The explanation, as it seemed to him, came at the change of the moon, when he received orders to hold himself in readiness to “allay any possible excitement” among the Satpura Bhils, who were, to put it mildly, uneasy because a paternal Government had sent up against them a Mahratta State-educated vaccinator, with lancets, lymph, and an officially registered calf. In the language of State, they had “manifested a strong objection to all prophylactic measures,” had “forcibly detained the vaccinator,” and “were on the point of neglecting or evading their tribal obligations.”
“That means they are in a blue funk — same as they were at census-time,” said the Colonel; “and if we stampede them into the hills we’ll never catch ‘em, in the first place, and, in the second, they’ll whoop off plundering till further orders. ‘Wonder who the God-forsaken idiot is who is trying to vaccinate a Bhil. I knew trouble was coming. One good thing is that they’ll only use local corps, and we can knock up something we’ll call a campaign, and let them down easy. Fancy us potting our best beaters because they don’t want to be vaccinated! They’re only crazy with fear.”
“Don’t you think, sir,” said Chinn, the next day, “that perhaps you could give me a fortnight’s shooting-leave?”
“Desertion in the face of the enemy, by Jove!” The Colonel laughed. “I might, but I’d have to antedate it a little, because we’re warned for service, as you might say. However, we’ll assume that you applied for leave three days ago, and are now well on your way south.”
“I’d like to take Bukta with me.”
“Of course, yes. I think that will be the best plan. You’ve some kind of hereditary influence with the little chaps, and they may listen to you when a glimpse of our uniforms would drive them wild. You’ve never been in that part of the world before, have you? Take care they don’t send you to your family vault in your youth and innocence. I believe you’ll be all right if you can get ‘em to listen to you.”
“I think so, sir; but if — if they should accidentally put an — make asses of ‘emselves — they might, you know — I hope you’ll represent that they were only frightened. There isn’t an ounce of real vice in ‘em, and I should never forgive myself if any one of — of my name got them into trouble.”
The Colonel nodded, but said nothing.
Chinn and Bukta departed at once. Bukta did not say that, ever since the official vaccinator had been dragged into the hills by indignant Bhils, runner after runner had skulked up to the lines, entreating, with forehead in the dust, that Jan Chinn should come and explain this unknown horror that hung over his people.
The portent of the Clouded Tiger was now too clear. Let Jan Chinn comfort his own, for vain was the help of mortal man. Bukta toned down these beseechings to a simple request for Chinn’s presence. Nothing would have pleased the old man better than a rough-and-tumble campaign against the Satpuras, whom he, as an “unmixed” Bhil, despised; but he had a duty to all his nation as Jan Chinn’s interpreter; and he devoutly believed that forty plagues would fall on his village if he tampered with that obligation. Besides, Jan Chinn knew all things, and he rode the Clouded Tiger.
They covered thirty miles a day on foot and pony, raising the blue wall-like line of the Satpuras as swiftly as might be. Bukta was very silent.
They began the steep climb a little after noon, but it was near sunset ere they reached the stone platform clinging to the side of a rifted, jungle-covered hill, where Jan Chinn the First was laid, as he had desired, that he might overlook his people. All India is full of neglected graves that date from the beginning of the eighteenth century — tombs of forgotten colonels of corps long since disbanded; mates of East India men who went on shooting expeditions and never came back; factors, agents, writers, and ensigns of the Honourable the East India Company by hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands. English folk forget quickly, but natives have long memories, and if a man has done good in his life it is remembered after his death. The weathered marble four-square tomb of Jan Chinn was hung about with wild flowers and nuts, packets of wax and honey, bottles of native spirits, and infamous cigars, with buffalo horns and plumes of dried grass. At one end was a rude clay image of a white man, in the old-fashioned top-hat, riding on a bloated tiger.
Bukta salamed reverently as they approached. Chinn bared his head and began to pick out the blurred inscription. So far as he could read it ran thus — word for word, and letter for letter:
To the Memory of JOHN CHINN, Esq.
