CHAPTER IX
_The Monster Kabuli (Continued)_
Skag did arrive from Poona that day. When Carlin did not come to thejungle-edge, and the vivid open area between him and the city showed nomovement, he did not linger many minutes. Power had come to him fromthe waiting days, and this hour was the acid test. All his life he hadrefused to look back or look ahead, making the _Now_--the presentmoving point, his world--wasting no energy otherwise.
In the long waiting days, he had learned what many a man afield hadbeen forced to learn in loneliness, that when he was very still, andfeeling _high_, not too tired--in fact, when he could forgethimself--something of Carlin came to him, over the miles.
But in spite of all he knew, much force of his life had strainedforward to this moment of meeting. The shock of disappointment dazedhim. His first thought was that there was some good reason; but afterthat, the misery of faint-heartedness stole in, and he wondered the oldsad wonder--if love had changed.
Skag hurried back to the station where he had left the Great Dane,Nels, with Bhanah, who would have to find quarters for himself. Nelsstood between the two, waiting for his orders; and wheeled with a dipof the head almost puppy-like when the man decided. So Skag walked ontoward the road where Carlin lived; and at his heels, with dignity,strode one of the four great hunting dogs in India. Presently he sawMiss Annesley's head-servant, Deenah, running toward him--face greywith calamity.
And now Skag heard of the coming of the messenger with the strangeelephant; and the black edging began to run about Deenah's tale, as herevealed the ugly possibilities in his own mind that the Monster Kabulihad his part in this sending:
". . . Now Hantee Sahib must learn," Deenah finished, "that not withinfour hours' journey from Hurda; nay, not within six hours' journey fromHurda, is there any native prince with the dignity of one elephant."
. . . They were walking rapidly toward the house of the chiefcommissioner whom Deenah said was away in the villages. Their hope oflife and death fell upon the Deputy Commissioner-Sahib. Always as hespoke, Deenah's face steadily grew more grey, the rims of his eyes morered. His memories of the monster were flooding in like the rains overold river-beds, and there was no mercy for Skag in anything he said.
The Deputy Commissioner, a perfectly groomed man, leisurely appeared.He did not wear spectacle or glass; still there was a glisten about hiseyes, as if one were there. He came out into the verandah opening aheavy cigarette-case of soft Indian gold. His head tilted back as ifsipping from a cup, as he lit and inbreathed the cigarette. To Skag heseemed so utterly aloof, so irreparably out of touch with a man's needsat a moment like this, that he could not have asked a favour oradequately stated his case. Deenah took this part, however. If therewere drama or any interest in the tale, there was no sign from theDeputy, whose eyes now cooled upon Nels, and widened. Presently heinterrupted Deenah to inquire who owned this dog.
The servant signified the American, and Skag took the straight glistenof the Englishman's glance for the first time.
"May I inquire? From whom?"
Skag coldly told him that the dog had been owned by Police CommissionerHichens of Bombay. . . . The deputy regretfully ordered Deenah tocontinue his narrative, and in the silence afterward, presently spokethe name:
"Neela Deo, of course--"
This meant the Blue God, the leader of the caravan; and signified thelordliest elephant in all India. . . . The Deputy, after a slightpause, answered himself:
"But Neela Deo is away with the chief commissioner. . . . Mitha Baba--"
There was another lilting pause. This referred to a female elephant,the meaning of whose name was "Sweet Baby." The Deputy capitulated:
"Mitha Baba, yes; especially since she knows the Hakima--and oh, I say,that's a strange tale, you know--"
He glanced from Deenah to Nels, to Skag; but received no encouragementto narrate same. Not in the least unbalanced, he tipped back his headand took another drink from between his smoky fingers; then hisglassless eye glittered out through the white burning of the noon, ashe added:
"But Mitha Baba would not chase a strange elephant, unless shepositively knew the creature was running off with her own GulMoti. . . . She's discriminating, is Mitha Baba. But I say, GunpatRao came from the Vindhas, you know."
It dawned upon Skag that this wasn't monologue, but conversation; alsothat it had some vague bearing upon his own affairs. The pause wasvery slight, when the Deputy resumed:
"Yes, Gunpat Rao is from the Vindha Hills, within the life-time of oneman. . . . Mitha Baba is as fast, but she won't do it; so there's anend. Gunpat Rao. . . . Gunpat Rao. The mahouts say young maleelephants will follow a strange male for the chance of a fight. It'sconsistent enough. Yes, we'll call in Chakkra. . . . Are you ready totravel, sir?"
This was to Skag.
