Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (402 page)

“Fifteen,” said Bukta. “Short paces. No need for a second shot, Sahib. He bleeds cleanly where he lies, and we need not spoil the skin. I said there would be no need of these, but they came — in case.”

Suddenly the sides of the ravine were crowned with the heads of Bukta’s people — a force that could have blown the ribs out of the beast had Chinn’s shot failed; but their guns were hidden, and they appeared as interested beaters, some five or six waiting the word to skin. Bukta watched the life fade from the wild eyes, lifted one hand, and turned on his heel.

“No need to show that we care,” said he. “Now, after this, we can kill what we choose. Put out your hand, Sahib.”

Chinn obeyed. It was entirely steady, and Bukta nodded. “That also was your custom. My men skin quickly. They will carry the skin to cantonments. Will the Sahib come to my poor village for the night and, perhaps, forget that I am his officer?”

“But those men — the beaters. They have worked hard, and perhaps — ”

“Oh, if they skin clumsily, we will skin them. They are my people. In the lines I am one thing. Here I am another.”

This was very true. When Bukta doffed uniform and reverted to the fragmentary dress of his own people, he left his civilisation of drill in the next world. That night, after a little talk with his subjects, he devoted to an orgie; and a Bhil orgie is a thing not to be safely written about. Chinn, flushed with triumph, was in the thick of it, but the meaning of the mysteries was hidden. Wild folk came and pressed about his knees with offerings. He gave his flask to the elders of the village. They grew eloquent, and wreathed him about with flowers. Gifts and loans, not all seemly, were thrust upon him, and infernal music rolled and maddened round red fires, while singers sang songs of the ancient times, and danced peculiar dances. The aboriginal liquors are very potent, and Chinn was compelled to taste them often, but, unless the stuff had been drugged, how came he to fall asleep suddenly, and to waken late the next day — half a march from the village?

“The Sahib was very tired. A little before dawn he went to sleep,” Bukta explained. “My people carried him here, and now it is time we should go back to cantonments.”

The voice, smooth and deferential, the step, steady and silent, made it hard to believe that only a few hours before Bukta was yelling and capering with naked fellow-devils of the scrub.

“My people were very pleased to see the Sahib. They will never forget. When next the Sahib goes out recruiting, he will go to my people, and they will give him as many men as we need.”

Chinn kept his own counsel, except as to the shooting of the tiger, and Bukta embroidered that tale with a shameless tongue. The skin was certainly one of the finest ever hung up in the mess, and the first of many. When Bukta could not accompany his boy on shooting-trips, he took care to put him in good hands, and Chinn learned more of the mind and desire of the wild Bhil in his marches and campings, by talks at twilight or at wayside pools, than an uninstructed man could have come at in a lifetime.

Presently his men in the regiment grew bold to speak of their relatives — mostly in trouble — and to lay cases of tribal custom before him. They would say, squatting in his verandah at twilight, after the easy, confidential style of the Wuddars, that such-and-such a bachelor had run away with such-and-such a wife at a far-off village. Now, how many cows would Chinn Sahib consider a just fine? Or, again, if written order came from the Government that a Bhil was to repair to a walled city of the plains to give evidence in a law-court, would it be wise to disregard that order? On the other hand, if it were obeyed, would the rash voyager return alive?

“But what have I to do with these things?” Chinn demanded of Bukta, impatiently. “I am a soldier. I do not know the law.”

“Hoo! Law is for fools and white men. Give them a large and loud order, and they will abide by it. Thou art their law.”

“But wherefore?”

Every trace of expression left Bukta’s countenance. The idea might have smitten him for the first time. “How can I say?” he replied. “Perhaps it is on account of the name. A Bhil does not love strange things. Give them orders, Sahib — two, three, four words at a time such as they can carry away in their heads. That is enough.”

Chinn gave orders then, valiantly, not realising that a word spoken in haste before mess became the dread unappealable law of villages beyond the smoky hills was, in truth, no less than the Law of Jan Chinn the First, who, so the whispered legend ran, had come back to earth, to oversee the third generation, in the body and bones of his grandson.

