Bad, they said, for the squirrel people and the parrot people, no doubt; but for Lal--that was another matter. L&I did not live by bread alone. The river gave, the river took away; but to Lal at any rate it gave more than it stole.
"What does it give?" I asked.
It gave crocodiles. Of all things in the world crocodiles! Not a welcome gift to many, but Lal, it seemed, was a hunter of crocodiles.
Not a mere slayer of alligators, like the men of the half-savage tribes who frequent the river land; who array themselves in a plethora of blue beads, and live by the creeks and _jheels_ on what they can catch or steal; who track the c.u.mbersome beasts to their nightly lair in some narrow inlet, and, after barring escape by a stealthy earthwork, fall on the helpless creature at dawn with spears and arrows. Lal was not of these; he was of another temper. He hunted the crocodile in its native element, stalked it through the quicksands, knife in hand, dived with it into the swift stream, sped like a fish to the soft belly beneath, and struck upwards with unerring hand, once, twice, thrice, while the turbid orange water glowed crimson with the spouting blood.
I heard this tale curiously, but incredulously. Why, I asked, should Lal run such risks? What good were crocodiles to him when they were slain? There was not so much risk, after all, they replied, for it was only the bottle-nosed ones that he hunted, and though, of course, the snub-nosed ones lived in the river also--G.o.d destroy the horrid monsters!--still they did not interfere in the fight. And Lal was careful, all the more careful, because he had but two possessions to guard, his skin and his knife. As to what Lal did with the crocodiles, why, he ate them, of course. Not all; he spared some for his friends, for those who were good to him, and gave him something in return. Had the Presence never heard that the poor ate crocodile flesh? They themselves, of course, did not touch the unclean animal; and their gifts to Lal were purely disinterested. He was a straight-walking, a labourful man, and that was the only reason why they lent him a field.
Even the Presence would acknowledge that crocodile flesh without bread would be uninteresting diet; but as a rule the pig, the parrots, the squirrels left enough for Lal to eat with his jerked meat. The village lent him the sickle, of course, and the flail, and the mill, sometimes even the girdle on which to bake the unleavened bread; but all for love, only for love. Yet if the Presence desired it they could show him the jerked meat, some that Lal had left for the poor. It was dry? Oh, yes! Lal cut the great beasts into strips, and laid them in the sun on the dry sand, sitting beside them to scare away the carrion birds.
Sometimes there would be a crowd of vultures, and Lal with his knife sitting in the midst. "He will have to sell some of his jerked crocodile to pay his revenue this year," I remarked, just to amuse them. Again the idea was comic; evidently Lal and money were incompatible, and the very idea of his owning any caused them to chuckle unrestrainedly amongst themselves. Then, growing grave, they explained at length how Lal had nothing in the world but his knife. All the rest--the sun, the river, the crocodiles, the field, the bullocks, the plough, and the seed-grain--were lent to him by them and the good G.o.d; lent to him and to the other people who ate of the field of Lal.
As I rode away a brace of black partridges rose from one of the green patches, and close to the tamarisk shelter a brown rat sat balancing a half-dried stalk of barley. The river gleamed in the distance, a wedge-shaped flight of _coolin_ cleft the sky. All that day, when the shadow-like crocodiles slipped into the sliding water, I thought of Lal and his knife. Was it a crocodile, after all; or was it a man, stealthy, swift, and silent? Who could tell, when there was nothing but a shadow, a slip, and then a few air bubbles on the sliding river? Or was that Lal yonder where the vultures ringed a sand-bank far on the western side? Why not? None knew whence he came or whither he went, what he hoped, or what he feared; only his field bare witness to one human frailty--hunger; and that he shared with the pig, and the parrot, and the squirrel people. But though my thoughts were full of Lal for a day or two, the memory of him pa.s.sed as I left the river land, and once more spring, summer, and autumn brought forgetfulness.
There were busy times for all the revenue officers next year. The fitful river had chosen to desert its eastern bank altogether, and concentrate its force upon the western; so while yard after yard of ancestral land was giving way before the fierce stream, amidst much wringing of hands on the one side, there was joy on the other over long rich stretches ready for the plough and the red tape of measurement. In the press of work even the sight of the river land failed to awake any memory of Lal. It was not until I was re-entering the outskirts of the village at sundown that something jogged my brain, making me turn to the _posse comitatus_ behind me and ask,--
"And where, this year, is the field of Lal?"
We were pa.s.sing over an open s.p.a.ce baked almost to whiteness by the constant sun,--a hard resonant place set round with gnarled _jhand_ trees, and dotted over with innumerable little mud mounds.
