The Flower of Forgiveness Part 21

So the question remains. Did I dream that night, or did the Footstep of Death bring revenge when it came over the bridge at last? I have never been able to decide; and the only thing which remains sure is the figure of the old _fakeer_ with blind eyes, looking out on the uncertain mirage of the river and waiting in G.o.dliness and contentment,--for what?

HABITUAL CRIMINALS.

The very _mise-en-scene_ was indeterminate. A straight horizon meeting the blue sky evenly, though not an inch of level ground lay far or near in the pathless waste of yellow sand. Pathless, yet full of tracks.

Looking down at your feet, which, breaking through the rippling crust of wind-waves on the surface, sank softly into the warm s.h.i.+fting sand beneath, you could see the tracks crossing and re-crossing each other, tracing a network over the world, each distinct, self-reliant, self-contained. Yet such tiny tracks for the most part! That firm zigzag, regular as a Gothic moulding, is printed by a partridge's foot; yonder fine graving is the track of a jerboa rat; and there, side by side for a s.p.a.ce, the striated lines of a big beetle and the endless curvings of a snake. A certain wistful admiration comes to the seeing eye with the thought that, here in the wilderness, life is free to go and come as it chooses, untrammelled by the fetters of custom, free from the necessity for doing as your neighbours do, being as your neighbours are. Something of this was in my thoughts one day when, as I rode at a foot's-pace across the sand-sea to my tents, I suddenly came upon a boy. He must have been ten years old, at least, by his size; any age, judging by his face; stark naked save for a string and a sc.r.a.p of cloth. His head would have been an admirable advertis.e.m.e.nt to any hair restorer, for it was thick and curly in patches, bald as a coot's in others; briefly, like a well-kept poodle's. For the rest he was of unusually dark complexion. He was sitting listless, yet alert, beside some small holes in the sand, and when he saw me he smiled broadly, showing a great gleam of white teeth. I asked him cheerfully who he was, and he replied in the same tone,

"_Huzoor! main Bowriah hone_." (I am a Bowriah.) It gave me a chill somehow. So the lad was a Bowriah; in other words, one of that criminal cla.s.s which Western discipline keeps in walled villages, registered and roll-called by day and by night. Not much freedom there to strike out a line of life for yourself, unless you began before the time when you were solemnly set down in black and write as an adult bad character.

The boy, however, seemed to have no misgivings, for he smiled still more broadly when I asked him what he was doing.

"Catching lizards, _Huzoor!_ They are fat at this time."

My chill changed its cause incontinently. "You don't mean to say you eat lizards?"

He looked at me more gravely. "Wherefore not, _Huzoor_? The Bowriahs eat everything, except cats. Cats are heating to the blood, especially in spring time."

His air of well-defined wisdom tickled me; perhaps it touched me also, for, ere riding off, I asked him his name, thinking I might inquire more of him; for the sole reason of my tents being a few miles farther in this sandy wilderness was the due inspection of a Bowriah village which had been planted there, out of harm's way, by the authorities.

"Mungal, _Huzoor_" he replied. So I left him watching for the fat lizards, and cantered on over the desert.

Suddenly I drew rein with a jerk. There he was again in front of me sitting before another group of holes.

"Hullo!" I cried, "how on earth did you manage to get here, Mungal?"

The boy smiled his broad, white smile, "The _Huzoor_ mistakes. I am Bungal. Mungal is my brother over yonder." He stretched a thin dark arm into the desert whence I had come. Mungal and Bungal! Twins, of course!

Even so the likeness was almost incredible. My memory could find no dissimilarity of any sort or kind--no outward dissimilarity, at any rate. The thought suggested an experiment, and I asked him what he was.

"_Huzoor! main Bowriah hone_," came instantly.

"And what are you doing?" I continued.

"Catching lizards, _Huzoor!_ They are fat at this time."

Positively my chill returned, making me say quite naturally, "What! do you eat lizards?"

"Wherefore not, _Huzoor_? The Bowriahs eat everything, except cats.

Cats are heating to the blood, especially in, spring time."