Late Collector of............
....ithout Bloodshed or...error of Authority
Employ.only..cans of Conciliat...and Confiden.
accomplished the...tire Subjection...
a Lawless and Predatory Peop...
....taching them to...ish Government
by a Conquest over....Minds
The most perma...and rational Mode of Domini..
...Governor General and Counc...engal
have ordered thi.....erected
....arted this Life Aug. 19, 184..Ag...
On the other side of the grave were ancient verses, also very worn. As much as Chinn could decipher said:
....the savage band
Forsook their Haunts and b.....is Command
....mended..rais check a...st for spoil.
And.s.ing Hamlets prove his gene....toil.
Humanit...survey......ights restor..
A Nation..ield..subdued without a Sword.
For some little time he leaned on the tomb thinking of this dead man of his own blood, and of the house in Devonshire; then, nodding to the plains: “Yes; it’s a big work all of it even my little share. He must have been worth knowing.... Bukta, where are my people?”
“Not here, Sahib. No man comes here except in full sun. They wait above. Let us climb and see.”
But Chinn, remembering the first law of Oriental diplomacy, in an even voice answered: “I have come this far only because the Satpura folk are foolish, and dared not visit our lines. Now bid them wait on me here. I am not a servant, but the master of Bhils.”
“I go — I go,” clucked the old man. Night was falling, and at any moment Jan Chinn might whistle up his dreaded steed from the darkening scrub.
Now for the first time in a long life Bukta disobeyed a lawful command and deserted his leader; for he did not come back, but pressed to the flat table-top of the hill, and called softly. Men stirred all about him — little trembling men with bows and arrows who had watched the two since noon.
“Where is he?” whispered one.
“At his own place. He bids you come,” said Bukta.
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Rather let him loose the Clouded Tiger upon us. We do not go.”
“Nor I, though I bore him in my arms when he was a child in this his life. Wait here till the day.”
“But surely he will be angry.”
“He will be very angry, for he has nothing to eat. But he has said to me many times that the Bhils are his children. By sunlight I believe this, but — by moonlight I am not so sure. What folly have ye Satpura pigs compassed that ye should need him at all?”
“One came to us in the name of the Government with little ghost-knives and a magic calf, meaning to turn us into cattle by the cutting off of our arms. We were greatly afraid, but we did not kill the man. He is here, bound — a black man; and we think he comes from the west. He said it was an order to cut us all with knives — especially the women and the children. We did not hear that it was an order, so we were afraid, and kept to our hills. Some of our men have taken ponies and bullocks from the plains, and others pots and cloths and ear-rings.”
“Are any slain?”
“By our men? Not yet. But the young men are blown to and fro by many rumours like flames upon a hill. I sent runners asking for Jan Chinn lest worse should come to us. It was this fear that he foretold by the sign of the Clouded Tiger.”
“He says it is otherwise,” said Bukta; and he repeated, with amplifi
cations, all that young Chinn had told him at the conference of the wicker chair.
“Think you,” said the questioner, at last, “that the Government will lay hands on us?”
“Not I,” Bukta rejoined. “Jan Chinn will give an order, and ye will obey. The rest is between the Government and Jan Chinn. I myself know something of the ghost-knives and the scratching. It is a charm against the Smallpox. But how it is done I cannot tell. Nor need that concern you.”
“If he stands by us and before the anger of the Government we will most strictly obey Jan Chinn, except — except we do not go down to that place to-night.”
They could hear young Chinn below them shouting for Bukta; but they cowered and sat still, expecting the Clouded Tiger. The tomb had been holy ground for nearly half a century. If Jan Chinn chose to sleep there, who had better right? But they would not come within eyeshot of the place till broad day.
At first Chinn was exceedingly angry, till it occurred to him that Bukta most probably had a reason (which, indeed, he had), and his own dignity might suffer if he yelled without answer. He propped himself against the foot of the grave, and, alternately dozing and smoking, came through the warm night proud that he was a lawful, legitimate, fever-proof Chinn.