No array of terms could express how ready to travel was Sanford Hantee.The Bengali mahout, Chakkra, appeared; a sturdy little man with blueturban, red kummerband, and a scarf and tunic of white.
The Deputy flicked away his cigarette and now spoke fast--talk havingto do with Nels, with the Hakima, with Gunpat Rao, who was hisparticular mahout's master, and of the strange elephant who had carriedthe two Sahibas away.
Chakkra reported at this point that he had seen this elephant in themarket place, an old male--with a woman's howdah, covering too few ofhis wrinkles--and a mahout who would ruin the disposition of anythingbut a man-killer. Chakkra appeared to have an actual hatred towardthis man, for he enquired of the Deputy:
"Have I your permission to deal with the mahout of this thief elephant?"
"Out of your own blood-lust--no. Out of necessity--yes."
A queer moment. It was as if one supposed only to crawl, had suddenlyrevealed wings. Not until this instant did Skag realise that a ChiefCommissioner had the flower of England to pick his deputies from, andhad made no mistake in this man. . . . A moment later, Nels had beengiven preliminary instruction, and Skag was lifted, with a playfulflourish of the trunk, by Gunpat Rao himself, into the light huntinghowdah. Chakkra was also in place, when the Deputy waved his hand withthe remark:
"Oh, I say, I'd be glad of the chase, myself, but an official, youknow, . . . and Lord, what a dog!"
The last was as Nels swung around in front of Gunpat Rao's trunk as ifformally to remark: "You see we are to travel together to-day."
The Deputy detained them a second or two longer, while he brought hisgun-case and a pair of pistols, to save the time of Skag procuring hisown at the station. They heard him call, after the start:
"It might be a running fight, you know. . . ."
A little out, Nels was given the scent of the strange elephant andDeenah left them, with nothing to mitigate the evil discovery thatCarlin and her friend had been carried straight through the open junglecountry, toward the Vindhas; not at all in the direction the messengerhad stated within hearing of the other servants.
A steady beat through Skag's tortured mind--was Deenah's story of themonster Kabuli; no softness nor mercy in those details. He hadwatched, in the Deputy, a man unfold, after the mysterious manner ofthe English. He had entered suddenly, abruptly into one of the mostenthralling centres of fascination in Indian life--the elephantservice. He had seen the exalted and complicated mechanism of a ChiefCommissioner's Headquarters get down to individual business withremarkable speed and not the loss of an ounce of dignity. But underevery feeling and thought--was the slow bass beat of Deenah's storyabout the monster Kabuli.
Nels had been called to the trail in the very hour of his arrival.Skag would have supposed their movement leisurely, except that he sawNels steadily at work. Gunpat Rao, the most magnificent elephant inthe Chief Commissioner's stockades--excepting Neela Deo and MithaBaba--was making speed under him, at this moment. (Gunpat Rao hadapproved of him instantly, swinging him up into the howdah with a gladgrace and a touch that would not unfreshen evening wear.)
Chakkra, the mahout, was singing the
praises of Gunpat Rao, his master,as they rolled forward; flapping an ear to keep time and waving hisankas--the steel hook of which was never used.
"Kin to Neela Deo, is Gunpat Rao; liege-son to Neela Deo, the King!" herepeated.
It appeared that he was reminding Gunpat Rao, rather than informing theAmerican, of this honour.
"Did I not hear the Deputy Commissioner Sahib say that he came from theVindhas, and that Neela Deo is from High Himalaya?" Skag asked.
The mahout's face turned back; his trailing lids did not widen in thefierce sunlight. It was the face of a man still singing.
"The kinship is of honour, not of blood, Sahib," he answered.
Then Chakkra informed Skag that Kudrat Sharif, Neela Deo's mahout, wasthe third of his line to serve the Blue God, who was not yet nearly inthe ictus of his power and beauty; while he, Chakkra, was the onlymahout Gunpat Rao had known--since he came down from the Vindhiantrap-stockades, where he was snared. He was about thirty years youngerthan Neela Deo, the King. Would the Sahib bear in mind that anelephant continues to increase in strength and wisdom for an hundredyears? And now would he consider Gunpat Rao's size--the perfection ofhis shape? Might not such a Prince claim relationship to such a King?
. . . Chakkra then pointed out that when the grandson of his own littleson should sit just here, behind the incomparable ears of hisbeloved--the ears with linings like flower-petals--so, looking out uponthe world from a greater height than this--then doubtless people wouldhave learned that another mighty elephant had come into the world.
Skag missed nothing of the talk. Another time it would have filled himwith deep delight. It belonged to his own craft. A man might use allthe words, of all the languages in all their flexibilities and nevertell the whole truth of his own craft. In fact, a man can only drop apoint here and there about his life work. One never comes to the end.
