Book: Son of Power

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




"I haven't heard what that word means yet," Skag said.

"Rana Jai?" Cadman repeated. "The exact translation is Prince of
Victory; but Dhoop Ki Dhil made her meaning clear--Son of Power; a great
deal more."

After that, they had little to say. Certainly Cadman would never forget
the length of time he had seen the looming head--less than two feet from
Skag's face--the incredible power that flamed up out of the young man's
eyes. Certainly Skag was full of content as to the safety of the people.
But all realisations were lost in a gnawing depression about Dhoop Ki
Dhil.

When they came to Sehora, the station-man held out a letter in quaintly
written English; it read:


_From the wayside Dhoop Ki Dhil sends greetings to Son of Power, most
exalted; and to his guardian, most devoted._

_She pays votive offerings from this day, at sunrise and at sunset, for
those men--incense and oils and seed--to safety from all evil, and
fulfillment of their so-great destiny._

_The gods, all-beneficent, have preserved him--Jiwan Kawi, the man of
men! He met her in the night-paths; and he goes now with her--to her own
people. Jiwan Kawi, the man of men!_

_The Grass Jungles are in her heart, like dead rose-leaves; their perfume
in her blood, is forever before the gods--remembering Son of Power and
his guardian._

_Dhoop Ki Dhil touches their holy feet._


The two Americans looked into each other's eyes, without words--the
Calcutta-bound train was alongside.

"Remember, I'm responsible for you from now on, son!" Cadman said, as he
loosed Skag's hand.




CHAPTER IV

_The Monkey Glen_

Skag and Cadman were back in Hurda where Dickson Sahib lived, and the
younger man was disconsolate at the thought of Cadman's leaving for
England. During those few last days they were much together in the
open jungle around the ancient unwalled city; and once as they walked,
two strange silent native men passed them going in toward the
wilderness.

"The priests of Hanuman," Cadman whispered.

Skag enquired. He had a new and enlarged place in his mind for
everything about these men. Cadman explained that these priests serve
the monkey people: to this purpose they are a separate priesthood.
Abandoning possessions and loves and hates of their kind, they live
lives of austerity, mingling with the monkey people in their own
jungles; eating, drinking with them; sleeping near; playing and
mourning with them--in every possible way giving expression to
good-will. All this they do very seriously, very earnestly, with
reverence mingled with pity.

"The masses here think these men worship the monkeys," Cadman added.
"It's not true. Most Europeans dismiss them as fanatics--equally
absurd. I've been out with them."

Skag had actually seen the faces of the two men just passed. The
impression had not left his mind. They were dark clean faces, grooved
by much patient endurance, strong with self-mastery and those fainter
lines that have light in them and only come from years of service for
others.

Cadman certainly had no scorn for these men. He had passed days and
nights with their kind in one of the down-country districts. His tone
was slow and gentle when he spoke of that period. It wasn't that
Cadman actually spoke words of pathos and endearment. Indeed, he might
have said more, except that two white men are cruelly repressed from
each other in fear of being sentimental. They are almost as willing to
show fear as an emotion of delicacy or tenderness.

"The more you know, the more you appreciate these forest men," Cadman
capitulated and laughed softly at the sudden interest in Skag's face as
he added: "I understand, my son. You want to go into the jungle with
these masters of the monkey craft. You want to read their lives--far
in, deep in yonder. Maybe they'll let you. They were singularly good
to me. . . . It may be they will see that thing in your face which
knocks upon their souls."

"What is that?"

Cadman laughed again.

"In the West they know little of these things; but the fact is, it's
quite as you've been taught: the more a man overcomes himself, the more
powers he puts on for outside work. And when a man is in charge of
himself all through, he has a look in his eye that commands--yes, even
finds fellowship with the priests of Hanuman."

"Would these priests see such a look?"

"Of course!"

"But why?"

"Because they have it themselves. It's evident as sun-tan, to the
seers, who are what they are because they rule themselves. Your old
Alec Binz had it right. You handle wild animals in cages or afield
just in proportion as you handle yourself. Those who command
themselves see self-command when it lives in the eye of another. . . .
They called me--those priests did--years ago. I almost wanted to live
with them for a while; but it was too hard."

"How was that?"

