“Henceforward I will give one dollar to the man on whose land Abu
Hussein is found. And another dollar”--he held up the coin--“to the man
on whose land these dogs shall kill him. But to the man on whose land
Abu Hussein shall run into a hole such as is this hole, I will give not
dollars, but a most unmeasurable beating. Is it understood?”
“Our Excellency,” a man stepped forth, “on my land Abu Hussein was found
this morning. Is it not so, brothers?”
None denied. The Governor tossed him over four dollars without a word.
“On my land they all went into their holes,” cried another. “Therefore I
must be beaten.”
“Not so. The land is mine, and mine are the beatings.”
This second speaker thrust forward his shoulders already bared, and the
villagers shouted.
“Hullo! Two men anxious to be licked? There must be some swindle about
the land,” said the Governor. Then in the local vernacular: “What are
your rights to the beating?”
As a river-reach changes beneath a slant of the sun, that which had been
a scattered mob changed to a court of most ancient justice. The hounds
tore and sobbed at Abu Hussein's hearthstone, all unnoticed among
the legs of the witnesses, and Gihon, also accustomed to laws, purred
approval.
“You will not wait till the Judges come up the river to settle the
dispute?” said the Governor at last.
“No!” shouted all the village save the man who had first asked to be
beaten. “We will abide by Our Excellency's decision. Let Our Excellency
turn out the creatures of the Emirs who stole our land in the days of
the Oppression.”
“And thou sayest?” the Governor turned to the man who had first asked to
be beaten.
“I say _I_ will wait till the wise Judges come down in the steamer.
Then I will bring my many witnesses,” he replied.
“He is rich. He will bring many witnesses,” the village Sheikh muttered.
“No need. Thy own mouth condemns thee!” the Governor cried. “No man
lawfully entitled to his land would wait one hour before entering upon
it. Stand aside!” The man, fell back, and the village jeered him.
The second claimant stooped quickly beneath the lifted hunting-crop. The
village rejoiced.
“Oh, Such an one; Son of such an one,” said the Governor, prompted by
the Sheikh, “learn, from the day when I send the order, to block up all
the holes where Abu Hussein may hide--on--thy--land!”
The light flicks ended. The man stood up triumphant. By that accolade
had the Supreme Government acknowledged his title before all men.
While the village praised the perspicacity of the Governor, a naked,
pock-marked child strode forward to the earth, and stood on one leg,
unconcerned as a young stork.
“Hal” he said, hands behind his back. “This should be blocked up with
bundles of dhurra stalks--or, better, bundles of thorns.”
“Better thorns,” said the Governor. “Thick ends innermost.”
The child nodded gravely and squatted on the sand.
“An evil day for thee, Abu Hussein,” he shrilled into the mouth of the
earth. “A day of obstacles to thy flagitious returns in the morning.”
“Who is it?” the Governor asked the Sheikh. “It thinks.”
“Farag the Fatherless. His people were slain in the days of the
Oppression. The man to whom Our Excellency has awarded the land is, as
it were, his maternal uncle.”
“Will it come with me and feed the big dogs?” said the Governor.
The other peering children drew back. “Run!” they cried. “Our Excellency
will feed Farag to the big dogs.”
“I will come,” said Farag. “And I will never go.” He threw his arm round
Royal's neck, and the wise beast licked his face.
“Binjamin, by Jove!” the Inspector cried.
“No!” said the Governor. “I believe he has the makings of a James Pigg!”
Farag waved his hand to his uncle, and led Royal on to the barge. The
rest of the pack followed.
* * * * *
Gihon, that had seen many sports, learned to know the Hunt barge well.
He met her rounding his bends on grey December dawns to music wild and
lamentable as the almost forgotten throb of Dervish drums, when, high
above Royal's tenor bell, sharper even than lying Beagle-boy's falsetto
break, Farag chanted deathless war against Abu Hussein and all his seed.