"There," wheezed the venerable pantaloon, pressing forward and pointing to one newer than the rest. "That is the field of Lal."
Then I saw that we were in the village burial-ground. I looked up inquiringly.
"_Huzoor!_" repeated a younger man, "that is Lal"s field. It is his own this time; but for all that the Sirkar will not charge him revenue."
The grim joke, and the idea of Lal"s having six feet of earth of his own at last, once more roused their sense of humour.
"And the other people who ate of the field of Lal?" I asked, half in earnest, for somehow my heart was sad.
"The good G.o.d will look after them, as He has after the crocodiles."
Since then, strangely enough, the memory of Lal has remained with me, and I often ask myself if he really existed, and if he really died.
Does he still slip silently into the stream, knife in hand? Does he still come back to his field under the broad harvest moon, to glean his scanty share after the other people have had their fill? I cannot say; but whenever I see a particularly fat squirrel I say to myself, "It has been feeding in the field of Lal."
A DEBT OF HONOUR.
A flood of yellow sunshine on yellow sand, and a horse at the gallop. A horse guided by an English boy, in blue spectacles, sitting squarely enough, but somewhat stiffly, in his saddle, as if too independent to give himself away even to the joyous swing of the handsome little beast beneath him. A big boy undoubtedly; but a boy for all his size, and despite the fact that he was an a.s.sistant Commissioner of the third grade. In other words, one appointed to administer justice to the ignorant heathen--those ignorant heathen who seemed to have such odd ideas of life, and to require such immediate regeneration--at the hands of English boys.
In front, across the foreground, the glaring white high road for which he was steering; to the left centre a gnarled, knotted old _jhand_ tree hung with coloured threads and patches, proclaiming it to be still sacred to some effete modern form of serpent-worship--one of those mysterious Indian cults of which no one, not even the disciples themselves, know anything. Young Jones, or Smith--what matters the name when a character has but to figure before the footlights of a single scene?--noticed these threads and patches with the quick but incomprehensive eye of superiority. A not uncommon feeling of contemptuous interest came over him, which prolonged itself even when the cause changed into a wonder why the brute he was riding would not keep its head at the proper angle. Then darkness, and silence!
Smith-Jones"s horse had put its foot into a rat-hole and given him a bad fall, about as bad a fall as could well have been, short of those curious plunges over the edge of one world into the next. He lay white and still on the yellow sand, neither in time nor eternity, for a long while. How long matters no more than his name, for this is the story of Smith-Jones, and it is through his eyes and his thoughts that it must be seen and told; therefore until he began to gain consciousness the scene remained, as it were, a blank, despite the fact that there were other actors on the stage.
Most people when coming to themselves (to use a popular, but confusing phrase) meet first of all with a sound of slow, storm-spent breakers rolling in on some unknown sh.o.r.e. Is it the one they are leaving, or the one to which they seek return? Who knows--for the vague wonder is stilled by a whispering _hush!_ growing louder and louder as if both worlds were waiting, finger on lip, for a decision. Then, as a rule, comes a kindly, familiar voice or touch to settle the question in favour of this earth; perhaps some day it may come to summon us to another. Again, who knows?
Smith-Jones, however, felt something so distinctly unfamiliar that he opened his eyes in a fright, relieved to find himself in that unmistakable flood of sunshine which does not exist out of India.
Briefly he felt, or thought he felt, a kiss upon his lips. Now Smith-Jones, like most well-trained, unemotional English boys, had a strong dislike to kisses. He lumped them, with many other things, under the generic term _bosh_, and confined himself to reserved pecks at the foreheads of his mother, his sisters, his aunts, and an occasional, a very occasional, cousin. Even when they had all stood round in tears while Robin the gardener hoisted the brand-new cabin-trunk on to the fly, which from the large white placards on the luggage was evidently destined to carry Smith-Jones part of the way to Bombay, he had only got as far as a kiss on the cheek, despite a choke in his throat, and a distinct inclination to cry.
And now? It was startling in the extreme!
