_An Affront to Gannesha_
"A little brother hath come," said Biroo, as Ram Deen dismounted from
the mail-cart. The tall driver snatched up the little boy and hurried to
his hut, over the door of which was affixed the green bough that is
customary on such occasions, and whence came the wailing of a new-born
child.
The inner apartment was guarded by a lean old woman, who refused Ram
Deen admittance thereto, and who would have prevented even speech on his
part had she been able. But Ram Deen was not to be denied such solace as
could be gained from the voice whose accents had taken him captive the
first time he had heard them.
The feeble wailing of the babe made the strong man tremble.
"Tara, Light in Darkness, is it well with thee?" he asked.
"Quite well, my lord and my master," came the faint answer. "Thy
handmaid hath bestowed a man-child upon thee, and Nana Debi will require
a kid of thee in recompense."
"He shall have a flock of goats, Heart of my Heart----"
"Nay," interrupted Tara; "it is a very little child and a kid will
suffice; but go now, my master, I am very tired and would fain sleep."
"May the stars in heaven shower their blessings on thee, my Best
Beloved;" and with this invocation Ram Deen left the hut, leading little
Biroo by the hand.
"See what Gunga Ram gave me but now, father mine," said Biroo, unfolding
a plaintain leaf wherein was wrapped a sweetmeat made of rice and milk;
"and he hath a great cooking forward to-night."
"Wherefore?" asked Ram Deen.
"For that a man-child hath come to Nyagong, as well as Kaladoongie, this
day."
"Oh, ho," said Ram Deen, chuckling softly, "we will have speech with
Gunga Ram."
When they had arrived at the methai-wallah's booth, Ram Deen, looking on
the thalis (trays) heaped with sweetmeats crisp from the making, said,
"Wah ji, wah! Gunga Ram, is the Hurdwar mela (fair) coming to the Bore
Nuddee, that thou shouldst make such preparations?"
"Nay, coach-wan ji, but a man-child hath come to the house of the
Jemadar of Nyagong, and he hath commanded fresh sweetmeats and cates for
a feast in honor of an honorable birth."
"There is no honorable thing done in Nyagong, Gunga Ram. They be all
thugs and thieves there, and it shall not be said that Ram Deen's
friends at Kaladoongie ate stale pooris whilst the Jemadar of Nyagong,
whose face I have blackened, set fresh cates before his guests.
Therefore bid carry these sweetmeats to my friends who sit round the
Thanadar's fire, and to-morrow thou shalt make enough for all the people
of Kaladoongie, so that they may know that a son hath been born to Ram
Deen."
"But, coach-wan ji," remonstrated Gunga Ram, "the Jemadar's men wait to
carry these things to Nyagong."
"Tell them, Gunga Ram, that I had need of them; but, nevertheless, for
the kindness the men of Nyagong did to little Biroo last year, send
them, on his behalf, two rupees' worth of gur and parched gram;" and Ram
Deen laid the money in the sweetmeat vender's palm.
To the impromptu feast round the fire that evening Ram Deen contributed
also a chatty of palm-toddy that Goor Dutt had brought for him from
Moradabad. By the time the circling hookah had crowned the feast beards
were wagging freely round the fire; and even Tulsi Ram, the village
pundit, most modest and unassuming of men, was moved to unusual speech.
Once more Ram Deen had told the story of the avenging of Nandha; and the
Thanadar, whose utterances were always sententious, owing to the
responsibility and dignity of his office, said, "Verily, the young and
not the old Faringi is the true subduer of Hindoostan."
"Thou sayest it, Thanadar ji," assented Tulsi Ram. "I knew such a young
sahib as he who slew the lame tiger of Huldwani when I worked as munshi
at Hurdwar for certain Faringis who had business there. He I speak of
feared not even the Gods."
When all eyes were turned upon the pundit, and he found himself in the
trying position of one who was expected to give proof of his opinion,
his natural modesty overcame him and he was suddenly silent. It was not
till he had swallowed a generous draught of the toddy that his courage
revived to the point of telling the following narrative, for which his
audience waited patiently:
"Brothers," he began, "some three years after the great Mutiny there
came to Hurdwar two Faringis, by name Scott Sahib and Wilson Sahib, of
whom the latter was a great shikari, as all Hindoostan is aware, and who
was further known amongst the Faringis as 'Pahari Wilson.'