At sunrise the river would shoulder her carefully into her place, and
listen to the rush and scutter of the pack fleeing up the gang-plank,
and the tramp of the Governor's Arab behind them. They would pass over
the brow into the dewless crops where Gihon, low and shrunken, could
only guess what they were about when Abu Hussein flew down the bank
to scratch at a stopped earth, and flew back into the barley again. As
Farag had foretold, it was evil days for Abu Hussein ere he learned to
take the necessary steps and to get away crisply. Sometimes Gihon saw
the whole procession of the Hunt silhouetted against the morning-blue,
bearing him company for many merry miles. At every half mile the horses
and the donkeys jumped the water-channels--up, on, change your leg, and
off again like figures in a zoetrope, till they grew small along the
line of waterwheels. Then Gibon waited their rustling return through
the crops, and took them to rest on his bosom at ten o'clock. While the
horses ate, and Farag slept with his head on Royal's flank, the Governor
and his Inspector worked for the good of the Hunt and his Province.
After a little time there was no need to beat any man for neglecting
his earths. The steamer's destination was telegraphed from waterwheel
to waterwheel, and the villagers stopped out and put to according. If an
earth were overlooked, it meant some dispute as to the ownership of the
land, and then and there the Hunt checked and settled it in this wise:
The Governor and the Inspector side by side, but the latter half a
horse's length to the rear; both bare-shouldered claimants well in
front; the villagers half-mooned behind them, and Farag with the pack,
who quite understood the performance, sitting down on the left. Twenty
minutes were enough to settle the most complicated case, for, as the
Governor said to a judge on the steamer, “One gets at the truth in a
hunting-field a heap quicker than in your lawcourts.”
“But when the evidence is conflicting?” the Judge suggested.
“Watch the field. They'll throw tongue fast enough if you're running a
wrong scent. You've never had an appeal from one of my decisions yet.”
The Sheikhs on horseback--the lesser folk on clever donkeys--the
children so despised by Farag soon understood that villages which
repaired their waterwheels and channels stood highest in the Governor's
favour. He bought their barley for his horses.
“Channels,” he said, “are necessary that we may all jump them. They are
necessary, moreover, for the crops. Let there be many wheels and sound
channels--and much good barley.”
“Without money,” replied an aged Sheikh, “there are no waterwheels.”
“I will lend the money,” said the Governor.
“At what interest, O Our Excellency?”
“Take you two of May Queen's puppies to bring up in your village in
such a manner that they do not eat filth, nor lose their hair, nor catch
fever from lying in the sun, but become wise hounds.”
“Like Ray-yal--not like Bigglebai?” (Already it was an insult along
the River to compare a man to the shifty anthropophagous blue-mottled
harrier.)
“Certainly, like Ray-yal--not in the least like Bigglebai. That shall be
the interest on the loan. Let the puppies thrive and the waterwheel be
built, and I shall be content,” said the Governor.
“The wheel shall be built, but, O Our Excellency, if by God's favour
the pups grow to be well-smellers, not filth-eaters, not unaccustomed to
their names, not lawless, who will do them and me justice at the time of
judging the young dogs?”
“Hounds, man, hounds! Ha-wands, O Sheikh, we call them in their
manhood.”
“The ha-wands when they are judged at the Sha-ho. I have unfriends down
the river to whom Our Excellency has also entrusted ha-wands to bring
up.”
“Puppies, man! Pah-peaz we call them, O Sheikh, in their childhood.”
“Pah-peat. My enemies may judge my pah-peaz unjustly at the Sha-ho. This
must be thought of.”
“I see the obstacle. Hear now! If the new waterwheel is built in a month
without oppression, thou, O Sheikh, shalt be named one of the judges to
judge the pah-peaz at the Sha-ho. Is it understood?”
“Understood. We will build the wheel. I and my seed are responsible for
the repayment of the loan. Where are my pah-peaz? If they eat fowls,
must they on any account eat the feathers?”
