Son of Power Part 31

"Come down among us who are your brothers; we have prepared all things for your refreshment."

"I will come down with a full heart and an empty stomach, most beneficent, when this Majesty will permit," the strange mahout a.s.sented wearily.

"Is he rough, son--to sit?" asked the very old man, coming closer.

The elephant shied a step and his mahout cuddled one ear with his fingers, as he replied:

"He is the smoothest thing that ever moved upon the surface of the earth--like a wind driven by fiends. But he never stops."

The elephant was rolling more widely if anything, than at first; so the mahouts stood back a little and considered him.

His blackness was like very old bronze, with certain metallic gleams in it--like time-veiled copper and bra.s.s. His flawless frame was covered with tight-banded muscle. There was no appearance of fat. His skin was smooth--without wrinkles. He was young; about forty years, or less. But there was the nick of a tusk-stroke in one ear; and a small red devil in his eye.

Without warning, he flicked his mahout off his neck and set him precisely on the ground--the movement so quick no eye could follow his trunk as it did it.

The youngest mahout brought a sheaf of tender branches--such as are most desirable--and laid them near, but not too near; and when the elephant began to eat, they removed the burden of his mahout's possessions from his back.

Then the man received their ministrations--keeping an eye on the elephant. When he was ready to smoke, he began slowly:

"Ram Yaksahn is my name; and my ancestors--from the first far breath of tradition--have been servants of the elephant people. We were of High Himalaya till the man who was the man before my father. Since then we serve in the Vindha Hills. My twin brother was called with his master, to the teak jungles of the South; but I have been with the trap-stockades till now, when they send me down to these plains with the catch of all seasons."

"It is a good hearing," said the very old man, as they all bent their heads; and the youngest mahout carefully arranged some specially good tobacco in Ram Yaksahn's hookah.

"Now what is his record?" one asked.

"First, there is a record," Ram Yaksahn replied, "which may be his or another's. It is your right to know.

"Four monsoons before this elephant was trapped, the body of a forest reserve officer was found on a mountain slope. The head was broken; and the ribs. Rains had washed away all earth-marks, but small trees had been uprooted near that place; therefore the thing had been done by an elephant. Close by, a dead dog lay; entirely battered--and a split stick. Burial was given to that man with few words. He was not mourned. May the G.o.ds render to him his due!"

The mahouts a.s.sented, as Ram Yaksahn smoked a moment.

"Be patient with me, most honourable," he went on, in strained tones.

"I come to you serving a strange master. The record I tell now, is truly your right to know."

"Have no fear; we serve with you!" Kudrat Sharif rea.s.sured him.

"Some months after this elephant was trapped," he continued, "they had him picketed in the working grounds--to learn the voices of men. It was there, in the midst of us all, that he killed his first mahout. No man could prevent.

"That mahout was a violent man. He had just struck his own child an unlawful blow. She lay on the ground as the dead lie. Then it was that this elephant moved before any man could move. We heard his picket stakes come up, but we did not see them come up. No man could prevent.

"He gathered the child's dead body in his trunk and swung it back and forth--back and forth. It hung like a cloth. Slowly he came nearer to his mahout, while he swung the body of the child. When he was close, he laid the body between his own front feet. The violent man stood watching like one in a dream.

"Then this elephant who is now my master, caught the man who stood watching--as you saw him take me down, swiftly--and swung him, but in a circle. The man struck the ground on his head and it was broken; also his ribs."

Low murmurs of appreciation swelled among the listening mahouts. Ram Yaksahn bent his head.

"It was determined," he said with satisfaction, "by wise men of authority who rule such matters at the trap-stockades, that this elephant had done just judgment; because the man had done murder.

"But we could not come close to this elephant--to link with his leg-chains--for his threatening eye. That night and the next day, he kept the body between his feet--the body of the little child he kept--save when he swung it. No man could prevent.

"Then he left it" (Ram Yaksahn's voice suddenly went husky), "and came to me--and put me on his neck. For this reason I am his to him; and he is mine to me!"

"Well done, well done!" the mellow voice of Kudrat Sharif spoke softly; and the mahouts of the Chief Commissioner's stockades a.s.sented.

"There is yet one thing," Ram Yaksahn resumed, "and I should cover my face to tell it. But if you learn that I am a fool of fools, consider my foolishness. His blackness is strange; his strength is mighty--it took four to handle him, not two, in the beginning--and his quickness is more quick than a man can think. Also, he has a red devil in his eye.

