At all events they treated me
with the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad.
with the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad.
Kipling - Poems
I only
know that that was my terror; and it was real.
After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept
because I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept
awake. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and
peered into the dark of the next room.
When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and
inquired for the means of departure.
"By the way, khansamah," I said, "what were those three doolies doing in
my compound in the night? "
"There were no doolies," said the khansamah.
I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open
door. I was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black
Pool with the owner of the big Black Pool down below.
"Has this place always been a dak-bungalow? " I asked.
"No," said the khansamah. "Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgotten how
long, it was a billiard room. "
"A how much? "
"A billiard room for the Sahibs who built the Railway. I was khansamah
then in the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to
come across with brandy-shrab. These three rooms were all one, and
they held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. But
the Sahibs are all dead now, and the Railway runs, you say, nearly to
Kabul. "
"Do you remember anything about the Sahibs? "
"It is long ago, but I remember that one Sahib, a fat man and always
angry, was playing here one night, and he said to me:--'Mangal Khan,
brandy-pani do,' and I filled the glass, and he bent over the table to
strike, and his head fell lower and lower till it hit the table, and his
spectacles came off, and when we--the Sahibs and I myself--ran to lift
him he was dead. I helped to carry him out. Aha, he was a strong Sahib!
But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still living, by your favor. "
That was more than enough! I had my ghost--a firsthand, authenticated
article. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research--I would
paralyze the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eighty
miles of assessed crop land between myself and that dak-bungalow before
nightfall. The Society might send their regular agent to investigate
later on.
I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts
of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,--with a miss in
balk this time, for the whir was a short one.
The door was open and I could see into the room. Click--click! That was
a cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight within
and a fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on at a tremendous
rate. And well it might, when a restless little rat was running to and
fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loose window-sash was
making fifty breaks off the window-bolt as it shook in the breeze!
Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistake
the whir of a ball over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even when I
shut my enlightened eyes the sound was marvelously like that of a fast
game.
Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows, Kadir Baksh.
"This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence was
disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the
bungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that it
was their custom to rest in the rooms set apart for the English people!
What honor has the khansamah? They tried to enter, but I told them to
go. No wonder, if these Oorias have been here, that the Presence is
sorely spotted. It is shame, and the work of a dirty man! "
Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken from each gang two annas for
rent in advance, and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them with the
big green umbrella whose use I could never before divine. But Kadir
Baksh has no notions of morality.
There was an interview with the khansamah, but as he promptly lost his
head, wrath gave place to pity, and pity led to a long conversation,
in the course of which he put the fat Engineer-Sahib's tragic death in
three separate stations--two of them fifty miles away. The third shift
was to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while driving a dogcart.
If I had encouraged him the khansamah would have wandered all through
Bengal with his corpse.
I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, while
the wind and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong
"hundred and fifty up. " Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped,
and I felt that I had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story.
Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made anything out of
it.
That was the bitterest thought of all!
THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES
Alive or dead-there is no other way.
--Native Proverb.
THERE is, as the conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by
accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though
he is the only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similar
institution used to flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is
a story that if you go into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the heart
of the Great Indian Desert, you shall come across not a village but a
town where the Dead who did not die but may not live have established
their headquarters. And, since it is perfectly true that in the same
Desert is a wonderful city where all the rich money lenders retreat
after they have made their fortunes (fortunes so vast that the owners
cannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect them,
but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring
barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold
and ivory and Minton tiles and mother-of-pearl, I do not see why Jukes's
tale should not be true. He is a Civil Engineer, with a head for plans
and distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not take
the trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could earn more by doing his
legitimate work. He never varies the tale in the telling, and grows
very hot and indignant when he thinks of the disrespectful treatment
he received. He wrote this quite straightforwardly at first, but he has
since touched it up in places and introduced Moral Reflections, thus:
In the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever. My work
necessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpattan and
Muharakpur--a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has had
the misfortune to go there may know. My coolies were neither more nor
less exasperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficient
attention to keep me from moping, had I been inclined to so unmanly a
weakness.
On the 23d December, 1884, I felt a little feverish. There was a full
moon at the time, and, in consequence, every dog near my tent was baying
it. The brutes assembled in twos and threes and drove me frantic. A few
days previously I had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended his
carcass in terrorem about fifty yards from my tent-door. But his friends
fell upon, fought for, and ultimately devoured the body; and, as it
seemed to me, sang their hymns of thanksgiving afterward with renewed
energy.
The light-heartedness which accompanies fever acts differently on
different men. My irritation gave way, after a short time, to a fixed
determination to slaughter one huge black and white beast who had been
foremost in song and first in flight throughout the evening. Thanks to
a shaking hand and a giddy head I had already missed him twice with both
barrels of my shot-gun, when it struck me that my best plan would be to
ride him down in the open and finish him off with a hog-spear. This, of
course, was merely the semi-delirious notion of a fever patient; but I
remember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical and
feasible.
I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornic and bring him round
quietly to the rear of my tent. When the pony was ready, I stood at his
head prepared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again lift
up his voice. Pornic, by the way, had not been out of his pickets for a
couple of days; the night air was crisp and chilly; and I was armed
with a specially long and sharp pair of persuaders with which I had been
rousing a sluggish cob that afternoon. You will easily believe, then,
that when he was let go he went quickly. In one moment, for the brute
bolted as straight as a die, the tent was left far behind, and we were
flying over the smooth sandy soil at racing speed.