“On no account must they eat the feathers. Farag in the barge will tell
thee how they are to live.”
There is no instance of any default on the Governor's personal and
unauthorized loans, for which they called him the Father of Waterwheels.
But the first puppy-show at the capital needed enormous tact and the
presence of a black battalion ostentatiously drilling in the barrack
square to prevent trouble after the prize-giving.
But who can chronicle the glories of the Gihon Hunt--or their shames?
Who remembers the kill in the market-place, when the Governor bade the
assembled sheikhs and warriors observe how the hounds would instantly
devour the body of Abu Hussein; but how, when he had scientifically
broken it up, the weary pack turned from it in loathing, and Farag wept
because he said the world's face had been blackened? What men who have
not yet ridden beyond the sound of any horn recall the midnight run
which ended--Beagleboy leading--among tombs; the hasty whip-off, and the
oath, taken above bones, to forget the worry? The desert run, when Abu
Hussein forsook the cultivation, and made a six-mile point to earth in
a desolate khor--when strange armed riders on camels swooped out of a
ravine, and instead of giving battle, offered to take the tired hounds
home on their beasts. Which they did, and vanished.
Above all, who remembers the death of Royal, when a certain Sheikh
wept above the body of the stainless hound as it might have been his
son's--and that day the Hunt rode no more? The badly-kept log-book says
little of this, but at the end of their second season (forty-nine brace)
appears the dark entry: “New blood badly wanted. They are beginning to
listen to beagle-boy.”
* * * * *
The Inspector attended to the matter when his leave fell due.
“Remember,” said the Governor, “you must get us the best blood in
England--real, dainty hounds--expense no object, but don't trust your
own judgment. Present my letters of introduction, and take what they
give you.”
The Inspector presented his letters in a society where they make much
of horses, more of hounds, and are tolerably civil to men who can
ride. They passed him from house to house, mounted him according to his
merits, and fed him, after five years of goat chop and Worcester sauce,
perhaps a thought too richly.
The seat or castle where he made his great coup does not much matter.
Four Masters of Foxhounds were at table, and in a mellow hour the
Inspector told them stories of the Gihon Hunt. He ended: “Ben said I
wasn't to trust my own judgment about hounds, but I think there ought to
be a special tariff for Empire-makers.”
As soon as his hosts could speak, they reassured him on this point.
“And now tell us about your first puppy-show all over again,” said one.
“And about the earth-stoppin'. Was that all Ben's own invention?” said
another.
“Wait a moment,” said a large, clean-shaven man--not an M.F.H.--at the
end of the table. “Are your villagers habitually beaten by your Governor
when they fail to stop foxes' holes?”
The tone and the phrase were enough even if, as the Inspector confessed
afterwards, the big, blue double-chinned man had not looked so like
Beagle-boy. He took him on for the honour of Ethiopia.
“We only hunt twice a week--sometimes three times. I've never known a
man chastised more than four times a week unless there's a bye.”
The large loose-lipped man flung his napkin down, came round the table,
cast himself into the chair next the Inspector, and leaned forward
earnestly, so that he breathed in the Inspector's face.
“Chastised with what?” he said.
“With the kourbash--on the feet. A kourbash is a strip of old hippo-hide
with a sort of keel on it, like the cutting edge of a boar's tusk. But
we use the rounded side for a first offender.”
“And do any consequences follow this sort of thing? For the victim, I
mean--not for you?”
“Ve-ry rarely. Let me be fair. I've never seen a man die under the lash,
but gangrene may set up if the kourbash has been pickled.”
“Pickled in what?” All the table was still and interested.
“In copperas, of course. Didn't you know that” said the Inspector.
“Thank God I didn't.” The large man sputtered visibly.
The Inspector wiped his face and grew bolder.
