Son of Power Part 39

Waves upon waves of enthusiasm swept the mult.i.tude. They shouted to heaven--for all time it was established. No man could ever deny it--Neela Deo himself had made his meaning perfectly plain, that he had done the marvel thing sixteen weeks before, to save the life of his friend--their friend! They stood up and flung their flower-garlands on both of them--as Neela Deo, with a stately tread, carried the Chief Commissioner around the circle. The nautch-girls sprang from their platforms into the middle of the arena and danced their most wonderful dances--tossing the fallen garlands, like forest fairies at play.

Then a thousand voices lifted upon the great chorus of laudation, which had been prepared in high-processional time; the drums and the sitars furnis.h.i.+ng a dim background for the volume of sound. The elephants turned out of their stations as Neela Deo pa.s.sed them and came into their accustomed formation behind him. The tread of four times forty such ponderous feet, in perfect time with the music, shook the earth.

The chorus told the story of the incredible manner of their Chief Commissioner's deliverance; it exalted his record and his character; it pledged the preservation of his fame. Then a master-mahout from High Himalaya went alone to the centre of the disk and in incomparable tones--such as master-mahouts use--having no accompaniment at all, told the story of Neela Deo's birthright. The people were utterly hushed; but the elephants kept their even pace--as if listening. Then the great chorus came back, rendering the acknowledgment of a human race.

At last the mult.i.tude rose up and loosed its strangling exultation in mighty shouts. The elephants raised their big heads, threw high their trumpets and rent the leagues of outer night--as if calling to their brothers in the Vindha Hills.

The next part of the celebration was to happen suddenly. The mahouts had planned it in sheer boyishness; and to their mountain hearts it meant something like the clown-play in a western circus. Its success depended on whether Neela Deo had enough foolishness in him--to play the game. So now they wheeled the elephants into their stations again, just in time before one section of the enclosure folded down flat on the ground. This left that part open to the outside world; for the shrubs that used to grow thick at the feet of the tamarisk trees had been rooted up and green tenting-cloth stretched in their place. One shrub still grew in the midst of that opening.

Neela Deo stopped short one moment--frozen so still that he looked like a granite image--then, feeling toward the shrub with his trumpet tip an instant only, flung up his head with a joyous squeal and was upon it before a man could think. The shrub melted to pulp under his tramping feet. Then they saw the black and yellow stripes of the tiger he had killed in this same way--tramping, tramping. He was doing it over again, for them.

The mahouts laughed, calling their strange mountain calls; and the people went quite mad. Even the English taxidermist who had taken the trouble to sew and roughly stuff that mangled tiger-skin for the mahouts--even he shouted with them. Every time Neela Deo put that little quirk into his trunk and slanted his head in that absurd angle--Neela Deo, whose smooth dignity had never shown a wrinkle before--they broke out afresh.

This clown-play certainly brought the people back to earth; but it did something queer to the elephants. Having learned to know human voices, they had already felt the mounting excitement; they had already been tamping the ground with hard driving strokes, as if making speed on the open highway--for some time. But in this abandonment to amus.e.m.e.nt, this joyous unrestraint, they must have found some reminder. They did not have Neela Deo's sense of humour. But they must have remembered the unwalled distances of their own Hills--the hedge of shrubs had been taken away; the tall slender tamarisk trees still standing, made no obstruction. Beyond the waning torches they must have looked and seen the quenchless glory of the same old Indian stars.

It was Nut Kut, the great black elephant not long down from his own wilds among the Vindha Hills, who left his station first and moved on out into the night. Gunpat Rao followed him. . . . One by one they filed away. Indeed, there was not one shrub left to bar their path.

But in this falling of calamity upon their so successful foolish plan, the mahouts were stricken--desperate. There was something grotesque about their hands, as they disappeared. With wild gestures and twisted-back faces many of them went out of sight. The elephants were surely their masters, in that hour.

They all pa.s.sed quite close to where the Chief Commissioner sat in Neela Deo's howdah. Neela Deo had regained his dignity; he was gravely driving fragments of black and yellow stripes into the sand--patiently finis.h.i.+ng his job. But Kudrat Sharif's voice had no effect upon the others; and the Chief Commissioner was entirely helpless. No one could prevent their going. Then it appeared that one had not gone--one other, beside Neela Deo.

Mitha Baba, the greatest female of the caravan, under her pale rose caparison and gold lacquered howdah with its curtains of frost-green, was beating the ground with angry feet and thrusting her head aside impatiently. Something was holding her. When he saw, the Chief Commissioner made haste to reach her--leaving Kudrat Sharif, who was confident of keeping Neela Deo.