In another we had passed the wretched dog, and I had almost forgotten
why it was that I had taken the horse and hogspear.
The delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through the
air must have taken away the remnant of my senses. I have a faint
recollection of standing upright in my stirrups, and of brandishing my
hog-spear at the great white Moon that looked down so calmly on my mad
gallop; and of shouting challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as they
whizzed past. Once or twice I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic's
neck, and literally hung on by my spurs--as the marks next morning
showed.
The wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed, over what seemed
to be a limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the ground
rose suddenly in front of us, and as we topped the ascent I saw the
waters of the Sutlej shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornic
blundered heavily on his nose, and we rolled together down some unseen
slope.
I must have lost consciousness, for when I recovered I was lying on
my stomach in a heap of soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning to
break dimly over the edge of the slope down which I had fallen. As
the light grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horse-shoe
shaped crater of sand, opening on one side directly on to the shoals of
the Sutlej. My fever had altogether left me, and, with the exception of
a slight dizziness in the head, I felt no had effects from the fall over
night.
Pornic, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good deal
exhausted, but had not hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a favorite
polo one, was much knocked about, and had been twisted under his belly.
It took me some time to put him to rights, and in the meantime I had
ample opportunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishly
dropped.
At the risk of being considered tedious, I must describe it at length:
inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its peculiarities will be of
material assistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows.
Imagine then, as I have said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand
with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope,
I fancy, must have been about 65 degrees. ) This crater enclosed a level
piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part,
with a crude well in the centre. Round the bottom of the crater,
about three feet from the level of the ground proper, ran a series of
eighty-three semi-circular ovoid, square, and multilateral holes, all
about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that it
was carefully shored internally with drift-wood and bamboos, and over
the mouth a wooden drip-board projected, like the peak of a jockey's
cap, for two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but a
most sickening stench pervaded the entire amphitheatre--a stench fouler
than any which my wanderings in Indian villages have introduced me to.
Having remounted Pornic, who was as anxious as I to get back to camp, I
rode round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exit
would be practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not
thought fit to put in an appearance, so I was left to my own devices. My
first attempt to "rush" Pornic up the steep sand-banks showed me that
I had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which the
ant-lion sets for its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured down
from above in tons, and rattled on the drip-boards of the holes like
small shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down to
the bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand; and I was constrained
to turn my attention to the river-bank.
Here everything seemed easy enough. The sand hills ran down to the river
edge, it is true, but there were plenty of shoals and shallows across
which I could gallop Pornic, and find my way back to terra firma by
turning sharply to the right or left. As I led Pornic over the sands I
was startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the river; and at the
same moment a bullet dropped with a sharp "whit" close to Pornic's head.
There was no mistaking the nature of the missile-a regulation
Martini-Henry "picket. " About five hundred yards away a country-boat was
anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows in
the still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come.
Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse? The treacherous
sand slope allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited most
involuntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal for
a bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I'm afraid that I lost
my temper very much indeed.
Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to cool
my porridge; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to the
horseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-five
human beings from the badger-holes which I had up till that point
supposed to be untenanted. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of
spectators--about forty men, twenty women, and one child who could not
have been more than five years old. They were all scantily clothed in
that salmon-colored cloth which one associates with Hindu mendicants,
and, at first sight, gave me the impression of a band of loathsome
fakirs. The filth and repulsiveness of the assembly were beyond
all description, and I shuddered to think what their life in the
badger-holes must be.
Even in these days, when local self government has destroyed the greater
part of a native's respect for a Sahib, I have been accustomed to a
certain amount of civility from my inferiors, and on approaching the
crowd naturally expected that there would be some recognition of my
presence. As a matter of fact there was; but it was by no means what I
had looked for.
The ragged crew actually laughed at me--such laughter I hope I may never
hear again. They cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked into
their midst; some of them literally throwing themselves down on the
ground in convulsions of unholy mirth. In a moment I had let go Pornic's
head, and irritated beyond expression at the morning's adventure,
commenced cuffing those nearest to me with all the force I could. The
wretches dropped under my blows like nine-pins, and the laughter gave
place to wails for mercy; while those yet untouched clasped me round the
knees, imploring me in all sorts of uncouth tongues to spare them.
In the tumult, and just when I was feeling very much ashamed of myself
for having thus easily given way to my temper, a thin, high voice
murmured in English from behind my shoulder: "--Sahib! Sahib! Do you not
know me? Sahib, it is Gunga Dass, the telegraph-master. "
I spun round quickly and faced the speaker.
Gunga Dass, (I have, of course, no hesitation in mentioning the man's
real name) I had known four years before as a Deccanee Brahmin loaned by
the Punjab Government to one of the Khalsia States. He was in charge
of a branch telegraph-office there, and when I had last met him was
a jovial, full-stomached, portly Government servant with a marvelous
capacity for making had puns in English--a peculiarity which made
me remember him long after I had forgotten his services to me in his
official capacity. It is seldom that a Hindu makes English puns.
Now, however, the man was changed beyond all recognition. Caste-mark,
stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone.
I looked at a withered skeleton, turban-less and almost naked, with long
matted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes.
But for a crescent-shaped scar on the left cheek--the result of an
accident for which I was responsible I should never have known him.