“You mustn't think we're careless about our earthstoppers. We've a Hunt
fund for hot tar. Tar's a splendid dressing if the toe-nails aren't
beaten off. But huntin' as large a country as we do, we mayn't be back
at that village for a month, and if the dressings ain't renewed, and
gangrene sets in, often as not you find your man pegging about on his
stumps. We've a well-known local name for 'em down the river. We call
'em the Mudir's Cranes. You see, I persuaded the Governor only to
bastinado on one foot.”
“On one foot? The Mudir's Cranes!” The large man turned purple to the
top of his bald head. “Would you mind giving me the local word for
Mudir's Cranes?”
From a too well-stocked memory the Inspector drew one short adhesive
word which surprises by itself even unblushing Ethiopia. He spelt it
out, saw the large man write it down on his cuff and withdraw. Then the
Inspector translated a few of its significations and implications to the
four Masters of Foxhounds. He left three days later with eight couple of
the best hounds in England--a free and a friendly and an ample gift from
four packs to the Gihon Hunt. He had honestly meant to undeceive the
large blue mottled man, but somehow forgot about it.
The new draft marks a new chapter in the Hunt's history. From an
isolated phenomenon in a barge it became a permanent institution with
brick-built kennels ashore, and an influence social, political, and
administrative, co-terminous with the boundaries of the province. Ben,
the Governor, departed to England, where he kept a pack of real dainty
hounds, but never ceased to long for the old lawless lot. His successors
were ex-officio Masters of the Gihon Hunt, as all Inspectors were Whips.
For one reason, Farag, the kennel huntsman, in khaki and puttees, would
obey nothing under the rank of an Excellency, and the hounds would obey
no one but Farag; for another, the best way of estimating crop returns
and revenue was by riding straight to hounds; for a third, though
Judges down the river issued signed and sealed land-titles to all lawful
owners, yet public opinion along the river never held any such title
valid till it had been confirmed, according to precedent, by the
Governor's hunting crop in the hunting field, above the wilfully
neglected earth. True, the ceremony had been cut down to three mere
taps on the shoulder, but Governors who tried to evade that much found
themselves and their office compassed about with a great cloud of
witnesses who took up their time with lawsuits and, worse still,
neglected the puppies. The older sheikhs, indeed, stood out for the
unmeasurable beatings of the old days--the sharper the punishment, they
argued, the surer the title; but here the hand of modern progress was
against them, and they contented themselves with telling tales of Ben
the first Governor, whom they called the Father of Waterwheels, and of
that heroic age when men, horses, and hounds were worth following.
This same Modern Progress which brought dog biscuit and brass water-taps
to the kennels was at work all over the world. Forces, Activities, and
Movements sprang into being, agitated themselves, coalesced, and, in
one political avalanche, overwhelmed a bewildered, and not in the least
intending it, England. The echoes of the New Era were borne into the
Province on the wings of inexplicable cables. The Gihon Hunt read
speeches and sentiments, and policies which amazed them, and they
thanked God, prematurely, that their Province was too far off, too hot,
and too hard worked to be reached by those speakers or their policies.
But they, with others, under-estimated the scope and purpose of the New
Era.
One by one, the Provinces of the Empire were hauled up and baited, hit
and held, lashed under the belly, and forced back on their haunches for
the amusement of their new masters in the parish of Westminster. One by
one they fell away, sore and angry, to compare stripes with each other
at the ends of the uneasy earth. Even so the Gihon Hunt, like Abu
Hussein in the old days, did not understand. Then it reached
them through the Press that they habitually flogged to death good
revenue-paying cultivators who neglected to stop earths; but that
the few, the very few who did not die under hippohide whips soaked in
copperas, walked about on their gangrenous ankle-bones, and were known
in derision as the Mudir's Cranes. The charges were vouched for in
the House of Commons by a Mr. Lethabie Groombride, who had formed a
Committee, and was disseminating literature. The Province groaned; the
Inspector--now an Inspector of Inspectors--whistled. He had forgotten
the gentleman who sputtered in people's faces.
