Son of Power Part 38

This was evidently enticing the great creature to live. But the voice winged away again:

"Ah, thou heart of my heart, thou life of my life! Hear me, the milk of a thousand goats shall cool thee. The petals of a thousand blooms shall comfort thee. Tuberose and jasmine and champak shall comfort thee, thou Lover of rare things! Nay, it is not enough, but the offerings of the heart's core of love shall satisfy thee--the blood of a million-million blooms shall anoint thee, to thy refreshment!"

The words were lost for a moment, before they rang again:

"Are not the coverings of our heads upon thy wounds? Thou, most excellent in majesty! Have we not laid the symbols of our honour upon thy wounds? Thou, with the wisdom of all ages in thy head and the tenderness of all women in thy heart! We have seen thee suffer, that he who is worthy might live! Thou Discerner of men! We have seen thee destroy the killer, without hurt to him who is kind! Thou Equitable King!"

And slowly out of the shadows of forest trees, came the Chief Commissioner's elephant caravan, trailing in very dejected formation, behind Neela Deo, who showed naked as to his back--for his housings had been stripped off him; and as to his neck, for Kudrat Sharif was not on it but on the ground--walking backward step by step, enticing him with the adoration and sympathy of his voice.

Sanford Hantee saw Neela Deo stop to receive the first garlands on his trunk. From there on, the great elephant paused deliberately after every step to take the offerings of homage from hundreds of reaching hands.

When the American had laid his garlands over Neela Deo's trunk and was about to make his turn in the press, he saw the Chief Commissioner himself, walking behind the wounded elephant with uncovered head.

After a keen glance, the great judge motioned Skag to close in by his side. His strong face was shadowed by deep concern; and for some time he did not speak. This was the man of whom Skag had heard that his name was one to conjure with. His fame was for unfailing equity, which--together with strange powers of discernment and bewildering kindness--had won for him the profound devotion of the people. Skag's thoughts were on these matters when he heard, on a low explosive breath:

"Most extraordinary thing I've ever seen!"

The Englishman's eye scarcely left the huge figure swaying before him and the distress in his face was obvious.

"I see you're greatly concerned," Skag said gently.

"Well, you understand, I've jolly good right to be--he saved my life!

And he's got a hole in his neck you can put your head into--only it's filled up and covered up with twenty dirty turbans! And by the way, you may not know, but it's unwritten law--past touching--the man in this country never uncovers his head excepting in the presence of his own women. It's more than a man's life is worth to knock another's turban off, even by accident. But look, yonder are the turbans of my caravan--deputies, law-clerks and servants together--on Neela Deo's neck! Their heads are bare before this mult.i.tude and without shame.

What's one to make of it? There's no knowing these people!"

Skag's eye quite unconsciously dropped to the white helmet, carried ceremonially in the hand; and glancing away quickly, he caught a mounting flush on the stern countenance.

Presently the Chief Commissioner spoke again:

"We were coming in on the best trail through a steady bit of really old tree-jungle--Neela Deo leading, as always. We've been out nine weeks from home, among the villages. It's not supposed to be spoken, but a stretch like that is rather a grind. The elephants wanted their own stockades; they were tired of pickets. You understand, they're all thoroughly trained. They answer their individual mahouts like a man's own fingers. Neela Deo is the only elephant I've heard of who has been known to run; I mean, to really run--and then only when he's coming in from too many weeks out.

"Few European men have ever seen an elephant run. Nothing alive can pa.s.s him on the ground but the great snake. I stayed on top of Neela Deo once when he ran home. It was not good sitting. I've never cared for the experience again.

"As the jungle began to open toward Hurda, he was nervous. Of course I should have been more alive to his behaviour--should have made out what was disturbing him. If we lose him, I shall feel very much responsible. But his mahout was easing him with low chants--made of a thousand love-words. They're not bad to think by. I was clear away off in an adjustment of old Hindu and British law--you know we have to use both together; and sometimes they're hard to fit.

"I know no more about how it happened than you do. I was knocked well up out of my abstraction by a most unmerciful jolt. Kudrat Sharif had been raked off Neela Deo's neck and was scrambling to his feet on the ground. In one glimpse I saw his _dothi_ was torn and a long dripping cut on one thigh. He shouted, but I couldn't make it out, because all the elephants were trumpeting to the universe.

