MOTI GUJ--MUTINEER
Once upon a time there was a coffee-planter in India who wished to clearsome forest land for coffee-planting. When he had cut down all thetrees and burned the under-wood the stumps still remained. Dynamite isexpensive and slow-fire slow. The happy medium for stump-clearing is thelord of all beats, who is the elephant. He will either push the stumpout of the ground with his tusks, if he has any, or drag it out withropes. The planter, therefore, hired elephants by ones and twos andthrees, and fell to work. The very best of all the elephants belonged tothe very worst of all the drivers or mahouts; and the superior beast'sname was Moti Guj. He was the absolute property of his mahout, whichwould never have been the case under native rule, for Moti Guj was acreature to be desired by kings; and his name, being translated, meantthe Pearl Elephant. Because the British Government was in the land,Deesa, the mahout, enjoyed his property undisturbed. He was dissipated.When he had made much money through the strength of his elephant, hewould get extremely drunk and give Moti Guj a beating with a tent-pegover the tender nails of the forefeet. Moti Guj never trampled the lifeout of Deesa on these occasions, for he knew that after the beating wasover Deesa would embrace his trunk and weep and call him his love andhis life and the liver of his soul, and give him some liquor. MotiGuj was very fond of liquor--arrack for choice, though he would drinkpalm-tree toddy if nothing better offered. Then Deesa would go to sleepbetween Moti Guj's forefeet, and as Deesa generally chose the middle ofthe public road, and as Moti Guj mounted guard over him and would notpermit horse, foot, or cart to pass by, traffic was congested till Deesasaw fit to wake up.
There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter's clearing: thewages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on Moti Guj's neck and gave himorders, while Moti Guj rooted up the stumps--for he owned a magnificentpair of tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope--for he had a magnificentpair of shoulders, while Deesa kicked him behind the ears and said hewas the king of elephants. At evening time Moti Guj would wash down histhree hundred pounds' weight of green food with a quart of arrack, andDeesa would take a share and sing songs between Moti Guj's legs till itwas time to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river,and Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously in the shallows, while Deesawent over him with a coir-swab and a brick. Moti Guj never mistook thepounding blow of the latter for the smack of the former that warned himto get up and turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would look at hisfeet, and examine his eyes, and turn up the fringes of his mighty earsin case of sores or budding ophthalmia. After inspection, the two would'come up with a song from the sea,' Moti Guj all black and shining,waving a torn tree branch twelve feet long in his trunk, and Deesaknotting up his own long wet hair.
It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the return of thedesire to drink deep. He wished for an orgie. The little draughts thatled nowhere were taking the manhood out of him.
He went to the planter, and 'My mother's dead,' said he, weeping.
'She died on the last plantation two months ago; and she died oncebefore that when you were working for me last year,' said the planter,who knew something of the ways of nativedom.
'Then it's my aunt, and she was just the same as a mother to me,' saidDeesa, weeping more than ever. 'She has left eighteen small childrenentirely without bread, and it is I who must fill their littlestomachs,' said Deesa, beating his head on the floor.
'Who brought you the news?' said the planter.
'The post' said Deesa.
'There hasn't been a post here for the past week. Get back to yourlines!'
'A devastating sickness has fallen on my village, and all my wives aredying,' yelled Deesa, really in tears this time.
'Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa's village,' said the planter.'Chihun, has this man a wife?'
'He!' said Chihun. 'No. Not a woman of our village would look at him.They'd sooner marry the elephant.' Chihun snorted. Deesa wept andbellowed.
'You will get into a difficulty in a minute,' said the planter.' Go backto your work!'
'Now I will speak Heaven's truth' gulped Deesa, with an inspiration. 'Ihaven't been drunk for two months. I desire to depart in order to getproperly drunk afar off and distant from this heavenly plantation. ThusI shall cause no trouble.'
A flickering smile crossed the planter's face. 'Deesa,' said he, 'you'vespoken the truth, and I'd give you leave on the spot if anything couldbe done with Moti Guj while you're away. You know that he will only obeyyour orders.'