“He shouldn't have looked so like Beagle-boy!” was his sole defence when
he met the Governor at breakfast on the steamer after a meet.
“You shouldn't have joked with an animal of that class,” said Peter the
Governor. “Look what Farag has brought me!”
It was a pamphlet, signed on behalf of a Committee by a lady secretary,
but composed by some person who thoroughly understood the language of
the Province. After telling the tale of the beatings, it recommended
all the beaten to institute criminal proceedings against their Governor,
and, as soon as might be, to rise against English oppression and
tyranny. Such documents were new in Ethiopia in those days.
The Inspector read the last half page. “But--but,” he stammered, “this
is impossible. White men don't write this sort of stuff.”
“Don't they, just?” said the Governor. “They get made Cabinet Ministers
for doing it too. I went home last year. I know.”
“It'll blow over,” said the Inspector weakly.
“Not it. Groombride is coming down here to investigate the matter in a
few days.”
“For himself?”
“The Imperial Government's behind him. Perhaps you'd like to look at my
orders.” The Governor laid down an uncoded cable. The whiplash to it
ran: “You will afford Mr. Groombride every facility for his inquiry,
and will be held responsible that no obstacles are put in his way to
the fullest possible examination of any witnesses which he may consider
necessary. He will be accompanied by his own interpreter, who must not
be tampered with.”
“That's to me--Governor of the Province!” said Peter the Governor.
“It seems about enough,” the Inspector answered.
Farag, kennel-huntsman, entered the saloon, as was his privilege.
“My uncle, who was beaten by the Father of Waterwheels, would approach,
O Excellency,” he said, “and there are others on the bank.”
“Admit,” said the Governor.
There tramped aboard sheikhs and villagers to the number of seventeen.
In each man's hand was a copy of the pamphlet; in each man's eye terror
and uneasiness of the sort that Governors spend and are spent to clear
away. Farag's uncle, now Sheikh of the village, spoke: “It is written in
this book, Excellency, that the beatings whereby we hold our lands are
all valueless. It is written that every man who received such a beating
from the Father of Waterwheels who slow the Emirs, should instantly
begin a lawsuit, because the title to his land is not valid.”
“It is so written. We do not wish lawsuits. We wish to hold the land as
it was given to us after the days of the Oppression,” they cried.
The Governor glanced at the Inspector. This was serious. To cast doubt
on the ownership of land means, in Ethiopia, the letting in of waters,
and the getting out of troops.
“Your titles are good,” said the Governor. The Inspector confirmed with
a nod.
“Then what is the meaning of these writings which came from down the
river where the Judges are?” Farag's uncle waved his copy. “By whose
order are we ordered to slay you, O Excellency Our Governor?”
“It is not written that you are to slay me.”
“Not in those very words, but if we leave an earth unstopped, it is
the same as though we wished to save Abu Hussein from the hounds. These
writings say: 'Abolish your rulers.' How can we abolish except we kill?
We hear rumours of one who comes from down the river soon to lead us to
kill.”
“Fools!” said the Governor. “Your titles are good. This is madness!”
“It is so written,” they answered like a pack.
“Listen,” said the Inspector smoothly. “I know who caused the writings
to be written and sent. He is a man of a blue-mottled jowl, in aspect
like Bigglebai who ate unclean matters. He will come up the river and
will give tongue about the beatings.”
“Will he impeach our land-titles? An evil day for him!”
“Go slow, Baker,” the Governor whispered. “They'll kill him if they get
scared about their land.”
“I tell a parable.” The Inspector lit a cigarette. “Declare which of you
took to walk the children of Milkmaid?”
“Melik-meid First or Second?” said Farag quickly.
“The second--the one which was lamed by the thorn.”
“No--no. Melik-meid the Second strained her shoulder leaping my
water-channel,” a sheikh cried. “Melik-meid the First was lamed by the
thorns on the day when Our Excellency fell thrice.”