"There are always four hunting pieces in the howdah and I reached for the heaviest automatically, leaning over to see whatever it was. There was nothing intelligible in the h.e.l.l of noise and nothing in sight. I tell you, I could not see a hair of any creature under me--but Neela Deo. And don't fancy Neela Deo was quiet this while. My howdah was pitching me to the four quarters of heaven--with no one to tell which next. Six of the hunters had rifles trained on us, but I knew they dared not fire for the fear of hitting me or him. And I'm confident they would be as ready to do the one as the other.

"Then he began swaying from side to side with me. It was a frightful jog at first, but he went more and more evenly, further and further every swing, till I kept myself from spilling out by the sheer grip of my hands. The rifles were knocking about loose.

"At last I was up-ended cornerwise and I thought, on my word, I thought my elephant had turned upside down. A shriek fairly split my head open and Neela Deo was dancing straight up and down on one spot. It was a thorough churning, but it was a change.

"I should say his dance had lasted sixty seconds or more, before he himself spoke; then he put up his trunk and uttered a long strong blast. I've never heard anything like it; in eighteen years among elephants, I've never heard anything like it.

"After that he slowed down and they closed in on him, with weeping and laughter and pandemonium of demonstrations, mostly without meaning to me, till I climbed down and saw the remains of what must have been a prime Bengali tiger--under his feet.

"It had charged his neck and gotten a hold and eaten in for the big blood-drink. It had gripped and clung with its four feet--there are ghastly enough wounds--but the hole it chewed in his neck is hideous.

"He poured blood in a shocking stream till they checked it with some kind of jungle leaves and their turbans. And you see--he's groggy.

He's quite liable to stagger to his knees any moment. If he gets in to his own stockades, there may be a chance for him; but he doesn't look it just now. Still, I fancy they're keeping him up rather. Eh? Oh yes, quite so."

The Chief Commissioner wiped his forehead patiently, before he went on:

"You're an extraordinary young man, Sir. I've heard about you; the people call you Son-of-Power. You haven't interrupted me once--not one in twenty could have done it. I'm glad to know you."

This was spoken very rapidly and Skag smiled:

"I'm interested."

The Chief Commissioner's eyes bored into Skag with almost impersonal penetration, till the young American knew why this big Englishman's name was one to conjure with. Then he went on:

"Yes, we'll have much in common. You see, I'm working it out in my own mind. . . . The curious part of it all is, they say an elephant has never been known to behave in this manner before. The mahouts seem to understand; I don't. This I do know: When a tiger charges an elephant's neck, the elephant's way is--if the tiger has gotten in past the thrust of his head--to plunge dead weight against a big tree, an upstanding rock, or lacking these--the ground. In that case he always rolls. You see where I would have been very much mixed with the tiger.

"In this case, Neela Deo measured his balance on a swing and when he found how far he dare go, he took his chance and struck the cat off with his own front leg. It's past belief if you know an elephant's anatomy."

The Chief Commissioner broke off. Neela Deo had lurched and was wavering, as if about to go down. The sense of tears was in Kudrat Sharif's voice; but it loomed into courage, as it chanted the superior excellence of Neela Deo's attributes.

Then Neela Deo braced himself and went on, but more slowly. The big Englishman smiled tenderly:

"He's a white-wizard, is Kudrat Sharif--that mahout! He does beautiful magic, with his pa.s.sion and with his pain. It's practically wors.h.i.+p, you understand; but the point is, it works!

"The mahouts say Neela Deo did the thing for me; stood up and took it, till he could kill the beast without killing me. Oh, you'll never convince them otherwise. They'll make much of it. They're already pledged to establish it in tradition--which means more than one would think. These mahouts come of lines that know the elephant from before our ancestors were named. They know him as entirely as men can. All his customs are common knowledge to them--in all ordinary and in all extraordinary circ.u.mstances. They say that once in many generations an elephant appears who is superior to his fellows--he's the one who sometimes surprises them."

