CHAPTER IV
_The Monkey Glen_
Skag and Cadman were back in Hurda where Dickson Sahib lived, and theyounger man was disconsolate at the thought of Cadman's leaving forEngland. During those few last days they were much together in theopen jungle around the ancient unwalled city; and once as they walked,two strange silent native men passed them going in toward thewilderness.
"The priests of Hanuman," Cadman whispered.
Skag enquired. He had a new and enlarged place in his mind foreverything about these men. Cadman explained that these priests servethe monkey people: to this purpose they are a separate priesthood.Abandoning possessions and loves and hates of their kind, they livelives of austerity, mingling with the monkey people in their ownjungles; eating, drinking with them; sleeping near; playing andmourning with them--in every possible way giving expression togood-will. All this they do very seriously, very earnestly, withreverence mingled with pity.
"The masses here think these men worship the monkeys," Cadman added."It's not true. Most Europeans dismiss them as fanatics--equallyabsurd. I've been out with them."
Skag had actually seen the faces of the two men just passed. Theimpression had not left his mind. They were dark clean faces, groovedby much patient endurance, strong with self-mastery and those fainterlines that have light in them and only come from years of service forothers.
Cadman certainly had no scorn for these men. He had passed days andnights with their kind in one of the down-country districts. His tonewas slow and gentle when he spoke of that period. It wasn't thatCadman actually spoke words of pathos and endearment. Indeed, he mighthave said more, except that two white men are cruelly repressed fromeach other in fear of being sentimental. They are almost as willing toshow fear as an emotion of delicacy or tenderness.
"The more you know, the more you appreciate these forest men," Cadmancapitulated and laughed softly at the sudden interest in Skag's face ashe added: "I understand, my son. You want to go into the jungle withthese masters of the monkey craft. You want to read their lives--farin, deep in yonder. Maybe they'll let you. They were singularly goodto me. . . . It may be they will see that thing in your face whichknocks upon their souls."
"What is that?"
Cadman laughed again.
"In the West they know little of these things; but the fact is, it'squite as you've been taught: the more a man overcomes himself, the morepowers he puts on for outside work. And when a man is in charge ofhimself all through, he has a look in his eye that commands--yes, evenfinds fellowship with the priests of Hanuman."
"Would these priests see such a look?"
"Of course!"
"But why?"
"Because they have it themselves. It's evident as sun-tan, to theseers, who are what they are because they rule themselves. Your oldAlec Binz had it right. You handle wild animals in cages or afieldjust in proportion as you handle yourself. Those who commandthemselves see self-command when it lives in the eye of another. . . .They called me--those priests did--years ago. I almost wanted to livewith them for a while; but it was too hard."
"How was that?"
"They said I must forsake all other things in life to serve the monkeypeople--that I must stay years with them, winning their faith, before Iwould be of value--that all life in the world must be forgotten."
Cadman laughed wistfully. "I wasn't big enough," he added, "or madenough, as you like. Perhaps they'll know you at once, or it mighttake labour and patience to convince them you have not an unkindthought toward any of their monkey friends and no scorn of them becausethey serve in such service."
The out and out staring fact of the whole matter, Skag realised, wasthat these priests believed the monkeys to be a race of men who havebeen far gone in degeneration. They gave their lives to help thereturn progress. The order of Hanuman had already endured for manygenerations. The value of their work was hardly appreciable from anystandpoint outside; they counted little the years of a man's life; theywere trained in patience to a degree hardly conceivable to a Westernmind.
". . . Of course they work in the dark," Cadman said. "The natives tryto obey in these matters, but do not understand; and one young Europeanwith a rifle can undo a whole lot of their devoted labour among thetree-people. You see, the priests work with care and kindness,following, ministering, accustoming the monkeys to them, neverbetraying them in the slightest--"
Skag nodded, keenly attentive. He knew well from his experience as ashow trainer what it means to get the confidence of the big cats; andhow months of careful work could be ruined in a moment by an ignoranthand. Deep, steady, inextinguishable _kindness_ was the thing.
