Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)

by Rudyard Kipling

  Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic of wild beasts penned at the bottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted no protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sight in front of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this, Pornic’s body was divided, in some unclear way or other; the men and women had dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him say something.

  “You will live here till you die like the other Feringhi,” he said, coolly, watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing.

  “What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at once, and don’t stop to tell me a lie.”

  “He is over there,” answered Gunga Dass, pointing to a burrow-mouth about four doors to the left of my own. “You can see for yourself. He died in the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and as all these men and women and the one child will also die.”

  “For pity’s sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he come, and when did he die?”

  This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered and replied: “I will not — unless you give me something first.”

  Then I recollected where I was, and struck the man between the eyes, partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and, cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led me round to the burrow which he had indicated.

  “I know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witness that I do not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was shot from the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from attempting. He was shot here.” Gunga Dass laid his hand on his lean stomach and bowed to the earth.

  “Well, and what then? Go on!”

  “And then — and then, Your Honor, we carried him in to his house and gave him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his house and gave up the ghost.”

  “In how long? In how long?”

  “About half an hour, after he received his wound. I call Vishnu to witness,” yelled the wretched man, “that I did everything for him. Everything which was possible, that I did!”

  He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles. But I had my doubts about Gunga Dass’s benevolence, and kicked him off as he lay protesting.

  “I believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in a minute or two. How long was the Sahib here?”

  “Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad. But hear me swear Protector of the Poor! Won’t Your Honor hear me swear that I never touched an article that belonged to him? What is Your Worship going to do?”

  I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had hauled him on to the platform opposite the deserted burrow. As I did so I thought of my wretched fellow-prisoner’s unspeakable misery among all these horrors for eighteen months, and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole, with a bullet-wound in the stomach. Gunga Dass fancied I was going to kill him and howled pitifully. The rest of the population, in the plethora that follows a full flesh meal, watched us without stirring.

  “Go inside, Gunga Dass,” said I, “and fetch it out.”

  I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gunga Dass nearly rolled off the platform and howled aloud.

  “But I am Brahmin, Sahib — a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by your father’s soul, do not make me do this thing!”

  “Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father’s soul, in you go!” I said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head into the mouth of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down, covered my face with my hands.

  At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga Dass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft thud — and I uncovered my eyes.

  The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it. The body — clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn, with leather pads on the shoulders — was that of a man between thirty and forty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and a rough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of the left hand was a ring — a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with a monogram that might have been either “B.K.” or “B.L.” On the third finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of the unfortunate man:

  1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn and blackened; bound with string at the crew.

  2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken.

  3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel, name-plate, marked with monogram “B.K.”

  4. Envelope, postmark undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp, addressed to “Miss Mon — ” (rest illegible) — ”ham” — ”nt.”

  5. Imitation crocodile-skin notebook with pencil. First forty-five pages blank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with private memoranda relating chiefly to three persons — a Mrs.L. Singleton, abbreviated several times to “Lot Single,” “Mrs. S. May,” and “Garmison,” referred to in places as “Jerry” or “Jack.”

  6. Handle of small-sized hunting-knife. Blade snapped short. Buck’s horn, diamond cut, with swivel and ring on the butt; fragment of cotton cord attached.

  It must not be supposed that I inventoried all these things on the spot as fully as I have here written them down. The notebook first attracted my attention, and I put it in my pocket with a view of studying it later on.

  The rest of the articles I conveyed to my burrow for safety’s sake, and there being a methodical man, I inventoried them. I then returned to the corpse and ordered Gunga Dass to help me to carry it out to the river-front. While we were engaged in this, the exploded shell of an old brown cartridge dropped out of one of the pockets and rolled at my feet. Gunga Dass had not seen it; and I fell to thinking that a man does not carry exploded cartridge-cases, especially “browns,” which will not bear loading twice, about with him when shooting. In other words, that cartridge-case had been fired inside the crater. Consequently there must be a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of asking Gunga Dass, but checked myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge of the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to push it out and let it be swallowed up-the only possible mode of burial that I could think of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away.

  Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so, it was lying face downward, I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coat open, disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have already told you that the dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment’s glance showed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot wound; the gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The shooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death, which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch’s death was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumably Gunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun — the gun that fitted the brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the rifle-fire from the boat.

  I pushed the corpse out hastily, and saw it sink from sight literally in a few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious way I turned to peruse the notebook. A stained and discolor
ed slip of paper had been inserted between the binding and the back, and dropped out as I opened the pages. This is what it contained: “Four out from crow-clump: three left; nine out; two right; three back; two left; fourteen out; two left; seven out; one left; nine back; two right; six back; four right; seven back.” The paper had been burned and charred at the edges. What it meant I could not understand. I sat down on the dried bents turning it over and over between my fingers, until I was aware of Gunga Dass standing immediately behind me with glowing eyes and outstretched hands.

  “Have you got it?” he panted. “Will you not let me look at it also? I swear that I will return it.”

  “Got what? Return what?” asked.

  “That which you have in your hands. It will help us both.” He stretched out his long, bird-like talons, trembling with eagerness.

  “I could never find it,” he continued. “He had secreted it about his person. Therefore I shot him, but nevertheless I was unable to obtain it.”

  Gunga Dass had quite forgotten his little fiction about the rifle-bullet. I received the information perfectly calmly. Morality is blunted by consorting with the Dead who are alive.

  “What on earth are you raving about? What is it you want me to give you?”

  “The piece of paper in the notebook. It will help us both. Oh, you fool! You fool! Can you not see what it will do for us? We shall escape!”

  His voice rose almost to a scream, and he danced with excitement before me. I own I was moved at the chance of my getting away.

  “Don’t skip! Explain yourself. Do you mean to say that this slip of paper will help us? What does it mean?”

  “Read it aloud! Read it aloud! I beg and I pray you to read it aloud.”

  I did so. Gunga Dass listened delightedly, and drew an irregular line in the sand with his fingers.

  “See now! It was the length of his gun-barrels without the stock. I have those barrels. Four gun-barrels out from the place where I caught crows. Straight out; do you follow me? Then three left. Ah! how well I remember when that man worked it out night after night. Then nine out, and so on. Out is always straight before you across the quicksand. He told me so before I killed him.”

  “But if you knew all this why didn’t you get out before?”

  “I did not know it. He told me that he was working it out a year and a half ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boat had gone away, and he could get out near the quicksand safely. Then he said that we would get away together. But I was afraid that he would leave me behind one night when he had worked it all out, and so I shot him. Besides, it is not advisable that the men who once get in here should escape. Only I, and I am a Brahmin.”

  The prospect of escape had brought Gunga Dass’s caste back to him. He stood up, walked about and gesticulated violently. Eventually I managed to make him talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spent six months night after night in exploring, inch by inch, the passage across the quicksand; how he had declared it to be simplicity itself up to within about twenty yards of the river bank after turning the flank of the left horn of the horseshoe. This much he had evidently not completed when Gunga Dass shot him with his own gun.

  In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollect shaking hands effusively with Gunga Dass, after we had decided that we were to make an attempt to get away that very night. It was weary work waiting throughout the afternoon.

  About ten o’clock, as far as I could judge, when the Moon had just risen above the lip of the crater, Gunga Dass made a move for his burrow to bring out the gun-barrels whereby to measure our path. All the other wretched inhabitants had retired to their lairs long ago. The guardian boat drifted downstream some hours before, and we were utterly alone by the crow-clump. Gunga Dass, while carrying the gun-barrels, let slip the piece of paper which was to be our guide. I stooped down hastily to recover it, and, as I did so, I was aware that the diabolical Brahmin was aiming a violent blow at the back of my head with the gun-barrels. It was too late to turn round. I must have received the blow somewhere on the nape of my neck. A hundred thousand fiery stars danced before my eyes, and I fell forwards senseless at the edge of, the quicksand.

  When I recovered consciousness, the Moon was going down, and I was sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass had disappeared and my mouth was full of blood. I lay down again and prayed that I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I had before mentioned, laid hold upon me, and I staggered inland toward the walls of the crater. It seemed that some one was calling to me in a whisper — ”Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!” exactly as my bearer used to call me in the morning I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sand fell at my feet. Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the amphitheatre — the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to my collies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his hand and showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro for the while, that he should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted together, with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and under my arms; heard Dunnoo urge something forward; was conscious that I was being dragged, face downward, up the steep sand slope, and the next instant found myself choked and half fainting on the sand hills overlooking the crater. Dunnoo, with his face ashy grey in the moonlight, implored me not to stay but to get back to my tent at once.