Identical so far. The quaintness of the idea prevented me from disturbing it by further inquiry, so I rode on, dimly expectant of finding a third habitual criminal--say Jungal this time--watching for fat lizards at other holes. But I did not. They were twins only; Mungal and Bungal. Out of sheer curiosity I sent for them that evening, when I had finished my work of inspecting the adult males and females, listening to their complaints, and generally setting the odd little village on the path of virtue for the next three months. By no means a disagreeable occupation, for the Bowriahs have always a broad smile for a sportsman. Indeed, several of the most suspicious characters had promised me the best of _s.h.i.+kar_ on the morrow; and what is more, they kept their promise faithfully.

As for Mungal and Bungal, even when seen together it was absolutely impossible for me to detect any difference of any kind between the two boys. Even their heads were shaven in the same tufts, and as they invariably repeated each other, there was no differentiating them by their words.

Only their works remained as a means of knowledge, and with a view to this I questioned the Deputy Inspector of Police, who was out with me, as to the lads.

"_Huzoor!_" he said, "they are of the Bowriah race. Their father and mother are dead, but in life these were Bowriahs also. The boys, however, not being adult, are not as yet on the Register; but they will be. For the rest they are as Bowriahs. They eat jackals, wolves, and such unclean things."

I felt myself on the point of adding, "But not cats--cats, etc.;"

however I stopped myself in time, and asked instead if the boys stole, or lied, or--

The Deputy Inspector interrupted me respectfully, yet firmly.

"_Huzoor!_ not being adult they are not on the Register. Therefore the police have no cognizance of them--as yet."

"Then why do they make for the village now they hear the roll beginning?" I persisted somewhat testily, as I saw Mungal and Bungal racing along to the gateway in company with a number of boys about their own age.

"They do it to please themselves. It gives them dignity. Besides, in youth one learns habits easily. Thus it is better, since the boys will surely be on the Register if G.o.d spares them to adult age."

I looked at the man sharply; there was positively not one atom of expression of any kind whatever on his face. It is a great art.

On the morrow Mungal and Bungal turned up again as part of the shooting excursion, for even among their tribe of hunters they had already made themselves a sporting reputation; perhaps because, being orphans, they lived chiefly on their wits. It certainly was remarkable to see them on a trail, turning and twisting and doubling on traces invisible to my eyes; or sometimes, like a couple of Ba.s.sett-hound puppies, on all fours, nose down, creeping round some higher undulation to see what lay behind it. We had stalked a ravine deer which another party of Bowriahs had stealthily driven--all unconsciously--into a suitable spot, and I was just crawling on my stomach to the shelter of a low bush whence I intended to fire, when a small dark hand clutched mine from behind, and another pointed to something within an inch of where I had been about to place my fingers. By everything unpleasant! a viper coiled in a true lover's knot! "T--Tss-ss," came a sibilant whisper checking my start; "the buck is there, _Huzoor_; the buck is there still."

And he remained there, for my bullet went clean through his heart. It was after the excitement of success was over that I turned to the boys, and, somewhat thoughtlessly, held out a rupee.

"Which of you two pointed out that _jelaibee?_" I asked.

"_Huzoor!_ I did," came both voices simultaneously. At first they refused to budge from this simple statement, reserving the remainder of their vocabulary for indignant abuse of each other. Nor could I from their expression or tone glean the slightest corroborative evidence for or against the truth of either. The greed in their beady black eyes, their scorn at the dastardly attempt at cheating them out of their due were identical. Finally, to my intense bewilderment they suddenly, without even a wink that I could see, made a _demi-volte_ towards a new position, and declared in one breath that they both did it, and therefore that they both deserved a rupee. Certainly there had been two hands, the one to clutch, the other to point, but I felt morally certain that they had belonged to one body. However, to settle the matter I gave each of the boys eight annas, and went back to my tents convinced that either Mungal or Bungal was a liar. The question was--which?

That evening, when I was awaiting the appearance of my dinner with the comfortable sense of a good appet.i.te, I heard trouble in the cook-room tent. It was followed by the violent irruption into mine of the whole posse of servants gathered round my old _khansaman_ who, breathless but triumphant, held Mungal and Bungal each by one ear.

"It was the _esh-starffit_[25] quails, _Huzoor_, that I had prepared for the Protector of the Poor; two for his Honour, seeing that he loves the dish, and one for _Barker sahib_,[26] should G.o.d send a guest, so that the dignity of the table be upheld even in the wilderness. And, lo! as I sat decorating the dish, my mind occupied in desires to please, I saw him--the infamous Bowriah boy--make off with one. Aged as I am I fled after him, then remembering boys' ways, ran back round the tent in time to see him, from fear, replacing it. Finally, with hue and cry, we caught both escaping into the darkness of the desert."

