The Taming of the Jungle Part 17

Ram Deen, aho!"

"Tis the voice of Goor Dutt," said the hostler, "and he looketh on fear."

Ram Deen urged his team into a flying gallop as the storm struck the jungle and woke its mighty voices. Wind and rain, and trees with leafless branches for stringed instruments, made an elemental orchestra that discoursed cataclysmic music.

Whilst the thunder crackled and crashed overhead to the steady and sullen roar of the rain the horses came to a sudden stand-still. In the feeble lamplight Ram Deen discerned a man lying in the middle of the road. Taking one of the lamps, he held it to his face. It was Goor Dutt, the little bullock driver. He was unconscious, and had a deep wound on his head from which the blood was still welling.

Hanging on a wild plum-tree that grew on the edge of the road was a bloodstained turban that fluttered in the storm. Tying it securely to the branch whence it hung, Ram Deen placed the unconscious bullock driver at the bottom of the mail-cart, the hostler supporting his head.

Arrived at Kaladoongie, Ram Deen roused the native apothecary at the dispensary. Goor Dutt was carried in and laid on a charpoi, and whilst the apothecary attended to his hurts Ram Deen knocked on the Thanadar's house, saying, "Wake, Thanadar ji. There be bad men abroad to-night, and blows to pay."

When the two friends returned to the dispensary Goor Dutt was looking about him in a dazed fashion. The stimulant administered to him had begun to take effect, and the sight of the tall driver roused him to a recollection of the events of the night.

"Lakhoo's men," said he, feebly. "I counted five by the light of the torch they burned. They beset me, and doubtless I had been slain, but they heard thy bugle, and, whilst they hesitated, I shouted to thee, and, freeing one hand, I drew the pistol Charlie Sahib gave me and fired once, and then a great darkness fell upon me."

Whilst the Thanadar roused a couple of his men Ram Deen slipped into his own garden to release Hasteen, for the great dog would be needed in the hunting of that night.

The sky was emptying itself in great sheets of rain as the mail-cart sped away with the dog running beside it. When they reached the tree to which the turban was tied Ram Deen removed it and held it out to Hasteen, who, after sniffing at it for a moment, started off at a trot, with his nose to the ground. But the scent was bad, owing to the heavy rain, and the dog began to run round in widening circles in his search for a trail, whilst the men stayed on the edge of the road. Suddenly the dog bayed, and, following the direction of the sound, they came up with him as he stood by Goor Dutt's cart, from which the bullocks had been removed.

"The man stricken by Goor Dutt rode hence on a bullock," said Ram Deen, who had been examining the tracks in the mire with a lantern; "there be signs of but four men going hence, Thanadar Sahib, whereas five walked beside the wagon till it stopped here."

The cart was in the jungle about a hundred yards from the road. The noise made by its progress had been entirely drowned in the roar of the storm, so that Ram Deen had not heard it.

"See, sahib," said Ram Deen, pointing to the trail made by the heavy animals in their course through the jungle, and which not even the rain had effaced, "we shall not need Hasteen's nose, but his teeth, ere the daybreak."

Fastening the turban taken from the tree round Hasteen's neck, Ram Deen struck into the trail, the dog walking beside him, whilst the others followed in single file. The tall driver stopped occasionally to examine the ground with his lantern. He had with him the revolver given to him by Captain Barfield, but his main dependence was on the long bamboo club, loaded with lead, which he carried in his right hand.

The events that followed were thus told to Captain Fisher, the deputy commissioner of the district, who came down the next day from Naini Tal to investigate them.

"Sahib," began Ram Deen, whose left arm was in a sling, "it was thus: We followed the trail that led along the right bank of the Bore Nuddee, till we came to the ford, where the stream was now a roaring torrent owing to the great rain, which never ceased to drum on the Terai all that night.

"Here those we sought had crossed to the left bank, and then continued up the hill to the garden of Thapa Sing; through the door of the hut, wherein Heera Lal, who is kin to me, used to dwell, there came the gleam of firelight.

"Then the Thanadar bid stand, saying, ''Twere well to take them alive, Ram Deen, so that the sircar may not be despoiled of the hanging of them. What sayest thou?'

"'Such as these cannot be taken alive, Thanadar ji,' I replied.

"'What would you?' he inquired.

"'They be hornets, khodawund,' I made answer, 'and must be smoked out of their nest. When they come forth we will take them as we best may.'

"So we proceeded without noise to the hut, and when we reached it the lantern showed us that the Thanadar, and I, and Hasteen, whom I had unloosed, were alone. For, behold, the policemen had fled, not having stomachs for blows; their blood had turned to milk and their livers to water. For their fathers are jackals and their mothers without honor; and the sahib will doubtless bestow upon them the reward due to their valor.