'May the Light of the Heavens live forty thousand years. I shall beabsent but ten little days. After that, upon my faith and honour andsoul, I return. As to the inconsiderable interval, have I the graciouspermission of the Heaven-born to call up Moti Guj?'
Permission was granted, and, in answer to Deesa's shrill yell, thelordly tusker swung out of the shade of a clump of trees where he hadbeen squirting dust over himself till his master should return.
'Light of my heart, Protector of the Drunken, Mountain of Might, giveear,' said Deesa, standing in front of him.
Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his trunk. 'I am going away,' saidDeesa.
Moti Guj's eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts as well as his master. Onecould snatch all manner of nice things from the roadside then.
'But you, you fubsy old pig, must stay behind and work.'
The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look delighted. He hatedstump-hauling on the plantation. It hurt his teeth.
'I shall be gone for ten days, O Delectable One. Hold up your nearforefoot and I'll impress the fact upon it, warty toad of a driedmud-puddle.' Deesa took a tent-peg and banged Moti Guj ten times on thenails. Moti Guj grunted and shuffled from foot to foot.
'Ten days,' said Deesa, 'you must work and haul and root trees as Chihunhere shall order you. Take up Chihun and set him on your neck!' Moti Gujcurled the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot there and was swungon to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy ankus, the ironelephant-goad.
Chihun thumped Moti Guj's bald head as a paviour thumps a kerbstone.
Moti Guj trumpeted.
'Be still, hog of the backwoods. Chihun's your mahout for ten days. Andnow bid me good-bye, beast after mine own heart. Oh, my lord, my king!Jewel of all created elephants, lily of the herd, preserve your honouredhealth; be virtuous. Adieu!'
Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung him into the air twice.That was his way of bidding the man good-bye.
'He'll work now,' said Dessa to the planter. 'Have I leave to go?'
The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the woods. Moti Guj went backto haul stumps.
Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy and forlornnotwithstanding. Chihun gave him balls of spices, and tickled him underthe chin, and Chihun's little baby cooed to him after work was over,and Chihun's wife called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a bachelor byinstinct, as Deesa was. He did not understand the domestic emotions. Hewanted the light of his universe back again--the drink and the drunkenslumber, the savage beatings and the savage caresses.
None the less he worked well, and the planter wondered. Deesa hadvagabonded along the roads till he met a marriage procession of hisown caste and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted past allknowledge of the lapse of time.
The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there returned no Deesa.Moti Guj was loosed from his ropes for the daily stint. He swung clear,looked round, shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away, as onehaving business elsewhere.
'Hi! ho! Come back, you,' shouted Chihun. 'Come back, and put me on yourneck, Misborn Mountain. Return, Splendour of the Hillsides. Adornment ofall India, heave to, or I'll bang every toe off your fat fore-foot!'
Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. Chihun ran after him with arope and caught him up. Moti Guj put his ears forward, and Chihun knewwhat that meant, though he tried to carry it off with high words.
'None of your nonsense with me,' said he. 'To your pickets, Devil-son.'
'Hrrump!' said Moti
Guj, and that was all--that and the forebent ears.
Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a branch for a toothpick,and strolled about the clearing, making jest of the other elephants, whohad just set to work.
Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, who came out witha dog-whip and cracked it furiously. Moti Guj paid the white manthe compliment of charging him nearly a quarter of a mile across theclearing and 'Hrrumping' him into the verandah. Then he stood outsidethe house chuckling to himself, and shaking all over with the fun of it,as an elephant will.
'We'll thrash him,' said the planter. 'He shall have the finestthrashing that ever elephant received. Give Kala Nag and Nazim twelvefoot of chain apiece, and tell them to lay on twenty blows.'
Kala Nag--which means Black Snake--and Nazim were two of the biggestelephants in the lines, and one of their duties was to administer thegraver punishments, since no man can beat an elephant properly.
They took the whipping-chains and rattled them in their trunks as theysidled up to Moti Guj, meaning to hustle him between them. Moti Guj hadnever, in all his life of thirty-nine years, been whipped, and he didnot intend to open new experiences. So he waited, weaving his head fromright to left, and measuring the precise spot in Kala Nag's fat sidewhere a blunt tusk would sink deepest. Kala Nag had no tusks; the chainwas his badge of authority; but he judged it good to swing wide of MotiGuj at the last minute, and seem to appear as if he had brought out thechain for amusement. Nazim turned round and went home early. He did notfeel fighting-fit that morning, and so Moti Guj was left standing alonewith his ears cocked.