But it was indubitably Gunga Dass, and--for this I was thankful--an
English-speaking native who might at least tell me the meaning of all
that I had gone through that day.
The crowd retreated to some distance as I turned toward the miserable
figure, and ordered him to show me some method of escaping from the
crate. He held a freshly plucked crow in his hand, and in reply to my
question climbed slowly on a platform of sand which ran in front of
the holes, and commenced lighting a fire there in silence. Dried bents,
sand-poppies, and driftwood burn quickly; and I derived much consolation
from the fact that he lit them with an ordinary sulphur-match. When they
were in a bright glow, and the crow was neatly spitted in front thereof,
Gunga Dass began without a word of preamble:
"There are only two kinds of men, Sar. The alive and the dead. When you
are dead you are dead, but when you are alive you live. " (Here the crow
demanded his attention for an instant as it twirled before the fire in
danger of being burned to a cinder. ) "If you die at home and do not die
when you come to the ghat to be burned you come here. "
The nature of the reeking village was made plain now, and all that I had
known or read of the grotesque and the horrible paled before the fact
just communicated by the ex-Brahmin. Sixteen years ago, when I first
landed in Bombay, I had been told by a wandering Armenian of the
existence, somewhere in India, of a place to which such Hindus as had
the misfortune to recover from trance or catalepsy were conveyed and
kept, and I recollect laughing heartily at what I was then pleased to
consider a traveler's tale.
Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson's Hotel,
with its swinging punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced
Armenian, rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burst
into a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd!
Gunga Dass, as he bent over the unclean bird, watched me curiously.
Hindus seldom laugh, and his surroundings were not such as to move Gunga
Dass to any undue excess of hilarity. He removed the crow solemnly
from the wooden spit and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued his
story, which I give in his own words:
"In epidemics of the cholera you are carried to be burned almost before
you are dead. When you come to the riverside the cold air, perhaps,
makes you alive, and then, if you are only little alive, mud is put on
your nose and mouth and you die conclusively. If you are rather more
alive, more mud is put; but if you are too lively they let you go
and take you away. I was too lively, and made protestation with anger
against the indignities that they endeavored to press upon me. In those
days I was Brahmin and proud man.
"Now I am dead man and eat"--here he eyed the well-gnawed breast
bone with the first sign of emotion that I had seen in him since we
met--"crows, and other things. They took me from my sheets when they saw
that I was too lively and gave me medicines for one week, and I survived
successfully. Then they sent me by rail from my place to Okara Station,
with a man to take care of me; and at Okara Station we met two other
men, and they conducted we three on camels, in the night, from Okara
Station to this place, and they propelled me from the top to the bottom,
and the other two succeeded, and I have been here ever since two and a
half years. Once I was Brahmin and proud man, and now I eat crows. "
"There is no way of getting out? "
"None of what kind at all. When I first came I made experiments
frequently and all the others also, but we have always succumbed to the
sand which is precipitated upon our heads. "
"But surely," I broke in at this point, "the river-front is open, and
it is worth while dodging the bullets; while at night"--I had already
matured a rough plan of escape which a natural instinct of selfishness
forbade me sharing with Gunga Dass. He, however, divined my
unspoken thought almost as soon as it was formed; and, to my intense
astonishment, gave vent to a long low chuckle of derision--the laughter,
be it understood, of a superior or at least of an equal.
"You will not"--he had dropped the Sir completely after his opening
sentence--"make any escape that way. But you can try. I have tried. Once
only. "
The sensation of nameless terror and abject fear which I had in vain
attempted to strive against overmastered me completely. My long fast--it
was now close upon ten o'clock, and I had eaten nothing since tiffin on
the previous day--combined with the violent and unnatural agitation of
the ride had exhausted me, and I verily believe that, for a few minutes,
I acted as one mad. I hurled myself against the pitiless sand-slope. I
ran round the base of the crater, blaspheming and praying by turns. I
crawled out among the sedges of the river-front, only to be driven back
each time in an agony of nervous dread by the rifle-bullets which cut
up the sand round me--for I dared not face the death of a mad dog among
that hideous crowd--and finally fell, spent and raving, at the curb of
the well. No one had taken the slightest notion of an exhibition which
makes me blush hotly even when I think of it now.
Two or three men trod on my panting body as they drew water, but they
were evidently used to this sort of thing, and had no time to waste
upon me. The situation was humiliating. Gunga Dass, indeed, when he had
banked the embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half
a cupful of fetid water over my head, an attention for which I could
have fallen on my knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all the
while in the same mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my first
attempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, I lay
till noon.
Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, and intimated as much
to Gunga Dass, whom I had begun to regard as my natural protector.
Following the impulse of the outer world when dealing with natives, I
put my hand into my pocket and drew out four annas. The absurdity of the
gift struck me at once, and I was about to replace the money.
Gunga Dass, however, was of a different opinion. "Give me the money,"
said he; "all you have, or I will get help, and we will kill you! " All
this as if it were the most natural thing in the world!
A Briton's first impulse, I believe, is to guard the contents of his
pockets; but a moment's reflection convinced me of the futility
of differing with the one man who had it in his power to make me
comfortable; and with whose help it was possible that I might eventually
escape from the crater. I gave him all the money in my possession, Rs.