"Both of them!" I echoed; "but you said there was only one."

"The _Huzoor_ mistakes," retorted the _khansaman_ quite huffily.

"Perchance there was one who stole, and one who gave back. This slave had no time for trivial observation, these being undoubtedly the thieves." He emphasised his words by dragging Mungal and Bungal forward by the ears, and knocking their heads together; his following meanwhile testifying its a.s.sent by undertoned remarks, that being Bowriahs the boys were necessarily thieves, and that in addition it was superfluous, if not impious, to draw invidious distinctions where it had pleased Providence to make none.

But my curiosity had been aroused. "Mungal and Bungal," I said solemnly, addressing the culprits who, with hands folded in front of them like infant Samuels, stood cheerfully stolid, just as the adult members of their tribe invariably did when brought before me as habitual criminals, "do you by chance know what telling the truth means?"

As they a.s.sured me fervently that they did, I went on to explain that my only desire in this case was to have the truth; that no one should suffer by it; that contrariwise the tellers should receive _bucksheesh_. Here their beady eyes wandered in confident familiarity to the rotund person of the Deputy Inspector, who had rushed to the scene in mufti on hearing of the crime, and I knew instinctively that they were discounting my words by inherited experience of similar promises. So it was with a prescience of what would follow that I put the least formidable question--

"Which of you replaced the quail?"

The answer came double-barrelled, unhesitating, "I did, _Huzoor_."

"Let me give the boys five stripes each with the bamboo, _Huzoor!_"

suggested the Deputy Inspector with a stifled yawn, when I had wasted much time and more unction, "it is good for boys at all times, and these are but boys--as yet."

It would have been the wisest plan, but I could not make up my mind to it, so I went to bed that night certain of but one thing--either Mungal or Bungal was a thief. The question was--which?

It kept me awake until I made up my mind that somehow, by hook or by crook, I would find out. Twenty-four hours was after all too short a time for a character study; but I was to be on tour for six weeks at least, and if I took the boys with me I should have ample opportunity of settling the question. Besides, they would be invaluable as trackers.

They proved themselves useful in many ways, and even the old khansaman grudgingly admitted their skill in the capture of chickens. The spectacle of a half-plucked fowl defying all the resources of the camp became a thing of the past, for Mungal or Bungal had it fast by the leg in a trice.

"_Sobhan ullah!_" (Power of the Lord) the old man would say piously.

"But there! they were made for such work from the beginning. We all have our uses."

My first desire was naturally to distinguish Mungal from Bungal. The camp, it is true, had no such ambition. It was content to speak of them as "_Yeh_" or "_Dusra_" (This or the Other), to which they answered alternately. Thinking to effect my purpose, I gave one a necklace of blue, the other a necklace of red beads; but they were evidently suspicious of some plot, for I caught them exchanging decorations several times. Evidently no reliance was to be placed on beads, so I had a bra.s.s bangle riveted on the arm of one, and an iron bangle on the arm of the other. That succeeded for a week. At least so I thought, till I discovered that they had utilised my English files to cut through the metal so that they could slip their flexible hands in and out quite easily. Then I became annoyed, and pierced the ears of one boy. Next day the other had his pierced also. So I got the two alone by themselves, and asked them why they objected to the manifest convenience of individuality. It took me some time to worm the idea out of their small brains, but when I did, it touched me. Briefly, no one had ever made a difference between them before, not even the mysterious Creator, and in the village no one had cared. Personally, they never thought if Mungal was really Mungal, or Bungal. It was a joint-stock company doing business under the name of Mungal-Bungal. As they said this they stood, as usual when before me, in the att.i.tude of the praying Samuel, but I noticed their shoulders seemed glued to each other, and that the whole balance of their lithe brown bodies was towards each other. In truth the tie between them was strong indeed. By day they and my big dog hunted together, and by night the trio slept in each other's arms like puppies of one litter. When they pilfered, they pilfered in pairs, and when they lied, they lied in pairs; still, through it all, the idea clung to me that perhaps only one lied and stole. But punishment of some sort being imperative, I gave in to the impartial bamboo--for which, to say sooth, neither of them seemed to care very much.