"Yes, to be kind and square," Cadman resumed. "And one of thestrangest and most remarkable things that ever came to me in the shapeof a sentence was from one of these priests. He was an old man, greypallor stealing in under the weathered brown of his face. He had thatlook in his eye that has nothing to do with years, but means that a manis so sufficient unto himself that he can forget himself utterly. . . .He spoke of the condition of the tree-folk, of the incommunicablesorrow of them--as if it were his own destiny. The one sentence ofhis, hard to forget--in English would be like this:
"_'After a man has lived with these monkey people for a long time, andalways been kind, one of them may come and stand before him and lettears roll down his hairy face. And this is all the confession ofsorrow he can make!'_"
Skag caught the deep thing that had stirred Cadman. The latter addedwith a touch of scorn:
"Once I told this thing, as I have told you, to a group of Europeans ina steamer's smoking room. And two of them laughed--thought I wastelling a funny story. . . . These priests are apt to be very bittertoward one who wrongs one of their free-friends. They believe that itis a just and good thing to make a man pay with his life, for takingthe life of a monkey; because it impedes his coming up and embittersthe others. One way to look at it?"
Skag was in and out of the jungle most of the days after Cadman leftfor Bombay to sail. Closer and closer he drew to the deep, sweetearthiness and the mysteries carried on outside the ken of most men.One dawn, from a distance he watched a sambhur buck pause on the browof a hill. The creature shook his mane and lifted up his nose andsniffed the dawn of day.
Skag knew that it was good to him, knew how the sensitive grey nostrilsquivered wide, drinking deep draughts of cool moist air. The grasseswere rested; the trees seemed enamoured of the deep shadows of night.The river gurgled musically from the jagged rocks of her mid-current tothe overleaning vines and branches of her borders.
This was a side stream of the Nerbudda. Already Skag shared with thenatives the attitude of devotion to the great Nerbudda. She was sacredto the people, and to every creature good, for her gift was like thegift of mothers. When all the world was parched and full of deepcracks, yawning beneath a heaven white and cloudless, and rain forsookthe land, and every leaf hung heavy and dust-laden; when heat andthirst and famine all increased, till creatures crept forth from theirhot lairs at evening and moved in company--who had been enemies, butfor sore suffering--then would she yield up her pure tides to satisfytheir utmost craving. . . .
Skag lived deep through that morning. The rose and amber radiance ofdawn fell into all the hearts of all the birds; and wordless songs camepulsing up from roots of growing things. The sambhur lifted high hishead again and spread the fan of one ear toward the wind, while onebreathed twice. Then there fell a sudden rustling on the branches; andswift along the river's brim, the sharp, plaintive cry of monkeys,beating down through all the startled stillness with their wailingvoices. These turned, hurrying away in one direction, with fearlessleaps and clinging hands and ceaseless chattering. Their cries atintervals, bringing answers, until the air was a-din with monkeys,leaping along the highways of the trees.
Women of the villages, children tending goats, labourers among thedriftings of the hills and on the open slopes, holy men and those whotoiled at any craft--
heard the shrill calls along the margins of thejungle and knew that some evil had fallen on a leader of his kind amongthe monkey people.
Then Skag saw two priests of Hanuman rising up from the denser shadowswhere the river was lost in the jungle. Quickly girding themselves,they followed the multitudes. Skag did not miss their stern faces, northe instant pause as they dipped their brown feet with prayers into theriver. He dared to follow. The priests turned upon him, silent,frowning; but he was not sent back.
Skag recalled Cadman's words, but also that he was known among thenatives as one white man not an animal-killer. His name Son of Powerhad followed him to Hurda; word about him had travelled with mysteriousrapidity. To his amazement Skag found that the people of Hurda knewsomething of the story of the tiger-pit and his part in delivering theGrass Jungle people from the toils and tributes of the greatsnake. . . . He was not sent back.
For a long time, until the forenoon was half spent, the three marchedsilently. One halted at length to pick up from the leaves a white silkkerchief, bearing in one corner two English letters wrought inneedle-work. This was lifted by the elder of the priests and folded inthe thick windings of his loin-cloth. Deeper and deeper into thejungle they travelled, never far from the river.
