Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)

by Rudyard Kipling

  ‘Allah! This is the devil’s work,’ cried Gisborne leaping to his feet, for he heard a yell in the jungle.

  ‘Have no care, Sahib. He will not be hurt. He also will say that it is devil’s work. Ah! Listen! Who is that?’

  It was the voice of Abdul Gafur in an agony of terror, crying out upon unknown things to spare him and his gray hairs.

  ‘Nay, I cannot move another step,’ he howled. ‘I am old and my turban is lost. Arré! Arré! But I will move. Indeed I will hasten. I will run! Oh, Devils of the Pit, I am a Mussulman!’

  The undergrowth parted and gave up Abdul Gafur, turbanless, shoeless, with his waist-cloth unbound, mud and grass in his clutched hands, and his face purple. He saw Gisborne, yelled anew, and pitched forward, exhausted and quivering, at his feet. Mowgli watched him with a sweet smile.

  ‘This is no joke,’ said Gisborne sternly. ‘The man is like to die, Mowgli.’

  ‘He will not die. He is only afraid. There was no need that he should have come out of a walk.’

  Abdul Gafur groaned and rose up, shaking in every limb.

  ‘It was witchcraft — witchcraft and devildom! ‘ he sobbed, fumbling with his hand in his breast. ‘Because of my sin I have been whipped through the woods by devils. It is all finished. I repent. Take them, Sahib!’ He held out a roll of dirty paper.

  ‘What is the meaning of this, Abdul Gafur?’ said Gisborne, already knowing what would come.

  ‘Put me in the jail-khana — the notes are all here — but lock me up safely that no devils may follow. I have sinned against the Sahib and his salt which I have eaten; and but for those accursed wood-demons, I might have bought land afar off and lived in peace all my days.’ He beat his head upon the ground in an agony of despair and mortification. Gisborne turned the roll of notes over and over. It was his accumulated back-pay for the last nine months — the roll that lay in the drawer with the home-letters and the recapping machine. Mowgli watched Abdul Gafur, laughing noiselessly to himself. ‘There is no need to put me on the horse again. I will walk home slowly with the Sahib, and then he can send me under guard to the jail-khana. The Government gives many years for this offence,’ said the butler sullenly.

  Loneliness in the rukh affects very many ideas about very many things. Gisborne stared at Abdul Gafur, remembering that he was a very good servant, and that a new butler must be broken into the ways of the house from the beginning, and at the best would be a new face and a new tongue.

  ‘Listen, Abdul Gafur,’ he said. ‘Thou hast done great wrong, and altogether lost thy izzat and thy reputation. But I think that this came upon thee suddenly.’

  ‘Allah! I had never desired the notes before. The Evil took me by the throat while I looked.’

  ‘That also I can believe. Go then back to my house, and when I return I will send the notes by a runner to the Bank, and there shall be no more said. Thou art too old for the jail-khana. Also thy household is guiltless.’

  For answer Abdul Gafur sobbed between Gisborne’s cowhide riding-boots.

  ‘Is there no dismissal then?’ he gulped.

  ‘That we shall see. It hangs upon thy conduct when we return. Get upon the mare and ride slowly back.’

  ‘But the devils! The rukh is full of devils.’

  ‘No matter, my father. They will do thee no more harm unless, indeed, the Sahib’s orders be not obeyed,’ said Mowgli. ‘Then, perchance, they may drive thee home — by the road of the nilghai.’

  Abdul Gafur’s lower jaw dropped as he twisted up his waist-cloth, staring at Mowgli.

  ‘Are they his devils? His devils! And I had thought to return and lay the blame upon this warlock!’

  ‘That was well thought of, Huzrut; but before we make a trap we see first how big the game is that may fall into it. Now I thought no more than that a man had taken one of the Sahib’s horses. I did not know that the design was to make me a thief before the Sahib, or my devils had haled thee here by the leg. It is not too late now.’

  Mowgli looked inquiringly at Gisborne; but Abdul Gafur waddled hastily to the white mare, scrambled on her back and fled, the woodways crashing and echoing behind him.

  ‘That was well done,’ said Mowgli. ‘But he will fall again unless he holds by the mane.’

  ‘Now it is time to tell me what these things mean,’ said Gisborne a little sternly. ‘What is this talk of thy devils? How can men be driven up and down the rukh like cattle? Give answer.’

