easily. Presently we shall see her rider, for a man goes more slowly
than a horse--especially if he chance to be a fat man and old.’
‘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 Mussalman!’
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
bat-like 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 were 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 und 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 und 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 camp-chair. ‘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, und in drought-time
der cattle ate bones of dead cattle up and 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 firelight
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 should 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, und 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.
‘They are there in the _rukh_; even within gunshot of the house. Come
softly with me.’
‘But what is it? What is the trouble, Abdul?’
‘Mowgli, and his devils. Also my own daughter,’ said Abdul Gafur.
Gisborne whistled and followed his guide. Not for nothing, he knew,
had Abdul Gafur beaten his daughter of nights, and not for nothing had
Mowgli helped in the housework a man whom his own powers, whatever
those were, had convicted of theft. Also, a forest wooing goes quickly.
There was the breathing of a flute in the _rukh_, as it might have been
the song of some wandering wood-god, and, as they came nearer, a murmur
of voices. The path ended in a little semicircular glade walled partly
by high grass and partly by trees. In the centre, upon a fallen trunk,
his back to the watchers and his arm round the neck of Abdul Gafur’s
daughter, sat Mowgli, newly crowned with flowers, playing upon a rude
bamboo flute, to whose music four huge wolves danced solemnly on their
hind legs.
‘Those are his devils,’ Abdul Gafur whispered. He held a bunch of
cartridges in his hand. The beasts dropped to a long-drawn quavering
note and lay still with steady green eyes, glaring at the girl.
‘Behold,’ said Mowgli, laying aside the flute. ‘Is there anything of
fear in that? I told thee, little Stout-heart, that there was not, and
thou didst believe. Thy father said--and oh, if thou couldst have seen
thy father being driven by the road of the nilghai!--thy father said
that they were devils; and by Allah, who is thy God, I do not wonder
that he so believed.’
The girl laughed a little rippling laugh, and Gisborne heard Abdul
grind his few remaining teeth. This was not at all the girl that
Gisborne had seen with a half-eye slinking about the compound veiled
and silent; but another--a woman full blown in a night as the orchid
puts out in an hour’s moist heat.
‘But they are my playmates and my brothers; children of that mother
that gave me suck, as I told thee behind the cook-house,’ Mowgli went
on. ‘Children of the father that lay between me and the cold at the
mouth of the cave when I was a little naked child. Look’--a wolf raised
his gray jowl, slavering at Mowgli’s knee--‘my brother knows that I
speak of them. Yes, when I was a little child he was a cub rolling with
me on the clay.’
‘But thou hast said that thou art human-born, cooed the girl, nestling
closer to the shoulder. ‘Thou art human-born?’
‘Said! Nay, I know that I am human born, because my heart is in thy
hold, little one.’ Her head dropped under Mowgli’s chin. Gisborne put
up a warning hand to restrain Abdul Gafur, who was not in the least
impressed by the wonder of the sight.
‘But I was a wolf among wolves none the less till a time came when
Those of the jungle bade me go because I was a man.’
‘Who bade thee go? That is not like a true man’s talk.’
‘The very beasts themselves. Little one, thou wouldst never believe
that telling, but so it was. The beasts of the jungle bade me go, but
these four followed me because I was their brother. Then was I a
herder of cattle among men, having learned their language. Ho! ho! The
herds paid toll to my brothers, till a woman, an old woman, beloved,
saw me playing by night with my brethren in the crops. They said that I
was possessed of devils, and drove me from that village with sticks and
stones, and the four came with me by stealth and not openly. That was
when I had learned to eat cooked meat and to talk boldly. From village
to village I went, heart of my heart, a herder of cattle, a tender of
buffaloes, a tracker of game, but there was no man that dared lift a
finger against me twice.’ He stooped down and patted one of the heads.
‘Do thou also like this. There is neither hurt nor magic in them. See,
they know thee.’
‘The woods are full of all manner of devils,’ said the girl with a
shudder.
‘A lie. A child’s lie,’ Mowgli returned confidently. ‘I have lain out
in the dew under the stars and in the dark night, and I know. The
jungle is my house. Shall a man fear his own roof-beams or a woman her
man’s hearth? Stoop down and pat them.’
‘They are dogs and unclean,’ she murmured, bending forward with averted
head.
‘Having eaten the fruit, now we remember the Law!’ said Abdul Gafur
bitterly. ‘What is the need of this waiting, Sahib? Kill!’
‘H’sh, thou. Let us learn what has happened,’ said Gisborne.
‘That is well done,’ said Mowgli, slipping his arm round the girl
again. ‘Dogs or no dogs, they were with me through a thousand villages.’
‘Ahi, and where was thy heart then? Through a thousand villages. Thou
hast seen a thousand maids. I--that am--that am a maid no more, have I
thy heart?’
‘What shall I swear by? By Allah, of whom thou speakest?’
‘Nay, by the life that is in thee, and I am well content. Where was thy
heart in those days?’
Mowgli laughed a little. ‘In my belly, because I was young and always
hungry. So I learned to track and to hunt, sending and calling my
brothers back and forth as a king calls his armies. Therefore I drove
the nilghai for the foolish young Sahib, and the big fat mare for the
big fat Sahib, when they questioned my power. It were as easy to have
driven the men themselves. Even now,’ his voiced lifted a little--‘even
now I know that behind me stand thy father and Gisborne Sahib. Nay, do
not run, for no ten men dare move a pace forward. Remembering that thy
father beat thee more than once, shall I give the word and drive him
again in rings through the _rukh_?’ A wolf stood up with bared teeth.
Gisborne felt Abdul Gafur tremble at his side. Next, his place was
empty, and the fat man was skimming down the glade.
‘Remains only Gisborne Sahib,’ said Mowgli, still without turning; ‘but
I have eaten Gisborne Sahib’s bread, and presently I shall be in his
service, and my brothers will be his servants to drive game and carry
the news. Hide thou in the grass.’
The girl fled, the tall grass closed behind her and the guardian wolf
that followed, and Mowgli turning with his three retainers faced
Gisborne as the Forest Officer came forward.
‘That is all the magic,’ he said, pointing to the three. ‘The fat Sahib
knew that we who are bred among wolves run on our elbows and our knees
for a season. Feeling my arms and legs, he felt the truth which thou
didst not know. Is it so wonderful, Sahib?’
‘Indeed it is all more wonderful than magic. These then drove the
nilghai?’
‘Ay, as they would drive Eblis if I gave the order. They are my eyes
and feet to me.’