Nels loosed now, but sat by his game--sat upon his haunches, bringing first-aid cleansing to his shoulders and chest, where the pinned tusker had worn against him in the battle. . . . All in astonishingly few seconds--the blue beast still with an isolated kick or two.
It was as Carlin said. They had scarcely started toward Hurda before they saw Ian Deal following. His pace quickened as he neared--his first words queerly shocking:
"Is he hurt--oh, I say--is the Arab hurt?"
Skag answered: "A bad cut, but he"ll be sound in a week or two."
"One might ask first, you know. He"s rather a fine thing--"
Carlin seemed paler, as she held her brother with curious eyes. Ian didn"t see her. He was slowly taking in Skag, full-length.
"One might ask, you know," he repeated presently. "One couldn"t make a gift of a damaged thing. Oh, yes, you"re to have him, Hantee. Things of Kala Khan"s quality gravitate to you--I was thinking of the dog, you know--"
Skag shook his head.
"Don"t make it harder for me!" Ian said fiercely. "He belongs to you--Carlin, too, of course--no resistance of mine left. A man sees differently--toes up."
Carlin pressed Skag"s arm.
The American bowed. Ian Deal straightened.
"That"s better," he breathed. "You"ll see to the mount? I"d do it for you, but I need an hour--in here among the trees, you know, alone. . . . If it isn"t quite clear to me, I"ll c.o.c.k one foot up in the crotch of a tree--until it"s straight again. . . . But it"s clear, Hantee," he added. "I"m seeing now--the man she sees--or something like!"
Ian turned toward the deeper growths. . . . They walked in silence.
The untellable thing--for Skag alone--lingered in Carlin"s eyes, in the pallor of her face. She was the one who spoke:
"It is terrible--terribly dear, like a blending of two souls in a white heat together--those moments at the play-house and now--as you held Kala Khan--"
"It was not one alone," he answered strangely. "Something from you was with me--half, with mine."
CHAPTER XIII
_Neela Deo, King of All Elephants_
This is the story of Neela Deo, King of all elephants! Protector of the Innocent! Defender of Defenders! Equitable King!
For his sake, knowledge of the place where he was known and of those who looked upon his person, shall go down from generation to generation into the future and shall be continued forever, under the illumination of his name.
How he preserved the great judge and how he fought that mightiest of all battles, for the honour of his kind and for the preservation of his liege-son, must be told in order.
The fortune of the season, the features of the town, and the chief names must be established.
See that nothing shall be added. See that no part be left unspoken.
It is the law.
The great rains had pa.s.sed on their way north; and they had been good to the Central Provinces country. The water-courses were even yet but a line below flood; the tanks were full, the wells abrim. The earth was clothed with new garmenture. Jungle creatures were all in their annual high-carnival. Life-forces were driving to full speed.
The town of Hurda, on the great triple Highway-of-all-India, clung to the side of her little river leaning against the ma.s.sive b.u.t.tressed walls of her old grey stone terraces, where--on their wide step-landings--at all seasons, she burned her human dead by the tide"s margin.
The great Highway spanned the river on a broad low stone bridge and turned--just south of the burning ghats--with a majestic sweep northward, between its four lines of sacred, flowering, perfumed and shade trees. Remember, those trees were planted by the forgotten peoples of dead kings, for each within his own realm; they were all nourished under the unfailing rivalry that the highway of each king should be more excellent in beneficence and in beauty than the highway of his neighbour kings.
But from High Himalaya to the beaches of Madras, from sea to sea, the triple Highway-of-all-India was nowhere more august than here, where Neela Deo lived. The exalted splendours of those so ancient and imperial trees rendered distinction to the town, in pa.s.sing through it, like a procession of the radiant G.o.ds.
Beyond the hill and well outside the town--which would be called a city if it were walled, which would be walled if a wall would not separate it from the great Highway--was the station Oval, where railway people lived in European bungalows of many colours, round about the _gymkhana_--a building made to contain music and strange games; but from the arches of all its verandahs the railway people saw.
