The Taming of the Jungle

CHAPTER XIII

An Affront to Gannesha

"A little brother hath come," said Biroo, as Ram Deen dismounted from the mail-cart. The tall driver snatched up the little boy and hurried to his hut, over the door of which was affixed the green bough that is customary on such occasions, and whence came the wailing of a new-born child.

The inner apartment was guarded by a lean old woman, who refused Ram Deen admittance thereto, and who would have prevented even speech on his part had she been able. But Ram Deen was not to be denied such solace as could be gained from the voice whose accents had taken him captive the first time he had heard them.

The feeble wailing of the babe made the strong man tremble.

"Tara, Light in Darkness, is it well with thee?" he asked.

"Quite well, my lord and my master," came the faint answer. "Thy handmaid hath bestowed a man-child upon thee, and Nana Debi will require a kid of thee in recompense."

"He shall have a flock of goats, Heart of my Heart – "

"Nay," interrupted Tara; "it is a very little child and a kid will suffice; but go now, my master, I am very tired and would fain sleep."

"May the stars in heaven shower their blessings on thee, my Best Beloved;" and with this invocation Ram Deen left the hut, leading little Biroo by the hand.

"See what Gunga Ram gave me but now, father mine," said Biroo, unfolding a plaintain leaf wherein was wrapped a sweetmeat made of rice and milk; "and he hath a great cooking forward to-night."

"Wherefore?" asked Ram Deen.

"For that a man-child hath come to Nyagong, as well as Kaladoongie, this day."

"Oh, ho," said Ram Deen, chuckling softly, "we will have speech with Gunga Ram."

When they had arrived at the methai-wallah's booth, Ram Deen, looking on the thalis (trays) heaped with sweetmeats crisp from the making, said, "Wah ji, wah! Gunga Ram, is the Hurdwar mela (fair) coming to the Bore Nuddee, that thou shouldst make such preparations?"

"Nay, coach-wan ji, but a man-child hath come to the house of the Jemadar of Nyagong, and he hath commanded fresh sweetmeats and cates for a feast in honor of an honorable birth."

"There is no honorable thing done in Nyagong, Gunga Ram. They be all thugs and thieves there, and it shall not be said that Ram Deen's friends at Kaladoongie ate stale pooris whilst the Jemadar of Nyagong, whose face I have blackened, set fresh cates before his guests. Therefore bid carry these sweetmeats to my friends who sit round the Thanadar's fire, and to-morrow thou shalt make enough for all the people of Kaladoongie, so that they may know that a son hath been born to Ram Deen."

"But, coach-wan ji," remonstrated Gunga Ram, "the Jemadar's men wait to carry these things to Nyagong."

"Tell them, Gunga Ram, that I had need of them; but, nevertheless, for the kindness the men of Nyagong did to little Biroo last year, send them, on his behalf, two rupees' worth of gur and parched gram;" and Ram Deen laid the money in the sweetmeat vender's palm.

To the impromptu feast round the fire that evening Ram Deen contributed also a chatty of palm-toddy that Goor Dutt had brought for him from Moradabad. By the time the circling hookah had crowned the feast beards were wagging freely round the fire; and even Tulsi Ram, the village pundit, most modest and unassuming of men, was moved to unusual speech. Once more Ram Deen had told the story of the avenging of Nandha; and the Thanadar, whose utterances were always sententious, owing to the responsibility and dignity of his office, said, "Verily, the young and not the old Faringi is the true subduer of Hindoostan."

"Thou sayest it, Thanadar ji," assented Tulsi Ram. "I knew such a young sahib as he who slew the lame tiger of Huldwani when I worked as munshi at Hurdwar for certain Faringis who had business there. He I speak of feared not even the Gods."