"And the Thanadar growled in his beard at the baseness of his men, and whispered, 'Those dogs of mine have made it necessary that we should slay these within, Ram Deen, should they refuse to surrender, instead of taking them alive;' and I nodded a.s.sent.

"We could hear the wounded man groan inside the hut, and one said, 'Never mind, Kunwa, I slew Goor Dutt for thy hurt, and had these who are with us been men instead of children, we had slain the driver of the mail-cart, whose voice is greater than his strength, and his legs but female bamboos.'

"'Thou art a liar!' I shouted, kicking in the thatch door of the hut, which fell in the fire on the hearth. In a moment the hut was in a blaze. Two men ran forth through the doorway, and, in the light of the burning hut, I could see other twain breaking through the wall of thatch at the rear, whilst Kunwa, the wounded man, who was unable to move, greeted with appalling screams the death that approached him.

"'I will attend to these, Thanadar Sahib!' I shouted; 'do thou and Hasteen look to those that escape from the rear.' And the Thanadar, calling the dog, ran to the back of the hut.

"Seeing but one man in front of them, the dacoits--strong men and tall--ran in upon me. I antic.i.p.ated the blow of one, and he fell to the ground without even a cry; but the club of the other had crushed my skull, had I not warded it with my left arm, which was broken thereby; and ere my a.s.sailant could again swing his weapon I had stretched him beside his companion.

"From the other side of the burning hut came the sounds of a terrible combat and of heavy blows. I made what haste I could, and as I turned the corner of the hut I stumbled over the body of the Thanadar. Six paces beyond was Hasteen, and he was serving the sircar as he best might. He stood over one of the dacoits, whom he held by the throat, whilst the other rained blows on him, till I made the fight an equal one between dog and man; and then, because my arm pained shrewdly, I was fain to sit on a fallen tree, whilst Hasteen finished the fray in his own manner; the man in the hut, meanwhile, uttering screams that even a strong man might not hear unmoved.

"But he on the ground could not scream by reason of the fangs at his throat; he only gurgled, and rattled dreadfully, and the foam flew from his lips as the great dog shook him from side to side. When his head swayed helplessly I knew he was dead, so I bade Hasteen release him; and the man in the hut having ceased his outcries, I made shift to raise the Thanadar, and lo, he was dead, and the Terai bereft of a great and a good man, and I of the best of friends. And now, as the sahib knoweth but too well, there be none in the Terai to maintain the orders of the sircar."

"Nevertheless, Ram Deen," said Captain Fisher, "the sircar will look to you in the future to be a terror to evil-doers, and here are papers making you Thanadar of this district. What say you?"

"The sircar is my father and my mother, Fisher Sahib; but this thing may not be. I have neither learning nor wisdom to uphold the English raj as it should be upheld. Besides, who is to drive the mail-cart?"

"There be drivers a-plenty, Ram Deen, but not many who will strike a blow for the right and defend the poor and the fatherless. Thy munshi will instruct thee in the duties of thy office. But beyond all things, remember this: There must be no budmashes in thy district, Ram Deen, Thanadar." Then, before Ram Deen could make reply, he went on, "Oh, yes, the reward; thou wilt receive from the sircar two thousand five hundred rupees for the slaying of Lakhoo's men."

"But Goor Dutt slew one of them, Captain Sahib, and Hasteen another."

"Well, give Goor Dutt what thou wilt and bestow a collar of honor, with spikes of bra.s.s, on Hasteen. Thou art Thanadar henceforth, and the sircar expects you to be just in all your dealings."

And as he finished, word having gone through Kaladoongie that Ram Deen was now Thanadar, the men who crowded round the Deputy Commissioner's tent raised a mighty shout: "Ram Deen, Thanadar, ke jhai!"

"What meant that shout?" asked Tara, when Ram Deen returned home an hour later.

"Congratulation to thy Lumba Deen (long legs) for a trifle of money and some little honor as salve for a broken bone, Light in Darkness."

"What honor?" she inquired, eagerly.

"But the money was the greater, my Star----"

"Now, nay, my lord trifles with me. The honor, the honor!" she demanded.

"And if I were to tell thee that they have made me Thanadar of this Zemindaree?"

"'Tis but thy due, my lord; and thou hast but prepared the way for thy man-child. Said I not many moons ago that he should be Thanadar of Kaladoongie one day!"

"See to it that he is brave and strong, Heart of my Heart, else were he better dead."

"I will help her in the bringing up of thy son," said a tall woman,--she of the m.u.f.fled face,--coming into the room; "and he shall be worthy of thee, who art now as great as thou hast been always good."

THE END.