He prepared his plan of action much as his grandfather would have done; and when Bukta appeared in the morning with a most liberal supply of food, said nothing of the overnight desertion. Bukta would have been relieved by an outburst of human anger; but Chinn finished his victual leisurely, and a cheroot, ere he made any sign.
“They are very much afraid,” said Bukta, who was not too bold himself. “It remains only to give orders. They said they will obey if thou wilt only stand between them and the Government.”
“That I know,” said Chinn, strolling slowly to the table-land. A few of the elder men stood in an irregular semicircle in an open glade; but the ruck of people — women and children were hidden in the thicket. They had no desire to face the first anger of Jan Chinn the First.
Seating himself on a fragment of split rock, he smoked his cheroot to the butt, hearing men breathe hard all about him. Then he cried, so suddenly that they jumped:
“Bring the man that was bound!”
A scuffle and a cry were followed by the appearance of a Hindoo vaccinator, quaking with fear, bound hand and foot, as the Bhils of old were accustomed to bind their human sacrifices. He was pushed cautiously before the presence; but young Chinn did not look at him.
“I said — the man that was bound. Is it a jest to bring me one tied like a buffalo? Since when could the Bhil bind folk at his pleasure? Cut!”
Half a dozen hasty knives cut away the thongs, and the man crawled to Chinn, who pocketed his case of lancets and tubes of lymph. Then, sweeping the semicircle with one comprehensive forefinger, and in the voice of compliment, he said, clearly and distinctly: “Pigs!
“Ai!” whispered Bukta. “Now he speaks. Woe to foolish people!”
“I have come on foot from my house” (the assembly shuddered) “to make clear a matter which any other Satpura Bhil would have seen with both eyes from a distance. Ye know the Smallpox who pits and scars your children so that they look like wasp-combs. It is an order of the Government that whoso is scratched on the arm with these little knives which I hold up is charmed against her. All Sahibs are thus charmed, and very many Hindoos. This is the mark of the charm. Look!”
He rolled back his sleeve to the armpit and showed the white scars of the vaccination-mark on his white skin. “Come, all, and look.”
A few daring spirits came up, and nodded their heads wisely. There was certainly a mark, and they knew well what other dread marks were hidden by the shirt. Merciful was Jan Chinn, that then and there proclaimed his godhead!
“Now all these things the man whom ye bound told you.”
“I did — a hundred times; but they answered with blows,” groaned the operator, chafing his wrists and ankles.
“But, being pigs, ye did not believe; and so came I here to save you, first from Smallpox, next from a great folly of fear, and lastly, it may be, from the rope and the jail. It is no gain to me; it is no pleasure to me: but for the sake of that one who is yonder, who made the Bhil a man” — he pointed down the hill — ”I, who am of his blood, the son of his son, come to turn your people. And I speak the truth, as did Jan Chinn.”
The crowd murmured reverently, and men stole out of the thicket by twos and threes to join it. There was no anger in their god’s face.
“These are my orders. (Heaven send they’ll take ‘em, but I seem to have impressed ‘em so far!) I myself will stay among you while this man scratches your arms with the knives, after the order of the Government. In three, or it may be five or seven, days, your arms will swell and itch and burn. That is the power of Smallpox fighting in your base blood against the orders of the Government I will therefore stay among you till I see that Smallpox is conquered, and I will not go away till the men and the women and the little children show me upon their arms such marks as I have even now showed you. I bring with me two very good guns, and a man whose name is known among beasts and men. We will hunt together, I and he and your young men, and the others shall eat and lie still. This is my order.”
There was a long pause while victory hung in the balance. A white-haired old sinner, standing on one uneasy leg, piped up:
“There are ponies and some few bullocks and other things for which we need a kowl [protection]. They were not taken in the way of trade.”
The battle was won, and John Chinn drew a breath of relief. The young Bhils had been raiding, but if taken swiftly all could be put straight.
