens and mice until he was old enough to take his own chance in the jungle.”
“Pity to kill him,” King agreed. “What does he get away with?”
“A full-grown buck or a doe about every other day. If it weren’t for him they’d graze in one place until the ground was sick of them. But, what with him and the wolves, they keep moving and the young stuff has a chance. However, he’s taking to goats, apparently, and that’s the first step on the road to murder.”
“What’s the reason?” King wondered.
“Another tiger, probably. Shere Ali may have a yellow streak. If another male tiger has elected to hunt this forest Shere Ali may be afraid to challenge him. No wild animal is dangerous to man until fear gets its work in. I hope he proves himself not guilty. Magnificent beast. Too good for a viceroy. I was hoping to keep him for the prince.”
They might have been strolling in the Botanical Gardens for all the apparent precaution they took. But Ommony knew his men, as well as his forest. At the end of an hour’s steady tramping the jungli took the lead uninvited, armed with nothing but a small flat tom-tom and a stick. Ommony said something to him in a language that sounded hardly human, and he disappeared immediately like a shadow among the trees.
Two minutes after that they emerged into a clearing of several acres with an almost dry stream winding through it. There were occasional bushes, but the open space sloped southward, and from where King and Ommony stood they had a clear view of the whole of it with the light on their left hand.
“He’ll come that way,” said Ommony, nodding toward the right front.
As if in answer to him there came a short, sharp rattling noise three or four times repeated. It was almost like a woodpecker’s note.
“What the devil is that?” demanded King.
“The jungli’s tom-tom. It’s made of tortoise-shell and lizard skin. He can drive anything with it — even pig.”
Mahommed Babar announced his presence with a cough and came closer. Ommony looked at him and then up at the kites, and laughed.
“The Romans used to call the birds good prophets. What do you think of them?” he asked.
“They expect you to die. Will you oblige them, Mahommed?”
“Inshallah, sahib.” (If God wills.)
The tom-tom rattled again two or three times, and Ommony seemed familiar with its code, for he motioned to King to take his stand on the far side of the lane by which they had entered the clearing. He took the near side and stood with legs apart and his rifle balanced loosely in the crook of his right arm.
“Shere Ali will be here in a minute,” he said. “I want to try him out, Mahommed. Will you go and stand fifty yards away — not on rising ground — the lower you are the more helpless you’ll look. See if he’ll kill man without being attacked.”
Mahommed Babar glanced at King, who detected the Northerner’s look of unfinished argument. It was not fear. It might be doubt.
“Take my rifle, if you like, and I’ll go instead,” King volunteered.
Mahommed Babar smiled. So did Ommony. The rattle of the tom-tom was repeated five or six times.
“Better be quick, whichever’s going,” said Ommony, and if there had been any doubt that ended it. Mahommed’s face cleared. Those five words of Ommony’s added to King’s offer had established him as an equal as far as essentials were concerned. He moved his hand cavalierly and strode forward to play in the presence of death, unarmed. The tom-tom rattled again, three times more loudly. King opened his breech to make sure, being an army man. Ommony knew. His rifle lay along his forearm and he never once glanced at it.
Mahommed Babar walked toward the apex of an isosceles triangle, of which Ommony and King were the base, and stopped at the end of fifty yards, looking up. There was a lump of ground in front of him, three or four yards high, with a tangle of dead bushes on top. Shere Ali had come silently from the direction Ommony predicted and stood looking down at all three men with his head thrust out through a clump of high grass. King’s hands fidgeted with the Express. Ommony remained stock-still.
The more or less unexpected had happened, as always in tiger land. Shere Ali looked down on Mahommed Babar, measuring the distance, snarling, o
ne ear forward and the other back, and looked altogether too long for his own reputation. A tiger whose hand was not against man would have taken the clear road to safety along the watercourse after one swift survey.
Then Mahommed Babar did either a very bold and confident or a very afraid and foolish thing. He began retreating, backward. King swore between his teeth and raised his rifle midway. Ommony continued to stand still. Mahommed came very slowly, feeling his way behind him with each foot-trod in a hole, lost balance, staggered, and fell. The rest was all instantaneous. Yellow as sunlight, in his prime, magnificent, Shere Ali launched himself like a flash to wreak murder. Both rifles spoke at once. An Express bullet and a .404 went home, and the tiger fell short, writhing with a smashed shoulder and paralyzed hind legs. Getting to his knees, Mahommed Babar stared across a scant yard into the brute’s eyes, and Shere Ali struck with the one uninjured forepaw, missing by inches, and then trying to struggle nearer. Aiming very carefully, King sent his second bullet exactly between the tiger’s eyes.
Trial, sentence, and execution were all over in less than sixty seconds; and the jungli appeared between two trees, looking about as enthusiastic as a stuffed museum piece. His only comment was to rattle his strange little tom- tom; then he went to count the dead brute’s claws and whiskers. Ommony must have moved, for it was his bullet that smashed Shere Ali’s backbone and paralyzed the hind legs; but he was standing exactly as he stood at first, with the rifle lying on his forearm, legs apart.
He ejected the empty cartridge-case, reloaded, and strode forward, for one thing to make sure that the jungli did not steal claws and whiskers; for the superstition is that those things are good against devils, which, as every jungli knows, are all too plentiful. King reloaded the Express and followed Ommony, neither man having spoken a word since Shere Ali showed himself. It was Ommony who spoke at last. He came to a halt midway and felt for his cigar-case.