They looked into my eyes and laughed,--
But, what when I was gone?
Have strong men made me one of them?
Or do I ride alone?
ON the morning after Mahommed Gunga's daring experiment with
Cunningham's nervous system he was anxious to say the least of it; and
that is only another way of saying that he was irritable. He watched the
Englishman at breakfast, on the dak-bungalow veranda, with a sideways
restless glance that gave the lie a dozen times over to his assumed air
of irascible authority.
“We will see now what we will see,” he muttered to himself. “These who
know such a lot imagine that the test is made. They forget that there
be many brave men of whom but a few are fit to lead. Now--now--we will
see!” And he kept on repeating that assurance to himself, with the
air of a man who would like to be assured, but is not, while he
ostentatiously found fault with every single thing on which his eyes
lit.
“One would think that the Risaldar-sahib were afraid of consequences!”
whispered the youngest of his followers, stung to the quick by a quite
unmerited rebuke. “Does he fear that Chota-Cunnigan will beat him?”
White men have been known--often--to do stupider things than that,
and particularly young white men who have not yet learned to gauge
proportions accurately; so there was nothing really ridiculous in the
suggestion. A young white man who has had his temper worked up to
the boiling-point, his nerves deliberately racked, and then has been
subjected to the visit of a driven tiger, may be confidently expected to
exhibit all the faults of which his character is capable.
To make the situation even more ticklish, Cunningham's servant, in
his zeal for his master's comfort, had forgotten to sham sickness, and
instead of limping was in abominably active evidence. He was even doing
more than was expected of him. Ralph Cunningham had said nothing to
him--had not needed to; every single thing that a pampered sahib could
imagine that he needed was done for him in the proper order, without
noise or awkwardness, and the Risaldar cursed as he watched the
clockwork-perfect service. He had hoped for a lapse that might call
forth some pointer, either by way of irritation or amusement, as to how
young Cunningham was taking things.
But not a thing went wrong and not a sign of any sort gave Cunningham.
The youngster did not smile either to himself darkly or at his servant.
He lit his after-breakfast cigar and smoked it peacefully, as though he
had spent an absolutely normal night, without even a dream to worry him,
and if he eyed Mahommed Gunga at all, he did it so naturally, and with
so little interest, that no deductions could be drawn from it. He was
neither more nor less than a sahib at his ease--which was disconcerting,
very, to the Oriental mind.
He smoked the cigar to a finish, without a word or sign that he wished
to give audience. Then his eyes lit for the first time on the tiger-skin
that was pegged out tight, raw side upward, for the sun to sterilize;
he threw the butt of his cigar away and strolled out to examine the skin
without a sign to Mahommed Gunga, counted the claws one by one to
make sure that no superstitious native had purloined any of them, and
returned to his chair on the veranda without a word.
“Is he vindictive, then?” wondered Mahommed Gunga. “Is he a mean man?
Will he bear malice and get even with me later on? If so--”
“Present my compliments to Mahommed Gunga-sahib, and ask him to be good
enough to--”
The Risaldar heard the order, and was on his way to the veranda before
the servant started to convey the message. He took no chances on a
reprimand about his shoes, for he swaggered up in riding-boots, which
no soldier can be asked to take off before he treads on a private floor;
and he saluted as a soldier, all dignity. It was the only way by which
he could be sure to keep the muscles of his face from telling tales.
“Huzoor?”
“Morning, Mahommed Gunga. Take a seat, won't you?”
A camp-chair creaked under the descending Rajput's weight, and creaked
again as he remembered to settle himself less stiffly--less guiltily.
“I say, I'm going to ask you chaps to do me a favor. You don't mind
obliging me now and then, do you?”
The youngster leaned forward confidentially, one elbow on his knee, and
looked half-serious, as though what he had to ask were more important
than the ordinary.
“Sahib, there is nothing that we will not do.”
“Ah! Then you won't mind my mentioning this, I'm sure. Next time you
want to kennel a tiger in my bedroom, d'you mind giving me notice in
advance? It's not the stink I mind, nor being waked up; it's the deuced
awful risk of hurting somebody. Besides--look how I spoilt that tiger's
mask! The skins I've always admired at home had been shot where it
didn't show so badly.”
There was not even the symptom of a smile on Cunningham's face. He
looked straight into Mahommed Gunga's eyes, and spoke as one man talking
calm common sense to another. He raised his hand as the Rajput began to
stammer an apology.