“True--true. The second Melik-meid's mate was Malvolio, the pied hound,”
said the Inspector.
“I had two of the second Melik-meid's pups,” said Farag's uncle. “They
died of the madness in their ninth month.”
“And how did they do before they died?” said the Inspector.
“They ran about in the sun, and slavered at the mouth till they died.”
“Wherefore?”
“God knows. He sent the madness. It was no fault of mine.”
“Thy own mouth hath answered thee.” The Inspector laughed. “It is with
men as it is with dogs. God afflicts some with a madness. It is no fault
of ours if such men run about in the sun and froth at the mouth. The
man who is coming will emit spray from his mouth in speaking, and will
always edge and push in towards his hearers. When ye see and hear him ye
will understand that he is afflicted of God: being mad. He is in God's
hands.”
“But our titles--are our titles to our lands good?” the crowd repeated.
“Your titles are in my hands--they are good,” said the Governor.
“And he who wrote the writings is an afflicted of God?” said Farag's
uncle.
“The Inspector hath said it,” cried the Governor. “Ye will see when the
man comes. O sheikhs and men, have we ridden together and walked puppies
together, and bought and sold barley for the horses that after these
years we should run riot on the scent of a madman--an afflicted of God?”
“But the Hunt pays us to kill mad jackals,” said Farag's uncle. “And he
who questions my titles to my land--”
“Aahh! 'Ware riot!” The Governor's hunting-crop cracked like a
three-pounder. “By Allah,” he thundered, “if the afflicted of God come
to any harm at your hands, I myself will shoot every hound and every
puppy, and the Hunt shall ride no more. On your heads be it. Go in
peace, and tell the others.”
“The Hunt shall ride no more,” said Farag's uncle. “Then how can the
land be governed? No--no, O Excellency Our Governor, we will not harm
a hair on the head of the afflicted of God. He shall be to us as is Abu
Hussein's wife in the breeding season.”
When they were gone the Governor mopped his forehead.
“We must put a few soldiers in every village this Groombride visits,
Baker. Tell 'em to keep out of sight, and have an eye on the villagers.
He's trying 'em rather high.”
“O Excellency,” said the smooth voice of Farag, laying the Field and
Country Life square on the table, “is the afflicted of God who resembles
Bigglebai one with the man whom the Inspector met in the great house in
England, and to whom he told the tale of the Mudir's Cranes?”
“The same man, Farag,” said the Inspector.
“I have often heard the Inspector tell the tale to Our Excellency at
feeding-time in the kennels; but since I am in the Government service
I have never told it to my people. May I loose that tale among the
villages?”
The Governor nodded. “No harm,” said he.
* * * * *
The details of Mr. Groombride's arrival, with his interpreter, whom he
proposed should eat with him at the Governor's table, his allocution
to the Governor on the New Movement, and the sins of Imperialism, I
purposely omit. At three in the afternoon Mr. Groombride said: “I will
go out now and address your victims in this village.”
“Won't you find it rather hot?” said the Governor. “They generally take
'a nap till sunset at this time of year.”
Mr. Groombride's large, loose lips set. “That,” he replied pointedly,
“would be enough to decide me. I fear you have not quite mastered your
instructions. May I ask you to send for my interpreter? I hope he has
not been tampered with by your subordinates.”
He was a yellowish boy called Abdul, who had well eaten and drunk with
Farag. The Inspector, by the way, was not present at the meal.
“At whatever risk, I shall go unattended,” said Mr. Groombride. “Your
presence would cow them--from giving evidence. Abdul, my good friend,
would you very kindly open the umbrella?”
He passed up the gang-plank to the village, and with no more prelude
than a Salvation Army picket in a Portsmouth slum, cried: “Oh, my
brothers!”
He did not guess how his path had been prepared. The village was
widely awake. Farag, in loose, flowing garments, quite unlike a kennel
huntsman's khaki and puttees, leaned against the wall of his uncle's
house. “Come and see the afflicted of God,” he cried musically, “whose
face, indeed, resembles that of Bigglebai.”