  ‘Is the Sahib angry because I have saved him his money?’

  ‘No, but there is trick-work in this that does not please me.’

  ‘Very good. Now if I rose and stepped three paces into the rukh there is no one, not even the Sahib, could find me till I choose. As I would not willingly do this, so I would not willingly tell. Have patience a little, Sahib, and some day I will show thee everything, for, if thou wilt, some day we will drive the buck together. There is no devil-work in the matter at all. Only...I know the rukh as a man knows the cooking-place in his house.’

  Mowgli was speaking as he would speak to an impatient child. Gisborne, puzzled, baffled, and a great deal annoyed, said nothing, but stared on the ground and thought. When he looked up the man of the woods had gone.

  ‘It is not good,’ said a level voice from the thicket, ‘for friends to be angry. Wait till the evening, Sahib, when the air cools.’

  Left to himself thus, dropped as it were in the heart of the rukh, Gisborne swore, then laughed, remounted his pony, and rode on. He visited a ranger’s hut, overlooked a couple of new plantations, left some orders as to the burning of a patch of dry grass, and set out for a camping-ground of his own choice, a pile of splintered rocks roughly roofed over with branches and leaves, not far from the banks of the Kanye stream. It was twilight when he came in sight of his resting- place, and the rukh was waking to the hushed ravenous life of the night.

  A camp-fire flickered on the knoll, and there was the smell of a very good dinner in the wind.

  ‘Um,’ said Gisborne, ‘that’s better than cold meat at any rate. Now the only man who’d be likely to be here’d be Muller, and, officially, he ought to be looking over the Changamanga rukh. I suppose that’s why he’s on my ground.’

  The gigantic German who was the head of the Woods and Forests of all India, Head Ranger from Burma to Bombay, had a habit of flitting batlike without warning from one place to another, and turning up exactly where he was least looked for. His theory was that sudden visitations, the discovery of shortcomings and a word-of-mouth upbraiding of a subordinate were infinitely better than the slow processes of correspondence, which might end in a written and official reprimand — a thing in after years to be counted against a Forest Officer’s record. As he explained it: ‘If I only talk to my boys like a Dutch uncle, dey say, “It was only dot damned old Muller,” and dey do better next dime. But if my fat-head clerk he write and say dot Muller der Inspecdor-General fail to onderstand and is much annoyed, first dot does no goot because I am not dere, and, second, der fool dot comes after me he may say to my best boys: “Look here, you haf been wigged by my bredecessor.” I tell you der big brass-hat pizness does not make der trees grow.’

  Muller’s deep voice was coming out of the darkness behind the firelight as he bent over the shoulders of his pet cook. ‘Not so much sauce, you son of Belial! Worcester sauce he is a gondiment and not a fluid. Ah, Gisborne, you haf come to a very bad dinner. Where is your camp?’ and he walked up to shake hands.

  ‘I’m the camp, sir,’ said Gisborne. ‘I didn’t know you were about here.’

  Muller looked at the young man’s trim figure. ‘Goot! That is very goot! One horse and some cold things to eat. When I was young I did my camp so. Now you shall dine with me. I went into Headquarters to make up my rebort last month. I haf written half — ho! ho! — and der rest I haf leaved to my glerks and come out for a walk. Der Government is mad about dose reborts. I dold der Viceroy so at Simla.’

  Gisborne chuckled, remembering the many tales that we
re told of Muller’s conflicts with the Supreme Government. He was the chartered libertine of all the offices, for as a Forest Officer he had no equal.

  ‘If I find you, Gisborne, sitting in your bungalow and hatching reborts to me about der blantations instead of riding der blantations, I will dransfer you to der middle of der Bikaneer Desert to reforest him. I am sick of reborts and chewing paper when we should do our work.’

  ‘There’s not much danger of my wasting time over my annuals. I hate them as much as you do, sir.’

  The talk went over at this point to professional matters. Muller had some questions to ask, and Gisborne orders and hints to receive, till dinner was ready. It was the most civilised meal Gisborne had eaten for months. No distance from the base of supplies was allowed to interfere with the work of Muller’s cook; and that table spread in the wilderness began with devilled small fresh-water fish, and ended with coffee and cognac.

