Willy's Tale.
THE ROBBER TRIBE.
"ABOUT thirty years ago, in the mountains of Candeish dwelt a terrible
race of robbers, called Bheels. They lived by plunder, thought nothing
of murder, and by their cruelty, their wickedness, and their numbers
they were the terror of the whole country round. Sometimes when every
one had quietly gone to rest in a poor Indian village, there would be a
cry of 'The Bheels! The Bheels!' and soon by the light of their blazing
huts, wives would see their husbands killed at their doors, and their
children running shrieking from the murderers!"
"The Governor of Bombay, * whose care it was to see that all that
country was kept quiet and in order, always looked grave and stern when
he thought of the Bheels, and determined to punish and subdue them."
"So he sent his brave troops into the mountains of Candeish, to hunt
out the robber tribes. Sometimes they killed a few Bheels, but the rest
kept out of their way, for it was as hard to catch them as monkeys.
Then the place was so hot, and so very unhealthy, that the soldiers
began to droop. One man fell ill and another fell ill, till ever so
many fell sick, and the doctors were worked from morning till night,
and grave after grave was dug for the dead; and the pale, sickly
officers reviewing their troops thought, 'We never shall subdue the
Bheels!'"
* Bombay is one of the great divisions of India, and is ruled by a
Governor sent out from England.
"Then the Governor of Bombay was more angry than ever, and it seemed to
his mind that there was no better way than to kill every one of this
murderous tribe!"
"Another governor * succeeded him, mild and gentle, who loved better to
save than to destroy. He thought of a plan to subdue the Bheels; but
whom could he find to carry it out?"
* Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone.
"The Bheels hated the soldiers, and hated the English, and hated the
Governor of Bombay. They looked at their own wild hills, and they shook
their own sharp swords, and resolved that they never would yield!"
"There was one young officer among the English, named James Outram,
distinguished for his dauntless courage. He had fought the Bheels and
gained successes over them; and if they had taken him in fight, oh! How
they would have exulted to have cut him in pieces, or to have hurled
him down one of their precipices!"
"How astonished were they when, one sultry day, they saw Outram himself
mounting a hill, and fearlessly coming towards them! Do you think that
he came at the head of his men, on a fiery steed, with a gun in his
hand, and pistols at his saddle-bow? No, he came alone, not a soldier
near him, alone in the midst of his bloody foes. He placed himself
in the hands of the Bheels, the fierce robbers whom our troops were
hunting down, with no defence but his own calm spirit, and God's
Providence watching over him!"
"Even savage hearts are touched by a proof of generous and undeserved
confidence. Outram lived among the Bheels, and they harmed him not;
they began by admiring, they ended in loving him. He hunted with them,
and they wondered to see a courage yet more daring than their own. He
cared for their wounds, he told them tales, he won the hearts of the
robber tribe. Then he asked them if they would enlist as troops, and
earn their bread in an honest way. Under such a leader they gladly
enlisted, they became as faithful as they were brave—they defended the
country they had loved to attack, and shed their blood freely in the
cause of order and peace!"
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"What a fine fellow that Outram must have been!" exclaimed Louis. "I
wonder if he is living still?"
"Oh yes! He is living—and long may he live! I used often to see him
when he was in England."
"Did he tell you of his adventures with the Bheels?" asked little Julia.
"Oh no! I never could get him to speak of his adventures, though I
longed to hear about them, especially of one famous hunting story, of
his rolling upon the ground with a panther."
"Is it not he who is called the modern Bayard," said Percy, "the
Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche?"
"What does that mean?" whispered Julia.
"Without fear and without reproach," replied Percy.
"Without fear for his enemies, or reproach for the way in which he
treats them!" said the little girl, glancing archly at Louis.
"I am thinking," observed Willy, "that your way with the Jacobins was
not much like Colonel Outram's way with the Bheels. There may be a
better mode of subduing our enemies than riding them down or cutting
them to pieces."
Louis coloured and looked at Mr. Presgrave, who smiled. "How much
better to win one foe by kindness, than to slay ten thousand with the
sword! How different would the feelings of Outram have been, had he
stood as a conqueror on the hills of Candeish, with his victorious
sword red with blood, and his enemies dead and dying around him, to
what they must have been when he glanced along their ranks, and thought
from what he had raised them by his courage and his mercy!"
"And I have heard mamma say that he narrowly escaped a death by
poison," said Tom.
"How was that? How was that?" cried the rest.
"An injured, helpless widow had been falsely accused and thrown into
prison, that her cruel enemy might take possession of the property
that was her right. There was but one thing in the way of the bad
man's success—the justice and generous spirit of a Briton, and that
Briton was Colonel Outram! The widow's oppressor hated the man who
stood between him and his prey; twice was the life of her protector
attempted, but—"
"God watched over the safety of the brave and just man," said Mrs. Gore.
"Well, I do not wish to be a conqueror," observed little Willy, "but
I should like to feel, when I left the earth, that some one was the
happier for my having been in it!"
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