I was another to bring you up here with me, knowing as I did the
particular species of crank you are; and if you really are set on this
beastly thing, I suppose I must not leave you in the lurch; though upon
my word I do _not_ like the notion of turning resurrection man in my old
age."
'"You are a brick!" cried Juggins, jumping up again and fumbling at his
boot laces, "Come along!"
'"Sit down, man!" said I in a tone which cooled his enthusiasm for the
moment. "I have said that I will see you through, and that is enough.
But mind this, you have to do what I tell you. I know more about the
people and the country than you do, and I am not going to lose caste
with my Malays, and perhaps get stranded in this god-forsaken
jumping-off place, just because you choose to do a fool's deed in a
fool's own way. These Malays of mine here have no particular love for
the exhumed bodies of dead babies, and they would not understand what
any sane man could want fooling about with such a thing. They have not
been educated up to that pitch of interest in the secrets of science
which seems to have made a lunatic of you. If they could understand what
we are saying now, they would think that you wanted the kid's body for
some devilry or witchcraft business, and we should as like as not get
left by them. Then who would carry your precious specimens back to the
boats? I would not lift a finger to help you, and I am not over sure
that I could even guide you back, if it came to that. No, this thing
cannot be done until my people are all asleep, so lie still and wait
till I give you the word."
'Juggins groaned, and tried to persuade me to let him go at once, but I
replied that nothing would induce me to go before one o'clock, and, so
saying, I turned over on my side, and lay reading and smoking, while
Juggins fumed and fretted, as he watched the slow hands creeping round
the dial of his watch.
'I always take books with me, as you know, when I go into the jungle,
and I remember that that evening I lay reading Miss Florence
Montgomery's _Misunderstood_, with the tears running down my nose. When
at last Juggins whispered that time was up, that pretty story of child
life had made me more sick with Juggins and his disgusting scheme than
ever.
'I never felt so like a criminal in all my life as I did that night as
Juggins and I crept out of the hut, over the sleeping bodies of my
Malays; nor did I know before, how hard it is to walk on an openwork
flooring of sticks and boughs, if one is anxious to do it without making
a noise. We got out of the house at last, without waking any of my
fellows, and then began to creep along the edge of the jungle that lined
the clearing. Why did we think it necessary to creep? I do not know, but
somehow the long wait, and the uncanny sort of work we were after, had
set our nerves going a bit. The night was as still as most nights are in
real _pukka_ jungle, that is to say it was as full of noises--little
quiet beast and tree noises--as an egg's full of meat, and every one of
them made me jump like a half broken gee shying. There was not a breath
of air blowing in the clearing, but the clouds were racing across the
moon miles up above our heads, and the moon looked as though it was
scudding through them in the opposite direction like a great white fire
balloon. It was dark along the edge of the clearing, for the jungle
threw a heavy shadow, and Juggins kept knocking those great clumsy feet
of his against the stumps, and swearing softly, under his breath.
'When we got near the grave, the moon came out suddenly into a thinner
cloud, and the slightly increased light showed me something which made
me clutch Juggins by the arm.
'"Hold hard!" I whispered as I squatted down. "What is that on the
grave?"
'Juggins hauled out his six-shooter with a tug, and, looking at his
face, I saw, what I had not noticed before, that he too was a trifle
jumpy, though why I cannot say. He squatted down quietly enough by my
side, and pressed up against me, a bit closer, I fancied, than he would
have thought necessary at any other time. I whispered to Juggins telling
him not to shoot, and we sat there for nearly a minute, I should think,
peering through the darkness, trying to make out what was the black
thing on the grave, that was making that scratching noise.
'Then the moon came out into a patch of open sky, and we saw clearly at
last, and what it showed me did not make me feel better. The creature we
had been looking at was kneeling on the grave facing us. It, or rather
she, was an old, old Sâkai hag. She was stark naked, and in the clear
moonlight I could see her long pendulous breasts, and the creases all
over her withered old hide, which were wrinkles filled with dirt. Her
hair hung about her face in great matted locks, falling forward as she
bent above the grave, and her eyes glinted through the elf-locks like
those of some unclean animal. Her long fingers, with nails like claws to
them, were tearing at the dirt of the grave, and the exertion made her
sweat so that her body shone in the moonlight.
'"Juggins," whispered I, "here is some one else who wants this precious
baby of yours for a specimen."
'I felt him jump to his feet, but I clutched at him, and pulled him
back.
'"Keep still, man!" I whispered. "Let us see what the old hag is doing.
It is not the brat's mother, is it?"
'"No," whispered Juggins, "this is an older woman. What a ghoul it is!"