"They said I must forsake all other things in life to serve the monkey
people--that I must stay years with them, winning their faith, before I
would be of value--that all life in the world must be forgotten."

Cadman laughed wistfully. "I wasn't big enough," he added, "or mad
enough, as you like. Perhaps they'll know you at once, or it might
take labour and patience to convince them you have not an unkind
thought toward any of their monkey friends and no scorn of them because
they serve in such service."

The out and out staring fact of the whole matter, Skag realised, was
that these priests believed the monkeys to be a race of men who have
been far gone in degeneration. They gave their lives to help the
return progress. The order of Hanuman had already endured for many
generations. The value of their work was hardly appreciable from any
standpoint outside; they counted little the years of a man's life; they
were trained in patience to a degree hardly conceivable to a Western
mind.

". . . Of course they work in the dark," Cadman said. "The natives try
to obey in these matters, but do not understand; and one young European
with a rifle can undo a whole lot of their devoted labour among the
tree-people. You see, the priests work with care and kindness,
following, ministering, accustoming the monkeys to them, never
betraying them in the slightest--"

Skag nodded, keenly attentive. He knew well from his experience as a
show trainer what it means to get the confidence of the big cats; and
how months of careful work could be ruined in a moment by an ignorant
hand. Deep, steady, inextinguishable _kindness_ was the thing.

"Yes, to be kind and square," Cadman resumed. "And one of the
strangest and most remarkable things that ever came to me in the shape
of a sentence was from one of these priests. He was an old man, grey
pallor stealing in under the weathered brown of his face. He had that
look in his eye that has nothing to do with years, but means that a man
is so sufficient unto himself that he can forget himself utterly. . . .
He spoke of the condition of the tree-folk, of the incommunicable
sorrow of them--as if it were his own destiny. The one sentence of
his, hard to forget--in English would be like this:

"_'After a man has lived with these monkey people for a long time, and
always been kind, one of them may come and stand before him and let
tears roll down his hairy face. And this is all the confession of
sorrow he can make!'_"

Skag caught the deep thing that had stirred Cadman. The latter added
with a touch of scorn:

"Once I told this thing, as I have told you, to a group of Europeans in
a steamer's smoking room. And two of them laughed--thought I was
telling a funny story. . . . These priests are apt to be very bitter
toward one who wrongs one of their free-friends. They believe that it
is a just and good thing to make a man pay with his life, for taking
the life of a monkey; because it impedes his coming up and embitters
the others. One way to look at it?"


Skag was in and out of the jungle most of the days after Cadman left
for Bombay to sail. Closer and closer he drew to the deep, sweet
earthiness and the mysteries carried on outside the ken of most men.
One dawn, from a distance he watched a sambhur buck pause on the brow
of a hill. The creature shook his mane and lifted up his nose and
sniffed the dawn of day.

Skag knew that it was good to him, knew how the sensitive grey nostrils
quivered wide, drinking deep draughts of cool moist air. The grasses
were rested; the trees seemed enamoured of the deep shadows of night.
The river gurgled musically from the jagged rocks of her mid-current to
the overleaning vines and branches of her borders.

This was a side stream of the Nerbudda. Already Skag shared with the
natives the attitude of devotion to the great Nerbudda. She was sacred
to the people, and to every creature good, for her gift was like the
gift of mothers. When all the world was parched and full of deep
cracks, yawning beneath a heaven white and cloudless, and rain forsook
the land, and every leaf hung heavy and dust-laden; when heat and
thirst and famine all increased, till creatures crept forth from their
hot lairs at evening and moved in company--who had been enemies, but
for sore suffering--then would she yield up her pure tides to satisfy
their utmost craving. . . .

Skag lived deep through that morning. The rose and amber radiance of
dawn fell into all the hearts of all the birds; and wordless songs came
pulsing up from roots of growing things. The sambhur lifted high his
head again and spread the fan of one ear toward the wind, while one
breathed twice. Then there fell a sudden rustling on the branches; and
swift along the river's brim, the sharp, plaintive cry of monkeys,
beating down through all the startled stillness with their wailing
voices. These turned, hurrying away in one direction, with fearless
leaps and clinging hands and ceaseless chattering. Their cries at
intervals, bringing answers, until the air was a-din with monkeys,
leaping along the highways of the trees.