The village came, and decided that on the whole Farag was right.
“I can't quite catch what they are saying,” said Mr. Groombride.
“They saying they very much pleased to see you, Sar,” Adbul interpreted.
“Then I do think they might have sent a deputation to the steamer; but
I suppose they were frightened of the officials. Tell them not to be
frightened, Abdul.”
“He says you are not to be frightened,” Abdul explained. A child
here sputtered with laughter. “Refrain from mirth,” Farag cried. “The
afflicted of God is the guest of The Excellency Our Governor. We are
responsible for every hair of his head.”
“He has none,” a voice spoke. “He has the white and the shining mange.”
“Now tell them what I have come for, Abdul, and please keep the umbrella
well up. I think I shall reserve myself for my little vernacular speech
at the end.”
“Approach! Look! Listen!” Abdul chanted. “The afflicted of God will now
make sport. Presently he will speak in your tongue, and will consume
you with mirth. I have been his servant for three weeks. I will tell you
about his undergarments and his perfumes for his head.”
He told them at length.
“And didst thou take any of his perfume bottles?” said Farag at the end.
“I am his servant. I took two,” Abdul replied.
“Ask him,” said Farag's uncle, “what he knows about our land-titles. Ye
young men are all alike.” He waved a pamphlet. Mr. Groombride smiled to
see how the seed sown in London had borne fruit by Gihon. Lo! All the
seniors held copies of the pamphlet.
“He knows less than a buffalo. He told me on the steamer that he was
driven out of his own land by Demah-Kerazi which is a devil inhabiting
crowds and assemblies,” said Abdul.
“Allah between us and evil!” a woman cackled from the darkness of a hut.
“Come in, children, he may have the Evil Eye.”
“No, my aunt,” said Farag. “No afflicted of God has an evil eye. Wait
till ye hear his mirth-provoking speech which he will deliver. I have
heard it twice from Abdul.”
“They seem very quick to grasp the point. How far have you got, Abdul?”
“All about the beatings, sar. They are highly interested.”
“Don't forget about the local self-government, and please hold the
umbrella over me. It is hopeless to destroy unless one first builds up.”
“He may not have the Evil Eye,” Farag's uncle grunted, “but his devil
led him too certainly to question my land-title. Ask him whether he
still doubts my land-title?”
“Or mine, or mine?” cried the elders.
“What odds? He is an afflicted of God,” Farag called. “Remember the tale
I told you.”
“Yes, but he is an Englishman, and doubtless of influence, or Our
Excellency would not entertain him. Bid the down-country jackass ask
him.”
“Sar,” said Abdul, “these people, much fearing they may be turned out
of their land in consequence of your remarks. Therefore they ask you to
make promise no bad consequences following your visit.”
Mr. Groombride held his breath and turned purple. Then he stamped his
foot.
“Tell them,” he cried, “that if a hair of any one of their heads is
touched by any official on any account whatever, all England shall ring
with it. Good God! What callous oppression! The dark places of the
earth are full of cruelty.” He wiped his face, and throwing out his arms
cried: “Tell them, oh! tell the poor serfs not to be afraid of me. Tell
them I come to redress their wrongs--not, heaven knows, to add to their
burden.”
The long-drawn gurgle of the practised public speaker pleased them much.
“That is how the new water-tap runs out in the kennel,” said Farag. “The
Excellency Our Governor entertains him that he may make sport. Make him
say the mirth-moving speech.”
“What did he say about my land-titles?” Farag's uncle was not to be
turned.
“He says,” Farag interpreted, “that he desires, nothing better than that
you should live on your lands in peace. He talks as though he believed
himself to be Governor.”
