A fox came out of his earth on the banks of the Great River Gihon,
which waters Ethiopia. He saw a white man riding through the dry
dhurra-stalks, and, that his destiny might be fulfilled, barked at him.
The rider drew rein among the villagers round his stirrup.
“What,” said he, “is that?”
“That,” said the Sheikh of the village, “is a fox, O Excellency Our
Governor.”
“It is not, then, a jackal?”
“No jackal, but Abu Hussein the father of cunning.”
“Also,” the white man spoke half aloud, “I am Mudir of this Province.”
“It is true,” they cried. “Ya, Saart el Mudir” (O Excellency Our
Governor).
The Great River Gihon, well used to the moods of kings, slid between his
mile-wide banks toward the sea, while the Governor praised God in a loud
and searching cry never before heard by the river.
When he had lowered his right forefinger from behind his right ear, the
villagers talked to him of their crops--barley, dhurrah, millet, onions,
and the like. The Governor stood in his stirrups. North he looked up
a strip of green cultivation a few hundred yards wide that lay like a
carpet between the river and the tawny line of the desert. Sixty miles
that strip stretched before him, and as many behind. At every half-mile
a groaning water-wheel lifted the soft water from the river to the crops
by way of a mud-built aqueduct. A foot or so wide was the water-channel;
five foot or more high was the bank on which it ran, and its base was
broad in proportion. Abu Hussein, misnamed the Father of Cunning, drank
from the river below his earth, and his shadow was long in the low sun.
He could not understand the loud cry which the Governor had cried.
The Sheikh of the village spoke of the crops from which the rulers of
all lands draw revenue; but the Governor's eyes were fixed, between his
horse's ears, on the nearest water-channel.
“Very like a ditch in Ireland,” he murmured, and smiled, dreaming of a
razor-topped bank in distant Kildare.
Encouraged by that smile, the Sheikh continued. “When crops fail it is
necessary to remit taxation. Then it is a good thing, O Excellency
Our Governor, that you come and see the crops which have failed, and
discover that we have not lied.”
“Assuredly.” The Governor shortened his reins. The horse cantered on,
rose at the embankment of the water-channel, changed leg cleverly on
top, and hopped down in a cloud of golden dust.
Abu Hussein from his earth watched with interest. He had never before
seen such things.
“Assuredly,” the Governor repeated, and came back by the way he had
gone. “It is always best to see for one's self.”
An ancient and still bullet-speckled stern-wheel steamer, with a barge
lashed to her side, came round the river bend. She whistled to tell the
Governor his dinner was ready, and the horse, seeing his fodder piled on
the barge, whinnied back.
“Moreover,” the Sheikh added, “in the days of the Oppression the Emirs
and their creatures dispossessed many people of their lands. All up and
down the river our people are waiting to return to their lawful fields.”
“Judges have been appointed to settle that matter,” said the Governor.
“They will presently come in steamers and hear the witnesses.”
“Wherefore? Did the Judges kill the Emirs? We would rather be judged by
the men who executed God's judgment on the Emirs. We would rather abide
by your decision, O Excellency Our Governor.”
The Governor nodded. It was a year since he had seen the Emirs stretched
close and still round the reddened sheepskin where lay El Mahdi, the
Prophet of God. Now there remained no trace of their dominion except the
old steamer, once part of a Dervish flotilla, which was his house and
office. She sidled into the shore, lowered a plank, and the Governor
followed his horse aboard.
Lights burned on her till late, dully reflected in the river that tugged
at her mooring-ropes. The Governor read, not for the first time, the
administration reports of one John Jorrocks, M.F.H.
“We shall need,” he said suddenly to his Inspector, “about ten couple.
I'll get 'em when I go home. You'll be Whip, Baker?”
The Inspector, who was not yet twenty-five, signified his assent in the
usual manner, while Abu Hussein barked at the vast desert moon.