“No. Don't apologize. If you'll forgive me for shooting your pet tiger,
I'll overlook the rest of it. If I'd known that you kept him in there
o' nights, I'd have chosen another room, that's all--some room where
I couldn't smell him, and where I shouldn't run the risk of killing an
inoffensive man. Why, I might have shot you! Think how sorry I'd have
been!”
The Risaldar did not quite know what to say; so, wiser than most, he
said nothing.
“Oh, and one other matter. I don't speak much of the language yet, so,
would you mind translating to my servant that the next time he goes sick
without giving me notice, and without putting oil in my lamp, I'll have
him fed to the tiger before he's brought into my room? Just tell him
that quietly, will you? Say it slowly so that it sinks in. Thanks.”
Straight-faced as Cunningham himself, the Risaldar tongue-lashed
the servant with harsh, tooth-rasping words that brought him up to
attention. Whether he interpreted or not the exact meaning of what
Cunningham had said, he at least produced the desired effect;
the servant mumbled apologetic nothings and slunk off the veranda
backward--to go away and hold his sides with laughter at the back of the
dak-bungalow. There Mahommed Gunga found him afterward and administered
a thrashing--not, as he was careful to explain, for disobedience, but
for having dared to be amused at the Risaldar's discomfiture.
But there was still one point that weighed heavily on Mahommed Gunga's
mind as the servant shuffled off and left him alone face to face with
Cunningham. There is as a very general rule not more than one man-eating
tiger in a neighborhood, and not even the greenest specimen of subaltern
new brought from home would be likely to mistake one for the other kind.
The man-eater was dead, and there was an engagement to shoot one that
very morning. He hesitated--said nothing for the moment--and wondered
whether his best course would be to go ahead and pretend to beat out the
jungle and tell some lie or other about the tiger having got away. But
Ralph Cunningham, with serious gray eyes fixed full on his, saved him
the trouble of deciding.
“If it's all one to you, Mahommed Gunga,” he said, the corner of his
mouth just flickering, “we'll move on from here at once. This is a
beastly old bungalow to sleep in, and shooting tigers don't seem so
terribly exciting to me. Besides, the climate here must be rotten for
the horses.”
“As you wish, sahib.”
“Very well--if the choice rests with me, I wish it. It might--ah--save
the villagers a lot of hard work beating through the jungle, mightn't
it--besides, there'll be other tigers on the road.”
“Innumerable tigers, sahib.”
“Good. Will you order a start then?”
The Risaldar departed round the corner of the bungalow, and a minute or
two later Cunningham's ears caught the sound of a riding-switch, lustily
applied, and of muffled groans. He suspected readily enough what was
going on, particularly since his servant was not in evidence, but he
dared not laugh on the veranda. He went inside, and made believe to be
busy with his bag before he relaxed the muscles of his face.
“Now, I wonder whether I handled that situation rightly?” he asked
himself between chuckles. “One thing I know--if that old ruffian plays
another trick on me--one more of any kind--Ill show my teeth. There's a
thing known as the limit!”
He would not have wondered, though, if he could have overheard Mahommed
Gunga less than an hour later. The Risaldar had stayed behind to make
sure nothing had been forgotten, and one of his men remained with him.
“There be sahibs and then sahibs,” said Mahommed Gunga. “Two kinds are
the worst--those who strike readily in anger and use bad language when
annoyed, and those whose lips are thin and who save their vengeance to
be wreaked later on. They are worse, either of them, than the sahib who
is usually drunk.”
“And Cunnigan?”
“Is altogether otherwise. As his father was, and as a few other sahibs I
have met, he understands what is not spoken--concedes dignity to him who
is caught napping, as one who having disarmed his adversary, allows him
to recover his weapon--and--”
“And?”
“Proves himself a man worth following! I myself will slit the throat of
any man I catch disparaging the name of Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur! By
the blood of God--by my medals, my own honor, and the good name of
Pukka-Cunnigan, his father, I swear it!”
“Rung Ho!” grinned the six-foot son of war who, rode beside him.
They rode on at a walk past the tombstone that--at Mahommed Gunga's
orders--the villagers had decked with sickly scented forest flowers, and
as they passed they both saluted it in silence. The fakir of the night
before, sitting not very far away from it, mimicked them. He sprang on
the stone as soon as they were out of sight, scattering the flowers all
about him, and calling down the vengeance of a hundred gods on the heads
of Christian and Mohammedan alike.