Suddenly the branches parted, the path ceased; a smooth, perfect carpetof tender, green grass spread out before them and reached and clung tothe lip of a deep, clear pool--beaten out through the ages, by theweight of the stream falling on a lower ledge of rock from the brow ofa massive boulder. The mighty trees of the forest stretched their hugearms over this spot, as if to keep it secret, so that even the fiercesunshine was mellowed before it touched the earth.
In the midst of rich grasses, in the shadow of an overleaning rock, awounded monkey lay stretched upon fresh leaves. The two priests wentnear him, softly, while the tree-branches filled in and swayed--underweight of monkeys finding places. Here and there a local chatteringbroke the stillness for a moment, where some dry branch snapped,refusing to bear its burden.
For minutes the two hesitated, considering the wounded one; then theelder priest drew out the kerchief. Skag did not understand all thewords spoken, but he made out that this kerchief was a token thatshould find the hand that caused the wound "_and seal it untotorment_." The second priest's lips moved, repeating the samecovenant. The elder then turned back toward the city, signifying thatSkag might follow.
After they had walked some time, the old priest halted and drew forththe kerchief again. He examined the monogram woven with a fine needleinto the corner. To him the shape of the first English letter was likea ploughshare, and the second was like the form in which certain largebirds fly in company over the heights of the hill country. The priestlooked long, then hid the kerchief once more, and they hurried on.
Near the unwalled city, the priest sat down before the pandit, RatnaRam, whose seat was under the kadamba tree by the temple of Maha Dev.Ratna Ram was learned in the signs of different languages and couldwrite them with a reed, so that those who had knowledge could decipherhis writing, even after many days and at a great distance: Ratna Ram,to whom the gods had given that greatest of all kinds of wisdom,whereby he could hold secretly any knowledge and not speak of it tillthe thing should be accomplished. (The pandit was well known to Skagwho studied Hindi before him for an hour or more, on certain days.)
Taking the reed from Ratna Ram, the old priest carefully reproduced theletters he had memorised--A. V.--explained that he had found akerchief, doubtless fallen from some foreigner as he walked in thejungle. . . . Did the pandit know the man whose name was writtenso? . . . Now the priest spoke rapidly in his own tongue, repeatingthe covenant Skag had heard him pronounce in the monkey glen.
For a while Ratna Ram sat silent. The priest waited patiently, knowingthat the pandit's wisdom was working in him and that he was consideringthe matter.
Then Ratna Ram spoke to the priest:
"Oh, Covenanted, you are learned in many things and I am ignorant. Butknowledge of some things has pierced to my understanding like a sharpsword. Consider, oh, Covenanted, Indian Government, who is lord overall this land, over the Mussulman and over us also, over our lands andover all our possessions, in whose hand is the protection of our livesand the safety of our cattle. The foreigner has no honour to the lifeof any creature of the jungle, neither in his heart, nor in hisunderstanding, nor in his laws. But know this and understand it; toGovernment the life of one human is heavier to hold in the hand thanall the lives of all the tribes of the people of Hanuman. This is agood and wise thing to remember at this time, for there is no safeplace to hide from Government in all this land; no, not even in therocks, if he be searching for those who have taken one of his lives;and there is no force to bring before him to meet his force; and thereis no holding the life from him, that he will take in punishment; andif many lives have taken his one life, he will have them all. Considerthese sayings."
When Ratna Ram had ceased speaking, the priest sat without answeringfor a short space; then he inquired:
"Has Government force enough to put between, that we should notaccomplish to take the slayer alive?"
"No. His armies are not here; but it would not be many days beforethey would reach this place."
"Not before our purpose could be fulfilled?"
"It may be, not _before_. But soon after."
"That is well. We fear not death. Shall we not surely die? Whatmatters it? Our covenant stands."
Ratna Ram begged the priest to rest a little under the kadamba tree.Rising up, he gathered his utensils of writing and put them in acotton-bag; and with a glance at Skag to follow, left the place walkingtoward the city. Skag knew by this time, that his teacher, the pandit,considered the matter of serious import. They reached the verandahsteps of an English bungalow and Skag would have retired, but Ratna Ramwould not hear, wishing him to keep a record of this affair.
"The priest of Hanuman trusts _you_," he said, "and my righteousness tohim, as well as to Government, must have witness."
