Son of Power Part 41

With a curious little call she wheeled, coming back to face the wild herd from her own side.

It was a turmoil that looked and sounded like nothing imaginable. The fighting pairs were choosing each other and taking place. They had plenty of room. When it was settled between them, Nut Kut was facing the most powerful-looking of the wild fighters; and Gunpat Rao, another who looked almost as dangerous. The extra males of the wild herd--every one formidable--were skirmishing about, watching for a chance to interfere.

It looked bad for the caravan.

The mahouts--the Gul Moti had scarcely remembered them till now--were calling back and forth about a bad one, a "tricky elephant." Following their gestures, she saw a pale shape moving around in the open. They left no doubt that he represented the worst of all danger. They were charging each other to watch him--never mind what.

. . . The fight was on. Plainly--in every tone, every action--the wild went in with wild enthusiasm, the tame with grave determination. Mitha Baba, having come in closer than any of the other females, did not move,--save for a constant turning of her head under the Gul Moti's icy fingers--seeming to keep an eye on all the separate fights at once.

Her fear for the caravan elephants was anguish, her fatigue extreme; but excitement held the Gul Moti in a vise. She saw the fighters meet, skull to skull. (Those were the frightful blows she had heard in the dark, through the trumpeting of a whole herd!) How could any living thing endure the impact of such weight? She looked to see the skin break away and fall apart at once. She expected to see an elephant's head split open. It was nerve-wrecking--an arena of giant violence.

"Pray the G.o.ds to send Neela Deo!" one of the mahouts shouted.

"Pray the G.o.ds to send Neela Deo!" others called back.

The Gul Moti knew that Neela Deo did not fight; that it was his leadership they needed. Soon she heard a m.u.f.fled cry from the same mahout:

"Men of the Hills, mourn with me!"

(A low wind of tone replied.)

His elephant seemed slower than the one against him; slower in getting back--in coming on. . . . Now he was wavering--shaken through his whole bulk by every meeting. . . . He was not running--he was dazed--he was down! Staring wide-eyed at the horror--the way a barbarian elephant kills--the Gul Moti was glad Skag did not see! . . . The mahout had managed to reach a tree in time to save his own life and was crouching on a branch, with his head buried in his arms.

Nut Kut was finishing with the leader of the wild herd--more mercifully than the wild was of doing it--when two of the extras charged him together. Ram Yaksahn, his mahout--whose voice had not been heard before--cried out; and Mitha Baba went in like a thunder-bolt. How it happened no one could tell, but one of the wild elephants--before Mitha Baba's rush, or in the instant when she reached him--caught his tusk under Nut Kut's side-bands. They were made of heavy canvas, with chains on top. As Mitha Baba drove at him and Nut Kut turned--his tusk ripped out sidewise. With a frantic scream he got away, running up into the jungle--still screaming so far as they could hear.

The Gul Moti, numb with weariness, had held on with her last ounce of strength. Now she sat amazed at her escape--while a tumult of trumpeting shattered the air about her. There was disturbance among the fighting pairs; some staying with each other, some changing--running to and fro--charging at odd angles. But when the confusion cleared--more fresh ones had come in!

Now Nut Kut was a whirl-wind--he was unbelievable. One broke away from him and ran--demoralised. One died--fairly defeated. Still others came to meet him; yet his challenges were triumphant to the point of frenzy.

"Call on the G.o.ds! The devil is in!" rang out.

Gunpat Rao was now fighting for his life. The "tricky elephant" had charged him from the open. This was the bad one whom the mahouts had recognised on sight--had feared from the beginning. Gunpat Rao was one of the finest young elephants in captivity; one of the swiftest in the caravan; but the mahouts knew he could not think a trick! The sense of his danger swept them.

The Gul Moti knew that "white elephants" are always feared--being almost always bad. This one was not white; nor grey, nor yellow. He was whitish-grey--dull-tawny overcast--unclean looking. He was larger in frame than Gunpat Rao; but very lean--long, loose-jointed. He moved like a suckling trying to caper. But there was a rakish look about him.

In spite of all their own stress--every one of their elephants being in some degree of jeopardy--the mahouts gave as much attention to Gunpat Rao as they could. It was foregone conclusion--he was doomed. Bracing themselves to witness his defeat, expecting to see his bitter death in the end, yet the bad one's method at the start maddened them beyond control.

"He was bred in the Pit!" one mahout called.

"His father was Depravity!" another called back.

And they cursed him with the curses of the Hills.

Chakkra, who was Gunpat Rao's mahout, was a plucky little man; but his face had gone old.

The pale one's behaviour was entirely different from any the Gul Moti had seen. He was doing nothing regular--not using the common methods at all.

He was giving Gunpat Rao no chance to get back--to put his body-weight into his drive. He was staying too close. He was circling--starting to rush in and veering away--round and round, in and out. Then the Gul Moti saw! He was manoeuvring to strike Gunpat Rao back of his ear! He was trying to "hit below the belt!"

So Gunpat Rao was kept pivoting in his own tracks to face the danger, with scant room to meet a rush when it came. And always it came when least suggested by the other's manner. Then the pale one squealed--a succession of thin, cutting tones--and Gunpat Rao answered with a charge.