Lying on his back, a prey to somewhat alarmed surprise, he became aware through his nose of a pleasant scent, and through his eyes, of the pendant mistletoe-like twigs of the _jhand_ tree. Mistletoe,--yes, that might account for the kiss; but what about the perfume of roses? There it was again, in company with an old peac.o.c.k"s feather fan which looked as if it were half through a severe moulting. Some one was fanning him, positively fanning him! for the feathers swooped again and again just above his face in composed curves suggestive of leisure and perpetual motion. He tried to find out more by turning his head--an effort which made him realise that he had been within an ace of breaking his neck, and sobered him to acquiescence for a time. Not for long, however, seeing that the boy was a pertinacious boy. So, at the expense of a fearful rick, he discovered a hand and arm belonging to the fan--at least if it was a hand and arm after all, and not merely a withered brown branch. Smith-Jones"s blue eyes came to the conclusion that it was at any rate the skeleton of a hand and arm, and what is more a curiously graceful skeleton. Then, being still confused out of speech, he tried to arrest the arm by catching hold of it; but either he had not yet recovered a just estimate of distance, or it eluded his grasp, for the even monotony of the curve continued. And, on the whole, it was pleasant enough to lie on one"s back in the yellow sand and be fanned sleepily, gracefully. An enjoyment, however, which could not be allowed long continuance when there was a horse to be caught, a camp to be reached, a judgment to be written; the whole burden of a world, in short, on Smith-Jones"s young shoulders.
"I could get up now, if you would remove that fan," he said at last, weakly surprised at his own difficulty in stringing two words together in a foreign tongue.
"There is no hurry, _Huzoor_," came in immediate reply. "The Protector of the Poor being so very young, there is naturally plenty of time for all things ere he has to leave life; yea, plenty of time."
What a remarkable voice! Soft as the cooing of the doves in the _jhand_ tree, and no louder; the far-away echo of a voice, toneless, yet mellow. But then the whole experience was remarkable, and he lay trying to piece common-sense into it with his brain still muddled by the jar which had so nearly sent him to still more novel environments, until his hatred of _bosh_ made him sit up suddenly, unsteadily, one hand supporting himself, the other averting the sweep of the fan. There was no doubt as to the place; yonder was the white road, there the responsible hole, the wallow in the sand where his horse had rolled, the _jhand_ tree gay in its shreds and patches.
But what was that to one side of him? Some one, either half-fledged girl or shrunken old woman, seated in one of those flat baskets which packmen use for carrying their burdens. It was, in effect, a pack-basket, since cords attached it to one end of a _banghy_, or yoke, which was resting against a net-full of small earthern pots fastened to the other extremity of the pliant lever. The sight of a human being in a pack-basket was unusual, but Smith-Jones during the last six months (that is to say, during his service in India) had seen so many strange things that he set it down as yet another eccentricity of an eccentric people. The occupant of the basket, however, disturbed him more; he even thought (with a certain sense of shame, which would have been wanting had he been older, or younger) of fairy G.o.dmothers--as if such ba.n.a.lities could be considered by Smith-Jones, a.s.sistant Commissioner of the third grade! And yet he was not without excuse. Mr. Rider Haggard has described what "She" became when the fire scorched the charm out of a face and form which, but for magic, would have mouldered and been remoulded to fresh beauty centuries and centuries before. The figure in the pack-basket was as shrunken, as shrivelled, as any "She."
Extreme old age had driven womanhood away; it had stolen every curve, every contour, every colour; and yet, possibly because the slow furnace of natural life is kinder than its artificial fires, there was nothing unlovely in the wizened face or form. On the contrary, Smith-Jones, despite the memory of that fancied kiss still haunting his brain, looked at her without a shudder. She was dressed in a way which even his ignorance of the gala costumes of respectable females told him was unusual. A very full red silk petticoat bordered with gay colours was half tucked into the basket, half displayed over the edge in coquettish quillings and frillings of the bright embroidery. A loose sacque of the same stuff, many times too large for the bones it covered, lay in wrinkles on arms and bust with here and there a glint of tarnished tinsel, while a veil of like material, faded to a purplish tint, its heavy gold thread tracings torn, frayed, or wanting, hid all but the tiny hand and arm swaying the fan, and a shrunken, waxen face whence a pair of bright black eyes looked at him wisely.
"The Presence would do well to repose once more," came the worn-out voice. "He is not to die this time. He has broken nought save his blue spectacles, and that is well. Spectacles are not for the young; and, as this slave said but now, my Lord is in possession of such great youth that he can afford to rest till Dittu returns from pursuing the Presence"s horse, which, conceiving that the Protector had no immediate need of its services, hath retired, after the manner of beasts, to gorge in a _gram_ field. But I, being Dittu"s relation, can affirm that he will of a surety return ere long; therefore rest is within reach, and if the Presence will lie down again I will keep the fly-people from settling on the Presence"s face."
To tell the truth, the effort to rise had made Smith-Jones feel decidedly queer, so without more ado he lay back on the pillow which the strange watcher had evidently improvised from the coa.r.s.e outside veil she had worn over her finery. He guessed this by the lingering smell of roses which clung to the fabric.
