‘Bukta has evidently looked on the cup this evening,’ Chinn thought; ‘but if I can do anything to soothe the old chap I must. It’s like the Mutiny rumours on a small scale.’
He dropped into a deep wicker chair, over which was thrown his first tiger-skin, and his weight on the cushion flapped the clawed paws over his shoulders. He laid hold of them mechanically as he spoke, drawing the painted hide, cloak-fashion, about him.
‘Now will I tell the truth, Bukta,’ he said, leaning forward, the dried muzzle on his shoulder, to invent a specious lie.
‘I see that it is the truth,’ was the answer, in a shaking voice.
‘Jan Chinn goes abroad among the Satpuras, riding on theClouded Tiger, ye say? Be it so. Therefore the sign of the wonder is for the Satpura Bhils only, and does not touch the Bhils who plough in the north and east, the Bhils of the Khandesh, or any others, except the Satpura Bhils, who, as we know, are wild and foolish.’
‘It is, then, a sign for them. Good or bad?’
‘Beyond doubt, good. For why should Jan Chinn make evil to those whom he has made men? The nights over yonder are hot; it is ill to lie in one bed over long without turning, and Jan Chinn would look again upon his people. So he rises, whistles his Clouded Tiger, and goes abroad a little to breathe the cool air. If the Satpura Bhils kept to their villages, and did not wander after dark, they would not see him. Indeed, Bukta, it is no more than that he would see the light again in his own country. Send this news south, and say that it is my word.’
Bukta bowed to the floor. ‘Good Heavens!’ thought Chinn, ‘and this blinking pagan is a first-class officer, and as straight as a die! I may as well round it off neatly.’ He went on:
‘If the Satpura Bhils ask the meaning of the sign, tell them that Jan Chinn would see how they kept their old promises of good living. Perhaps they have plundered; perhaps they mean to disobey the orders of the Government; perhaps there is a dead man in the jungle; and so Jan Chinn has come to see.’
‘Is he, then, angry?’
‘Bah! Am I ever angry with my Bhils? I say angry words, and threaten many things. Thou knowest, Bukta. I have seen thee smile behind thy hand. I know, and thou knowest. The Bhils are my children. I have said it many times.’
‘Ay. We be thy children,’ said Bukta.
‘And no otherwise is it with Jan Chinn, my father’s father. He would see the land he loved and the people once again. It is a good ghost, Bukta. I say it. Go and tell them. And I do hope devoutly,’ he added, ‘that it will calm ’em down.’ Flinging back the tiger-skin, he rose with a long, unguarded yawn that showed his well-kept teeth.
Bukta fled, to be received in the lines by a knot of panting inquirers.
‘It is true,’ said Bukta. ‘He wrapped himself in the skin andspoke from it. He would see his own country again. The sign is not for us; and, indeed, he is a young man. How should he lie idle of nights? He says his bed is too hot and the air is bad. He goes to and fro for the love of night-running. He has said it.’
The grey-whiskered assembly shuddered.
‘He says the Bhils are his children. Ye know he does not lie. He has said it to me.’
‘But what of the Satpura Bhils? What means the sign for them?’
‘Nothing. It is only night-running, as I have said. He rides to see if they obey the Government, as he taught them to do in his first life.’
‘And what if they do not?’
‘He did not say.’
The light went out in Chinn’s quarters.
‘Look,’ said Bukta. ‘Now he goes away. None the less it is a good ghost, as he has said. How shall we fear Jan Chinn, who made the Bhil a man? His protection is on us; and ye know Jan Chinn never broke a protection spoken or written on paper. When he is older and has found him a wife he will lie in his bed till morning.’
A commanding officer is generally aware of the regimental state of mind a little before the men; and this is why the Colonel said a few days later that some one had been putting the fear of God into the Wuddars. As he was the only person officially entitled to do this, it distressed him to see such unanimous virtue. ‘It’s too good to last,’ he said. ‘I only wish I could find out what the little chaps mean.’
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. LetJan 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 Indiamen who went on shooting expeditions and never came back; factors, agents, writers, and ensigns of the Honourable the East In
dia 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 salaamed 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 . . eans of Conciliat… and Confiden .
accomplished the … tire Subjection …
a Lawless and Predatory Peop …
…. taching them to …. ish Government
by a Conque . . 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 . . rals check a … st for spoil
And . s . ing Hamlets prove his gene …. toil
Humanit… survey…… ights restore . .
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 earrings.’
‘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 amplifications, 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 stand 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 tonight.’
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 were very much afraid,’ said Bukta, who was not too bold himself. ‘It remains only to give orders. They say 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 older 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!’
Halfa 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 than a 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 the 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 h
e had not 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 them so far!) I myself will stay among you while this man scratches your arms with 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.
The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales Page 48