When all eyes were turned upon the pundit, and he found himself in the trying position of one who was expected to give proof of his opinion, his natural modesty overcame him and he was suddenly silent. It was not till he had swallowed a generous draught of the toddy that his courage revived to the point of telling the following narrative, for which his audience waited patiently:

"Brothers," he began, "some three years after the great Mutiny there came to Hurdwar two Faringis, by name Scott Sahib and Wilson Sahib, of whom the latter was a great shikari, as all Hindoostan is aware, and who was further known amongst the Faringis as 'Pahari Wilson.'

"They hired me to cut down sâl timber on the upper waters of the Gunga and float it down to Hurdwar, where they established a post, over which they set in charge a young Faringi named Clements Sahib, whose munshi I was, and whose duty it was to stamp the timber with the seal of his employers and make it into rafts that were then floated on to Allahabad.

"Clements Sahib had been found by Pahari Wilson Sahib in one of the villages of the Rajah of Tiri, whither he had fled from Cawnpore, where his father and mother had been killed by the people of the plains during the season of the Mutiny.

"He was a man grown when he came to Hurdwar, speaking Nagari and Padhani, and knowing well the ways of our people. And wherever he went men's eyes followed him, for he walked amongst them with the air of a master. His face was scarred with small-pox; his nose was curved like a hawk's, and his nostrils were terrible to behold when he was angered, which was often, for he lacked patience with men of our race, because of the slaying, and worse, of his mother, which he had witnessed; and his words did not often go before his blows, which were weighty by reason of his great strength. He limped, for that his right leg had been broken by a bear whilst he lived amongst the hill men.

"But, great and terrible as he was on land, the wonder of him when he swam in the Gunga, as he did daily, man never saw before.

"He feared nothing, brothers, – neither man nor beast, nor even Gannesha, upon whom he put an affront one day, when he beat his priests in the temple and in the presence of the God.

"This was the way of it: There passed daily through our compound, on its way to the jungle, a young, sacred bull that was fed by the priests of Gannesha; and its horns had silver tips, whereon was graved a picture of the God bearing an elephant's head. And because the bull pursued one of his dogs, one day, the sahib shot it; and the bazaars of Hurdwar buzzed with angry men.

"'Sahib,' said I to him, 'this is not well done; the Gods never forget an insult.' But he only laughed.

"That evening, as the sahib ate his meal, the lamps being lit, there came an arrow through an open window and transfixed the dog which was lying at his feet.

"The beast yelped as one that is stricken to the death, and I, who sat at my book in the adjoining room, looked up as Clements Sahib, snatching up a gun from the corner, ran to the veranda and fired at a man who passed swiftly through the darkling garden. For answer there came the lowing of a bull; and the sahib, being lame, soon gave up the chase and returned to the house.

"By the light of a lantern we searched the garden, and when we found drops of blood on the ground the sahib laughed, and said, 'Aha! Tulsi Ram; I wounded the shikar, after all.'

"''Tis bad hunting, sahib,' I made reply.

"The next moment he stopped, and held the lantern to a necklace of plum seeds and gold that hung on the branch of an orange tree. To the necklace was attached an agate, whereon was graven the head of an elephant."

"When we returned to the house the sahib drew the arrow from the dead dog, and on the bolt of that, too, was graven the head of Gannesha. And I said, 'Thou hast affronted the Gods, indeed, sahib! 'Twere well to restore his beads to some priest of Gannesha.'

"'Of a surety,' he replied, 'when I find the owner; but, till then, I will wear the thing round my own neck.'

"The next morning, as we rode on an elephant through the jungle to the river, there came the lowing of a bull from a thicket, and an arrow whistled through Clements Sahib's sola topee, and another struck the cheroot from his mouth. So I said, 'The man with the bow could slay thee, sahib, had he a mind to do so.' But the sahib flushed like an angry dawn, and gave the mahout orders to beat through the thicket for the man with the bull's voice; whereon the bellowing came from behind us. Now it was here, and now there, but never where we looked for it, and, whenever the sahib fired into some likely thicket, the archer gave us further proof of his skill.

"'To the temple of Gannesha!' shouted the sahib, roused to frenzy, and there was that in his face that forbade speech.