He knocked. A girl came to the door. All life was changed forSkag. . . . The girl, seeing the shadowed face of the pandit, inquiredif he sorrowed with any sorrow.
"Only the sorrow that over-shadows thy house, Gul Moti-ji."
Ratna Ram explained that he had come in warning, but also in equalservice for the priests of Hanuman who wanted the life of hercousin--A. V.--the young stranger from England. The fact that theyoung man was away from Hurda this day was well for him, because he hadshot and wounded a great monkey, the king of his people.
In the next few minutes Skag missed nothing, though his surfacefaculties were merely winding spools, compared to the activity of agreat machine within. He grasped that A. V. stood for Alfred Vernon,the girl's cousin, a young man recently from England. . . . Yes, A. V.had occasionally gone into the jungle with a light rifle. Sometimes hehad brought in a wild duck, or a grey _marhatta_ hare; once ablack-horned gazelle, but usually a parrot, a peacock or a jay. . . .Yes, sometimes he had been gone for hours. . . . Yes, she had told himabout the evil and also the danger of shooting monkeys.
Skag now recalled the young man with the rifle--a well-fed,well-groomed, well-educated young Englishman, thoroughly qualifiedsometime, to make a successful civil engineer and a career and fortunefor himself in India.
The girl apparently had not seen Skag so far. The pandit had calledher Gul Moti-ji. So this was the Rose Pearl--the unattainable! . . .And now the pandit informed her that though the cousin might bescornful, it would only be because he was foolish with the foolishnessof the ignorant.
"But I am not scornful. I understand--" the girl said. "I am onlyconsidering swiftly what can be done."
"They are waiting the death of the great monkey--"
The girl's eyes were filled with shadows and great energies also.
"If his life could be saved?"
"Then his life could be saved, Gul Moti-ji," the pandit repliedbriefly, but Skag knew he meant the l
ife of the cousin.
"Is it far?"
"Yes, two hours' walk."
Someone within the door of the bungalow now spoke, saying: "Carlin,dear, I may be a bit late--you must not be troubled about me."
The girl answered the voice within. . . . So her name was also Carlin.She had many names surely, but Skag liked this last one best. Sheturned to the pandit now, speaking slowly:
"Did one of the priests of Hanuman come to you with this story--justnow?"
"Yes, Gul Moti-ji."
"Is he waiting?"
"Yes."
"Will he take me--to the place of the wounded one?"
The pandit considered. Skag felt very sure that the priest would dothis.
"I will ask him. I can do no more. If the monkey still lives--yourcousin's only hope will be in your healing power, Hakima."
"Wait--I will go with you, now."
Skag released his breath deeply when she had re-entered. Apparentlyshe had not seen him so far.
The old priest arose as the three approached the kadamba tree.
"Peace, Brother," the girl said to him.
"Unto thee also, peace," he replied.
Skag marvelled at the inflections of her voice--low trailing words thatawoke at intervals into short staccato utterances. It was all awakeand alive with feeling. She did not ignore a fact the English oftenmiss, that there are certain unwritten laws of these elder people whichare as potent and unswerving as any mind-polished tablets that havecome down to England from Greece and Rome.
It was an hour of marvelling to Skag. He saw something that he had notseen so far in India. To her face the darker Indian blood was but aredolence. Doubtless it was because of this--some ancient wonder anddepth of lineage--that Skag had looked twice. He had never looked upona woman this way before. No array of terms can convey the innocence ofhis concept. . . . She was tall for a girl--almost eye to eye with him.
He didn't quite follow her words of Hindi, but his mind was runningdeep and true to hers, in meanings. She told the priest that she hadcome to save her cousin, who never could be made to understand what hehad done, even though he lost his life in forfeit. She said the monkeypeople would be devastated, if he paid his life; that the priests ofHanuman would be driven deeper and deeper into the jungles; that herheart was with them in soundness of understanding, for she was of Indiawho hears and understands. She held up a little basket saying she hadbrought bandages, stimulants, nourishments, and had come askingpermission to go with the priests now, to the wounded one, to care forhim with her own strength. . . .