The Chief Commissioner stopped, looking into Skag's eyes for a minute, before he finished:

"I'm a Briton, you understand; stubborn to a degree--positively require demonstration. I'm not qualified to open the elephant-cult to you--it's as sealed as anything--but I've had bits; and I recommend you--if you'll permit me--to give courtesy to whatever the mahouts may choose to tell you. You'll find it more than interesting."

"I'm very grateful to you," Skag answered. "I've had a promise of something and I mean to know more about the mahouts and about elephants."

It was well on in the night when the elephants turned down out of the great highway into their own stockades. Neela Deo staggered and swayed ever so slowly forward, with his head low and his trunk resting heavy and inert on Kudrat Sharif's shoulder; but he got in.

After that no man saw him for sixteen weeks--save the mahouts of his own stockades. But every morning the flower merchants sent huge mounds of flower garlands to comfort him.

Then a proclamation was shouted in the marketplace--in the name of the Chief Commissioner--calling all to come and sit in seats which had been prepared around the parade ground before his elephant stockades--to witness the celebration of Neela Deo's recovery. Great was the rejoicing.

Many Europeans of distinction answered the Chief Commissioner's invitation--from as far as Bombay. But all the Europeans together looked very few; for from the surrounding villages and towns and cities, a vast mult.i.tude had been flooding in for days. Sixty-two thousand people found places in good sight of the arena, in prepared seats. That number had been reckoned for; but half as many more thronged the roofs of the stockade buildings and hung--multicoloured density--from their parapets. And above all, a few tall tamarisk trees drooped long branches under hundreds of small boys.

Famous nautch-girls had come from distant cities and trained with those of Hurda for an important part in the celebration. They were all staged on twelve Persian-carpeted platforms, ranged on the ground within the outer edge of the arena and close against the foot of the circular tier of seats. Artists of the world had wrought to clothe these women. Artists in fabric-weaving, in living singing dyes; in cloths of gold, in pure wrought-gold and in the setting of gems.

People were looking to find the concealed lights which revealed this scene of amazing splendour, when thirty-nine of the Chief Commissioner's elephants came out through the stockade gates, single file. Many drums of different kinds, together with a thousand voices, beat a slow double pulse. The elephants, setting their feet precisely to the steady rhythm of it, marched around the entire arena three times. Those elephants were perfect enough--and they knew it! They were freshly bathed and groomed. Their ears showed rose-tinted linings, when they flapped. Their ivories were smooth and pure. Their howdahs--new-lacquered--gleamed rose and orange and blue, with crimson and green silk curtains. Their caparisons of rich velvets, hung heavy with new gold fringes.

Every elephant turned toward the centre of the arena, coming to pause at his own appointed station, evenly s.p.a.ced around the circle. Then every mahout straightened, freezing to a fixed position that did not differ by a line from the position of his neighbour on either side.

Now the people saw that this celebration for Neela Deo, King of all elephants, was to show as much pomp as is prepared for kings of men--and they were deeply content.

The strings of one sitar began to breathe delicate tones. Other sitars came in illusively, till they snared the current of human blood in a golden mesh and measured its flow to the time of mounting emotion.

Then Neela Deo himself--Neela Deo, the Blue G.o.d!--appeared at the stockade gates alone, with Kudrat Sharif on his neck. His caparison was of crimson velvet, all over-wrought with gold thread. The gold fringes were a yard deep. The howdah was lacquered in raw gold--its curtains were imperial blue. Kudrat Sharif was clothed in pure thin white--like the son of a prince--but he was very frail; and ninety-odd thousand people sent his name, with the name of Neela Deo, up into the Indian night--for the Indian G.o.ds to hear.

Neela Deo was barely in on the sanded disk, when the elephants lifted their heads as one and saluted him with an earth-rocking blast; again and yet again. Then he thrust his head forward, reached his trumpet-tip--quivering before him--and made speed till he came close to the Chief Commissioner's place, where he rendered one soft salute and wheeled into position by the stand. This was a movement no one had antic.i.p.ated. Nothing like it was in the plan; the Chief Commissioner had not intended to ride! But Neela Deo demanded him and there was nothing for it but to go; so with a very white face, he stepped into the howdah.