There could be no sort of doubt in this matter. All the Bhils knew that Jan Chinn reincarnated had honoured Bukta’s village with his presence after slaying his first — in this life — tiger; that he had eaten and drunk with the people, as he was used; and — Bukta must have drugged Chinn’s liquor very deeply — upon his back and right shoulder all men had seen the same angry red Flying Cloud that the high Gods had set on the flesh of Jan Chinn the First when first he came to the Bhil. As concerned the foolish white world which has no eyes, he was a slim and young officer in the Wuddars; but his own people knew he was Jan Chinn, who had made the Bhil a man; and, believing, they hastened to carry his words, careful never to alter them on the way.

Because the savage and the child who plays lonely games have one horror of being laughed at or questioned, the little folk kept their convictions to themselves; and the Colonel, who thought he knew his regiment, never guessed that each one of the six hundred quick-footed, beady-eyed rank-and-file, to attention beside their rifles, believed serenely and unshakenly that the subaltern on the left flank of the line was a demi-god twice born — tutelary deity of their land and people. The Earth-gods themselves had stamped the incarnation, and who would dare to doubt the handiwork of the Earth-gods?

Chinn, being practical above all things, saw that his family name served him well in the lines and in camp. His men gave no trouble — one does not commit regimental offences with a god in the chair of justice — and he was sure of the best beaters in the district when he needed them. They believed that the protection of Jan Chinn the First cloaked them, and were bold in that belief beyond the utmost daring of excited Bhils.

His quarters began to look like an amateur natural-history museum, in spite of duplicate heads and horns and skulls that he sent home to Devonshire. The people, very humanly, learned the weak side of their god. It is true he was unbribable, but bird-skins, butterflies, beetles, and, above all, news of big game pleased him. In other respects, too, he lived up to the Chinn tradition. He was fever-proof. A night’s sitting out over a tethered goat in a damp valley, that would have filled the Major with a month’s malaria, had no effect on him. He was, as they said, “salted before he was born.”

Now in the autumn of his second year’s service an uneasy rumour crept out of the earth and ran about among the Bhils. Chinn heard nothing of it till a brother-officer said across the mess-table: “Your revered ancestor’s on the rampage in the Satpura country. You’d better look him up.”

“I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I’m a little sick of my revered ancestor. Bukta talks of nothing else. What’s the old boy supposed to be doing now?”

“Riding cross-country by moonlight on his processional tiger. That’s the story. He’s been seen by about two thousand Bhils, skipping along the tops of the Satpuras, and scaring people to death. They believe it devoutly, and all the Satpura chaps are worshipping away at his shrine — tomb, I mean — like good uns. You really ought to go down there. Must be a queer thing to see your grandfather treated as a god.”

“What makes you think there’s any truth in the tale?” said Chinn.

“Because all our men deny it. They say they’ve never heard of Chinn’s tiger. Now that’s a manifest lie, because every Bhil has.”

“There’s only one thing you’ve overlooked,” said the Colonel, thoughtfully. “When a local god reappears on earth, it’s always an excuse for trouble of some kind; and those Satpura Bhils are about as wild as your grandfather left them, young un. It means something.”

“Meanin’ they may go on the war-path?” said Chinn.

“‘Can’t say — as yet. ‘Shouldn’t be surprised a little bit.”

“I haven’t been told a syllable.”

“Proves it all the more. They are keeping something back.”

“Bukta tells me everything, too, as a rule. Now, why didn’t he tell me that?”

Chinn put the question directly to the old man that night, and the answer surprised him.

“Why should I tell what is well known? Yes, the Clouded Tiger is out in the Satpura country.”

“What do the wild Bhils think that it means?”

“They do not know. They wait. Sahib, what is coming? Say only one little word, and we will be content.”

“We? What have tales from the south, where the jungly Bhils live, to do with drilled men?”