“Ha!” said the Governor, coming out in his pyjamas, “we'll be giving you
capivi in another three months, my friend.”
* * * * *
It was four, as a matter of fact, ere a steamer with a melodious
bargeful of hounds anchored at that landing. The Inspector leaped down
among them, and the homesick wanderers received him as a brother.
“Everybody fed 'em everything on board ship, but they're real dainty
hounds at bottom,” the Governor explained. “That's Royal you've got hold
of--the pick of the bunch--and the bitch that's got hold of you--she's
a little excited--is May Queen. Merriman, out of Cottesmore Maudlin, you
know.”
“I know. 'Grand old betch with the tan eyebrows,'” the Inspector cooed.
“Oh, Ben! I shall take an interest in life now. Hark to 'em! O hark!”
Abu Hussein, under the high bank, went about his night's work. An eddy
carried his scent to the barge, and three villages heard the crash of
music that followed. Even then Abu Hussein did not know better than to
bark in reply.
“Well, what about my Province?” the Governor asked.
“Not so bad,” the Inspector answered, with Royal's head between his
knees. “Of course, all the villages want remission of taxes, but, as far
as I can see, the whole country's stinkin' with foxes. Our trouble will
be choppin' 'em in cover. I've got a list of the only villages entitled
to any remission. What d'you call this flat-sided, blue-mottled beast
with the jowl?”
“Beagle-boy. I have my doubts about him. Do you think we can get two
days a week?”
“Easy; and as many byes as you please. The Sheikh of this village here
tells me that his barley has failed, and he wants a fifty per cent
remission.”
“We'll begin with him to-morrow, and look at his crops as we go. Nothing
like personal supervision,” said the Governor.
They began at sunrise. The pack flew off the barge in every direction,
and, after gambols, dug like terriers at Abu Hussein's many earths. Then
they drank themselves pot-bellied on Gihon water while the Governor and
the Inspector chastised them with whips. Scorpions were added; for May
Queen nosed one, and was removed to the barge lamenting. Mystery (a
puppy, alas!) met a snake, and the blue-mottled Beagle-boy (never a
dainty hound) ate that which he should have passed by. Only Royal, of
the Belvoir tan head and the sad, discerning eyes, made any attempt to
uphold the honour of England before the watching village.
“You can't expect everything,” said the Governor after breakfast.
“We got it, though--everything except foxes. Have you seen May Queen's
nose?” said the Inspector.
“And Mystery's dead. We'll keep 'em coupled next time till we get well
in among the crops. I say, what a babbling body-snatcher that Beagle-boy
is! Ought to be drowned!”
“They bury people so damn casual hereabouts. Give him another chance,”
the Inspector pleaded, not knowing that he should live to repent most
bitterly.
“Talkin' of chances,” said the Governor, “this Sheikh lies about his
barley bein' a failure. If it's high enough to hide a hound at this time
of year, it's all right. And he wants a fifty per cent remission, you
said?”
“You didn't go on past the melon patch where I tried to turn Wanderer.
It's all burned up from there on to the desert. His other water-wheel
has broken down, too,” the Inspector replied.
“Very good. We'll split the difference and allow him twenty-five per
cent off. Where'll we meet to-morrow?”
“There's some trouble among the villages down the river about their
land-titles. It's good goin' ground there, too,” the Inspector said.
The next meet, then, was some twenty miles down the river, and the pack
were not enlarged till they were fairly among the fields. Abu Hussein
was there in force--four of him. Four delirious hunts of four minutes
each--four hounds per fox--ended in four earths just above the river.
All the village looked on.
“We forgot about the earths. The banks are riddled with 'em. This'll
defeat us,” said the Inspector.
“Wait a moment!” The Governor drew forth a sneezing hound. “I've just
remembered I'm Governor of these parts.”
“Then turn out a black battalion to stop for us. We'll need 'em, old
man.”
The Governor straightened his back. “Give ear, O people!” he cried. “I
make a new Law!”