'Then we were silent again. Where we squatted we were hidden from the
hag by a few tufts of rank _lâlang_ grass, and the shadow from the
jungle also covered us. Even if we had been in the open, I doubt whether
that old woman would have seen us, she was so eagerly intent upon her
work. For five minutes or more--I know it seemed an age to me at the
time--we sat there watching her scrape, and tear, and scratch at the
earth of the grave, and all the while her lips kept going like a
shivering man's teeth, though no sound, that I could hear, came from
them. At length she got down to the corpse, and I saw her draw the bark
wrapper out of the grave, and take the baby's body out of it. Then she
sat back on her heels, and threw her head up, just like a dog, and
bayed at the moon. She did it three times, and I do not know what there
was in the sound that jangled up one's nerves, but each time I heard it
my hair fairly lifted. Then she laid the little body down in a position
that seemed to have something to do with the points of the compass, for
she took a long time arranging it before she was satisfied with the
direction of its head and feet.
'Then she got up and began to dance round and round the grave. It was
not a pretty sight, out there in the semi-darkness, and miles away from
every one and everything, to watch this abominable old hag capering
uncleanly, while those restless, noiseless lips of hers called upon all
the devils in Hell, in words that we could not hear. Juggins pushed
harder against me than ever, and his hand on my arm gripped tighter and
tighter. I looked at his face, and saw that it was as white as chalk,
and I daresay mine was not much better. It does not sound much, as I
tell it to you here, in a civilised house, but at the time the sight of
that weird figure dancing in the moonlight, with its ungainly shadow,
fairly scared me.
'She danced silently like that for some minutes; setting to the dead
baby, and to her own uncouth capering shadow, till the sight made me
feel sick. If anybody had told me that morning, that I should ever be
badly frightened by an old woman, I should have laughed; but I saw
nothing to laugh at in the idea, while that grotesque dancing lasted.
'When it was over she squatted down again with her back towards us, and
took up the baby. She nursed it as a mother might nurse her child. I
could see the curve of the thing's head beyond her thin left arm, and
its little legs dangled loosely near her right elbow. Then she began to
croon to it, swinging it gently from side to side. She rocked it slowly
at first, but gradually the pace quickened, until she was swaying her
body to and fro, and from side to side, at such a pace, that to me she
looked as though she was falling all ways at once. And all the time that
queer crooning kept getting faster and faster, and more awful to listen
to. Then suddenly she changed the motion. She seized the thing she was
nursing by its arms, and began dancing it up and down, still moving at a
fearful pace, and crooning worse than ever. I could see the little
puckered face of the thing above her head, every time she danced it up,
and then, as she danced it down again, I lost sight of it for a second,
until it reappeared once more. I kept my eye fixed on the thing's face
every time it came up, and--do not believe me if you had rather not--it
began to be _alive_. Its eyes seemed to me to be open, and its mouth was
working like a little child's when it tries to laugh and is too young to
do it properly. Juggins saw it too, for I could hear him drawing his
breath harder, and shorter than a healthy man should. Then, all in a
moment, she did something. It looked to me as though she bent forward
and kissed it, and at that very instant a cry went up like the wail of a
lost soul. It may have been something in the jungle, but I know my
jungles pretty thoroughly, and I swear to you that I have never heard
any cry like it before or since. Then, before we knew what she was
doing, that old hag threw the body back into the grave, and began
dumping down the earth, and jumping on it, while the cry grew fainter
and fainter. It all happened so quickly, that I had not time to think of
doing anything, till I was startled back into action by the sharp crack
of Juggin's pistol in my ear as he fired at the hag.
'"She's burying it alive!" cried Juggins, which was a queer thing for a
man to say, who had seen the baby lying stark and dead more than thirty
hours earlier, but the same thought was in my mind too, and we started
forward at a run. The hag had vanished into the jungle like a shadow.
Juggins had missed her, he was always a shocking bad shot, but we did
not trouble about her. We just threw ourselves upon the grave, and dug
at it with our hands until the baby lay in my arms. It was cold and
stiff, and putrefaction had already begun its work. I forced open its
mouth, and saw something that I expected. The tip of its tongue was
missing. It had been bitten off by a set of very bad teeth, for the edge
of it was like a saw.
'"The thing is quite dead," I said to Juggins.
'"But it cried! it cried!" sobbed Juggins, "I can hear it now. Oh to
think that we let that hag kill it."
'Juggins sat down with his head in his hands. He was utterly unmanned.
Now that the fright was over, I was beginning to be quite brave again.
It is a way I have.
'"Never mind," I said. "Here is your specimen if you want it." I had put
the thing down, and now pointed at it from a distance. It was not
pleasant to touch. But Juggins only shuddered.
'"Bury it in Heaven's name!" he said. "I would not have it for all the
world. Besides it was alive. I saw and heard it."'
'Well, we put it back in the grave, and next day we left the Sâkai
country. We had seen quite as much of it as we wanted for a bit, I tell
you.
'Juggins and I swore one another to secrecy, as neither of us fancied
being told we were drunk or lying. You, however, know something of the
uncanny things of the East, and to-night I have told the story to you.
