"But to the preserving of men?"
"When I find it"s necessary, I"ve no objection then--"
Bhanah stooped quickly and touched Skag"s feet.
"Vishnu, the Great Preserver, has sent another Hand to this my India."
Skag looked into the man"s face and found high light in it.
Next dawn was hot, but there was a stimulation in it; not like the mountains, not like the sea. The air was full of a mellow enticement, like strange incense; or romance. Skag enquired of his servant if the day would be right for the cheetah hills.
Bhanah turned to the southeast and scanned the horizon line. Then he held up his hand, palm toward the same direction, for a minute. At last he walked to a shrub and looked at its leaves, closely.
"It may be that one day is left for my master to go into the cheetah hills; but the earth makes ready for the breaking of the great monsoon."
Skag was getting interested in the Indian standpoint; he was finding something in it. Quite innocently, he used the subtlest method known to learn.
"What is the great monsoon?"
"Beneficence."
"What is the earth doing?"
"Now, she is holding very still. When it breaks, she will shake.
Having endured three days, she will rise up and cast off her old garments, putting on new covering--entirely clean."
"Will I be able to see that?"
"Nay, Sahib! The wall of the waters will be between your eye and every leaf."
. . . The wall of the waters; like the tones of a bell far off, the words sank into some deep place in Skag. This day they would recur to him; and in the years to come, they would recur again and yet again.
Swinging along out of Poona toward the cheetah hills, Skag was buoyant with healthy energy. His heart was like the heart of a boy.
Consistent with his old philosophical dogma, this present was certainly the best he had ever known. Carlin was in it, as surely as if she were present. Roderick Deal had proved to be a man to respect; and to love, secretly . . . "the guardianship of an elder brother."
Looking back, he saw that Poona City was beautiful, lying close against the eastern side of the Ghats, just as they begin to fold away toward the plains. No breath of plague or pestilence from Bombay could reach across the ramparts of that mountain range.
The air was getting hotter every minute; but it was good. The vistas stretched far--all satisfying. Bhanah said the monsoon was close.
"Beneficence"; the Indian idea of a deluge. He liked it all.
They came up into the hills through some stretches of stiff climbing; and on the margin of a broad shelf Skag stopped for breath. The panorama behind had widened and extended immensely. The face of a planet seemed to reach from his feet across to the eastern horizon, descending. He sat down on a flat rock and Nels comfortably extended himself near by.
It was all good. The great golden jewel back in his heart, full of afterglows--Carlin. The finding of a real man. The ways, the reservations, the revelations, of Bhanah. The beauty and character of the dog at his foot . . .
Nels had lifted his head. His eyes were fixed intently on the empty white distances of the sky. His pointed ears were set at a queer angle. There was nothing unusual to be seen, nothing Skag himself could hear. He paid closer attention; and presently, began to get a perfume. It was the great, good earth-smell; richer and fuller every minute.
Then Nels stood up and faced the southeast. Skag looked where the dog seemed to be looking. Along the horizon line he saw an edge of dark grey. No, the horizon line was cut; this thing lay against the earth as straight as the blade of a knife.
Now Skag began to feel something in the air. He couldn"t recognise it, nor define it, but it was imperative--some kind of urge. There was the sense of emergency, perfectly clear; so much that he turned and looked about, listening for a call. He thought of Carlin; could she be in any need? He was glad she wasn"t here; this was a good place to get away from . . . Ah, that was it! _The urge to run_.
"How is it, Nels, old man, does the great monsoon make us feel like moving?"
Nels stood like a thing carved out of solid pewter. He did not hear.
He faced the southeast. But Skag understood why the animals were due to make a procession; the chief thing was to get away. Then Skag settled into a perfect calm.
Four spotted deer came trotting up the shoulder of a near incline, almost directly toward them. The dog watched them with a casual eye.
They went by, sixty feet away. Nels was looking further on to where a big brown bear ambled along, making good time for one of her build--behind her, a yearling. Still Nels showed no inclination to leave his place.
As if it were a vision of the night, the whole landscape before Skag became dotted with specks; all moving. All moving in the same direction, almost toward him. As the numbers increased, he saw that they ran straight; there was no swerving. In spite of what Roderick Deal had told him, his mind demanded the rea.s.surance of his own voice.
"Nels, is it real? Are we asleep?"
The dog was a stoic; he moved one ear, but he did not lift an eye.
Skag noticed that the hush in the air seemed to have laid a bond of silence on all these creatures. He had heard no calls, no cries. And these were the calling, crying animals of the world.
Here and there at some distance, he saw the ungainly, shambling gait of hyenas, in twos and fours and threes together, or alone. Once when four pa.s.sed quite near, he felt Nels" shoulder against his thigh.
"Nels, old man, buck up. I tell you, get a grip. They may be the devil, but he isn"t hard to kill. I"ll show you. Do you get me, son?"
Nels looked up into the man"s face, a long look. Then he pressed his head close, under Skag"s hand.
Spotted deer ran in small groups; they came into sight and pa.s.sed out quickly. More swift and more beautiful, were slender deer with single horns, twisted spirally; sometimes very long. Skag thrilled to their pride of action; but Nels seemed in no wise interested.
There was another kind of deer seen at some distance; the bucks were full-antlered and from where Skag stood, they looked light grey colour.
Rabbits scuttled in and out of sight constantly, all over the landscape.
Between the parallel lines of seven spotted deer on one side and a small herd of grey deer on the other, he saw a great, low-leaping beast; plainly yellow with black stripes--one tiger the sportsmen had not bagged.
Evidently some mighty thing had transcended enmity and annihilated fear--_for one day_.
Little things held his eye one while. Creatures like monster rats--they were really mongooses--racing for their lives. Lizards from two to eighteen inches long; and he saw one with rainbow colours in his skin, mostly red. He learned afterward it was a great-chameleon; and angry. He saw one small scaled thing, rather like a crocodile in shape, but with a sharp-pointed nose; it waddled by, near enough to show two little black beads in its face.
When Skag lifted his eyes the earth seemed to have given up a score of packs of jackals. Their action was not like the wolf nor like the dog; it was a short, high leap--giving to a running pack the effect of _bobbing_. They were more perfect wolves than the American coyote, but smaller; and they looked to have much fuller coats. Searching the location of these groups of bobbing runners, his eye lifted toward the southeast.
. . . The grey knife-blade had cut away half the world. It lay straight across the earth, midway between his feet and where the horizon line should curve. Without any look of motion, without any shine or sheen, smooth as a wall of dull-polished granite, it rose to beyond sight in the sky--the utterly true line of its base upon the ground.
. . . So this was _the wall of the waters_.
No man dare interpret it to any other man; but Skag found perfect awe.
Then he grew very quiet--his faculties alert as never before.
When he noticed the landscape again, the bobbing packs were gone.
Slender spotted things in pairs and alone, were leopards--leaping long and low. A great dark creature, going like the wind, was a black panther.