Also before his eyes was the joy of Nels in action--the big fellowleaping to his task, steadily drawing them on, it appeared; and alwaysa breath of ease would blow across Skag's being as he noted thequickening; but when that was merely sustained for a while, the hope ofit wore away, and he wanted more and more speed--past any giving of manor beast. . . . The old drum of the Kabuli tale constantly recurred,as if a trap door to the deeps were often lifted. Skag would brush hishand across his brow, shading his head with his helmet lifted apart fora moment, to let the sunless air circulate.
They passed through the open jungle merging into a country of low hillsand frequent villages. The rains that had broken in Poona had not yetreached this country. . . . The sun went down and the afterglowchanged the world. Carlin's afterglow, it was to Skag, from theirmoment at the edge of the jungle--on the evening of the troth; therewas pain about it now. India had a different look to him--alien,sinister, of a depth of suffering undreamed of, because of the beatingbass of the Kabuli tale, intensified by the sense that falling nightwould slacken the chase. . . .
Skag had lost the magic of externals, the drift of his great interest.All his lights were around Carlin, and powers of hatred, altogetherforeign to his faculties, pressed upon him in the threat of thehour. . . . Yes, Chakkra remembered the five Kabuli men who had sat inthe market-place. Yes, he remembered the story of the beating of themonster, the long slow healing after that; and his last look, as heleft Hurda for the last time. . . .
It was well, Chakkra said, that they had open country for the chase.It was well that the Kabuli did not call to the Sahibas, and hide themin one of the great Mohammedan households of Hurda--where even IndianGovernment might not search. It was well that the Kabuli did not dareto come closer to Hurda than this, so that they had a chance toovertake his elephant afield, before the walls of the _purdah_closed. . . .
Such was the burden of Chakkra's ramble, and there was no balm in itfor Skag. The weight settled heavier and heavier upon him with theending of the day. Nels was a phantom of grey before them in theshadows, leisurely showing his powers. At times, while he ranged farahead, they would not hear him for several minutes; then possibly ahalf-humorous sniff in the immediate dark, and they knew the big fellowwaited for Gunpat Rao to catch up. Once he was lost ahead so long thatSkag spoke:
"Nels--"
The answer was a bound of feet and a whine below that pulled the man'shand over the rim of the howdah, as if to reach and touch his goodfriend.
"Take it, Nels--good work, old man," Skag said.
They passed through zones of coolness as the trail sank into hollowsbetween the hills, and Gunpat Rao rolled forward. Pitch and roll,pitch and roll--as many movements as a solar system and the painfulillusion of slowness over all. Often in Skag's nostrils one of thesubtlest of all scents made itself known, but most elusively--asuggestion of shocking power--like an instant's glimpse into anotherdimension. If you answer at all to an expression which at best onlyintimates--_the smell of living dust_--you will have something of thething that Skag sensed in the emanation of Gunpat Rao, warming toaction.
Occasionally as they crossed the streams there was delay in finding thetrail on the other side. Once in the dark after a ford, when Nels hadrushed along the left bank to find the scent, Gunpat Rao plungedstraight on to the right without waiting; and the mahout sang hispraises with low but fiery intensity:
"He is coming. He is coming into his own!"
"What do you mean, Chakkra? Make it clear to me who have not manywords of Hindi--"
"The meaning of our journey appears to him, Sahib; from our minds, fromthe thief ahead and from the great dog,--the thing that we do isappearing to him. He knows the way--see--"
Nels had come in from the lateral and found that Gunpat Rao was right.An amazing point to Skag, this. The great head before him, withChakkra's legs dangling behind the ears, had grasped something of theurge of their chase. A vast and mysterious mechanism was locked in thegreat grey skull. Actually Gunpat Rao seemed to laugh that he hadshown the way to Nels.
"You don't mean, Chakkra, that he goes into the silence like a holyman?"
"It is like."
Skag had seen something of this in his India--the yogi men shuttingtheir eyes and bowing their heads and seeming to sink theirconsciousness into themselves, in order to ascertain some fact_without_ and afar off.
"Our lord gives his mind to the matter and the truth unfolds--" Chakkraadded.
"Will the other elephant travel through the night so steadily?"
(The sense of his own powerlessness was in him like a spear.)
"Not like this, Sahib," said Chakkra.
The hint, however, was that the thief elephant would make all speed;that the lead of the four hours would be conserved as carefully aspossible by the other mahout.