Now I am going to turn in. Do not give me away.'
Young Middleton went off to bed, and last year he died of fever and
dysentery somewhere up country. His name was not Middleton, of course,
so I am not really 'giving him away,' as he called it, even now. As for
his companion, though he is still alive, I have called him Juggins, and,
since the family is a large one, he will not, perhaps, be identified.
UP COUNTRY
The days are hot and damp, and my legs are stiff with cramp,
And the office punkahs creak!
And I'd give my tired soul, for the life that makes man whole,
And a whiff of the jungle reek!
Ha' done with the tents of Shem, dear boys,
With office stool and pew,
For it's time to turn to the lone Trail, our own Trail, the
far Trail,
Dig out, dig out on the old trail--
The trail that is always new.
_A Parody._
It has been said that a white man, who has lived twelve consecutive
months in complete isolation, among the people of an alien Asiatic race,
is never wholly sane again for the remainder of his days. This, in a
measure, is true; for the life he then learns to live, and the
discoveries he makes in that unmapped land, the gates of which are
closed, locked, barred, and chained against all but a very few of his
countrymen, teach him to love many things which all right-minded people
very properly detest. The free, queer, utterly unconventional life has a
fascination which is all its own. Each day brings a little added
knowledge of the hopes and fears, longings and desires, joys and
sorrows, pains and agonies of the people among whom his lot is cast.
Each hour brings fresh insight into the mysterious workings of the
minds and hearts of that very human section of our race, which ignorant
Europeans calmly class as 'niggers.' All these things come to possess a
charm for him, the power of which grows apace, and eats into the very
marrow of the bones of the man who has once tasted this particular fruit
of the great Tree of Knowledge. Just as the old smugglers, in the Isle
of Man, were wont to hear the sea calling to them; go where he may, do
what he will, the voice of the jungle, and of the people who dwell in
those untrodden places, sounds in the ears of one who has lived the
life. Ever and anon it cries to him to come back, come back to the
scenes, the people, the life which he knows and understands, and which,
in spite of all its hardships, he has learned to love.
The great wheel of progress, like some vast snowball, rolls steadily
along, gathering to itself all manner of weird and unlikely places and
people, filling up the hollows, laying the high hills low. Rays of
searching garish light reflected from its surface are pitilessly flashed
into the dark places of the earth, which have been wrapped around by the
old-time dim religious light, since first the world began. The people in
whose eyes these rays beat so mercilessly, reel and stumble blindly on
in their march through life, taking wrong turnings at every step, and
going woefully astray. Let us hope that succeeding generations will
become used to the new conditions, and will fight their way back to a
truer path; for there is no blinking the fact that the first, immediate,
and obvious effects of our spirit of progress upon the weaker races,
tend towards degeneration.
Ten years ago the Peninsula was very different from what it has since
become, and many places where the steam-engine now shrieks to the church
bells, and the shirt-collar galls the perspiring neck, were but recently
part and parcel of that vast 'up country,' which is so little known but
to the few who dwell in it, curse it,--and love it.
I sent my soul through the invisible,
Some Letter of the After-Life to spell,
And Presently my Soul returned to me
And whispered 'Thou thyself art Heaven or Hell.
So sings the old Persian poet, lying in his rose garden, by the wine-cup
that robbed him of his Robe of Honour, and his words are true; though
not quite in the sense in which he wrote them. For this wisdom the
far-away jungles also teach a man who has to rely solely upon himself,
and upon his own resources, for the manner of his life, and the form
which it is to take. To all dwellers in the desolate solitude, which
every white man experiences, who is cast alone among natives, there are
two 'up countries'--his Heaven and Hell, and both are of his own making.
The latter is the one of which he speaks to his fellow race-mates--if he
speaks at all about his solitary life. The former lies at the back of
his heart, and is only known to himself, and then but dimly known till
the time comes for a return to the Tents of Shem. Englishmen, above all
other men, revel in their privilege of being allowed to grumble and
'grouse' over the lives which the Fates have allotted to them. They
speak briefly, roughly, and gruffly of the hardships they endure, making
but little of them perhaps, and talking as though their lives, as a
matter of course, were made up of these things only. The instinct of the
race is to see life through the national pea-soup fog, which makes all
things dingy, unlovely, and ugly. Nothing is more difficult than to
induce men of our race to confess that in their lives--hard though they
may have been--good things have not held aloof, and that they have often
been quite happy under the most unlikely circumstances, and in spite of
the many horrors and privations which have long encompassed them about.