9-8-5--nine rupees eight annas and five pie--for I always keep small
change as bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass clutched the coins, and
hid them at once in his ragged loin cloth, his expression changing to
something diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no one
had observed us.
"Now I will give you something to eat," said he.
What pleasure the possession of my money could have afforded him I am
unable to say; but inasmuch as it did give him evident delight I was not
sorry that I had parted with it so readily, for I had no doubt that he
would have had me killed if I had refused. One does not protest against
the vagaries of a den of wild beasts; and my companions were lower than
any beasts. While I devoured what Gunga Dass had provided, a coarse
chapatti and a cupful of the foul well-water, the people showed not the
faintest sign of curiosity--that curiosity which is so rampant, as a
rule, in an Indian village.
I could even fancy that they despised me.
At all events they treated me
with the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad.
I plied him with questions about the terrible village, and received
extremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather, it had been
in existence from time immemorial--whence I concluded that it was at
least a century old--and during that time no one had ever been known to
escape from it. [I had to control myself here with both hands, lest the
blind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me raving
round the crater. ] Gunga Dass took a malicious pleasure in emphasizing
this point and in watching me wince. Nothing that I could do would
induce him to tell me who the mysterious "They" were.
"It is so ordered," he would reply, "and I do not yet know any one who
has disobeyed the orders. "
"Only wait till my servants find that I am missing," I retorted, "and I
promise you that this place shall be cleared off the face of the earth,
and I'll give you a lesson in civility, too, my friend. "
"Your servants would be torn in pieces before they came near this place;
and, besides, you are dead, my dear friend. It is not your fault, of
course, but none the less you are dead and buried. "
At irregular intervals supplies of food, I was told, were dropped down
from the land side into the amphitheatre, and the inhabitants fought for
them like wild beasts. When a man felt his death coming on he retreated
to his lair and died there. The body was sometimes dragged out of the
hole and thrown on to the sand, or allowed to rot where it lay.
The phrase "thrown on to the sand" caught my attention, and I asked
Gunga Dass whether this sort of thing was not likely to breed a
pestilence.
"That," said he, with another of his wheezy chuckles, "you may see for
yourself subsequently. You will have much time to make observations. "
Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once more and hastily continued
the conversation:--"And how do you live here from day to day? What do
you do? " The question elicited exactly the same answer as before coupled
with the information that "this place is like your European heaven;
there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. "
Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission School, and, as he himself
admitted, had he only changed his religion "like a wise man," might have
avoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long as I was
with him I fancy he was happy.
Here was a Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless as
a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a
deliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy would
devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled
beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably
to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there
was no escape "of no kind whatever," and that I should stay here till I
died and was "thrown on to the sand. " If it were possible to forejudge
the conversation of the Damned on the advent of a new soul in their
abode, I should say that they would speak as Gunga Dass did to me
throughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer;
all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicable
terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can compare
the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against the
overpowering nausea of the Channel passage--only my agony was of the
spirit and infinitely more terrible.
As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to appear in full strength to
catch the rays of the afternoon sun, which were now sloping in at the
mouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots, and talked among
themselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About four
o'clock, as far as I could judge Gunga Dass rose and dived into his lair
for a moment, emerging with a live crow in his hands. The wretched bird
was in a most draggled and deplorable condition, but seemed to be in no
way afraid of its master, Advancing cautiously to the river front, Gunga
Dass stepped from tussock to tussock until he had reached a smooth patch
of sand directly in the line of the boat's fire. The occupants of the
boat took no notice. Here he stopped, and, with a couple of dexterous
turns of the wrist, pegged the bird on its back with outstretched wings.
As was only natural, the crow began to shriek at once and beat the air
with its claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted the attention
of a bevy of wild crows on a shoal a few hundred yards away, where they
were discussing something that looked like a corpse. Half a dozen crows
flew over at once to see what was going on, and also, as it proved, to
attack the pinioned bird. Gunga Dass, who had lain down on a tussock,
motioned to me to be quiet, though I fancy this was a needless
precaution. In a moment, and before I could see how it happened, a
wild crow, who had grappled with the shrieking and helpless bird, was
entangled in the latter's claws, swiftly disengaged by Gunga Dass, and
pegged down beside its companion in adversity. Curiosity, it seemed,
overpowered the rest of the flock, and almost before Gunga Dass and I
had time to withdraw to the tussock, two more captives were struggling
in the upturned claws of the decoys. So the chase--if I can give it so
dignified a name--continued until Gunga Dass had captured seven crows.
Five of them he throttled at once, reserving two for further operations
another day. I was a good deal impressed by this, to me, novel method of
securing food, and complimented Gunga Dass on his skill.
"It is nothing to do," said he. "Tomorrow you must do it for me. You are
stronger than I am. "
This calm assumption of superiority Upset me not a little, and I
answered peremptorily;--"Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I
have given you money for? "
"Very well," was the unmoved reply. "Perhaps not tomorrow, nor the day
after, nor subsequently; but in the end, and for many years, you will
catch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that you
have crows to catch and eat. "
I could have cheerfully strangled him for this; but judged it best under
the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating
one of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking my God that I
had a crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening
meal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform
opposite their dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes.