"But he has a woman's howdah," Chakkra invariably added. "Two Sahibas,as well as the mahout himself. . . . To-morrow will tell--hai,to-morrow will tell, if they go that far!"
That was always the point of the blackest fear--that the elephant aheadshould come to some Mohammedan household, and leave Carlin where no onecould pass the veil.
"But what of the messenger who brought word to the Sahibas?" Skag asked.
"He would slip away. Some hiding place for him--possibly back atHurda."
Chakkra seemed sure of this.
That was Skag's long night. He tried to think of the Kabuli as if hewere an animal. A man might have a destroying enmity against a cobraor a tiger or a python; but it was not black and self-defiling likethis thing which crept over him, out of the miasma of Deenah's tale.
In the dawn they reached a small river. Skag saw Nels lose his treadin the deepening centre, swing down with the current an instant andthen strike his balance, swimming. Here was coolness and silence.To-night he would know. To-night, if he did not have Carlin--
. . . Gunpat Rao stood shoulder-deep in the stream. Skag fancied agleam of deep massive humour under the tilt of the great ear below him,as the elephant, none too delicately, set his foot forward into thedeeper part of the stream. His trunk and Chakkra's vo
ice were raisedtogether--for Chakkra was slipping:
"Hai, my Prince, would you go without me? Would you leave the Sahibalone in his proving-time? Would you leave my childrenfatherless? . . . There is none other--"
They stood in the lifting day overlooking a broad sloping country--theVindha peaks faintly outlined in the far distance.
"It is the broad valley of Nerbudda," Chakkra said, "full of milk andwine against the seasons. One good day of travel ahead to the bank ofHoly Nerbudda, Sahib, before the fall of night--if the chase holds solong."
Skag did not eat this day. It was not until high noon that they haltedby a spring of sweet water, and the American thought of his thirst.Nels was leaner. He plunged to the water; then back to the scent againwith a far challenge call. (It was like the echo of his challenge tothe cheetah as the wall of the waters loomed across the hills, abovePoona.) On he went, seriously; his mouth open in the great heat, histongue rocking on its centre like nothing else.
Gunpat Rao seemed gradually overcoming obstructions; as if his greatidea mounted and cleared, his body requiring time to strike its rhythm.Chakkra sang to him. The sun became hotter and higher--until it hungat the very top of the universe and forgot nothing. There was astillness in the hills that would frighten anything but a fever bird tosilence. To Skag it was a weight against speech and he sat rigidly formany moments at a time--all his life of forest and city, of man andcreature, passing before his tortured eyes. . . . And the words Carlinhad spoken; all the mysteries of his nights near Poona when she hadseemed to draw near as he fell asleep--seemed to be there as he cameforth from a dream. Always he had thought he could never forget thedreams--only to find them gone utterly, before he stood upon his feet.Past all, was the marvel of the hunting cheetah day, when he looked atthe beast that gave no answer to his force; only murder in its savageheart--and Carlin's name was his very breath in that peril, somethingof her spirit like a whisper from within his own heart.
All that afternoon Skag's eyes strained ahead, and his respect grew forthe thief elephant with his greater burden, and his wonder increasedfor Nels and Gunpat Rao. One dim far peak held his eyes from time totime; but Skag lived in the low beat of India's misery--the fever andfamine; the world of veils and the miseries beyond knowledge of theworld. He sank and sank until he was chilled, even though the sweat ofthe day's fierce burning was upon him. He understood hate and death,the thirst to kill; the slow ruin that comes at first to the humanmind, suddenly cut off from the one held more dear than life. Itseemed all boyish dazzle that he had ever found loveliness in thisplace. That boyishness had passed. In this hour he saw only hatredahead and mockery, if Carlin--. . . but the far dim peak of mistylight held his aching eyes.
"Go on, Nels--on, old man," he would call.
And Chakkra would turn with protest that could not find words--histongue silenced by the lean terrible face in the howdah behind him.Presently Chakkra would fall to talking to his master, muttering in akind of thrall at the thing he saw in the countenance of the Americanwho had touched bottom.
Sanford Hantee was facing the worst of the past and an impossiblefuture, having neither hate nor pity, now. Yet from time to time witha glance at the gun-case at his feet, he spoke with cold clearness:
"We must overtake them before night."
Chakkra, who had ceased singing, would bow, saying:
"The trail is hot, Sahib. They are not far."
Steadily beneath them, Gunpat Rao straightened out, lengthening hisroll, softening his pitch. Nels was not trotting now, but in a longlow run. Skag was aghast at himself, that his heart did not go out tothese magnificent servants. There was not _feeling_ within him toanswer these verities of courage and endurance; yet he could rememberthe human that had been in his heart.