Mitha Baba's station in the circle was close to where the Gul Moti sat; her new housings had been specially designed to recognise her devotion to the Gul Moti, whose low 'cello tones were now soothing the great creature and restraining her. But when the Chief Commissioner approached, Mitha Baba started, flinging herself forward--and the Gul Moti was suddenly at the edge of the stand. Just as the elephant lunged out to take her stride, the colourful voice that she had never refused to obey said:

"Come near, Mitha Baba, come near!"

Mitha Baba was not sure about it; she struck the voice aside with her head. But the voice was saying:

"Mitha Baba, you may take me with you!"

Then Son-of-Power was on his feet, but it was too late--Mitha Baba decided quickly and she acted soon--he could not reach the edge in time to go himself, but on an impulse he threw his great-coat into the Gul Moti's hands and she laughed as she caught it from the howdah.

In swerving suddenly to pa.s.s close by the stand, the elephant had unbalanced her boy-mahout from her neck; but his father--the very old mahout--was coming as fast as he could across the s.p.a.ce before them, calling to her--like the lover of wild creatures that he was.

Carlin bent from her howdah and spoke joyously:

"Put him up, Mitha Baba, put him up!"

And Mitha Baba scarcely broke her stride, which was lengthening every step, as she obediently circled the old man with her trunk and carelessly flung him on her neck.

"We'll fetch them all home!" the Gul Moti's voice floated back, as they melted away into the night.

The Chief Commissioner gave Son-of-Power his hand--being without words, for the moment.

"Is she safe?" Skag asked.

"Absolutely safe!" the Chief Commissioner a.s.sured him. "The caparisons may be doused in the Nerbudda, but the howdahs will not be in the least wet."

"What did she mean--that she'd fetch them all back?"

"She meant that Mitha Baba has been used in the High Hills--for years before she was sent down--to decoy wild elephants into the trap-stockades. She's entirely competent, is Mitha Baba; she's the leader of my caravan--next to Neela Deo. Of course Neela Deo is our only hope of overtaking them; he's fast enough, but this is rather soon after his injury, and he'll have to rest a bit. In the meantime, come away up to the house; we'll talk there."

CHAPTER XIV

_Neela Deo, King of All Elephants (Continued)_

To possess one white elephant is calamity. But if Evil--the nameless one--could possess a pair, he would breed an army able to break down the very walls of Equity.

Indra--supreme hypocrite--fathered the first two, who were brother and sister. Kali--wife of s.h.i.+va, the great destroyer--Kali--G.o.ddess of plague and famine and fear and death--was their mother.

Beware the white elephant--who is never white. The stain of Indra is on his skin; the shadow of Kali on his hair. Honour is not in him!

The Gul Moti had always loved adventures; and she had been in the throat of several. But this was no lark; it was more serious than funny.

Thirty-eight of the most valuable elephants in India were rolling away before her toward the Vindha Hills. If they once arrived there, no man could say how many of them, or if any of them, would ever be recovered.

The Nerbudda River crossed their path mid-way--almost at flood. If they entered that tide--deep and wide and muddy--state-housings of great value would be hopelessly damaged.

Mitha Baba was beginning to show that she did not like the old mahout's urging--but Mitha Baba was always willful. Indeed, the Gul Moti was depending much on this same willfulness. The splendid female was still young, but she had been for years a celebrated toiler of wild elephants; and it was well known she had loved the game. Had she forgotten it?

Could she be reminded? First, it was supremely important to overtake all the others this side the Nerbudda.

The old mahout gasped a broken cry, as Mitha Baba lifted him and set him not too gently on the ground; she was in a hurry herself and she was making speed on her own account--she objected to being urged. The Gul Moti, understanding in a flash, cried quickly:

"No, no! Mitha Baba, I want him! Put him up to me--put him up to me--soon!"

Mitha Baba wavered in her long stride.

"Mitha Baba, I want him--I want him!"

And the elephant turned on a circle and caught him up, throwing him far enough back, so the Gul Moti could help him into the howdah.

"My day is done!" he said bitterly.

"Nay, father!" the girl physician answered him. "She knew you were not safe there."

"Is it so?" the old man marvelled. "Indeed, she always loved me! Now I am satisfied!"

Then, in the white fire of what men call genius, the Gul Moti stood up to meet this new emergency--leaning toward Mitha Baba's head--and called in ringing tones:

"Now come, Mitha Baba, we're away! We're going out to fetch them in!

Away, away, awa-a-ay!"

So long as he lived, the old mahout told of the intoxicating splendour of that young voice--the golden beauty of those tones; of how Mitha Baba reached out further and further every stride, to its rhythm, till the earth rose up and the stars began to swing.

"We'll fetch them in, Mitha Baba, we'll fetch them in! . . . Away, away, awa-a-ay!"

But the toiler of wild elephants had remembered the game she loved.