"They hired me to cut down sal timber on the upper waters of the Gunga
and float it down to Hurdwar, where they established a post, over which
they set in charge a young Faringi named Clements Sahib, whose munshi I
was, and whose duty it was to stamp the timber with the seal of his
employers and make it into rafts that were then floated on to Allahabad.
"Clements Sahib had been found by Pahari Wilson Sahib in one of the
villages of the Rajah of Tiri, whither he had fled from Cawnpore, where
his father and mother had been killed by the people of the plains during
the season of the Mutiny.
"He was a man grown when he came to Hurdwar, speaking Nagari and
Padhani, and knowing well the ways of our people. And wherever he went
men's eyes followed him, for he walked amongst them with the air of a
master. His face was scarred with small-pox; his nose was curved like a
hawk's, and his nostrils were terrible to behold when he was angered,
which was often, for he lacked patience with men of our race, because of
the slaying, and worse, of his mother, which he had witnessed; and his
words did not often go before his blows, which were weighty by reason of
his great strength. He limped, for that his right leg had been broken
by a bear whilst he lived amongst the hill men.
"But, great and terrible as he was on land, the wonder of him when he
swam in the Gunga, as he did daily, man never saw before.
"He feared nothing, brothers,--neither man nor beast, nor even Gannesha,
upon whom he put an affront one day, when he beat his priests in the
temple and in the presence of the God.
"This was the way of it: There passed daily through our compound, on its
way to the jungle, a young, sacred bull that was fed by the priests of
Gannesha; and its horns had silver tips, whereon was graved a picture of
the God bearing an elephant's head. And because the bull pursued one of
his dogs, one day, the sahib shot it; and the bazaars of Hurdwar buzzed
with angry men.
"'Sahib,' said I to him, 'this is not well done; the Gods never forget
an insult.' But he only laughed.
"That evening, as the sahib ate his meal, the lamps being lit, there
came an arrow through an open window and transfixed the dog which was
lying at his feet.
"The beast yelped as one that is stricken to the death, and I, who sat
at my book in the adjoining room, looked up as Clements Sahib, snatching
up a gun from the corner, ran to the veranda and fired at a man who
passed swiftly through the darkling garden. For answer there came the
lowing of a bull; and the sahib, being lame, soon gave up the chase and
returned to the house.
"By the light of a lantern we searched the garden, and when we found
drops of blood on the ground the sahib laughed, and said, 'Aha! Tulsi
Ram; I wounded the shikar, after all.'
"''Tis bad hunting, sahib,' I made reply.
"The next moment he stopped, and held the lantern to a necklace of plum
seeds and gold that hung on the branch of an orange tree. To the
necklace was attached an agate, whereon was graven the head of an
elephant."
"When we returned to the house the sahib drew the arrow from the dead
dog, and on the bolt of that, too, was graven the head of Gannesha. And
I said, 'Thou hast affronted the Gods, indeed, sahib! 'Twere well to
restore his beads to some priest of Gannesha.'
"'Of a surety,' he replied, 'when I find the owner; but, till then, I
will wear the thing round my own neck.'
"The next morning, as we rode on an elephant through the jungle to the
river, there came the lowing of a bull from a thicket, and an arrow
whistled through Clements Sahib's sola topee, and another struck the
cheroot from his mouth. So I said, 'The man with the bow could slay
thee, sahib, had he a mind to do so.' But the sahib flushed like an
angry dawn, and gave the mahout orders to beat through the thicket for
the man with the bull's voice; whereon the bellowing came from behind
us. Now it was here, and now there, but never where we looked for it,
and, whenever the sahib fired into some likely thicket, the archer gave
us further proof of his skill.
"'To the temple of Gannesha!' shouted the sahib, roused to frenzy, and
there was that in his face that forbade speech.