Let us take the Hell first. We often have to do so, making a virtue of
necessity, and a habit is a habit; moreover, our pains are always more
interesting than our pleasures--to our neighbours. Therefore, let us
take the dark view of up-country life to start upon. In the beginning,
when first a man turns from his own people, and dwells in isolation
among an alien race, he suffers many things. The solitude of soul--that
terrible solitude which is only to be experienced in a crowd--the dead
monotony, without hope of change; the severance from all the pleasant
things of life, and the want of any substitutes for them, eat into the
heart and brain of him as a corrosive acid eats into iron. He longs for
the fellowship of his own people with an exceeding great longing, till
it becomes a burden too grievous to bear; he yearns to find comradeship
among the people of the land, but he knows not yet the manner by which
their confidence may be won, and they, on their side, know him for a
stranger within their gates, view him with keen suspicion, and hold him
at arm's length. His ideas, his prejudices, his modes of thought, his
views on every conceivable subject differ too widely from their own, for
immediate sympathy to be possible between him and them. His habits are
the habits of a white man, and many little things, to which he has not
yet learned to attach importance, are as revolting to the natives, as
the pleasant custom of spitting on the carpet, which some old-world
_Râjas_ still affect, is to Europeans. His manners, too, from the native
point of view, are as bad as his habits are unclean. He is respected for
his wisdom, hated for his airs of superiority, pitied for his ignorance
of many things, feared for what he represents, laughed at for his
eccentric habits and customs, despised for his infidelity to the Faith,
abhorred for his want of beauty, according to native standards of taste,
and loved not at all. The men disguise their feelings, skilfully as only
Orientals can, but the women and the little children do not scruple to
show what their sentiments really are. When he goes abroad, the old
women snarl at him as he passes, and spit ostentatiously, after the
native manner when some unclean thing is at hand. The mothers snatch up
their little ones and carry them hurriedly away, casting a look of hate
and fear over their shoulders as they run. The children scream and yell,
clutch their mothers' garments, or trip and fall, howling dismally the
while, in their frantic efforts to fly his presence. He is
Frankenstein's monster, yearning for love and fellowship with his kind,
longing to feel the hand of a friend in his, and yet knowing, by the
unmistakable signs which a sight of him causes, that he is indescribably
repulsive to the people among whom he lives. Add to all this that he is
cut off from all the things which, to educated Europeans, make life
lovely, and you will realise that his is indeed a sorry case. The
privations of the body, if he has sufficient grit to justify his
existence, count for little. He can live on any kind of food, sleep on
the hardest of hard mats, or on the bare ground, with his head and feet
in a puddle, if needs must. He can turn night into day, and sleep
through the sunlight, or sleep not at all, as the case may be, if any
useful purpose is to be served thereby. These are not things to trouble
him, though the fleshpots of Egypt are very good when duty allows him to
turn his back for a space upon the desert. Privations all these things
are called in ordinary parlance, but they are of little moment, and are
good for his liver. The real privations are of quite another sort. He
never hears music; never sees a lovely picture; never joins in the talk
and listens lovingly to conversation which strikes the answering sparks
from his sodden brain. Above all, he never encounters the softening
influence of the society of ladies of his own race. His few books are
for a while his companions, but he reads them through and through, and
cons them o'er and o'er, till the best sayings of the best authors ring
flat on his sated ears like the echo of a twice-told tale. He has not
yet learned that there is a great and marvellous book lying beneath his
hand, a book in which all may read if they find but the means of opening
the clasp which locks it, a book in which a man may read for years and
never know satiety, which, though older than the hills, is ever new, and
which, though studied for a lifetime, is never exhausted, and is never
completely understood. This knowledge comes later; and it is then that
the Chapter of the Great Book of Human Nature, which deals with natives,
engrosses his attention and, touching the grayness of his life, like the
rising sun, turns it into gold and purple.
Many other things he has to endure. Educated white men have inherited an
infinite capacity for feeling bored; and a hot climate, which fries us
all over a slow fire, grills boredom into irritability. The study of
oriental human nature requires endless patience; and this is the hardest
virtue for a young, energetic white man, with the irritable brain of his
race, to acquire. Without it life is a misery--for
It is not good for the Christian's health
To hurry the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles,
And he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of that fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph clear, A fool lies here
Who tried to hustle the East.
Then gradually, very gradually, and by how slow degrees he shudders in
after days to recall, a change comes o'er the spirit of his nightmare.
Almost unconsciously, he begins to perceive that he is sundered from the
people of the land by a gulf which _they_ can never hope to bridge over.
If he is ever to gain their confidence the work must be of his own
doing. They cannot come up to this level, he must go down to the plains
in which they dwell. He must put off many of the things of the white
man, must forget his airs of superiority, and must be content to be
merely a native Chief among natives. His pride rebels, his prejudices
cry out and will not be silenced, he knows that he will be misunderstood
by his race-mates, should they see him among the people of his adoption,
but the aching solitude beats down one and all of these things; and,
like that eminently sensible man, the Prophet Muhammad, he gets him to
the Mountain, since it is immovable and will not come to him.