Skag saw that her scorn for the ignorance that had caused the wound wasa true thing; that she felt something of the mystery of pity for themonkey people; that she could be very terrible in her rage if she letit loose, but that she loved this stupid cousin also. All Skag'sfaculties were playing at once, for he perceived at the same time thisgirl would see many things of life in terms of humour and it would begood to travel the roads with her because of this. . . . Apparentlyshe had not seen him, Sanford Hantee, to this moment.
The priest weighed her words and spoke coldly, saying that his orderdid not consider consequences to men, when they took life. A monkeyking had been shot. The wound was eating him to death. It wasunwritten law which may never be broken, for the life of one who killsa monkey to be taken by the priests of Hanuman. Up through the agesthis law had not served to destroy the monkey people, but to protectthem.
The girl said gently: "Let me go to him. Do you not see that I amindeed of this land, with its blood in my veins?"
Ratna Ram had taken his seat once more under the kadamba tree. It wasearly afternoon and the three were travelling through the jungle. Thegirl Carlin was always looking ahead--one thing only upon hermind--time and distance and words, as clearly obstructions to her, asthe occasional branches across the path. Once when Skag fixed a bigstone for her to pass dry across a shallow ford, she turned to thankhim, but her eyes did not actually fill with any image of himself. Hemissed nothing--neither the standpoint of the priest, nor of theEnglish, nor the vantage of this girl who stood between.
It was a queer breathless day for him, altogether to his liking, butmore intense than he understood. The girl's lithe power, thetirelessness of her stride, the quick grace, low voice andsteady-shaded eyes full of, full of--
Skag hadn't the word at hand. Cadman Sahib would know. . . . Thatlook of the eyes seldom went with young faces, Skag reflected; in fact,he had only found it before in old mothers and old nurses and oldphysicians. Certainly it had to do with forgetting oneself inservice. . . .
The priest began to talk or chant as he strode along. It was neitherspeech nor song. It did not bring the younger two closer together,though they saw that monkeys were following, up in their tree-lanes.At times when Skag dropped behind, he wondered why the girl did not seethe things that delighted him--a sparkling pool, the gleam of damprocks, the velvet moss with restless etchings of sunbeam. Yet he knewthat it was only to-day she looked past these things; that these reallywere her things; that she belonged to the jungle, not to thehouse. . . . She must greatly love this stupid cousin. . . . Skagnever tired watching the firm light tread of her--like the step of onewho starts out to win a race. . . . There was jubilant music of awaterfall--the priest reverently stopped his chanting.
Then they came to the great rock and the second priest arose, his eyeglancing past Skag and Carlin to the eye of his fellow of the order ofHanuman.
For an instant the silence was of an intensity that hurt.
"Is he--?" Carlin began.
The priest who had brought them answered, though there had been nowords:
"No, the king yet lives."
Under the shadow of the overleaning rock, stretched on fresh wetleaves, the monkey king was lying. His eyes were bright, but the hazeof fever was over them; thin grey lips parted and parched; a strainedlook about the mouth. He breathed in quick, panting breaths--too fargone to be afraid, as Carlin leaned over; but there was a forwardmovement in the over-hanging branches, a swift breathless shifting ofthe monkeys.
She opened the little basket. Skag watched her face as she first laidher hand on the monkey's head. He saw the thrill of horror andunderstood it well, for this was alien flesh her hand touched--not likethe flesh of horse or dog or cow which is all animal. She struggledwith a second revulsion, but put it away. She found the wound in theshoulder and asked for hot water, which a priest quickly prepared andbrought in an earthen jar. She bathed the wound, and put some liquidon his dry lips. The tree man was too full of alien suffering to becognisant, as yet; but the great test was now, when under her handsappeared a little instrument of jointed steel. . . . She was talkingto him softly as to a sick child. He drew a quick breath--his eyeswide as a low cry came from him, and the whole forest seemed to quiverwith a suffocating interest, monkeys ever pressing nearer. Skag sawone little brown hand stretch (twisting as if to bury its thumb) andlay hold of Carlin's dress. . . . Then he sighed, like a whip of airwhen a spring is released and Skag saw the bullet in the instrument.
It was held before him. She dropped it into Skag's hand thinking itwas the priest's. . . . Then she dressed the wound, giving medicineand nourishment until the tree king slept.
The afternoon was spent.