That decided the planter to argue no more, and Moti Guj rolled back tohis inspection of the clearing. An elephant who will not work, and isnot tied up, is not quite so manageable as an eighty-one ton gun loosein a heavy sea-way. He slapped old friends on the back and asked them ifthe stumps were coming away easily; he talked nonsense concerninglabour and the inalienable rights of elephants to a long 'nooning'; and,wandering to and fro, thoroughly demoralized the garden till sundown,when he returned to his pickets for food.
'If you won't work you shan't eat,' said Chihun angrily. 'You're a wildelephant, and no educated animal at all. Go back to your jungle.'
Chihun's little brown baby, rolling on the floor of the hut, stretchedits fat arms to the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti Guj knew well thatit was the dearest thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk witha fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw itself shoutingupon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled up till the brown baby wascrowing in the air twelve feet above his father's head.
'Great Chief!' said Chihun. 'Flour cakes of the best, twelve in number,two feet across, and soaked in rum shall be yours on the instant, andtwo hundred pounds' weight of fresh-cut young sugar-cane therewith.Deign only to put down safely that insignificant brat who is my heartand my life to me.'
Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfortably between his forefeet, thatcould have knocked into toothpicks all Chihun's hut, and waited for hisfood. He ate it, and the brown baby crawled away. Moti Guj dozed, andthought of Deesa. One of many mysteries connected with the elephant isthat his huge body needs less sleep than anything else that lives. Fouror five hours in the night suffice--two just before midnight, lying downon one side; two just after one o'clock, lying down on the other. Therest of the silent hours are filled with eating and fidgeting and longgrumbling soliloquies.
At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his pickets, for athought had come to him that Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere inthe dark forest with none to look after him. So all that night he chasedthrough the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking his ears. Hewent down to the river and blared across the shallows where Deesa usedto wash him, but there was no answer. He could not find Deesa, but hedisturbed all the elephants in the lines, and nearly frightened to deathsome gypsies in the woods.
At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had been very drunk indeed,and he expected to fall into trouble for outstaying his leave. He drew along breath when he saw that the bungalow and the plantation were stilluninjured; for he knew something of Moti Guj's temper; and reportedhimself with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj had gone to his pickets forbreakfast. His night exercise had made him hungry.
'Call up your beast,' said the planter, and Deesa shouted in themysterious elephant-language, that some mahouts believe came from Chinaat the birth of the world, when elephants and not men were masters. MotiGuj heard and came. Elephants do not gallop. They move from spots atvarying rates of speed. If an elephant wished to catch an express trainhe could not gallop, but he could catch the train. Thus Moti Guj wasat the planter's door almost before Chihun noticed that he had left hispickets. He fell into Deesa's arms trumpeting with joy, and the man andbeast wept and slobbered over each other, and handled each other fromhead to heel to see that no harm had befallen.
'Now we will get to work,' said Deesa. 'Lift me up, my son and my joy.'
Moti Guj swung him up and the two went to the coffee-clearing to lookfor irksome stumps.
The planter was too astonished to be very angry.
L'ENVOI
My new-cut ashlar takes the light Where crimson-blank the windows flare; By my own work, before the night, Great Overseer, I make my prayer.
If there be good in that I wrought, Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine; Where I have failed to meet Thy thought I know, through Thee, the blame is mine.
One instant's toil to Thee denied Stands all Eternity's offence, Of that I did with Thee to guide To Thee, through Thee, be excellence.
Who, lest all thought of Eden fade, Bring'st Eden to the craftsman's brain, Godlike to muse o'er his own trade And Manlike stand with God again.
The depth and dream of my desire, The bitter paths wherein I stray, Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire, Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay.
One stone the more swings to her place In that dread Temple of Thy Worth --It is enough that through Thy grace I saw naught common on Thy earth.
Take not that vision from my ken; Oh whatso'er may spoil or speed, Help me to need no aid from men That I may help such men as need!
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