Women of the villages, children tending goats, labourers among the
driftings of the hills and on the open slopes, holy men and those who
toiled at any craft--heard the shrill calls along the margins of the
jungle and knew that some evil had fallen on a leader of his kind among
the monkey people.

Then Skag saw two priests of Hanuman rising up from the denser shadows
where the river was lost in the jungle. Quickly girding themselves,
they followed the multitudes. Skag did not miss their stern faces, nor
the instant pause as they dipped their brown feet with prayers into the
river. He dared to follow. The priests turned upon him, silent,
frowning; but he was not sent back.

Skag recalled Cadman's words, but also that he was known among the
natives as one white man not an animal-killer. His name Son of Power
had followed him to Hurda; word about him had travelled with mysterious
rapidity. To his amazement Skag found that the people of Hurda knew
something of the story of the tiger-pit and his part in delivering the
Grass Jungle people from the toils and tributes of the great
snake. . . . He was not sent back.

For a long time, until the forenoon was half spent, the three marched
silently. One halted at length to pick up from the leaves a white silk
kerchief, bearing in one corner two English letters wrought in
needle-work. This was lifted by the elder of the priests and folded in
the thick windings of his loin-cloth. Deeper and deeper into the
jungle they travelled, never far from the river.

Suddenly the branches parted, the path ceased; a smooth, perfect carpet
of tender, green grass spread out before them and reached and clung to
the lip of a deep, clear pool--beaten out through the ages, by the
weight of the stream falling on a lower ledge of rock from the brow of
a massive boulder. The mighty trees of the forest stretched their huge
arms over this spot, as if to keep it secret, so that even the fierce
sunshine was mellowed before it touched the earth.

In the midst of rich grasses, in the shadow of an overleaning rock, a
wounded monkey lay stretched upon fresh leaves. The two priests went
near him, softly, while the tree-branches filled in and swayed--under
weight of monkeys finding places. Here and there a local chattering
broke the stillness for a moment, where some dry branch snapped,
refusing to bear its burden.

For minutes the two hesitated, considering the wounded one; then the
elder priest drew out the kerchief. Skag did not understand all the
words spoken, but he made out that this kerchief was a token that
should find the hand that caused the wound "_and seal it unto
torment_." The second priest's lips moved, repeating the same
covenant. The elder then turned back toward the city, signifying that
Skag might follow.

After they had walked some time, the old priest halted and drew forth
the kerchief again. He examined the monogram woven with a fine needle
into the corner. To him the shape of the first English letter was like
a ploughshare, and the second was like the form in which certain large
birds fly in company over the heights of the hill country. The priest
looked long, then hid the kerchief once more, and they hurried on.

Near the unwalled city, the priest sat down before the pandit, Ratna
Ram, whose seat was under the kadamba tree by the temple of Maha Dev.
Ratna Ram was learned in the signs of different languages and could
write them with a reed, so that those who had knowledge could decipher
his writing, even after many days and at a great distance: Ratna Ram,
to whom the gods had given that greatest of all kinds of wisdom,
whereby he could hold secretly any knowledge and not speak of it till
the thing should be accomplished. (The pandit was well known to Skag
who studied Hindi before him for an hour or more, on certain days.)

Taking the reed from Ratna Ram, the old priest carefully reproduced the
letters he had memorised--A. V.--explained that he had found a
kerchief, doubtless fallen from some foreigner as he walked in the
jungle. . . . Did the pandit know the man whose name was written
so? . . . Now the priest spoke rapidly in his own tongue, repeating
the covenant Skag had heard him pronounce in the monkey glen.

For a while Ratna Ram sat silent. The priest waited patiently, knowing
that the pandit's wisdom was working in him and that he was considering
the matter.

Then Ratna Ram spoke to the priest:

"Oh, Covenanted, you are learned in many things and I am ignorant. But
knowledge of some things has pierced to my understanding like a sharp
sword. Consider, oh, Covenanted, Indian Government, who is lord over
all this land, over the Mussulman and over us also, over our lands and
over all our possessions, in whose hand is the protection of our lives
and the safety of our cattle. The foreigner has no honour to the life
of any creature of the jungle, neither in his heart, nor in his
understanding, nor in his laws. But know this and understand it; to
Government the life of one human is heavier to hold in the hand than
all the lives of all the tribes of the people of Hanuman. This is a
good and wise thing to remember at this time, for there is no safe
place to hide from Government in all this land; no, not even in the
rocks, if he be searching for those who have taken one of his lives;
and there is no force to bring before him to meet his force; and there
is no holding the life from him, that he will take in punishment; and
if many lives have taken his one life, he will have them all. Consider
these sayings."

When Ratna Ram had ceased speaking, the priest sat without answering
for a short space; then he inquired:

"Has Government force enough to put between, that we should not
accomplish to take the slayer alive?"

"No. His armies are not here; but it would not be many days before
they would reach this place."

"Not before our purpose could be fulfilled?"

"It may be, not _before_. But soon after."

"That is well. We fear not death. Shall we not surely die? What
matters it? Our covenant stands."

Ratna Ram begged the priest to rest a little under the kadamba tree.
Rising up, he gathered his utensils of writing and put them in a
cotton-bag; and with a glance at Skag to follow, left the place walking
toward the city. Skag knew by this time, that his teacher, the pandit,
considered the matter of serious import. They reached the verandah
steps of an English bungalow and Skag would have retired, but Ratna Ram
would not hear, wishing him to keep a record of this affair.

"The priest of Hanuman trusts _you_," he said, "and my righteousness to
him, as well as to Government, must have witness."

He knocked. A girl came to the door. All life was changed for
Skag. . . . The girl, seeing the shadowed face of the pandit, inquired
if he sorrowed with any sorrow.

"Only the sorrow that over-shadows thy house, Gul Moti-ji."

Ratna Ram explained that he had come in warning, but also in equal
service for the priests of Hanuman who wanted the life of her
cousin--A. V.--the young stranger from England. The fact that the
young man was away from Hurda this day was well for him, because he had
shot and wounded a great monkey, the king of his people.

In the next few minutes Skag missed nothing, though his surface
faculties were merely winding spools, compared to the activity of a
great machine within. He grasped that A. V. stood for Alfred Vernon,
the girl's cousin, a young man recently from England. . . . Yes, A. V.
had occasionally gone into the jungle with a light rifle. Sometimes he
had brought in a wild duck, or a grey _marhatta_ hare; once a
black-horned gazelle, but usually a parrot, a peacock or a jay. . . .
Yes, sometimes he had been gone for hours. . . . Yes, she had told him
about the evil and also the danger of shooting monkeys.

Skag now recalled the young man with the rifle--a well-fed,
well-groomed, well-educated young Englishman, thoroughly qualified
sometime, to make a successful civil engineer and a career and fortune
for himself in India.

The girl apparently had not seen Skag so far. The pandit had called
her Gul Moti-ji. So this was the Rose Pearl--the unattainable! . . .
And now the pandit informed her that though the cousin might be
scornful, it would only be because he was foolish with the foolishness
of the ignorant.

"But I am not scornful. I understand--" the girl said. "I am only
considering swiftly what can be done."

"They are waiting the death of the great monkey--"

The girl's eyes were filled with shadows and great energies also.

"If his life could be saved?"

"Then his life could be saved, Gul Moti-ji," the pandit replied
briefly, but Skag knew he meant the life of the cousin.

"Is it far?"

"Yes, two hours' walk."

Someone within the door of the bungalow now spoke, saying: "Carlin,
dear, I may be a bit late--you must not be troubled about me."

The girl answered the voice within. . . . So her name was also Carlin.
She had many names surely, but Skag liked this last one best. She
turned to the pandit now, speaking slowly:

"Did one of the priests of Hanuman come to you with this story--just
now?"

"Yes, Gul Moti-ji."

"Is he waiting?"

"Yes."

"Will he take me--to the place of the wounded one?"

The pandit considered. Skag felt very sure that the priest would do
this.

"I will ask him. I can do no more. If the monkey still lives--your
cousin's only hope will be in your healing power, Hakima."

"Wait--I will go with you, now."

Skag released his breath deeply when she had re-entered. Apparently
she had not seen him so far.


The old priest arose as the three approached the kadamba tree.

"Peace, Brother," the girl said to him.

"Unto thee also, peace," he replied.

Skag marvelled at the inflections of her voice--low trailing words that
awoke at intervals into short staccato utterances. It was all awake
and alive with feeling. She did not ignore a fact the English often
miss, that there are certain unwritten laws of these elder people which
are as potent and unswerving as any mind-polished tablets that have
come down to England from Greece and Rome.