"When we reached the city, the main street was already packed with a menacing crowd, – for word of our coming had gone before us, and the thoroughfare resounded from end to end with lowings as of a thousand bulls. The weight of the great beast that bore us alone took us through the crowd.

"When we reached the gate of the temple of Gannesha, behold! the priests formed a lane through the court-yard, and the crowd fell back at their bidding. We alighted from the elephant, and walked through the priests till we came to the inner door of the temple, where stood a venerable jogi naked, save for a loin-cloth, and covered with wood-ashes from his head to his heels.

"'Welcome, brother,' he said, as Clements Sahib approached him; 'but thy rosary will not admit thee farther than this, and 'tis not fitting that thou shouldst enter the presence of Gannesha without thy teeka of purification;' and, with an agility that was surprising in such an old man, he sprang towards the sahib and touched him on the forehead, at the same time snatching at the necklace. But the sahib swept him aside, and the next moment we entered the temple, the door of which closed with a threatening crash as the last of the priests followed us in.

"When they saw the sahib advance with set purpose towards the great god Gannesha, they raised a shout and ran upon him; and I, being unarmed and a man of peace, and, moreover, a Brahmin, slipped behind a pillar and watched the beginning of a great combat, wherein one man fought with twenty, and they with staves in their hands.

"And the sahib waited not for his foes, but, firing his gun at their legs, he whirled it aloft and hurled it into the crowd that advanced upon him; wherefore three priests lay on the ground and were as dead men. And, ere they could recover from their confusion, the sahib ran in upon them with clinched hands, and his face was terrible to look upon.

"So thick were they that many of them fell from their brothers' blows; and whenever the sahib struck, a man fell to the ground and remained there. Toba! toba! never saw I such fighting.

"When there were but three or four of them able to stand, they broke and fled to an inner shrine, whence they besought the sahib to depart and molest them no more. But he said, 'Nay, not till ye have delivered up to me him to whom this rosary belongs.'

"'It is mine, Faringi dog,' screamed the old jogi, darting upon the sahib from behind a pillar, a long knife in his hand. The sahib had scarce time to turn, when the knife passed through the fleshy part of his arm. The next instant the sahib wrenched his weapon from the old jogi, and, putting the necklace round him, he bore him to a window and threw him into the river which flowed below, saying, 'Gunga will doubtless succor a follower of Gannesha.'

"After I had tied his handkerchief round his arm to stay the bleeding he took up his gun, and, opening the door of the temple, he went forth. And the people marvelled to see him come out again.

"Having mounted his elephant, he spake to those standing round, saying, 'Dogs and swine! neither ye, nor your priests, nor your Gods can avail against a Faringi. Go into the temple and see for yourselves if I speak not the truth. Let no man of Hurdwar cross my path hereafter, or I will scourge the streets of your city.' So the crowd opened before us, and we returned in peace.

"And as the sahib dismounted from the elephant, I said, 'The teeka, sahib: it is still on thy forehead.'

"'Ah,' he exclaimed, 'that was what the old jogi put on me.' And he plucked it off. It was made of silver and stamped with the image of Gannesha on both sides, and the impress of the stamp showed red on the white skin of the sahib's forehead.

"The next morning, when I went to my work, the sahib called me into his room, and behold! the stamp of Gannesha showed as brightly on his forehead as it did the day before! and I feared greatly for the sahib, for it is no small thing to affront a God.

"For a whole week the mark remained on the sahib, and he wore his hat before all men. None dared to speak to him, for he answered mostly with blows.

"'Tulsi Ram,' said he to me one day, 'tell the old jogi of the temple of Gannesha that I desire speech with him.'

"And when the old man had come the sahib spake: 'So Gunga bare up thy chin, swami?'

"'Ay, ji; and I told him much concerning thee. Thine arm?'

"''Tis well,' replied the sahib. 'But now remove me the mark from my forehead.'

"'I may not do anything without the permission of Gannesha, whom thou hast angered. He must be propitiated in a manner befitting the sahib's station,' returned the jogi.