Death, having once laid his hand upon these men and forborne to strike,
seemed to stand aloof from them now; for most of our company were
old men, bent and worn and twisted with years, and women aged to all
appearance as the Fates themselves. They sat together in knots and
talked--God only knows what they found to discuss--in low equable tones,
curiously in contrast to the strident babble with which natives are
accustomed to make day hideous. Now and then an access of that sudden
fury which had possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man or
woman; and with yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack the
steep slope until, baffled and bleeding, he fell back on the platform
incapable of moving a limb. The others would never even raise their
eyes when this happened, as men too well aware of the futility of their
fellows' attempts and wearied with their useless repetition. I saw four
such outbursts in the course of the evening.
Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like view of my situation, and
while we were dining--I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, but
it was painful enough at the time-propounded the terms on which he would
consent to "do" for me. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, at the
rate of three annas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-one
days, or about seven weeks; that is to say, he would be willing to cater
for me for that length of time. At the end of it I was to look after
myself. For a further consideration--videlicet my boots--he would be
willing to allow me to occupy the den next to his own, and would supply
me with as much dried grass for bedding as he could spare.
"Very well, Gunga Dass," I replied; "to the first terms I cheerfully
agree, but, as there is nothing on earth to prevent my killing you as
you sit here and taking everything that you have" (I thought of the two
invaluable crows at the time), "I flatly refuse to give you my boots and
shall take whichever den I please. "
The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it had
succeeded. Gunga Dass changed his tone immediately, and disavowed all
intention of asking for my boots. At the time it did not strike me as at
all strange that I, a Civil Engineer, a man of thirteen years' standing
in the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, should thus
calmly threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for a
consideration it is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the world,
it seemed, for centuries. I was as certain then as I am now of my own
existence, that in the accursed settlement there was no law save that
of the strongest; that the living dead men had thrown behind them every
canon of the world which had cast them out; and that I had to depend
for my own life on my strength and vigilance alone. The crew of the
ill-fated Mignonette are the only men who would understand my frame of
mind. "At present," I argued to myself, "I am strong and a match for six
of these wretches. It is imperatively necessary that I should, for my
own sake, keep both health and strength until the hour of my release
comes--if it ever does. "
Fortified with these resolutions, I ate and drank as much as I could,
and made Gunga Dass understand that I intended to be his master, and
that the least sign of insubordination on his part would be visited with
the only punishment I had it in my power to inflict--sudden and violent
death. Shortly after this I went to bed.
That is to say, Gunga Dass gave me a double armful of dried bents which
I thrust down the mouth of the lair to the right of his, and followed
myself, feet foremost; the hole running about nine feet into the
sand with a slight downward inclination, and being neatly shored with
timbers. From my den, which faced the river-front, I was able to watch
the waters of the Sutlej flowing past under the light of a young moon
and compose myself to sleep as best I might.
The horrors of that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly as
narrow as a coffin, and the sides had been worn smooth and greasy by
the contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelled
abominably. Sleep was altogether out of question to one in my excited
frame of mind. As the night wore on, it seemed that the entire
amphitheatre was filled with legions of unclean devils that, trooping up
from the shoals below, mocked the unfortunates in their lairs.
Personally I am not of an imaginative temperament,--very few Engineers
are,--but on that occasion I was as completely prostrated with nervous
terror as any woman. After half an hour or so, however, I was able once
more to calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit by the steep sand
walls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly convinced of
this some time before. It was possible, just possible, that I might, in
the uncertain moonlight, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle shots. The
place was so full of terror for me that I was prepared to undergo
any risk in leaving it. Imagine my delight, then, when after creeping
stealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was not
there. My freedom lay before me in the next few steps!
By walking out to the first shallow pool that lay at the foot of the
projecting left horn of the horseshoe, I could wade across, turn
the flank of the crater, and make my way inland. Without a moment's
hesitation I marched briskly past the tussocks where Gunga Dass had
snared the crows, and out in the direction of the smooth white sand
beyond. My first step from the tufts of dried grass showed me how
utterly futile was any hope of escape; for, as I put my foot down, I
felt an indescribable drawing, sucking motion of the sand below. Another
moment and my leg was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the moonlight
the whole surface of the sand seemed to be shaken with devilish delight
at my disappointment. I struggled clear, sweating with terror and
exertion, back to the tussocks behind me and fell on my face.
My only means of escape from the semicircle was protected with a
quicksand!
How long I lay I have not the faintest idea; but I was roused at last
by the malevolent chuckle of Gunga Dass at my ear. "I would advise you,
Protector of the Poor" (the ruffian was speaking English) "to return to
your house. It is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when the boat
returns, you will most certainly be rifled at. " He stood over me in the
dim light of the dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself. Suppressing
my first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him on to the
quicksand, I rose sullenly and followed him to the platform below the
burrows.
Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I spoke, I asked--"Gunga Dass,
what is the good of the boat if I can't get out anyhow? " I recollect
that even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the
waste of ammunition in guarding an already well protected foreshore.
Gunga Dass laughed again and made answer:--"They have the boat only in
daytime. It is for the reason that there is a way. I hope we shall have
the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasant spot
when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow long enough. "
I staggered, numbed and helpless, toward the fetid burrow allotted to
me, and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing
scream--the shrill, high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those who
have once heard that will never forget the sound. I found some little
difficulty in scrambling out of the burrow. When I was in the open, I
saw Pornic, my poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they
had killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse was
better than crow, and "greatest good of greatest number is political
maxim. We are now Republic, Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a fair
share of the beast. If you like, we will pass a vote of thanks. Shall I
propose? "
Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic of wild beasts penned at the
bottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted
no protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sight
in front of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this,
Pornic's body was divided, in some unclear way or other; the men and
women had dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing
their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible
impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me
afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass
was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another
remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat.
