_The Rope that Hanged Bijoo_
"Thy man-child is very beautiful, my lord," said Tara.
Ram Deen was sitting outside of his hut on a charpoi, whilst Tara rubbed
their month-old babe with "bitter oil" in the forenoon sun.
The little brown manikin, without a stitch on him to conceal God's
handiwork, sprawled on his stomach across his mother's knees, making
inarticulate noises, and wriggling after the manner of infants when it
is well with them, for the sun was pleasantly warm, and his mother's
rubbing appealed to his budding sensations.
"It is not so beautiful as its beautiful mother," said Ram Deen.
"Thou Worthless!" exclaimed Tara. "Sawest ever such hands?" and she put
a finger into the wee palm that clasped it by "reflex action."
"Toba! toba!" swore Ram Deen. "Nana Debi send grace to evil-doers in the
Terai in the days to come, or else shall they be undone by these hands.
Why, they might almost crush a fly!"
"Nevertheless, coach-wan ji, my lord, thy son shall be taller than thou
when he is a man grown."
"Khoda (God) grant it, for thy son must drive the mail-cart in the time
to come, and the Terai is full of dangers."
"But he _shall not_ drive the mail-cart," said Tara; "he shall be
Thanadar of Kaladoongie, and he shall feed his father and his mother
when his beard begins to sing on a scraping palm. Eh, my butcha?" and
the young mother, after the manner of young mothers the world over, bent
her head and kissed the little one's dimples.
"He shall be rich, too, coach-wan ji," said a tall woman with a
beautiful figure appearing in the doorway of the hut. Her eyes made
beholders long to look upon the rest of her face; but that was closely
veiled, for it was horribly mutilated.
Her voice was thick and muffled, and she spoke with difficulty. It was
the unhappy Chandni.
"He shall be rich, if a thousand rupees can make him rich, and the
wishes of thy humble servant. Tulsi Ram, pundit, hath this day indited a
letter for me to Moti Ram, the great mahajun of Naini Tal, directing him
to hold the money, that was the price of Bijoo, for thy son till he
comes to man's estate."
"Now, nay, Chandni," remonstrated Ram Deen; "I am richer than most men
in the Terai, and, through the advice of my friend, the Thanadar, my
wealth groweth apace, and my son shall lack nothing. Biroo, too, is
provided for; thou mayest need the money thyself, for the thread of life
parts easily in the Terai, as thou knowest, and the shelter of my hut
may be wanting to thee some day."
"Nevertheless, my lord and my master, thy lowly handmaid must not be
thwarted in this matter," and Chandni disappeared into the hut.
"Let her have her will, my lord," pleaded Tara; "we owe her much," and
with a sweeping gesture she indicated the garden in which they sat and
which was Chandni's special care.
The enclosure in which Ram Deen's hut stood used to be, ere the days of
Tara and Chandni, the most neglected spot in the village; but, after the
arrival of the latter, it gradually began to assume an appearance of
neatness and thrift that made Ram Deen's home-coming a daily delight to
him.
The young peepul tree in front of the hut was aflame with a gorgeous
Bougain-villea, and the flower-beds laughed with marigolds and poppies
of many hues sown broadcast. A little runnel sparkled through the
garden, and, in one part of its career, chattered pleasantly over a tiny
pebbly reach artfully contrived to produce the "beauty born of murmuring
sound," which is nowhere more grateful than in the domain of the Hot
Wind.
In one corner of the garden were planted radishes, and turnips, and
carrots, with their delightful greenery. Chili plants and Cape
gooseberries abounded, and many a potherb pleasant to behold and good in
a curry. Every plant and shrub gave evidence of loving care, and repaid
the tilth bestowed upon them with lavish interest.
A little machand (dais) of plastered mud, under the peepul tree, had
been specially built for little Biroo, who decorated it, after the
manner of the small boy, with bits of gayly-tinted glass and potsherds,
bright feathers and cowries, and such other gauds as appeal to his kind.
In another corner of the compound was a tiny hut, wherein Heera Lal,
Tara's old grandfather, lived in such ease and affluence as he had never
dreamed of in his wildest imaginings. His day was setting in scented
clouds of sweetened tobacco, and he had tyre to eat every morning. Every
week he added two annas (six cents) to the hoard under his hearth; it
was saved from the allowance made to him by Ram Deen; and he owed no man
anything. Moreover, in Ram Deen he had found one who could be most
easily overreached, and Ram Deen delighted to be swindled by the old man
in matters involving small change.
Even Hasteen had not been forgotten in the improvements made in the
enclosure: in one corner a small space had been carefully lepoed
(plastered) and roofed with thatch for him. Farther on, Nathoo, Biroo's
kid, was tethered to a stake; and beyond that the fawn, Ganda, had a
little paddock to herself.
The whole compound was fenced in by a flourishing mandni hedge, which
gave Ram Deen a fuller sense of possession. As he sat on the charpoi,
lazily smoking his hookah and drinking in the beauty of the garden and
of the day beyond, he was the happiest man in all the Terai. When Tara
had finished the baby's simple toilet and put it to her breast, the
thought passed through Ram Deen's mind that, if God ever smiled, it must
be when he looked on a young mother suckling her first-born.