  ‘Ah!’ said Muller at the end, with a sigh of satisfaction as he lighted a cheroot and dropped into his much worn campchair. ‘When I am making reborts I am Freethinker und Atheist, but here in der rukh I am more than Christian. I am Bagan also.’ He rolled the cheroot-butt luxuriously under his tongue, dropped his hands on his knees, and stared before him into the dim shifting heart of the rukh, full of stealthy noises; the snapping of twigs like the snapping of the fire behind him; the sigh and rustle of a heat-bended branch recovering her straightness in the cool night; the incessant mutter of the Kanye stream, and the undernote of the many-peopled grass uplands out of sight beyond a swell of hill. He blew out a thick puff of smoke, and began to quote Heine to himself.

  ‘Yes, it is very goot. Very goot. “Yes, I work miracles, and, by Gott, dey come off too.” I remember when dere was no rukh more big than your knee, from here to der plough-lands, and in drought-time der cattle ate bones of dead cattle up und down. Now der trees haf come back. Dey were planted by a Freethinker, because he know just de cause dot made der effect. But der trees dey had der cult of der old gods — ”und der Christian Gods howl loudly.” Dey could not live in der rukh, Gisborne.’

  A shadow moved in one of the bridle-paths — moved and stepped out into the starlight.

  ‘I haf said true. Hush! Here is Faunus himself come to see der Insbector-General. Himmel, he is der god! Look!’

  It was Mowgli, crowned with his wreath of white flowers and walking with a half-peeled branch — Mowgli, very mistrustful of the fire-light and ready to fly back to the thicket on the least alarm.

  ‘That’s a friend of mine,’ said Gisborne. ‘ He’s looking for me. Ohé, Mowgli!’

  Muller had barely time to gasp before the man was at Gisborne’s side, crying: ‘I was wrong to go. I was wrong, but I did not know then that the mate of him that was killed by this river was awake looking for thee. Else I should not have gone away. She tracked thee from the back-range, Sahib.’

  ‘He is a little mad,’ said Gisborne, ‘and he speaks of all the beasts about here as if he was a friend of theirs.’

  ‘Of course — of course. If Faunus does not know, who should know?’ said Muller gravely. ‘What does he say about tigers — dis god who knows you so well?’

  Gisborne relighted his cheroot, and before he had finished the story of Mowgli and his exploits it was burned down to moustache-edge. Muller listened without interruption. ‘Dot is not madness,’ he said at last when Gisborne had described the driving of Abdul Gafur. ‘Dot is not madness at all.’

  ‘What is it, then? He left me in a temper this morning because I asked him to tell how he did it. I fancy the chap’s possessed in some way.’

  ‘No, dere is no bossession, but it is most wonderful. Normally they die young — dese beople. Und you say now dot your thief-servant did not say what drove der poney, and of course der nilghai he could not speak.’

  ‘No, but, confound it, there wasn’t anything. I listened, and I can hear most things. The bull and the man simply came headlong — mad with fright.’

  For answer Muller looked Mowgli up and down from head to foot, then beckoned him nearer. He came as a buck treads a tainted trail.

  ‘There is no harm,’ said Muller in the vernacular. ‘Hold out an arm.’

  He ran his hand down to the elbow, felt that, and nodded. ‘So I thought. Now the knee.’ Gisborne saw him feel the knee-cap and smile. Two or three white scars just above the ankle caught his eye.

  ‘Those came when thou wast very young?’ he said.

  ‘Ay,’ Mowgli answered with a smile. ‘They were love-tokens from the little ones.’ Then to Gisborne over his shoulder. ‘This Sahib knows everything. Who is he?’

  ‘That comes after, my friend. Now where are they?’ said Muller.

  Mowgli swept his hand round his head in a circle.

  ‘So! And thou canst drive nilghai? See! There is my mare in her pickets. Canst thou bring her to me without frightening her?’

  ‘Can I bring the mare to the Sahib without frightening her!’ Mowgli repeated, raising his voice a little above its normal pitch. ‘What is more easy if the heel-ropes are loose?’

  ‘Loosen the head and heel-pegs,’ shouted Muller to the groom. They were hardly out of the ground before the mare, a huge black Australian, flung up her head and cocked her ears.

  ‘Careful! I do not wish her driven into the rukh,’ said Muller.