"When we reached the city, the main street was already packed with a
menacing crowd,--for word of our coming had gone before us, and the
thoroughfare resounded from end to end with lowings as of a thousand
bulls. The weight of the great beast that bore us alone took us through
the crowd.
"When we reached the gate of the temple of Gannesha, behold! the priests
formed a lane through the court-yard, and the crowd fell back at their
bidding. We alighted from the elephant, and walked through the priests
till we came to the inner door of the temple, where stood a venerable
jogi naked, save for a loin-cloth, and covered with wood-ashes from his
head to his heels.
"'Welcome, brother,' he said, as Clements Sahib approached him; 'but thy
rosary will not admit thee farther than this, and 'tis not fitting that
thou shouldst enter the presence of Gannesha without thy _teeka_ of
purification;' and, with an agility that was surprising in such an old
man, he sprang towards the sahib and touched him on the forehead, at the
same time snatching at the necklace. But the sahib swept him aside, and
the next moment we entered the temple, the door of which closed with a
threatening crash as the last of the priests followed us in.
"When they saw the sahib advance with set purpose towards the great god
Gannesha, they raised a shout and ran upon him; and I, being unarmed and
a man of peace, and, moreover, a Brahmin, slipped behind a pillar and
watched the beginning of a great combat, wherein one man fought with
twenty, and they with staves in their hands.
"And the sahib waited not for his foes, but, firing his gun at their
legs, he whirled it aloft and hurled it into the crowd that advanced
upon him; wherefore three priests lay on the ground and were as dead
men. And, ere they could recover from their confusion, the sahib ran in
upon them with clinched hands, and his face was terrible to look upon.
"So thick were they that many of them fell from their brothers' blows;
and whenever the sahib struck, a man fell to the ground and remained
there. Toba! toba! never saw I such fighting.
"When there were but three or four of them able to stand, they broke and
fled to an inner shrine, whence they besought the sahib to depart and
molest them no more. But he said, 'Nay, not till ye have delivered up to
me him to whom this rosary belongs.'
"'It is mine, Faringi dog,' screamed the old jogi, darting upon the
sahib from behind a pillar, a long knife in his hand. The sahib had
scarce time to turn, when the knife passed through the fleshy part of
his arm. The next instant the sahib wrenched his weapon from the old
jogi, and, putting the necklace round him, he bore him to a window and
threw him into the river which flowed below, saying, 'Gunga will
doubtless succor a follower of Gannesha.'
"After I had tied his handkerchief round his arm to stay the bleeding he
took up his gun, and, opening the door of the temple, he went forth.
And the people marvelled to see him come out again.
"Having mounted his elephant, he spake to those standing round, saying,
'Dogs and swine! neither ye, nor your priests, nor your Gods can avail
against a Faringi. Go into the temple and see for yourselves if I speak
not the truth. Let no man of Hurdwar cross my path hereafter, or I will
scourge the streets of your city.' So the crowd opened before us, and we
returned in peace.
"And as the sahib dismounted from the elephant, I said, 'The teeka,
sahib: it is still on thy forehead.'
"'Ah,' he exclaimed, 'that was what the old jogi put on me.' And he
plucked it off. It was made of silver and stamped with the image of
Gannesha on both sides, and the impress of the stamp showed red on the
white skin of the sahib's forehead.
"The next morning, when I went to my work, the sahib called me into his
room, and behold! the stamp of Gannesha showed as brightly on his
forehead as it did the day before! and I feared greatly for the sahib,
for it is no small thing to affront a God.
"For a whole week the mark remained on the sahib, and he wore his hat
before all men. None dared to speak to him, for he answered mostly with
blows.
"'Tulsi Ram,' said he to me one day, 'tell the old jogi of the temple of
Gannesha that I desire speech with him.'
"And when the old man had come the sahib spake: 'So Gunga bare up thy
chin, swami?'
"'Ay, ji; and I told him much concerning thee. Thine arm?'
"''Tis well,' replied the sahib. 'But now remove me the mark from my
forehead.'
"'I may not do anything without the permission of Gannesha, whom thou
hast angered. He must be propitiated in a manner befitting the sahib's
station,' returned the jogi.