“Well. We here are all witnesses to what he has said. Now go forward
with the sport.” Farag's uncle smoothed his garments. “How diversely
hath Allah made His creatures! On one He bestows strength to slay Emirs;
another He causes to go mad and wander in the sun, like the afflicted
sons of Melik-meid.”
“Yes, and to emit spray from the mouth, as the Inspector told us. All
will happen as the Inspector foretold,” said Farag. “I have never yet
seen the Inspector thrown out during any run.”
“I think,” Abdul plucked at Mr. Groombride's sleeves, “I think perhaps
it is better now, Sar, if you give your fine little native speech. They
not understanding English, but much pleased at your condescensions.”
“Condescensions?” Mr. Groombride spun round. “If they only knew how
I felt towards them in my heart! If I could express a tithe of my
feelings! I must stay here and learn the language. Hold up the umbrella,
Abdul! I think my little speech will show them I know something of their
vie intime.”
It was a short, simple, carefully learned address, and the accent,
supervised by Abdul on the steamer, allowed the hearers to guess its
meaning, which was a request to see one of the Mudir's Cranes; since the
desire of the speaker's life, the object to which he would consecrate
his days, was to improve the condition of the Mudir's Cranes. But first
he must behold them with his own eyes. Would, then, his brethren, whom
he loved, show him a Mudir's Crane whom he desired to love?
Once, twice, and again in his peroration he repeated his demand,
using always--that they might see he was acquainted with their local
argot--using always, I say, the word which the Inspector had given
him in England long ago--the short, adhesive word which, by itself,
surprises even unblushing Ethiopia.
There are limits to the sublime politeness of an ancient people. A
bulky, blue-chinned man in white clothes, his name red-lettered across
his lower shirtfront, spluttering from under a green-lined umbrella
almost tearful appeals to be introduced to the Unintroducible; naming
loudly the Unnameable; dancing, as it seemed, in perverse joy at mere
mention of the Unmentionable--found those limits. There was a moment's
hush, and then such mirth as Gihon through his centuries had never
heard--a roar like to the roar of his own cataracts in flood. Children
cast themselves on the ground, and rolled back and forth cheering and
whooping; strong men, their faces hidden in their clothes, swayed in
silence, till the agony became insupportable, and they threw up their
heads and bayed at the sun; women, mothers and virgins, shrilled shriek
upon mounting shriek, and slapped their thighs as it might have been the
roll of musketry. When they tried to draw breath, some half-strangled
voice would quack out the word, and the riot began afresh. Last to fall
was the city-trained Abdul. He held on to the edge of apoplexy, then
collapsed, throwing the umbrella from him.
Mr. Groombride should not be judged too harshly. Exercise and strong
emotion under a hot sun, the shock of public ingratitude, for the moment
rued his spirit. He furled the umbrella, and with it beat the prostrate
Abdul, crying that he had been betrayed.
In which posture the Inspector, on horseback, followed by the Governor,
suddenly found him.
* * * * *
“That's all very well,” said the Inspector, when he had taken Abdul's
dramatically dying depositions on the steamer, “but you can't hammer a
native merely because he laughs at you. I see nothing for it but the law
to take its course.”
“You might reduce the charge to--er--tampering with an interpreter,”
said the Governor. Mr. Groombride was too far gone to be comforted.
“It's the publicity that I fear,” he wailed. “Is there no possible
means of hushing up the affair? You don't know what a question--a single
question in the House means to a man of my position--the ruin of my
political career, I assure you.”
“I shouldn't have imagined it,” said the Governor thoughtfully.
“And, though perhaps I ought not to say it, I am not without honour
in my own country--or influence. A word in season, as you know, Your
Excellency. It might carry an official far.”
The Governor shuddered.
“Yes, that had to come too,” he said to himself. “Well, look here. If I
tell this man of yours to withdraw the charge against you, you can go
to Gehenna for aught I care. The only condition I make is that if you
write--I suppose that's part of your--business about your travels, you
don't praise me!”
So far Mr. Groombride has loyally adhered to this understanding.