_The Hunting of Cheeta Dutt_
A few nights after the finding in the jungle of Biroo, the little chamar
(tanner), by Ram Deen, who drove the mail-cart from Lal Kooah, the
notables of Kaladoongie were gathered round a fire in front of the
police-station. The Thanadar (chief of police), as befitted his rank and
dignity, sat cross-legged on his charpoi, smoking gravely, whilst the
rest of the company squatted on their heels, after the manner of the
natives of India, passing a hookah round the circle and discussing in a
desultory fashion the current events of that section of the Terai.
A faint bugle-note far off in the jungle announced the approach of the
mail-cart, and soon after the distant rumble of the wheels was heard as
Ram Deen drove over the Bore bridge. When he was within a quarter of a
mile of the village he blew a brave blast, and presently dashed up at
full speed into the firelight, Biroo standing between his knees, and a
huge pariah dog bounding along by the side of the cart. Soon after Ram
Deen, followed by Biroo and the big dog, joined the circle round the
fire.
"Salaam, malakoom!" said Biroo, gravely saluting the Thanadar, and
including the rest of those assembled in his sweeping salute.
"Malakoom, salaam!" returned the Thanadar. "So thou hast brought in the
Queen's mail safely, my Rustum?"
"Hasteen and I," began the little fellow, putting a caressing hand on
the head of the great dog, who lay beside him winking at the fire,
"Hasteen and I fear nought that moveth in the jungle, save only the men
of Nyagong;--and then, too, there was Ram Deen."
This was said so seriously that the men sitting round the fire laughed
at the little man's gravity; and Ram Deen smiled as he spread an armful
of dry grass on the ground, into which he tucked the little fellow, and
wrapped him up in his blanket. Hasteen settled himself beside Biroo, and
they soon became oblivious of the circle round the fire.
"How likest thou the little jungle waif, Ram Deen?" inquired the
Thanadar.
"Thanadar ji, he is to me as mine own son, Buldeo, come back to life;
and he knoweth not fear. As we drove through the jungle yesterday and
to-night he turned his face towards Nyagong and cursed that village, and
sware that he would burn it to the ground when he had a beard; and 'tis
like as not that he will do so when he is a man grown."
"Durga aid him in his attempt!" said fat Gunga Ram, the sweetmeat
vender; "that village hath always bred rogues and budmashes, before and
since Cheeta Dutt, the son of the last Jemadar (head man of the
village), committed a deed of hell in the jungle thereby."
The silence of those who sat round the fire was a mute request to Gunga
Ram to tell the story thus prefaced.
"Brothers," he began, "'twas in the second year after the great mutiny
that a young Englishman came into the Terai to look after the sal trees,
which always seemed a foolishness to me till I learned that sal timber
is good for the building of the ships that cross the Black Water.
"And he had but little to do, save to shoot black partridge and spotted
deer and watch the Padhani women crossing the ford in front of his camp;
that was the evil of it.
"In those days I was but a span round the waist, and the best shikari
(hunter) and tracker in these parts; and Bonner Sahib--that was his
name--hired me to show him where game was to be found. But he soon tired
of shikar (sport), and fell to playing the songs of the Padhani women on
his cithar, the like of which I never heard before.
"One day, after he had eaten his morning meal and swam in the deep pool
above the ford of the Bore Nuddee, he lay on the grass by the stream
smoking, whilst I cleaned his guns by the side of his tent. Presently,
when I looked up, the sahib was gazing from under his hand at certain
wayfarers who came down the slope on the other side of the stream
towards the ford; and on his finger there glittered a stone that took
mine eye even at that distance. In front there rode on a hill-pony,
loaded with household goods, Cheeta Dutt, the son of the Jemadar of
Nyagong, and he wore the garments of a man who taketh his wife home for
the consummation of his marriage. Behind him walked Naringi, his wife,
the daughter of the Jemadar of Huldwani. She was well named 'Orange
Blossom;' and though I live to a thousand years, yet shall I never see
the like of her as she walked behind Cheeta Dutt with a small bundle on
her head and lifted her sari as she took the ford with her bared limbs.
"Brothers, she was but sixteen years in age, and in the budding of her
beauty; and it seemed as though the morning shed all its joys about her
feet. What wonder, then, that even a young Faringi (Englishman) should
look upon her with admiration?
"When she was half-way across the ford her foot slipped, and the bundle
she bore fell into the stream. Wullahy, but these Faringis be fools!
Eyes may look, and thoughts may fall about the face of a fair woman,
though she be another man's wife, but only a Faringi would do what
Bonner Sahib did. Kali Mai afflict the race! Women were made but to
carry burdens and bear children. Nowhere can it be shown--not even in
the Shastras, wherein I, Gunga Ram, have read--that a man should demean
himself to serve a woman; but Bonner Sahib leapt into the stream and
recovered the young woman's bundle. Worse than that, as she stood beside
her husband's horse, wringing the water out of the hem of her garment,
he put her bundle in her hand, and Cheeta Dutt scowled at him.