  Mowgli stood still fronting the blaze of the fire — in the very form and likeness of that Greek god who is so lavishly described in the novels. The mare whickered, drew up one hind leg, found that the heel- ropes were free, and moved swiftly to her master, on whose bosom she dropped her head, sweating lightly.

  ‘She came of her own accord. My horses will do that,’ cried Gisborne.

  ‘Feel if she sweats,’ said Mowgli.

  Gisborne laid a hand on the damp flank.

  ‘It is enough,’ said Muller.

  ‘It is enough,’ Mowgli repeated, and a rock behind him threw back the word.

  ‘That’s uncanny, isn’t it?’ said Gisborne.

  ‘No, only wonderful — most wonderful. Still you do not know, Gisborne?’

  ‘I confess I don’t.’

  ‘Well then, I shall not tell. He says dot some day he will show you what it is. It would be gruel if I told. But why he is not dead I do not understand. Now listen thou.’ Muller faced Mowgli, and returned to the vernacular. ‘I am the head of all the rukhs in the country of India and others across the Black Water. I do not know how many men be under me — perhaps five thousand, perhaps ten. Thy business is this, — to wander no more up and down the rukh and drive beasts for sport or for show, but to take service under me, who am the Government in the matter of Woods and Forests, and to live in this rukh as a forest- guard; to drive the villagers’ goats away when there is no order to feed them in the rukh; to admit them when there is an order; to keep down, as thou canst keep down, the boar and the nilghai when they become too many; to tell Gisborne Sahib how and where tigers move, and what game there is in the forests; and to give sure warning of all the fires in the rukh, for thou canst give warning more quickly than any other. For that work there is a payment each month in silver, and at the end, when thou hast gathered a wife and cattle and, may be, children, a pension. What answer?’

  ‘That’s just what I — ’ Gisborne began.

  ‘My Sahib spoke this morning of such a service. I walked all day alone considering the matter, and my answer is ready here. I serve, if I serve in this rukh and no other; with Gisborne Sahib and with no other.’

  ‘It shall be so. In a week comes the written order that pledges the honour of the Government for the pension. After that thou wilt take up thy hut where Gisborne Sahib shall appoint.’

  ‘I was going to speak to you about it,’ said Gisborne.

  ‘I did not want to be told when I saw that man. Dere will never be a forest-guard like him. He is a miracle. I tell you, Gisborne, some day you will find it so. Listen, he is blood-brother to every beast in der rukh!’

  ‘I s
hould be easier in my mind if I could understand him.’

  ‘Dot will come. Now I tell you dot only once in my service, and dot is thirty years, haf I met a boy dot began as this man began. Und he died. Sometimes you hear of dem in der census reports, but dey all die. Dis man haf lived, and he is an anachronism, for he is before der Iron Age, and der Stone Age. Look here, he is at der beginnings of der history of man — Adam in der Garden, and now we want only an Eva! No! He is older than dot child-tale, shust as der rukh is older dan der gods. Gisborne, I am a Bagan now, once for all.’

  Through the rest of the long evening Muller sat smoking and smoking, and staring and staring into the darkness, his lips moving in multiplied quotations, and great wonder upon his face. He went to his tent, but presently came out again in his majestic pink sleeping-suit, and the last words that Gisborne heard him address to the rukh through the deep hush of midnight were these, delivered with immense emphasis: —

  ‘Dough we shivt und bedeck und bedrape us.

  Dou art noble und nude und andeek;

  Libidina dy moder, Briapus

  Dy fader, a God und a Greek.

  Now I know dot, Bagan or Christian, I shall nefer know der inwardness of der rukh!’

  * * *

  It was midnight in the bungalow a week later when Abdul Gafur, ashy gray with rage, stood at the foot of Gisborne’s bed and whispering bade him awake.

  ‘Up, Sahib,’ he stammered. ‘Up and bring thy gun. Mine honour is gone. Up and kill before any see.’

  The old man’s face had changed, so that Gisborne stared stupidly.

  ‘It was for this, then, that that jungle outcaste helped me to polish the Sahib’s table, and drew water and plucked fowls. They have gone off together for all my beatings, and now he sits among his devils dragging her soul to the Pit. Up, Sahib, and come with me!’

  He thrust a rifle into Gisborne’s half-wakened hand and almost dragged him from the room on to the verandah.