The pale one raced away from him, wheeling suddenly and coming in behind his head. (An instant before, it looked as if they would meet fairly.) But Gunpat Rao, being in full drive and not on guard against such a manoeuvre, could not stop quickly; yet he swerved just enough to clear that yellow tusk--with a long slash in his flank! . . . Gunpat Rao began to show that he was baffled. His trunk came around--feeling of Chakkra!

"He wants Neela Deo! His heart is alone!" Chakkra cried out.

"Pray the G.o.ds to send Neela Deo!" the mahouts answered together.

And from the khud-wall behind them, a thundering challenge rolled down.

It was like an avalanche of dynamic power.

Now the elephants of the Chief Commissioner's stockades gave account of themselves. Youth had returned to them--courage had been restored. They clamoured to heaven that they were doing well. They shouted to the universe that they belonged to him--to Neela Deo, their King!

Sanford Hantee scarcely saw--an impossible thing--Carlin on Mitha Baba's neck! Her face was actually strange--the awful pallor--the fire. It left his brain a blank to other impressions, for minutes.

The Gul Moti only glimpsed the stone-white face of her American, beside the Chief Commissioner, as Neela Deo charged past, on his way to take over the fight that was taxing Gunpat Rao to the last breath before defeat. Neela Deo had seen at once where he was needed most. He went in with a charging challenge that was intoxication to those who heard--all the a.s.surance of ancient mastership in it.

No one had ever seen Neela Deo fight before. Kudrat Sharif was so astonished that he barely got back from his neck in time to be out of the way. The mahouts were amazed--Neela Deo did not fight! Neela Deo was the Lord of peaceful rule!

Many of the fighting pairs broke away from each other, when they heard Neela Deo's charging challenge, as if agreeing that the destiny of all hung on the issue of his contest. This left most of the mahouts free to watch. With pa.s.sionate distress they saw the King--wounded almost to death less than four months since--carrying a heavy howdah and three men--going in to fight with a bad elephant who was all but fresh. They cursed the wild elephant with every inward breath, seeing as little hope for Neela Deo as they had seen for Gunpat Rao.

The Gul Moti watched--appalled. It seemed to her that the pale one had been playing--before he engaged with Neela Deo. But he did not play any more. He manoeuvred so fast that his body appeared to glance in and out.

But Neela Deo foiled him with still greater speed. Her eye could not follow all--the maze, the glamour, the incredible spectacle.

Neela Deo's first blow had shaken the pale one, carrying a different dimension of force from any in himself. He gave way--backing from it with an angry scream, showing surprise and rage in every movement. When he circled round, trying to get in on Neela Deo's side, the King was too quick for him--forcing him out, forcing him further out; not permitting him to follow his chosen course, whatever direction he took. He came in with his peculiar art of approaches--the jarring blow was there! He played all his lightning feints--the shock that rocked him was a flash quicker! Neela Deo met him squarely, whatever curve he made--whatever tangent he turned upon. This, every time, in spite of himself; for he always meant to avoid that crash!

He tried his falsetto squeals--all aggravation in them. But Neela Deo refused to accept taunts. This caused an instant's pause--the pale one seeming to consider. Then he raced away and came back on a full drive, as if meaning to meet the King in a legitimate encounter--after all. But Neela Deo only lowered his head a fraction, leaning a bit forward; and the pale one, instead of finishing straight, or pa.s.sing alongside close enough to strike--swerved out. This was the moment when Neela Deo charged him and he ran, dodging--far beyond the range of the fighting arena--down the khud valley. Everyone followed; the wild elephants running by themselves--screaming in harsh tones; the caravan--trumpeting in clear, full tones; the mahouts, calling the name of the King--beside themselves with delight.

But Neela Deo was at the pale one's heels--his tusks not dangerous, having been shortened and banded. Yet they were sharp enough to make the pale one turn and defend himself. And desperately he fought, using every faculty of his nature--every value of his wild fitness. Still the crook in him showed. It was all faster now than in the beginning, but he was not exhausted, he was not broken; only a bit less certain, a breath less quick, when he tried the same old trick--to get in back of Neela Deo's ear. And it was on that false turn that Neela Deo caught him fairly in the throat--caught him and finished him in one thrust--with the blunt point of a banded tusk. (That was the miracle of it all--the banded tusk!)

Then Neela Deo stood back, put up his trunk and uttered a long, strong blast. They were ringing tones--mounting clarion tones, with tremendous volume at the top. They were the King's proclamation of victory.

The mahouts answered him in High Himalayan voices--full of unleashed devotion. The caravan made announcement of that allegiance the heart of an elephant gives--sometimes. But the wild herd broke away and ran shrieking up into the Vindha Hills.

Coming down from Mitha Baba's neck between Skag's hands, the Gul Moti smiled into his anguished eyes.

"Carlin! Are you--safe?" he asked.

"Safe--now!" she answered.

The tone of that low "now" startled him.

"Where have you been?" he breathed.

"Far--" she said, "very far!"

"But where?" he questioned.

"It was not in _our_ world, Skag," she said. "It was--dark!"

The Chief Commissioner had come close, to hear; was stroking her shoulder, in fact--in an absent-minded way--shaking his head.

"You can't mean--_the dark_?" he broke in.