"'State thy demands, swami,' said the sahib.

"'Now, nay, not mine, sahib, but Gannesha's,' remonstrated the old jogi. Then, after musing awhile, he went on: 'The God requireth of thee two hundred rupees for the use of his temple, and ten rupees a month, for twenty months, to salve the hurts of his twenty priests.'

"''Tis well,' said Clements Sahib, opening a drawer of the table whereat he sat, and pushing two hundred rupees across to the old man. 'Proceed.'

"After the jogi had tied the money in his loin-cloth he touched the mark on the sahib's forehead with his finger, and, lo! at the touching it disappeared.

"'And what if I should not pay thee the rest of thy demand?' asked Clements Sahib after he had looked in a mirror and seen that the mark of Gannesha was gone.

"'Thou art a Faringi ji, and wilt not fail of thy word,' replied the jogi.

"'There be bad Faringis, swami, and my heart inclineth me to their number.'

"''Twere easy to persuade thee to a right course, sahib,' said the old man, pointing his finger at Clements Sahib. 'Behold!' And the livid mark leapt out on the sahib's forehead again.

"After the mark had been removed once more by the jogi, and as he was preparing to depart, Clements Sahib said, 'Come for your monthly payment when the new moon shows, but cross not my path at any other time, or harm shall befall thee.'

"'Brave words, sahib,' returned the mendicant; 'and be careful, thyself, not to insult the Gods. Salaam,' and he went forth. So there was peace between the Gods and Clements Sahib until the jogi had received three payments.

"Then, on a day, the sahib bade me accompany him to the Hurke Piree, for he was fain to catch the great mahser that abound there, where they feed on the offerings of the pilgrims.

"And I would have prevented him, saying, 'The fish, Provider of the Poor, are tame; 'twere no sport to catch them. Besides, the Hurke Piree is holy, and 'twere not well to pollute the great steps with the killing even of fish.'

"'Therefore it is in my mind, O Brown Mouse, to catch fish for my evening meal,' replied the sahib, his nostrils twitching; so I spake no more.

"When the sahib had drawn forth the first fish that took his bait, there came the voices of an angry crowd, and, looking up, behold! the great stairs were black with people; and, taking four steps at a bound, there came towards us a young priest stripped for bathing, and it was Salig Ram, the greatest pylwan (wrestler) in Hurdwar.

"Ere the sahib could guess the purpose of the priest, the latter sprang upon him, and they twain fell together into the deep water.

"When they came to the surface again, the sahib had an arm round Salig Ram's throat, and was beating him with his clinched hand till the blood ran down his face, and he spat forth a handful of teeth. The priest was as one who is amazed, crying feebly, 'Ram dhwy, ram dhwy!' and he was as a frightened child in the sahib's hands.

"Thinking that the sahib would slay their champion before their eyes, and so desecrate the gates of heaven, two or three score of angry Brahmins leapt into the river to the rescue of Salig Ram, and I followed, likewise, to see the end of the matter.

"Releasing the young priest, the sahib swam away easily from those who followed, slipping off his upper garments as he proceeded down the river, and then his shoes, which he threw in derision at those who followed.

"Now, when he came to the temple of Gannesha, there appeared in the window that overlooks the river the old jogi, who swung something round his head that glittered in the sun; and he shouted aloud, 'Gunga, take thee! Gunga, take thee!'

"The sahib turned his face towards the temple, and, as he did so, the jogi threw the thing he swung at him. It flashed as it circled through the air, and settled over the sahib's head; and, in that instant, he threw up his arms and disappeared, and thereafter a few bubbles came to the surface.

"Two days afterwards, the dead body of a Faringi was found ten miles below Hurdwar and taken to Roorkie, whither I went by order of the sircar, to assist in the identification of the dead man.

"Brothers, the corpse was that of Clements Sahib. Round his neck was a rosary of gold and plum seeds, with an agate amulet; and on his forehead was the presentment of an elephant's head, the seal of Gannesha, whom no man may affront."