"When my name was spoken after his name and my duty rendered me to serve him, I found he was indeed my master. We consider the creatures of his kind are exalted above men; but I thought him a son of darkness, come up out of the pit. In my fool heart I did; and I do not know yet.

"At the time when he was trapped, I was in High Himalaya finding a fair woman of lineage as good as my own--as my fathers have done. So when this last thing happened, not many weeks ago, a son of mine lay on his mother's breast. She came out with the child and sat near me. She was teaching me that my son laughed. I saw only her; and knew only that her babe was strong.

"I forgot that this elephant browsed close by, having long picket chains to reach the tender branches. He came toward where we sat and stood looking at us; and I called on her to behold the red devil in his eye. But I looked--not into his eye; and I did not see him upon us--till he lifted my son from her breast. I saw the little body swing up, far above my head--the so very little body--and I heard her cry in the same breath."

Ram Yaksahn laid his forehead against his fists and softly beat his head. Looking up with drawn features, he went on:

"My face was in the gra.s.ses when I heard her laugh. Then I saw the babe--not longer than a man's arm--slowly swinging in my master's trunk, back and forth--back and forth. The little one was making noises of content--such as babes use--when my master laid him very gently between his own front feet. The child spread his hands, reaching up for the curling tip above his face.

"Now it has been said that I am not lacking in courage; but in that hour I was without sense to know courage or fear. The fingers of cold death felt along my veins and searched out the marrow of my bones; for when I leaped to take the babe--I met the red threat in my master's eye. But the mother of my son went like a blown leaf and stooped between this elephant's feet, to lift up her first man-child.

"She came away with him safe; and this elephant swayed before us, at the end of his picket chains, stretching his quivering trumpet-tip toward the babe--with flaming fires in his eyes.

"The daughter of High Himalayan mahouts called this black majesty 'Nut Kut'; and they have added that name on the Government books. But they will not take his first name away. I have finished."

And Ram Yaksahn gave himself to his hookah--still keeping his eye on Nut Kut.

"His first name has not been told," mildly reminded the very old man.

"His first name is Nut Kut!" said Ram Yaksahn with decision. "But his last name is Pyar-awaz."

All the mahouts laughed; translating the double name in their own minds---Mischief, the Voice-of-Love.

"We have no violent men in these stockades," said Kudrat Sharif, speaking to them all. "And we do not find that Ram Yaksahn was lacking in courage. We will prove the nature of Nut Kut with kindness."

His decision was conclusive; and they proceeded to encourage the mighty black into his own enclosure.

This was the coming of Nut Kut to the Chief Commissioner's elephant stockades at Hurda. As time went by, the attraction of his mysterious nature inflamed the mahouts with interest; and also with concern--for he was a fearsome fighter.

Carlin had gone to a sick sister-in-law for a few days; and as soon as he heard of it, d.i.c.kson Sahib had driven to the M'Cord bungalow--realising that without her it would be desolate to his young American friend. Protesting that he needed someone to come and break his own loneliness, he carried Skag home.

So just now Skag was smoking his after-tiffin cigarette in the verandah of d.i.c.kson Sahib's big bungalow. The great Highway-of-all-India, with its triple avenue, its monarch trees, swept past the front of the grounds. Several times from here, he had seen a big elephant go joyously rolling by. He could tell it was joyous; and the man on its neck was usually singing.

The very smell of elephants had always stirred Skag--like all clean good earth-smells in one. When he was animal trainer in the circus, the elephants had not been his special charge; but he had seen a good deal of them. They looked to him like convicts; or manikins--moving to the pull of the hour-string. They were incessantly being loaded, unloaded, made to march; cooped in small, stuffy places--chained.

He wanted to see elephants--herds of them! He wanted to see them in mult.i.tudes, working for men in their own way; using their own intelligence. He wanted to see them in their own jungles--living their own lives.

Sooner or later he meant to see them, all ways. He had come to India, the land of elephants, partly for that reason; but in the Mahadeo mountains he had found none--nor in the great Gra.s.s Jungle. Yet he had learned that when he wanted anything--way back in the inside of himself--he was due to get it. To-day this thing was gnawing more than ever before; he wanted elephants--hard.

d.i.c.kson Sahib came out on his way back to the offices and stopped to finish their tiffin conversation: