Book: Son of Power

W >> Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost >> Son of Power




"Most extraordinary thing I've ever seen!"

The Englishman's eye scarcely left the huge figure swaying before him
and the distress in his face was obvious.

"I see you're greatly concerned," Skag said gently.

"Well, you understand, I've jolly good right to be--he saved my life!
And he's got a hole in his neck you can put your head into--only it's
filled up and covered up with twenty dirty turbans! And by the way,
you may not know, but it's unwritten law--past touching--the man in
this country never uncovers his head excepting in the presence of his
own women. It's more than a man's life is worth to knock another's
turban off, even by accident. But look, yonder are the turbans of my
caravan--deputies, law-clerks and servants together--on Neela Deo's
neck! Their heads are bare before this multitude and without shame.
What's one to make of it? There's no knowing these people!"

Skag's eye quite unconsciously dropped to the white helmet, carried
ceremonially in the hand; and glancing away quickly, he caught a
mounting flush on the stern countenance.

Presently the Chief Commissioner spoke again:

"We were coming in on the best trail through a steady bit of really old
tree-jungle--Neela Deo leading, as always. We've been out nine weeks
from home, among the villages. It's not supposed to be spoken, but a
stretch like that is rather a grind. The elephants wanted their own
stockades; they were tired of pickets. You understand, they're all
thoroughly trained. They answer their individual mahouts like a man's
own fingers. Neela Deo is the only elephant I've heard of who has been
known to run; I mean, to really run--and then only when he's coming in
from too many weeks out.

"Few European men have ever seen an elephant run. Nothing alive can
pass him on the ground but the great snake. I stayed on top of Neela
Deo once when he ran home. It was not good sitting. I've never cared
for the experience again.

"As the jungle began to open toward Hurda, he was nervous. Of course I
should have been more alive to his behaviour--should have made out what
was disturbing him. If we lose him, I shall feel very much
responsible. But his mahout was easing him with low chants--made of a
thousand love-words. They're not bad to think by. I was clear away
off in an adjustment of old Hindu and British law--you know we have to
use both together; and sometimes they're hard to fit.

"I know no more about how it happened than you do. I was knocked well
up out of my abstraction by a most unmerciful jolt. Kudrat Sharif had
been raked off Neela Deo's neck and was scrambling to his feet on the
ground. In one glimpse I saw his _dothi_ was torn and a long dripping
cut on one thigh. He shouted, but I couldn't make it out, because all
the elephants were trumpeting to the universe.

"There are always four hunting pieces in the howdah and I reached for
the heaviest automatically, leaning over to see whatever it was. There
was nothing intelligible in the hell of noise and nothing in sight. I
tell you, I could not see a hair of any creature under me--but Neela
Deo. And don't fancy Neela Deo was quiet this while. My howdah was
pitching me to the four quarters of heaven--with no one to tell which
next. Six of the hunters had rifles trained on us, but I knew they
dared not fire for the fear of hitting me or him. And I'm confident
they would be as ready to do the one as the other.

"Then he began swaying from side to side with me. It was a frightful
jog at first, but he went more and more evenly, further and further
every swing, till I kept myself from spilling out by the sheer grip of
my hands. The rifles were knocking about loose.

"At last I was up-ended cornerwise and I thought, on my word, I thought
my elephant had turned upside down. A shriek fairly split my head open
and Neela Deo was dancing straight up and down on one spot. It was a
thorough churning, but it was a change.

"I should say his dance had lasted sixty seconds or more, before he
himself spoke; then he put up his trunk and uttered a long strong
blast. I've never heard anything like it; in eighteen years among
elephants, I've never heard anything like it.

"After that he slowed down and they closed in on him, with weeping and
laughter and pandemonium of demonstrations, mostly without meaning to
me, till I climbed down and saw the remains of what must have been a
prime Bengali tiger--under his feet.

"It had charged his neck and gotten a hold and eaten in for the big
blood-drink. It had gripped and clung with its four feet--there are
ghastly enough wounds--but the hole it chewed in his neck is hideous.

"He poured blood in a shocking stream till they checked it with some
kind of jungle leaves and their turbans. And you see--he's groggy.
He's quite liable to stagger to his knees any moment. If he gets in to
his own stockades, there may be a chance for him; but he doesn't look
it just now. Still, I fancy they're keeping him up rather. Eh? Oh
yes, quite so."

The Chief Commissioner wiped his forehead patiently, before he went on:

"You're an extraordinary young man, Sir. I've heard about you; the
people call you Son-of-Power. You haven't interrupted me once--not one
in twenty could have done it. I'm glad to know you."

This was spoken very rapidly and Skag smiled:

"I'm interested."

The Chief Commissioner's eyes bored into Skag with almost impersonal
penetration, till the young American knew why this big Englishman's
name was one to conjure with. Then he went on:

"Yes, we'll have much in common. You see, I'm working it out in my own
mind. . . . The curious part of it all is, they say an elephant has
never been known to behave in this manner before. The mahouts seem to
understand; I don't. This I do know: When a tiger charges an
elephant's neck, the elephant's way is--if the tiger has gotten in past
the thrust of his head--to plunge dead weight against a big tree, an
upstanding rock, or lacking these--the ground. In that case he always
rolls. You see where I would have been very much mixed with the tiger.

"In this case, Neela Deo measured his balance on a swing and when he
found how far he dare go, he took his chance and struck the cat off
with his own front leg. It's past belief if you know an elephant's
anatomy."

The Chief Commissioner broke off. Neela Deo had lurched and was
wavering, as if about to go down. The sense of tears was in Kudrat
Sharif's voice; but it loomed into courage, as it chanted the superior
excellence of Neela Deo's attributes.

Then Neela Deo braced himself and went on, but more slowly. The big
Englishman smiled tenderly:

"He's a white-wizard, is Kudrat Sharif--that mahout! He does beautiful
magic, with his passion and with his pain. It's practically worship,
you understand; but the point is, it works!

"The mahouts say Neela Deo did the thing for me; stood up and took it,
till he could kill the beast without killing me. Oh, you'll never
convince them otherwise. They'll make much of it. They're already
pledged to establish it in tradition--which means more than one would
think. These mahouts come of lines that know the elephant from before
our ancestors were named. They know him as entirely as men can. All
his customs are common knowledge to them--in all ordinary and in all
extraordinary circumstances. They say that once in many generations an
elephant appears who is superior to his fellows--he's the one who
sometimes surprises them."

The Chief Commissioner stopped, looking into Skag's eyes for a minute,
before he finished:

"I'm a Briton, you understand; stubborn to a degree--positively require
demonstration. I'm not qualified to open the elephant-cult to
you--it's as sealed as anything--but I've had bits; and I recommend
you--if you'll permit me--to give courtesy to whatever the mahouts may
choose to tell you. You'll find it more than interesting."

"I'm very grateful to you," Skag answered. "I've had a promise of
something and I mean to know more about the mahouts and about
elephants."

It was well on in the night when the elephants turned down out of the
great highway into their own stockades. Neela Deo staggered and swayed
ever so slowly forward, with his head low and his trunk resting heavy
and inert on Kudrat Sharif's shoulder; but he got in.

After that no man saw him for sixteen weeks--save the mahouts of his
own stockades. But every morning the flower merchants sent huge mounds
of flower garlands to comfort him.

Then a proclamation was shouted in the marketplace--in the name of the
Chief Commissioner--calling all to come and sit in seats which had been
prepared around the parade ground before his elephant stockades--to
witness the celebration of Neela Deo's recovery. Great was the
rejoicing.

Many Europeans of distinction answered the Chief Commissioner's
invitation--from as far as Bombay. But all the Europeans together
looked very few; for from the surrounding villages and towns and
cities, a vast multitude had been flooding in for days. Sixty-two
thousand people found places in good sight of the arena, in prepared
seats. That number had been reckoned for; but half as many more
thronged the roofs of the stockade buildings and hung--multicoloured
density--from their parapets. And above all, a few tall tamarisk trees
drooped long branches under hundreds of small boys.

Famous nautch-girls had come from distant cities and trained with those
of Hurda for an important part in the celebration. They were all
staged on twelve Persian-carpeted platforms, ranged on the ground
within the outer edge of the arena and close against the foot of the
circular tier of seats. Artists of the world had wrought to clothe
these women. Artists in fabric-weaving, in living singing dyes; in
cloths of gold, in pure wrought-gold and in the setting of gems.