This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him say
something.
"You will live here till you die like the other Feringhi," he said,
coolly, watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing.
"What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at once, and don't stop to tell me a
lie. "
"He is over there," answered Gunga Dass, pointing to a burrow-mouth
about four doors ta the left of my own. "You can see for yourself. He
died in the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and as all these men
and women and the one child will also die. "
"For pity's sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he
come, and when did he die? "
This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered and
replied:--"I will not--unless you give me something first. "
Then I recollected where I was, and struck the man between the eyes,
partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and,
cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led
me round to the burrow which he had indicated.
"I know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witness
that I do not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was
shot from the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from
attempting. He was shot here. " Gunga Dass laid his hand on his lean
stomach and bowed to the earth.
"Well, and what then? Go on! "
"And then--and then, Your Honor, we carried him in to his house and
gave him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his
house and gave up the ghost. "
"In how long? In how long? "
"About half an hour, after he received his wound. I call Vishnu to
witness," yelled the wretched man, "that I did everything for him.
Everything which was possible, that I did! "
He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles. But I had
my doubts about Gunga Dass's benevolence, and kicked him off as he lay
protesting.
"I believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in a
minute or two. How long was the Sahib here? "
"Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad. But hear me
swear, Protector of the Poor! Won't Your Honor hear me swear that I
never touched an article that belonged to him? What is Your Worship
going to do? "
I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had hauled him on to the
platform opposite the deserted burrow. As I did so I thought of my
wretched fellow-prisoner's unspeakable misery among all these horrors
for eighteen months, and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole,
with a bullet-wound in the stomach. Gunga Dass fancied I was going
to kill him and howled pitifully. The rest of the population, in the
plethora that follows a full flesh meal, watched us without stirring.
"Go inside, Gunga Dass," said I, "and fetch it out. "
I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gunga Dass nearly rolled
off the platform and howled aloud.
"But I am Brahmin, Sahib--a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by your
father's soul, do not make me do this thing! "
"Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father's soul, in you go! "
I said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head into
the mouth of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down,
covered my face with my hands.
At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga
Dass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft
thud--and I uncovered my eyes.
The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a
yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it.
The body--clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn,
with leather pads on the shoulders--was that of a man between thirty and
forty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and a
rough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and
a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of
the left hand was a ring--a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with
a monogram that might have been either "B. K. " or "B. L. " On the third
finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled
cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of
trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the
face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give
the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of the
unfortunate man:
1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn and
blackened; bound with string at the crew.
2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken.
3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel name-plate, marked
with monogram "B. K. "
4. Envelope, postmark Undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp,
addressed to "Miss Mon-" (rest illegible) -"ham-'nt. "
5. Imitation crocodile-skin notebook with pencil. First forty-five pages
blank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with private
memoranda relating chiefly to three persons--a Mrs. L. Singleton,
abbreviated several times to "Lot Single," "Mrs. S. May," and
"Garmison," referred to in places as "Jerry" or "Jack. "
6. Handle of small-sized hunting-knife. Blade snapped short.
know that that was my terror; and it was real.
After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept
because I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept
awake. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and
peered into the dark of the next room.
When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and
inquired for the means of departure.
"By the way, khansamah," I said, "what were those three doolies doing in
my compound in the night? "
"There were no doolies," said the khansamah.
I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open
door. I was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black
Pool with the owner of the big Black Pool down below.
"Has this place always been a dak-bungalow? " I asked.
"No," said the khansamah. "Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgotten how
long, it was a billiard room. "
"A how much? "
"A billiard room for the Sahibs who built the Railway. I was khansamah
then in the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to
come across with brandy-shrab. These three rooms were all one, and
they held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. But
the Sahibs are all dead now, and the Railway runs, you say, nearly to
Kabul. "
"Do you remember anything about the Sahibs? "
"It is long ago, but I remember that one Sahib, a fat man and always
angry, was playing here one night, and he said to me:--'Mangal Khan,
brandy-pani do,' and I filled the glass, and he bent over the table to
strike, and his head fell lower and lower till it hit the table, and his
spectacles came off, and when we--the Sahibs and I myself--ran to lift
him he was dead. I helped to carry him out. Aha, he was a strong Sahib!
But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still living, by your favor. "
That was more than enough! I had my ghost--a firsthand, authenticated
article. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research--I would
paralyze the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eighty
miles of assessed crop land between myself and that dak-bungalow before
nightfall. The Society might send their regular agent to investigate
later on.
I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts
of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,--with a miss in
balk this time, for the whir was a short one.
The door was open and I could see into the room. Click--click! That was
a cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight within
and a fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on at a tremendous
rate. And well it might, when a restless little rat was running to and
fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loose window-sash was
making fifty breaks off the window-bolt as it shook in the breeze!
Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistake
the whir of a ball over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even when I
shut my enlightened eyes the sound was marvelously like that of a fast
game.
Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows, Kadir Baksh.
"This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence was
disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the
bungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that it
was their custom to rest in the rooms set apart for the English people!