“I will write a kowl so soon as the ponies, the bullocks, and the other things are counted before me and sent back whence they came. But first we will put the Government mark on such as have not been visited by Smallpox.” In an undertone, to the vaccinator: “If you show you are afraid you’ll never see Poona again, my friend.”
“There is not sufficient ample supply of vaccination for all this population,” said the man. “They destroyed the offeecial calf.”
“They won’t know the difference. Scrape ‘em and give me a couple of lancets; I’ll attend to the elders.”
The aged diplomat who had demanded protection was the first victim. He fell to Chinn’s hand and dared not cry out. As soon as he was freed he dragged up a companion, and held him fast, and the crisis became, as it were, a child’s sport; for the vaccinated chased the unvaccinated to treatment, vowing that all the tribe must suffer equally. The women shrieked, and the children ran howling; but Chinn laughed, and waved the pink-tipped lancet.
“It is an honour,” he cried. “Tell them, Bukta, how great an honour it is that I myself mark them. Nay, I cannot mark every one — the Hindoo must also do his work — but I will touch all marks that he makes, so there will be an equal virtue in them. Thus do the Rajputs stick pigs. Ho, brother with one eye! Catch that girl and bring her to me. She need not run away yet, for she is not married, and I do not seek her in marriage. She will not come? Then she shall be shamed by her little brother, a fat boy, a bold boy. He puts out his arm like a soldier. Look! He does not flinch at the blood. Some day he shall be in my regiment. And now, mother of many, we will lightly touch thee, for Smallpox has been before us here. It is a true thing, indeed, that this charm breaks the power of Mata. There will be no more pitted faces among the Satpuras, and so ye can ask many cows for each maid to be wed.”
And so on and so on — quick-poured showman’s patter, sauced in the Bhil hunting-proverbs and tales of their own brand of coarse humour till the lancets were blunted and both operators worn out.
But, nature being the same the world over, the unvaccinated grew jealous of their marked comrades, and came near to blows about it. Then Chinn declared himself a court of justice, no longer a medical board, and made formal inquiry into the late robberies.
“We are the thieves of Mahadeo,” said the Bhils, simply. “It is our fate, and we wer
e frightened. When we are frightened we always steal.”
Simply and directly as children, they gave in the tale of the plunder, all but two bullocks and some spirits that had gone amissing (these Chinn promised to make good out of his own pocket), and ten ringleaders were despatched to the lowlands with a wonderful document, written on the leaf of a note-book, and addressed to an Assistant District Superintendent of Police. There was warm calamity in that note, as Jan Chinn warned them, but anything was better than loss of liberty.
Armed with this protection, the repentant raiders went down-hill. They had no desire whatever to meet Mr. Dundas Fawne of the Police, aged twenty-two, and of a cheerful countenance, nor did they wish to revisit the scene of their robberies. Steering a middle course, they ran into the camp of the one Government chaplain allowed to the various irregular corps through a district of some fifteen thousand square miles, and stood before him in a cloud of dust. He was by way of being a priest, they knew, and, what was more to the point, a good sportsman who paid his beaters generously.
When he read Chinn’s note he laughed, which they deemed a lucky omen, till he called up policemen, who tethered the ponies and the bullocks by the piled house-gear, and laid stern hands upon three of that smiling band of the thieves of Mahadeo. The chaplain himself addressed them magisterially with a riding-whip. That was painful, but Jan Chinn had prophesied it. They submitted, but would not give up the written protection, fearing the jail. On their way back they met Mr. D. Fawne, who had heard about the robberies, and was not pleased.
“Certainly,” said the eldest of the gang, when the second interview was at an end, “certainly Jan Chinn’s protection has saved us our liberty, but it is as though there were many beatings in one small piece of paper. Put it away.”
One climbed into a tree, and stuck the letter into a cleft forty feet from the ground, where it could do no harm. Warmed, sore, but happy, the ten returned to Jan Chinn next day, where he sat among uneasy Bhils, all looking at their right arms, and all bound under terror of their god’s disfavour not to scratch.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 312