“When Jan Chinn wakes is no time for any Bhil to be quiet.”

“But he has not waked, Bukta.”

“Sahib” — the old man’s eyes were full of tender reproof — ”if he does not wish to be seen, why does he go abroad in the moonlight? We know he is awake, but we do not know what he desires. Is it a sign for all the Bhils, or one that concerns the Satpura folk alone? Say one little word, Sahib, that I may carry it to the lines, and send on to our villages. Why does Jan Chinn ride out? Who has done wrong? Is it pestilence? Is it murrain? Will our children die? Is it a sword? Remember, Sahib, we are thy people and thy servants, and in this life I bore thee in my arms — not knowing.”

“Bukta has evidently looked on the cup this evening,” Chinn thought; “but if I can do anything to soothe the old chap I must. It’s like the Mutiny rumours on a small scale.”

He dropped into a deep wicker chair, over which was thrown his first tiger-skin, and his weight on the cushion flapped the clawed paws over his shoulders. He laid hold of them mechanically as he spoke, drawing the painted hide, cloak-fashion, about him.

“Now will I tell the truth, Bukta,” he said, leaning forward, the dried muzzle on his shoulder, to invent a specious lie.

“I see that it is the truth,” was the answer, in a shaking voice.

“Jan Chinn goes abroad among the Satpuras, riding on the Clouded Tiger, ye say? Be it so. Therefore the sign of the wonder is for the Satpura Bhils only, and does not touch the Bhils who plough in the north and east, the Bhils of the Khandesh, or any others, except the Satpura Bhils, who, as we know, are wild and foolish.”

“It is, then, a sign for them. Good or bad?”

“Beyond doubt, good. For why should Jan Chinn make evil to those whom he has made men? The nights over yonder are hot; it is ill to lie in one bed over-long without turning, and Jan Chinn would look again upon his people. So he rises, whistles his Clouded Tiger, and goes abroad a little to breathe the cool air. If the Satpura Bhils kept to their villages, and did not wander after dark, they would not see him. Indeed, Bukta, it is no more than that he would see the light again in his own country. Send this news south, and say that it is my word.”

Bukta bowed to the floor. “Good Heavens!” thought Chinn, “and this blinking pagan is a first-class officer, and as straight as a die! I may as well round it off neatly.” He went on:

“If the Satpura Bhils ask the meaning of the sign, tell them that Jan Chinn would see how they kept their old promises of good living. Perhaps they have plundered; perhaps they mean to disobey the orders of the Government; perhaps there is a dead man in the jungle; and so Jan Chinn has come to see.”

“Is he, then, angry?”

“Bah! Am I ever angry with my Bhils? I say angry words, and threaten many things. Thou knowest, Bukta. I have seen thee smile behind the hand. I know, and thou knowest. The Bhils are my children. I have said it many times.”

“Ay. We be thy children,” said Bukta.

“And no otherwise is it with Jan Chinn, my father’s father. He would see the land he loved and the people once again. It is a good ghost, Bukta. I say it. Go and tell them. And I do hope devoutly,” he added, “that it will calm ‘em down.” Flinging back the tiger-skin, he rose with a long, unguarded yawn that showed his well-kept teeth.

Bukta fled, to be received in the lines by a knot of panting inquirers.

“It is true,” said Bukta. “He wrapped him-self in the skin, and spoke from it. He would see his own country again. The sign is not for us; and, indeed, he is a young man. How should he lie idle of nights? He says his bed is too hot and the air is bad. He goes to and fro for the love of night-running. He has said it.”

The grey-whiskered assembly shuddered.

“He says the Bhils are his children. Ye know he does not lie. He has said it to me.”

“But what of the Satpura Bhils? What means the sign for them?”

“Nothing. It is only night-running, as I have said. He rides to see if they obey the Government, as he taught them to do in his first life.”

“And what if they do not?”

“He did not say.”

The light went out in Chinn’s quarters.