What honor has the khansamah? They tried to enter, but I told them to
go. No wonder, if these Oorias have been here, that the Presence is
sorely spotted. It is shame, and the work of a dirty man! "
Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken from each gang two annas for
rent in advance, and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them with the
big green umbrella whose use I could never before divine. But Kadir
Baksh has no notions of morality.
There was an interview with the khansamah, but as he promptly lost his
head, wrath gave place to pity, and pity led to a long conversation,
in the course of which he put the fat Engineer-Sahib's tragic death in
three separate stations--two of them fifty miles away. The third shift
was to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while driving a dogcart.
If I had encouraged him the khansamah would have wandered all through
Bengal with his corpse.
I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, while
the wind and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong
"hundred and fifty up. " Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped,
and I felt that I had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story.
Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made anything out of
it.
That was the bitterest thought of all!
THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES
Alive or dead-there is no other way.
--Native Proverb.
THERE is, as the conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by
accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though
he is the only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similar
institution used to flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is
a story that if you go into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the heart
of the Great Indian Desert, you shall come across not a village but a
town where the Dead who did not die but may not live have established
their headquarters. And, since it is perfectly true that in the same
Desert is a wonderful city where all the rich money lenders retreat
after they have made their fortunes (fortunes so vast that the owners
cannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect them,
but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring
barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold
and ivory and Minton tiles and mother-of-pearl, I do not see why Jukes's
tale should not be true. He is a Civil Engineer, with a head for plans
and distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not take
the trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could earn more by doing his
legitimate work. He never varies the tale in the telling, and grows
very hot and indignant when he thinks of the disrespectful treatment
he received. He wrote this quite straightforwardly at first, but he has
since touched it up in places and introduced Moral Reflections, thus:
In the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever. My work
necessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpattan and
Muharakpur--a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has had
the misfortune to go there may know. My coolies were neither more nor
less exasperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficient
attention to keep me from moping, had I been inclined to so unmanly a
weakness.
On the 23d December, 1884, I felt a little feverish. There was a full
moon at the time, and, in consequence, every dog near my tent was baying
it. The brutes assembled in twos and threes and drove me frantic. A few
days previously I had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended his
carcass in terrorem about fifty yards from my tent-door. But his friends
fell upon, fought for, and ultimately devoured the body; and, as it
seemed to me, sang their hymns of thanksgiving afterward with renewed
energy.
The light-heartedness which accompanies fever acts differently on
different men. My irritation gave way, after a short time, to a fixed
determination to slaughter one huge black and white beast who had been
foremost in song and first in flight throughout the evening. Thanks to
a shaking hand and a giddy head I had already missed him twice with both
barrels of my shot-gun, when it struck me that my best plan would be to
ride him down in the open and finish him off with a hog-spear. This, of
course, was merely the semi-delirious notion of a fever patient; but I
remember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical and
feasible.
I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornic and bring him round
quietly to the rear of my tent. When the pony was ready, I stood at his
head prepared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again lift
up his voice. Pornic, by the way, had not been out of his pickets for a
couple of days; the night air was crisp and chilly; and I was armed
with a specially long and sharp pair of persuaders with which I had been
rousing a sluggish cob that afternoon. You will easily believe, then,
that when he was let go he went quickly. In one moment, for the brute
bolted as straight as a die, the tent was left far behind, and we were
flying over the smooth sandy soil at racing speed.
In another we had passed the wretched dog, and I had almost forgotten
why it was that I had taken the horse and hogspear.
The delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through the
air must have taken away the remnant of my senses. I have a faint
recollection of standing upright in my stirrups, and of brandishing my
hog-spear at the great white Moon that looked down so calmly on my mad
gallop; and of shouting challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as they
whizzed past. Once or twice I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic's
neck, and literally hung on by my spurs--as the marks next morning
showed.
The wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed, over what seemed
to be a limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the ground
rose suddenly in front of us, and as we topped the ascent I saw the
waters of the Sutlej shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornic
blundered heavily on his nose, and we rolled together down some unseen
slope.
I must have lost consciousness, for when I recovered I was lying on
my stomach in a heap of soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning to
break dimly over the edge of the slope down which I had fallen. As
the light grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horse-shoe
shaped crater of sand, opening on one side directly on to the shoals of
the Sutlej. My fever had altogether left me, and, with the exception of
a slight dizziness in the head, I felt no had effects from the fall over
night.
Pornic, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good deal
exhausted, but had not hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a favorite
polo one, was much knocked about, and had been twisted under his belly.
It took me some time to put him to rights, and in the meantime I had
ample opportunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishly
dropped.
At the risk of being considered tedious, I must describe it at length:
inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its peculiarities will be of
material assistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows.
Imagine then, as I have said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand
with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope,
I fancy, must have been about 65 degrees. ) This crater enclosed a level
piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part,
with a crude well in the centre. Round the bottom of the crater,
about three feet from the level of the ground proper, ran a series of
eighty-three semi-circular ovoid, square, and multilateral holes, all
about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that it
was carefully shored internally with drift-wood and bamboos, and over
the mouth a wooden drip-board projected, like the peak of a jockey's
cap, for two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but a
most sickening stench pervaded the entire amphitheatre--a stench fouler
than any which my wanderings in Indian villages have introduced me to.