"Respect the aged and infirm," said a whining voice, breaking in upon
Ram Deen's pleasant reverie. The speaker, who stood outside the hedge,
was an old mendicant equipped like his kind, with an alms-bowl
containing a handful of small copper coin and cowries. He was smeared
with wood ashes, and his tangled, grizzly hair hung to his waist.
"Respect the aged and poor, Ram Deen, for the sake of the beautiful
babe." (Tara immediately covered it with her chudder for fear of the
evil eye.) "Listen, I have tidings for thee."
"Speak, swami," replied the driver, throwing him a small piece of
silver.
"Bhamaraya, the lame mehtrani, cometh this way. She is on the road on
the hither side of Lal Kooah, in a covered byli whereof one of the
wheels has come off. The byl-wan walked into Kaladoongie with me this
morning to seek assistance, leaving the old woman on the road."
"'Tis well, jogi ji. Durga will doubtless protect her own. Salaam," said
Ram Deen, dismissing the mendicant.
The time had come for the fulfilment of his promise to Bijoo. What he
should do when he came across the mehtrani who had wrecked Chandni's
life would doubtless be suggested to him by the circumstances of the
place and the hour, but for the present he was satisfied that she was
completely in his power.
That day Chandni was absent from the mid-day meal.
The Hot Wind blew fiercely, rattling the leafless branches of the forest
trees. The Bore Nuddee, below the head of the canal that supplied
Kaladoongie, had shrunk to a few scattered pools that became shallower
every day.
"Nana Debi send thy kinswoman is in a cool shade this day," said Ram
Deen, addressing Tara.
"She hath doubtless gone to the ford of the Bore Nuddee to bleach her
new chudder," explained Tara.
But when evening came and Chandni had not returned, the driver became
alarmed. After he had made his preparations for taking the mail to Lal
Kooah he joined the circle in front of the Thanadar's hut.
The Hot Wind had abated its fury to little puffs that came at intervals
and seemed to sear the skin, and the sun had set like a copper disk in
the haze that overhung the western sky. As the hostler brought the
mail-cart round, Ram Deen told the Thanadar of Chandni's absence, and
received his assurance that immediate search should be made for her.
As they spoke together a little puff of wind came out of the west, laden
with the smell of fire. They instinctively turned their faces windwards.
The glow of the setting sun, that had but just disappeared, seemed to be
returning in the west and illuminated the under surface of a huge black
cloud that was growing rapidly in size.
"The jungle through which thou must drive is on fire, Ram Deen, and thou
must make haste if thou wouldst take the mail to Lai Kooah to-night."
"But thou must not go to Lai Kooah to-night," said little Biroo, running
up to Ram Deen. "Chandni said so ere she went away this morning. I was
to tell thee, but I had forgotten till I saw just now the money she gave
me for the telling of this to thee;" and opening his hand he showed the
men a rupee.
"Therefore must I go, Thanadar ji," said Ram Deen. "Had this little
budmash spoken sooner Chandni had been home now, and not on a quest that
belongs properly to me. Toba, toba!" he exclaimed, as a tongue of flame
shot high into the air, "was ever such fire lit for the purification of
the jungle? But I must make haste if I would save Chandni;" and the next
minute Ram Deen was speeding towards the Bore bridge. Two miles beyond
the bridge they reached the hither end of the fire, which was now being
driven furiously by a storm of its own creation towards the road, from
which it was distant about half a mile. The hostler leaped to the
ground, refusing to go any farther; but the element of danger and the
risk to Chandni only stirred Ram Deen's pulses into activity, and he
shook the reins and urged his horses into a headlong gallop.
The wild things of the Terai fled in front of the fire and across Ram
Deen's path, heedless of the presence of man, who was but a pygmy to the
wrath behind them. The roar of the giant fire put a great stress upon
the fleeing animals, so that they were as of one kin in the presence of
a common danger. A herd of spotted deer, with a leopard in their very
midst, dashed across the road in front of the mail-cart. A wild boar
came next in headlong fashion. Jackals, hares, nyl-gai followed each
other pell-mell, making for the shelter of the bed of the Bore Nuddee,
whilst overhead was seen the flight of the feathered denizens of the
Terai.
All this confusion and rush but accented the roar of the pursuing fire.
When Ram Deen looked back for an instant he saw that it had leapt across
the road at a point he had passed but a minute before, and now he knew
that he was running for his life.
A quarter of a mile farther on the road turned to the left, thus
increasing his chance of reaching the southern limit of the fire, which
was travelling due east. By the light of the flames he could see a tall
woman sitting on the parapet of a small culvert, about one hundred yards
in front of him. On the edge of the jungle beside her was an overturned
byli, and from it there came the most appalling screams that could be
distinguished even through the din of the fire.
The woman on the culvert saw him as soon as he turned the bend of the
road, and forthwith mounted the parapet; and he saw it was Chandni. As
the mail-cart swept past her she sprang towards it, and Ram Deen passed
an arm round her and drew her on to the seat beside him.
"For the love of God, Chandni, for the love of God!" screamed the woman
in the byli as a burning branch fell on it. But the mail-cart sped away,
and presently only the roar of the angry fire could be heard.
A quarter of a mile farther on they had passed the southern edge of the
fire, which was within fifty yards of the road when they reached safety.
"The woman in the byli?" asked Ram Deen.
"Bhamaraya," was the quiet reply.
"And why came she not forth?"
"Because of the rope that hanged Bijoo."