"You might tell me how I came to fall off, and who you are," said he after a pause, a little fretfully, for he was unused to inaction, and impatient at things he did not understand.
"_Huzoor!_ rat-holes are very simple things. Or perhaps it was a snake-hole. If my Lord had gone a pace farther from the tree, he would not have been on sacred ground, and then the serpent might not have revenged himself."
Smith-Jones gave a little wriggle. "What bosh!" he muttered; adding aloud, as if to change the subject, "And who are you, mother?"
"If my Lord dislikes old wives" tales," came the cooing voice, "he will not care for mine. He is so young. If the Presence"s great-grandfather--"
"What do you know about my great-grandfather?" he interrupted hotly.
"Nothing, except that the Protector of the Poor must have had one. That is all. Nevertheless, if the Presence"s great-grandfather (Heaven cool his grave!) had been in Jodhnagar when he was young he might have heard Gulabi[28] sing. I am Gulabi, _Huzoor_."
The peac.o.c.k"s feather fan, with its scent of dead roses, swung backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in that even rhythmical sweep which only those accustomed to the task from childhood can maintain for long without break or flaw. It was particularly soothing.
"I was singer to the great Maharani at the Pearl Palace," went on the voice, "I had to sing her to sleep whilst I fanned her as I am fanning the Pillar of Justice even now, I used to sing also before the Court in the evening, sitting in the screened room where only the great and the favoured had sight of my mistress. Sometimes the Presence"s people came from over the sea; I have seen them. They came in those days for gold and jewels. Sometimes also for love; not for justice, as my Lord comes now. Nor did they wear blue spectacles; but then they were young, and I, who am so old now, I was young also."
The melancholy cadence of her words was quite lost on Smith-Jones, who was fast recovering himself, and beginning once more to take a rational view of life, and an interest in the situation, as a situation. Among other things he was a student of folk-lore, and the chance of acquiring information from this old woman, something that might even be construed into a sun-myth, was exceedingly tempting. "You must know a lot of old songs, mother," he said in superior tones. "Sing me one while we are waiting for Dittu. Or if you can"t sing it, you know, just say it; I only want the words."
Was it a faint chuckle he heard, as he lay p.r.o.ne on his back, or only a louder gurgle of those ceaseless doves in the _jhand_ tree? The old lady"s voice, imperturbably toneless, arrested his wonder. "Why should I not sing, _Huzoor_, seeing I am of a family of bards? We sing both of the old and the new order. My father and my father"s father sang of them before me; yet I have no son to sing them after me. So the songs I sing die with me. When I am dead no one will hear them any more."
All the more reason why he should hear them now, thought Smith-Jones, feeling surrept.i.tiously in his pocket for a note-book.
"The Presence need not trouble himself. He must close his eyes or I shall forget my song. My singing is for sleep and dreams, and this song has been waiting to be sung so long that it is well-nigh forgotten already. Listen and dream, _Huzoor!_"
She began in the usual low chant, varied by occasional sudden turns modulating the tone into a higher or a lower key in accordance with the spirit of the story. From a musical point of view there was nothing remarkable in the performance, save the absolute want of vibration in the worn-out voice, whose even softness became all the more remarkable when contrasted by the pa.s.sion in the words. Yet Smith-Jones felt at once that he was listening to a past mistress in her art. The art which in old times represented history, literature, and the drama, and made the desire for, or possession of, a really good bard a just cause for battle, murder, or sudden death among rival Courts. He could not, of course, recollect the exact words used, but, in telling me the tale years after, he declared that his memory clung close to the original, and that her song swept on untrammelled by more rhyme or rhythm than what seemed to come to it spontaneously through the chant. She sang, in fact, as the native bards sing, with every now and again an interlude of refrain or exclamation serving as a pause during which the singer grasps a fresh idea, a new measure. And this, according to Smith-Jones, was the song that she sang.
Listen, Pillar of Justice! Listen.
Roses smell sweet, but they are silent when the sun kisses them. I sing of a rose who sang, yet rose-like was silent of kisses. Heart of my heart? why should I sing of a kiss which never came, of the kiss owed to the rose, not by the dead but the living!
For what is a dead man"s kiss to lips that are like the rose? He was so fair and young, he came from far over the seas. Was it jewels or gold he was seeking? No matter! "twas love that he found.
His hair was golder than gold, his eyes, full of laughter, were blue--blue as the sapphires he sought whilst love was seeking for him.