People were looking to find the concealed lights which revealed this
scene of amazing splendour, when thirty-nine of the Chief
Commissioner's elephants came out through the stockade gates, single
file. Many drums of different kinds, together with a thousand voices,
beat a slow double pulse. The elephants, setting their feet precisely
to the steady rhythm of it, marched around the entire arena three
times. Those elephants were perfect enough--and they knew it! They
were freshly bathed and groomed. Their ears showed rose-tinted
linings, when they flapped. Their ivories were smooth and pure. Their
howdahs--new-lacquered--gleamed rose and orange and blue, with crimson
and green silk curtains. Their caparisons of rich velvets, hung heavy
with new gold fringes.

Every elephant turned toward the centre of the arena, coming to pause
at his own appointed station, evenly spaced around the circle. Then
every mahout straightened, freezing to a fixed position that did not
differ by a line from the position of his neighbour on either side.
Now the people saw that this celebration for Neela Deo, King of all
elephants, was to show as much pomp as is prepared for kings of
men--and they were deeply content.

The strings of one sitar began to breathe delicate tones. Other sitars
came in illusively, till they snared the current of human blood in a
golden mesh and measured its flow to the time of mounting emotion.
Then Neela Deo himself--Neela Deo, the Blue God!--appeared at the
stockade gates alone, with Kudrat Sharif on his neck. His caparison
was of crimson velvet, all over-wrought with gold thread. The gold
fringes were a yard deep. The howdah was lacquered in raw gold--its
curtains were imperial blue. Kudrat Sharif was clothed in pure thin
white--like the son of a prince--but he was very frail; and ninety-odd
thousand people sent his name, with the name of Neela Deo, up into the
Indian night--for the Indian gods to hear.

Neela Deo was barely in on the sanded disk, when the elephants lifted
their heads as one and saluted him with an earth-rocking blast; again
and yet again. Then he thrust his head forward, reached his
trumpet-tip--quivering before him--and made speed till he came close to
the Chief Commissioner's place, where he rendered one soft salute and
wheeled into position by the stand. This was a movement no one had
anticipated. Nothing like it was in the plan; the Chief Commissioner
had not intended to ride! But Neela Deo demanded him and there was
nothing for it but to go; so with a very white face, he stepped into
the howdah.

Waves upon waves of enthusiasm swept the multitude. 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
furnishing a dim background for the volume of sound. The elephants
turned out of their stations as Neela Deo passed 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 multitude 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 amusement,
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 passed 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
finishing 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 pass 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 space 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 assured 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 Shiva, the great destroyer--Kali--goddess 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.


As they topped the crest of a low hill, the Gul Moti scanned the country
declining before her toward the Nerbudda. A string of jewels
appeared--incredibly gorgeous in mid-day light. It was thirty-eight
full-caparisoned elephants--going fast. Mitha Baba called on them to
wait for her; but they remained in sight only a few minutes. The Gul
Moti's high courage sank; the caravan was too near the river to be
delayed by Mitha Baba's calls--the river too far ahead.

"Do they ever obey her, Laka Din?" the Gul Moti asked.

"They always used to," the old man replied dubiously.

Finally Mitha Baba came out into the straight descent toward the river.
No elephants were in sight, but a blotch of colour showed on the bank.

"Well done for those mahouts!" the Gul Moti cried out in relief. "The
caparisons at least are safe. How did they do it?"

"It was well done, Hakima-ji," the old man exulted. "The masters were
listening to Mitha Baba, delaying between her and the river--space
of six breaths; then those men became like monkeys! It is no
easiness--unfastening everything from top of an elephant. (I who am old
have done it!) Also, some went down to loosen underneath buckles. You
shall see."

They found four very disconsolate mahouts on the bank of the river beside
the great pile of nicely arranged stuff.

"I want the smallest howdah you have!" called the Gul Moti, as the men
sprang in front of Mitha Baba.

"But, Hakima-ji," they protested, "by getting down--we were left behind!"

"I must not be left--and yet you must take these clothes from her!" the
Gul Moti said, while they helped the old man to the ground.

"Then go to her neck--oh, Thou Healer-without-fear! She will not wait
long--she follows Nut Kut, the demon! and Gunpat Rao, who both got away
with everything on!"

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