"'State thy demands, swami,' said the sahib.
"'Now, nay, not mine, sahib, but Gannesha's,' remonstrated the old jogi.
Then, after musing awhile, he went on: 'The God requireth of thee two
hundred rupees for the use of his temple, and ten rupees a month, for
twenty months, to salve the hurts of his twenty priests.'
"''Tis well,' said Clements Sahib, opening a drawer of the table whereat
he sat, and pushing two hundred rupees across to the old man. 'Proceed.'
"After the jogi had tied the money in his loin-cloth he touched the mark
on the sahib's forehead with his finger, and, lo! at the touching it
disappeared.
"'And what if I should not pay thee the rest of thy demand?' asked
Clements Sahib after he had looked in a mirror and seen that the mark of
Gannesha was gone.
"'Thou art a Faringi ji, and wilt not fail of thy word,' replied the
jogi.
"'There be bad Faringis, swami, and my heart inclineth me to their
number.'
"''Twere easy to persuade thee to a right course, sahib,' said the old
man, pointing his finger at Clements Sahib. 'Behold!' And the livid mark
leapt out on the sahib's forehead again.
"After the mark had been removed once more by the jogi, and as he was
preparing to depart, Clements Sahib said, 'Come for your monthly payment
when the new moon shows, but cross not my path at any other time, or
harm shall befall thee.'
"'Brave words, sahib,' returned the mendicant; 'and be careful, thyself,
not to insult the Gods. Salaam,' and he went forth. So there was peace
between the Gods and Clements Sahib until the jogi had received three
payments.
"Then, on a day, the sahib bade me accompany him to the Hurke Piree, for
he was fain to catch the great mahser that abound there, where they feed
on the offerings of the pilgrims.
"And I would have prevented him, saying, 'The fish, Provider of the
Poor, are tame; 'twere no sport to catch them. Besides, the Hurke Piree
is holy, and 'twere not well to pollute the great steps with the killing
even of fish.'
"'Therefore it is in my mind, O Brown Mouse, to catch fish for my
evening meal,' replied the sahib, his nostrils twitching; so I spake no
more.
"When the sahib had drawn forth the first fish that took his bait, there
came the voices of an angry crowd, and, looking up, behold! the great
stairs were black with people; and, taking four steps at a bound, there
came towards us a young priest stripped for bathing, and it was Salig
Ram, the greatest pylwan (wrestler) in Hurdwar.
"Ere the sahib could guess the purpose of the priest, the latter sprang
upon him, and they twain fell together into the deep water.
"When they came to the surface again, the sahib had an arm round Salig
Ram's throat, and was beating him with his clinched hand till the blood
ran down his face, and he spat forth a handful of teeth. The priest was
as one who is amazed, crying feebly, 'Ram dhwy, ram dhwy!' and he was as
a frightened child in the sahib's hands.
"Thinking that the sahib would slay their champion before their eyes,
and so desecrate the gates of heaven, two or three score of angry
Brahmins leapt into the river to the rescue of Salig Ram, and I
followed, likewise, to see the end of the matter.
"Releasing the young priest, the sahib swam away easily from those who
followed, slipping off his upper garments as he proceeded down the
river, and then his shoes, which he threw in derision at those who
followed.
"Now, when he came to the temple of Gannesha, there appeared in the
window that overlooks the river the old jogi, who swung something round
his head that glittered in the sun; and he shouted aloud, 'Gunga, take
thee! Gunga, take thee!'
"The sahib turned his face towards the temple, and, as he did so, the
jogi threw the thing he swung at him. It flashed as it circled through
the air, and settled over the sahib's head; and, in that instant, he
threw up his arms and disappeared, and thereafter a few bubbles came to
the surface.
"Two days afterwards, the dead body of a Faringi was found ten miles
below Hurdwar and taken to Roorkie, whither I went by order of the
sircar, to assist in the identification of the dead man.
"Brothers, the corpse was that of Clements Sahib. Round his neck was a
rosary of gold and plum seeds, with an agate amulet; and on his forehead
was the presentment of an elephant's head, the seal of Gannesha, whom no
man may affront."