It was an hour of marvelling to Skag. He saw something that he had not
seen so far in India. To her face the darker Indian blood was but a
redolence. Doubtless it was because of this--some ancient wonder and
depth of lineage--that Skag had looked twice. He had never looked upon
a woman this way before. No array of terms can convey the innocence of
his concept. . . . She was tall for a girl--almost eye to eye with him.

He didn't quite follow her words of Hindi, but his mind was running
deep and true to hers, in meanings. She told the priest that she had
come to save her cousin, who never could be made to understand what he
had done, even though he lost his life in forfeit. She said the monkey
people would be devastated, if he paid his life; that the priests of
Hanuman would be driven deeper and deeper into the jungles; that her
heart was with them in soundness of understanding, for she was of India
who hears and understands. She held up a little basket saying she had
brought bandages, stimulants, nourishments, and had come asking
permission to go with the priests now, to the wounded one, to care for
him with her own strength. . . .

Skag saw that her scorn for the ignorance that had caused the wound was
a true thing; that she felt something of the mystery of pity for the
monkey people; that she could be very terrible in her rage if she let
it loose, but that she loved this stupid cousin also. All Skag's
faculties were playing at once, for he perceived at the same time this
girl would see many things of life in terms of humour and it would be
good to travel the roads with her because of this. . . . Apparently
she had not seen him, Sanford Hantee, to this moment.

The priest weighed her words and spoke coldly, saying that his order
did not consider consequences to men, when they took life. A monkey
king had been shot. The wound was eating him to death. It was
unwritten law which may never be broken, for the life of one who kills
a monkey to be taken by the priests of Hanuman. Up through the ages
this law had not served to destroy the monkey people, but to protect
them.

The girl said gently: "Let me go to him. Do you not see that I am
indeed of this land, with its blood in my veins?"


Ratna Ram had taken his seat once more under the kadamba tree. It was
early afternoon and the three were travelling through the jungle. The
girl Carlin was always looking ahead--one thing only upon her
mind--time and distance and words, as clearly obstructions to her, as
the occasional branches across the path. Once when Skag fixed a big
stone for her to pass dry across a shallow ford, she turned to thank
him, but her eyes did not actually fill with any image of himself. He
missed nothing--neither the standpoint of the priest, nor of the
English, nor the vantage of this girl who stood between.

It was a queer breathless day for him, altogether to his liking, but
more intense than he understood. The girl's lithe power, the
tirelessness of her stride, the quick grace, low voice and
steady-shaded eyes full of, full of--

Skag hadn't the word at hand. Cadman Sahib would know. . . . That
look of the eyes seldom went with young faces, Skag reflected; in fact,
he had only found it before in old mothers and old nurses and old
physicians. Certainly it had to do with forgetting oneself in
service. . . .

The priest began to talk or chant as he strode along. It was neither
speech nor song. It did not bring the younger two closer together,
though they saw that monkeys were following, up in their tree-lanes.
At times when Skag dropped behind, he wondered why the girl did not see
the things that delighted him--a sparkling pool, the gleam of damp
rocks, the velvet moss with restless etchings of sunbeam. Yet he knew
that it was only to-day she looked past these things; that these really
were her things; that she belonged to the jungle, not to the
house. . . . She must greatly love this stupid cousin. . . . Skag
never tired watching the firm light tread of her--like the step of one
who starts out to win a race. . . . There was jubilant music of a
waterfall--the priest reverently stopped his chanting.

Then they came to the great rock and the second priest arose, his eye
glancing past Skag and Carlin to the eye of his fellow of the order of
Hanuman.

For an instant the silence was of an intensity that hurt.

"Is he--?" Carlin began.

The priest who had brought them answered, though there had been no
words:

"No, the king yet lives."

Under the shadow of the overleaning rock, stretched on fresh wet
leaves, the monkey king was lying. His eyes were bright, but the haze
of fever was over them; thin grey lips parted and parched; a strained
look about the mouth. He breathed in quick, panting breaths--too far
gone to be afraid, as Carlin leaned over; but there was a forward
movement in the over-hanging branches, a swift breathless shifting of
the monkeys.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.