Without words the two Americans turned away from that spot, to forget it.
Skag was learning that his training in the circus had been but a mere beginning in the study of wild animals. It seemed impossible that there could be a jungle anywhere with more beasts or greater variety, than they heard at night.
It was as hard to come in good view of any wild creature--excepting monkeys--as it had been hard at first to sleep, on account of the voices of all creation after sundown. To approach undiscovered, and to lie out and watch undiscovered, taxed and developed all their faculties; the fascination and excitement of it stretched their powers; and their successes enriched them both for a life-time.
After the first eagerness to get twenty different positions of a tigress playing with her kittens, Cadman had become a miser of material and an adept in noiseless movement. Finding that he was in danger of going short on sketching paper, he used it more and more as if it were fine gold, till his outlines were not larger than miniatures. Also, he learned to glance for the flash of approval in Skag"s eye.
The two men had grown into a rare comradeship. This time of year, sleeping in the open was luxury. They had not suffered for food, excepting in the memory of such things as had once been most common.
Well above fever-line, no ailment had touched them. So, eating simply, sleeping deeply and working hard, they toughened in body and keened in mind--the days all full of quickening interests, every next minute due to develop surprise.
It was by a little headlong mountain stream, that the revelation came.
Skag was looking to see which was the business-end of his tooth-brush that morning when Cadman broke his sheath knife. The accident was a calamity, because Skag"s was already worn out cutting step-way to climb out of khuds, and this was all they had left to serve such a purpose.
"That settles it, we must go," said Cadman, looking ruefully at the stump of his old blade. "Our nearest kin wouldn"t know us, but we are still recognisable to each other, and I"m not exactly ready to quit--are you?"
"No," Skag answered absently--unwilling to realise the necessity.
Cadman studied the crestfallen face--they had loved this life together and equally.
"But do you realise, my son," he asked, "that others will have to see us, before we can ever again be clothed and groomed properly?"
Now Skag looked at his friend with seeing eyes and blushed.
"It"s not the clothes, so much as--" Skag stopped.
Cadman focused on Skag"s face through his queer spectacles, then he laughed as only Cadman could laugh.
So they climbed down and took train for Bombay. Like fugitives they dodged the sight of correctly dressed Englishmen all the way; stopping over more than seven hours at Kullian--so as to reach the great city at night.
Next morning two clean-faced and very much alive Americans arrived at the Polo Club for late breakfast. Indeed they were good to look at, being in the finest kind of health and full of initiative. That breakfast was royal in every flavour; they felt like young spendthrifts squandering their patrimony. Just as they were finishing, a distinguished looking Englishman came across the room and greeted Cadman:
"Now this is my own proverbial good luck! Come away up to the house and give account of yourself. Where are the pictures? We"ll take "em along."
Cadman presented Skag to Doctor Murdock of the University, explained that it was imperative for them to do some general outfitting, but promised to bring his friend in the afternoon.
"Doctor Murdock is an extraordinary man, Skag," said Cadman, as the Englishman hurried away. "Beside his chair in the University, he is said to be top surgeon of Bombay. Barring none, he has more of different kinds of knowledge than any man I know; becomes master of whatever he takes up--authority, past question."
"I wondered why you promised to take me along," Skag put in.
"You"ll be glad to have met him. He"ll be interested in you," Cadman answered. "He"s quite likely to take us to see some of the Indian nautch-girls. They"re one of his fads--for their beauty. He has specialties in art as well as in science; but he"s clean stuff--nothing rotten in him."
They forgot time in the Bombay bazaars; first looking for bags, to be easily carried on their own persons; and then giving themselves to quality and workmanship in things designed for their special uses. There was no hurry. All life stretched before them, in widening vistas.
Doctor Murdock"s house was high on Malabar Hill. Their hired carriage came in behind his trim little brougham, as it turned on the driveway into his compound.
"My fortune again!" the Doctor called. "I"ve been detained by a case and properly sweating for fear you"d reach my den first."
Tea was served on a verandah entirely foreign and tropical and strange looking to Skag. A field of palm-tops stretched away from their feet to the sea. They told him the city of Bombay was hidden under those fronds.
"And now you understand, Cadman," the Doctor was saying, "there"s your own room and one next for your friend Hantee. Your traps will be up before you sleep, which may not be early, for I"ve a tamasha on for you this night--you remember, I enjoy dinner in the morning?"
That tamasha was a maze of strange colour, strange motion and stranger perfume to Skag; not penetrating his conscious nature at all--feeling unreal to him.
"I"ve been watching you without shame this night, young man," the Doctor said to him, as they finished the after-midnight meal. "My entertainment fell dead with you. Sir. You"ve been "way off somewhere else. I"m simply consumed to know what you have found in life, to make your eyes blind and your ears deaf to the lure of human beauty. You"re not to be distressed by my impudence--it"s innocent."
"If I may answer for my friend, I belive [Transcriber"s note: believe?] I can tell you, Doctor." Cadman saw consent in Skag"s eye and went on: "He has found the lure of creatures. He has entered into the spell of a young tigress playing with her kittens, in her own place. He has watched another tigress fight her mate to a finish, defending her little ones from their sire. He has listened to the symphonies of night and seen the drama of the wild. He lives in the clean glamour of the primeval jungle."
The Doctor"s eyes widened for seconds; then they gloomed as he spoke:
"Between you, you challenge modern manhood. We have not conceived that "clean glamour" since men were young--forgotten ages past. No, there was no human beauty to-night to make a man forget those tigresses. . . . She was not there. I am one of many who miss her, but I would give--" The Doctor broke off, searching their faces before he spoke again: "There is no hope you will know the depth of the calamity; the bitterness of the loss. Speaking of clean things--"
"Who was she?" Cadman asked.
"She was the most beautiful thing on earth. She was indeed the most marvellous thing on earth, being a Bombay singing nautch-girl--undefamed.
There has been no one else, these ages."
The Doctor sat smoking, apparently oblivious of his guests.
"The Spartan Helen?" Cadman suggested.
"Hah! The Spartan Helen was not invincible!"
"The Noor Mahal?"
"The Noor Mahal was always in seclusion."
"Her name?" Skag questioned.
"She had no name," the Doctor answered, "but she was called "Dhoop Ki Dhil"--Heart-of-the-Sun; possibly on account of her voice. There has been none like it. The master-mahouts of High Himalaya, their voices pa.s.s those of all other men for splendour; but I tell you there was none other in the world, beside hers. Rich men in Bombay would give fortunes to anyone who would find her."
"Then she is not dead?" Skag spoke startled.
"We do not know that she is dead," the Doctor answered. "We would suppose so, but for a curious happening four days before she disappeared.
Down in the silk-market a dealer was buying silk from an up-country native--a man from the Gra.s.s Jungle. The native was exceptionally good to look upon. Dhoop Ki Dhil came into the place to make some purchase.
Her eye fell on the jungle man and she stood back. She was a valuable customer, so the silk-merchant made haste to signal her forward. But she shook her head and moved further back."
The Doctor stopped to smoke.
"After a while Dhoop Ki Dhil came forward, moving like one in a trance, and said to the jungle man, "Are you a G.o.d?" and the jungle man answered her with shame, "No, I am a common man."
"Now that silk-merchant will tell no more. One doesn"t blame him. The natives are not patient with such a tale of her. To hear that any man had taken her eye, maddened them. She had pa.s.sed the snares of desire--immune. She had turned away from fabulous wealth. She had denied princes and kings. She smiled on all men alike--with that smile mothers have for little children."
"She was a mother-thing," murmured Cadman.
The Doctor turned, questioning:
"A mother-thing? Yes, probably. But she led the singing women like a super-being incarnate. She led the dancing women like a living flame.
They sing and dance yet, but the fire of life is gone out!"