  It seems that he had tracked Pornic’s footprints fourteen miles across the sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatly refused to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into the hideous Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my ponies and a couple of punkah-ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out as I have described.

  To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my personal servant on a gold mohur a month — a sum which I still think far too little for the services he has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near that devilish spot again, or to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than I have done. Of Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to do. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that some one may possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which I have given above, the corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting-suit.

  PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS

  Published in 1888, this is Kipling’s first collection of short stories. Out of the 40 stories, 28 of them were originally published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, British India, between November 1886 and June 1887. Many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla and there are also sketches of life in British India. The tales include the first appearances, in book form, of Mrs. Hauksbee, the policeman Strickland and the Soldiers Three (Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd).

  The first edition

  PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS

  CONTENTS

  LISPETH.

  THREE AND — AN EXTRA.

  THROWN AWAY.

  MISS YOUGHAL’S SAIS.

  YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.

  FALSE DAWN.

  THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES.

  CUPID’S ARROWS.

  HIS CHANCE IN LIFE.

  WATCHES OF THE NIGHT.

  THE OTHER MAN.

  CONSEQUENCES.

  THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN McGOGGIN.

  A GERM DESTROYER.

  KIDNAPPED.

  THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY.

  THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO

  HIS WEDDED WIFE.

  THE BROKEN LINK HANDICAPPED.

  BEYOND THE PALE.

  IN ERROR.

  A BANK FRAUD.

  TOD’S AMENDMENT.

  IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH.

  PIG.

  THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS.

  THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE.

  VENUS ANNODOMINI.

  THE BISARA OF POOREE.

  THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS.

  THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN.

  ON TH
E STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS.

  WRESSLEY OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE.

  BY WORD OF MOUTH.

  TO BE HELD FOR REFERENCE.

  LISPETH.

  Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these

  You bid me please?

  The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so!

  To my own Gods I go.

  It may be they shall give me greater ease

  Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.

  The Convert.

  She was the daughter of Sonoo, a Hill-man, and Jadeh his wife. One year their maize failed, and two bears spent the night in their only poppy-field just above the Sutlej Valley on the Kotgarth side; so, next season, they turned Christian, and brought their baby to the Mission to be baptized. The Kotgarth Chaplain christened her Elizabeth, and “Lispeth” is the Hill or pahari pronunciation.

  Later, cholera came into the Kotgarth Valley and carried off Sonoo and Jadeh, and Lispeth became half-servant, half-companion to the wife of the then Chaplain of Kotgarth. This was after the reign of the Moravian missionaries, but before Kotgarth had quite forgotten her title of “Mistress of the Northern Hills.”

  Whether Christianity improved Lispeth, or whether the gods of her own people would have done as much for her under any circumstances, I do not know; but she grew very lovely. When a Hill girl grows lovely, she is worth traveling fifty miles over bad ground to look upon. Lispeth had a Greek face — one of those faces people paint so often, and see so seldom. She was of a pale, ivory color and, for her race, extremely tall. Also, she possessed eyes that were wonderful; and, had she not been dressed in the abominable print-cloths affected by Missions, you would, meeting her on the hill-side unexpectedly, have thought her the original Diana of the Romans going out to slay.

  Lispeth took to Christianity readily, and did not abandon it when she reached womanhood, as do some Hill girls. Her own people hated her because she had, they said, become a memsahib and washed herself daily; and the Chaplain’s wife did not know what to do with her. Somehow, one cannot ask a stately goddess, five foot ten in her shoes, to clean plates and dishes. So she played with the Chaplain’s children and took classes in the Sunday School, and read all the books in the house, and grew more and more beautiful, like the Princesses in fairy tales. The Chaplain’s wife said that the girl ought to take service in Simla as a nurse or something “genteel.” But Lispeth did not want to take service. She was very happy where she was.