The low hills had broken away behind them; the first veil of twilightin the air. A shelving dip opened, showing the bottom of the valley.Skag could see nothing ahead--but Nels lying closer to the trail.Chakkra's shoulder was suddenly within reach of Skag's hand, for thehead of his master was lifted.
As the great curve of Gunpat Rao's trumpet arched before his face--twothings happened to Skag. A full blast of hot breath drove through him;and a keen high vibrant tone pierced every nerve. Then Chakkra shouted:
"Gunpat Rao, prince of Vindha--declares the chase is on! Hold fast,Sahib,--we go!"
The earth rose up and the heavens tipped. There was no foundation; thebulwarks of earth's crust had given away. The landscape was racingpast--but backward--and Nels, yet ahead, was a still, whirring streak.The thing hardly believed and never seen in America--that the elephantis speed-king of the world--was revelation now! No pitch or roll; along curving sweep this--seeming scarcely to touch the ground. Thiswas the going Skag had called for--a night and a day. And Nels waslabouring beside them now, but seeming to miss his tread--seeming torun on ice.
"Hai!" yelled Chakkra. "Who says there is none other than Neela Deo?"
A thread of silver stretched before them, crossing the line of theircourse. It broadened in a man's breath. They turned the curve of thelast slope, and heard the shout of the mahout far ahead. The thiefelephant was running along Nerbudda's margin to a ford.
A roar was about Skag's head and shoulders like a storm--Gunpat Raotrumpeting again! The landscape blurred. The forward beast wasgrowing large . . . two standing figures above him--the fling of awhite arm!
The huge red howdah rocked as the thief elephant entered the river; amoment more, only the howdah showing. Distantly like the hum offurious insects, Skag heard Chakkra's chant:
"The thief is snared! Holy Nerbudda herself weaved the snare. . . .The hand of destiny is ours, Sahib. Nay, mine, not thine! Did not theDeputy Commissioner Sahib say _by necessity_? . . . Plunge in! . . .Hai, but softly. Prince of thy kind, take the water softly, I say--"
And Gunpat Rao entered the river at a swimming stroke. Skag's eyes hadhardly turned from the great red howdah. There was a keen squeal fromahead, answered by a fiery hissing intake of Chakkra's breath:
"That, Sahib, is the murderous mahout using his steel hook. . . . Yes,it was _by necessity_, the Deputy Sahib said. Certainly it was _bynecessity_!"
The fling of a white arm again. Sanford Hantee was standing.
"Carlin!" he called.
The answer came back to him in some mystery of imperishable vibration.
"I am here."
The two great beasts were moiled together against the stream. . . .The man and woman, whose eyes still held, might have missed the flashof steel that Chakkra parried with his ankas. In fact, it was thesound of a quick gasp of Margaret Annesley that made them turn, just asChakkra shouted:
"_By necessity_, Sahib! . . . It is accomplished!"
The other's blade had whirled into the water. They had heard the weltas Chakkra's ankas came down. The strange mahout looked drunken andspineless for a second; then there was a red gush under his white clothas he pitched into the stream.
The Great Dane had just caught up. He was in the river below them--notdoubting his part had come.
"Nels, steady! Let him go!" Skag called. "Don't touch, old man!"
And then, after the thief elephant, having no fight in him, was madefast, they heard Chakkra singing his song, but paid no attention. . . .
It was a longer journey back to Hurda, for they came slowly, but therewas no haste; and two, at least, in the hunting howdah could transcendpassing time, each by the grace of the other. Gunpat Rao was returnedto the Deputy Sahib with an amulet to add to his trophy-winnings; and asentence or two that might have been taken from the record of Neela Deohimself. The thief elephant was found to be a runaway that had falleninto native hands. And Nels was restored to Bhanah by the way of theheart of Carlin Deal. . . .
They never found out how far the two women would have been taken beyondthe Nerbudda. After they had first mounted into the red howdah atHurda, the messenger of the Kabuli had disappeared into the crowd andwas not seen again. .
. . As for the monster himself, he had sufferedenough to plan craftily. (The Nerbudda took his mahout and covered himquite as deeply as the crowd had covered his messenger at Hurda.)
Much in his silence afterward, and in the great still joy that had cometo him, Sanford Hantee chose to reflect upon the mystery of pain he hadknown on the lonely out-journey--the spiritless incapacity to cope withlife--the loss even of his mastercraft with animals. He would looktoward Carlin in such moments and then look away, or possibly lookwithin. By her, the meanings of all life were sharpened--jungle andjungle-beast, monster, saint and man--the breath of all life more keen.