"'Protector of the Poor,' said I to the sahib, as I dried his feet and
changed his shoes, 'thou hast not done well.'
"'Wherefore?' he replied, sending the smoke of his cheroot skywards.
"'Because Cheeta Dutt (well is he named Hunting Leopard) may repay thee
hereafter in his own way for thy service to his wife this day. Belike,
he may render her nakti (noseless), and so send her back to her father's
house. But the sahib is a great lord, and a nakti Padhani woman more or
less concerneth him not, for they be bought and sold like cattle, and
the sahib hath the price of many such on his little finger.--But I speak
like a fool, sahib, for I am a poor man and know nothing, save how to
serve thee.'
"But he only laughed and stroked the yellow beard on his upper lip.
"A moon thereafter our camp was pitched near Nyagong. As ye know, the
Terai thereby is full of shikar, and I showed Bonner Sahib where to find
black partridge. One day, as we set our faces campwards,--I following
the sahib with his spare gun and the morning's kill,--the voice of a
young woman singing a Padhani song suddenly rose from a thicket near by,
and the jungle became silent to listen to her. Bonner Sahib parted the
tall grass with his hands, and I, looking over his shoulder, beheld
Naringi, the wife of Cheeta Dutt, seated on a fallen tree trunk in an
open glade, tending a flock of goats. As she sang she strung together
flaming cotton-wood flowers, whereof she had placed one behind each ear.
"When she had finished her song the sahib took it up, stepping at the
same time into the clearing; and Naringi fled like a roe hunted by
wolves.
"'The shikar is shy, Gunga Ram,' said the sahib.
"'Tis dangerous hunting, Protector of the Poor,' I replied. But the
sahib only laughed and lit a cheroot.
"And thereafter he sought the black partridge unattended by me, for he
set me morning tasks to fulfil within the camp. But, brothers, he
brought not so much as a jungle-fowl home for more than a week, and I
was fain to know what the sahib hunted.
"So I followed him unperceived one morning, and he went straightway to
the clearing wherein we had seen Naringi with the goats. When I looked
through the grass, behold! I saw Bonner Sahib seated on the fallen tree
trunk, wearing a necklace of red flowers, and Naringi sat on his knee
with an arm round his neck! Toba, toba! what fools these Faringis be,
who know not that the birds of the air carry messages when a sahib
stoops to a woman of our people."
"The jungle hath many eyes," said the Thanadar, sententiously.
After Gunga Ram had refreshed himself with the circling hookah, he went
on: "As I looked and listened there was a rustling in the grass on the
other side of the clearing, and the sahib's dog dashed into the jungle
in pursuit of something. The next moment it yelped as a dog that is
sorely stricken, but the sahib, who was toying with Naringi, heard
nothing.
"Then Naringi, stroking the sahib's golden beard, said, 'My Lord, Cheeta
Dutt beat me last night because I spake thy name in my sleep. Look,' and
she lifted the hair from her forehead, whereon was a bruise; and as she
turned her face to the sahib I saw that she had been weeping, for her
eyelids were swelled.
"'He is swine-born,' said the sahib; and as he spake his face flushed
like the morning sky. Then he folded her in his arms and saluted her
mouth after the manner of Faringis; and when she was comforted he said,
'Naringi, my Blossom, thy husband is a dog. To-night will I take thee
hence and make thee envied of the mem-sahibs of Naini Tal. Wilt thou
trust thyself with me?'
"For answer she threw herself before him and clasped his feet, but the
sahib raised her up, saying, 'Beloved, I will come for thee to-night on
the stroke of the tenth hour by the village bell. Gunga Ram--my
shikari--and I will wait for thee with a covered byli (cart) at the foot
of that tall sesame tree thou seest yonder on the open plain. And for
pledge that I shall be here, see, I set on thy finger this ring, which
all the villages in the Kumaon Terai could not buy; and if I fail to
come my punishment is in thy hands. It is a thousand years till I see
thee again, little one.' Then he folded her in his arms once more and
set his face homewards, shouting to her from the end of the glade,
'Fail me not, my Wild Rose!' For answer, she swept the ground with her
salaams.
"Hastening campwards by a path that skirted the other side of the glade,
I came across the sahib's dog. It was shorn in twain by the stroke of a
khookri, and I knew that Cheeta Dutt, The Leopard, was a-hunting.
"'What shikar?' asked I of Bonner Sahib when he returned to his tent.
"'Thou art a liar, Gunga Ram. The jungle hereabout is barren of game,
and it is in my mind to send thee with a note to the Thanadar of
Kaladoongie commending the soles of thy feet to the bamboo staff of one
of his men;' and, laughing, he threw himself into a long chair.