On the other side from the Oval and toward Hurda, was the little old bungalow where Margaret Annesley--of the tender heart--out of her lonely garden, looked that day and saw.
Across the great Highway from the temple of Manu, the bungalow of d.i.c.kson Sahib sheltered under the mighty sweep of full bearing mango trees. His small son stood between two teachers in the deep verandah and beat his hands together while he saw.
At the top of the hill, the bare bungalow of the old missionary Sahib made protest against the perfume-drunken orient and the colour-mad European world of India with its carbolic-acid whitewash and chaste lines. Down the driveway his children ran away from their teachers and saw.
But in sight of the town--as should be--and beside the courts--as should be--stood the austere home of the Chief Commissioner, most high civil judge of Hurda and all surrounding villages. One of his deputies leaned from an upper balcony and saw.
Back of his park, more than three quarters of a mile away, were the stockades of the Chief Commissioner"s elephants. A round parade ground spread its almost level disk straight away front of the stockade buildings. Perfectly rimmed by a variety of low jungle growths, nesting thick at the feet of a circle of tall tamarisk trees, its effect was satisfying to the eye beyond anything seen about the homes of men. Nay, the avenues which led up to the palaces of ancient kings were not so good!
Now all is established concerning the time and the place and those who saw; and it will not be questioned by any save the very ignorant--who are not considered in the telling of tales.
So in the day of Neela Deo, most exalted King of all elephants, came a runner at the end of his last strength. Stripped naked, but for his meagre loincloth, the oils of his body ran thick down all his limbs and his splitting veins shed blood from his nostrils and from his mouth.
In the market-place he fell and with his last breaths coughed out a broken message.
Many gathered to discover his meaning. Spread a swift excitement. The shops were emptied, the doorways and alleys opened, and streams of people poured out into a common tide.
Perfume dealers brought copper flasks of priceless oils. Flower merchants gathered up their entire stock of freshly prepared garlands of marigold and tuberose and jasmine and champak blooms--banked ma.s.ses of garlands were hung on scores of scores of reaching arms, lifted to carry them. Sixty full pieces of white turban-cloth were caught from the shelves of cloth sellers.
Companies and companies of nautch-girls, with their men-servants and instruments to accompany them--even the most costly of these, who were also singing women--poured out of the districts where the towns-women lived and blended in their groups as individual units, in the increasing surge that flowed out along the great Highway, like a river which had broken its dam.
The mult.i.tude followed the great highway past the station oval and turned aside into the open jungle--deepening, thickening, swelling, teeming forward. Twenty thousand voices, lifted in all pitches of the human compa.s.s, were caught by tom-toms and the impelling cadence of the singing nautch-girls--like drift-wood in a swift current--and driven into rhythmic pulsation.
So the people of Hurda went out to meet Neela Deo, King of all elephants.
When the front of the throng went by his place, Hand-of-a-G.o.d enquired of running men from his own gateway. By his side the Gul Moti stood with Son of Power. When they understood, she pushed her chosen of all men through the vine-made arch and he sprang away and ran with the people.
They shared their garlands with him, that he should not come into Neela Deo"s presence with empty hands; and they exulted because he ran with them, for the fame of Son-of-Power was already established.
At the margins of the true jungle, a high-tenor voice came out to meet them. The feeling in it chained Skag"s ear; it was like a strong man contending bravely with his tongue, but calling on the G.o.ds for help, with his heart. Listening intently, the American began to get the words:
"What are we before thee--oh thou most Exalted! Children of men, our generations pa.s.s before thee as the seasons. But thou, oh mighty King--thou Destroyer of the devastator, thou Protector of our wise judge, blessed among men is he for whom thou hast spilled thy blood!
We will send his name down from generation to generation under the light of thy name! Thou most Glorious!"
The next words were more difficult to catch:
"Nay, nay! but my beloved, it is a little hurt! Do I not know, who serve thee? I whose father served thee before me--whose father served thee before him? I whose son shall serve thee after me? As my small son lives, he shall serve thee--being come a man--in his day, even as I serve thee in this my day!"