"'I am sorry for thee, sahib,' I said in reply, 'for not only art thou
empty handed this day, but thou hast lost the great stone that shone on
thy finger when thou wentest forth this morning. Toba, toba!'
"'Tis in my pocket, O Chattering Jay.'
"'Perchance the sahib shot his dog this morning, seeing that the game
was scarce?' I said.
"'Hath he not returned, Gunga Ram?'
"'Ere I answer thee, sahib, 'twere well to drink some brandy-pani;' and
I mixed the liquor as he had taught me.
"'It is well, Provider of the Poor,' I went on, 'it is well to be young
and well favored, and the special care of thy gods who have bestowed on
thee wealth and a moonstone that all the villages in the Kumaon Terai
could not purchase,'--hereat the sahib looked at me out of the corner of
his eye,--'but it is not well to look for partridges where great beasts
hunt. Thy dog was slain in the jungle this morning by a leopard. He
lieth outside the tent, and 'twere well the sahib should see what a
leopard can do.'
"Following him out of the tent, I uncovered the dead dog. The sahib
clutched at his throat and would have fallen, so I put my arm round him
and laid him on his bed.
"'This is the work of Cheeta Dutt, sahib. Said I not that perchance he
would hunt some one hereafter for thy service to his wife at the ford
last month?'
"Rising from the bed, the sahib drank another draught of the strong
waters. 'Cheeta Dutt's back shall smart for this,' he said.
"'And then, sahib, he will slay his wife because of thy ring in the
pocket of her bodice.'
"'Budmash, thou hast been playing the spy!' and turning upon me like a
wild boar, his face aflame, he caught me by the beard.
"'Sahib,' I said, 'I am but a poor man, and thou of consequence in the
Terai, but, man to man, thou durst not lay thy hand on my beard in the
jungle and away from thy camp. I fear not to tell thee, sahib, that I
did, indeed, watch thee this morning; but the jungle is full of eyes,
not the least keen being those of Cheeta Dutt, who slew thy dog this
morning, and who will slay the woman thou lovest, or do worse to her,
ere he sleepeth, as is his right.'
"'Gunga Ram, thou art a man, and I ask forgiveness of thee for
blackening thy face, but I am moved from myself by great fear for what
may befall the woman. Tell me what is to be done, for thou knowest the
ways of these jungle folks better than I;' and the sahib walked the
floor as one distraught.
"'Will one thousand--will ten thousand rupees save the young woman?'
asked the sahib.
"'The honor of a Brahmin is not to be appraised in money, sahib,' I
replied.
"'Will he fight, Gunga Ram, as a Faringi would under like
circumstances?'
"'He will fight, assuredly, sahib; but he will fight after the manner of
his kind, and in the dark.'
"Much talk had we, but we could only hope that Cheeta Dutt may not have
witnessed the meeting that morning."
Gunga Ram stopped to "drink tobacco" once more, whilst the little
bullock driver, who would start in the morning with freight for
Moradabad, said, "That was a poor hope, O Seller of Cates, for the
jungle hath ears and tongues as well as eyes."
"Therefore, byl-wan," rejoined Gunga Ram, "I saw to it that my gun was
properly loaded as we went in the byli that night to the place of
meeting.
"The moon was almost in mid-heaven, in an unclouded sky, when we reached
the sesame tree, and it was a time for the deeds of Kama, but Kali Mai
was abroad in the jungle that night.
"The sound of the distant village bell striking the hour of ten had
scarcely died away when there rose from the glade the voice of a young
woman singing a Padhani song.
"'Heart of my Heart, she cometh!' said the sahib. 'Oh, Gunga Ram, she is
safe!' and he lifted up his voice, singing the refrain of her song.
"He had scarcely ceased by a breath, when he was answered by the scream
of a woman who looks upon Terror and Pain hunting together.
"Like an arrow from a bow he sped across the plain and entered the
glade, I following with what haste I could. As I set foot therein there
arose a yell the like of which was never made by jungle beast, and,
brothers, my heart stood still with fear. I could hear the sahib
crashing through the underbrush, and I followed, but the glade was in
deep darkness by reason of the thick foliage of the trees overhead that
stayed the moonlight, and my pace was slow.
"Presently I saw the sahib in the open space where was the fallen tree
trunk that had served him for a seat that morning. He stopped suddenly
within a few paces of the log, like a stricken man. Falling on his knees
and clasping his hands together, he bowed his head thereon; and in that
instant a dark figure leaped upon the sahib from behind a tree, and I
saw the flash of a khookri in the moonlight.
"I raised my gun and fired as I ran, but I was too late.
"When I came up to the sahib his head lay two paces from his body.
"On the fallen tree trunk, with the sahib's moonstone glittering on its
forefinger, was the small hand of a woman that had been lopped off above
the wrist, and which still dripped blood."