Having remounted Pornic, who was as anxious as I to get back to camp, I
rode round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exit
would be practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not
thought fit to put in an appearance, so I was left to my own devices. My
first attempt to "rush" Pornic up the steep sand-banks showed me that
I had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which the
ant-lion sets for its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured down
from above in tons, and rattled on the drip-boards of the holes like
small shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down to
the bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand; and I was constrained
to turn my attention to the river-bank.
Here everything seemed easy enough. The sand hills ran down to the river
edge, it is true, but there were plenty of shoals and shallows across
which I could gallop Pornic, and find my way back to terra firma by
turning sharply to the right or left. As I led Pornic over the sands I
was startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the river; and at the
same moment a bullet dropped with a sharp "whit" close to Pornic's head.
There was no mistaking the nature of the missile-a regulation
Martini-Henry "picket. " About five hundred yards away a country-boat was
anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows in
the still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come.
Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse? The treacherous
sand slope allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited most
involuntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal for
a bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I'm afraid that I lost
my temper very much indeed.
Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to cool
my porridge; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to the
horseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-five
human beings from the badger-holes which I had up till that point
supposed to be untenanted. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of
spectators--about forty men, twenty women, and one child who could not
have been more than five years old. They were all scantily clothed in
that salmon-colored cloth which one associates with Hindu mendicants,
and, at first sight, gave me the impression of a band of loathsome
fakirs. The filth and repulsiveness of the assembly were beyond
all description, and I shuddered to think what their life in the
badger-holes must be.
Even in these days, when local self government has destroyed the greater
part of a native's respect for a Sahib, I have been accustomed to a
certain amount of civility from my inferiors, and on approaching the
crowd naturally expected that there would be some recognition of my
presence. As a matter of fact there was; but it was by no means what I
had looked for.
The ragged crew actually laughed at me--such laughter I hope I may never
hear again. They cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked into
their midst; some of them literally throwing themselves down on the
ground in convulsions of unholy mirth. In a moment I had let go Pornic's
head, and irritated beyond expression at the morning's adventure,
commenced cuffing those nearest to me with all the force I could. The
wretches dropped under my blows like nine-pins, and the laughter gave
place to wails for mercy; while those yet untouched clasped me round the
knees, imploring me in all sorts of uncouth tongues to spare them.
In the tumult, and just when I was feeling very much ashamed of myself
for having thus easily given way to my temper, a thin, high voice
murmured in English from behind my shoulder: "--Sahib! Sahib! Do you not
know me? Sahib, it is Gunga Dass, the telegraph-master. "
I spun round quickly and faced the speaker.
Gunga Dass, (I have, of course, no hesitation in mentioning the man's
real name) I had known four years before as a Deccanee Brahmin loaned by
the Punjab Government to one of the Khalsia States. He was in charge
of a branch telegraph-office there, and when I had last met him was
a jovial, full-stomached, portly Government servant with a marvelous
capacity for making had puns in English--a peculiarity which made
me remember him long after I had forgotten his services to me in his
official capacity. It is seldom that a Hindu makes English puns.
Now, however, the man was changed beyond all recognition. Caste-mark,
stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone.
I looked at a withered skeleton, turban-less and almost naked, with long
matted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes.
But for a crescent-shaped scar on the left cheek--the result of an
accident for which I was responsible I should never have known him.
But it was indubitably Gunga Dass, and--for this I was thankful--an
English-speaking native who might at least tell me the meaning of all
that I had gone through that day.
The crowd retreated to some distance as I turned toward the miserable
figure, and ordered him to show me some method of escaping from the
crate. He held a freshly plucked crow in his hand, and in reply to my
question climbed slowly on a platform of sand which ran in front of
the holes, and commenced lighting a fire there in silence. Dried bents,
sand-poppies, and driftwood burn quickly; and I derived much consolation
from the fact that he lit them with an ordinary sulphur-match. When they
were in a bright glow, and the crow was neatly spitted in front thereof,
Gunga Dass began without a word of preamble:
"There are only two kinds of men, Sar. The alive and the dead. When you
are dead you are dead, but when you are alive you live. " (Here the crow
demanded his attention for an instant as it twirled before the fire in
danger of being burned to a cinder. ) "If you die at home and do not die
when you come to the ghat to be burned you come here. "
The nature of the reeking village was made plain now, and all that I had
known or read of the grotesque and the horrible paled before the fact
just communicated by the ex-Brahmin. Sixteen years ago, when I first
landed in Bombay, I had been told by a wandering Armenian of the
existence, somewhere in India, of a place to which such Hindus as had
the misfortune to recover from trance or catalepsy were conveyed and
kept, and I recollect laughing heartily at what I was then pleased to
consider a traveler's tale.
Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson's Hotel,
with its swinging punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced
Armenian, rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burst
into a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd!
Gunga Dass, as he bent over the unclean bird, watched me curiously.
Hindus seldom laugh, and his surroundings were not such as to move Gunga
Dass to any undue excess of hilarity. He removed the crow solemnly
from the wooden spit and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued his
story, which I give in his own words:
"In epidemics of the cholera you are carried to be burned almost before
you are dead. When you come to the riverside the cold air, perhaps,
makes you alive, and then, if you are only little alive, mud is put on
your nose and mouth and you die conclusively. If you are rather more
alive, more mud is put; but if you are too lively they let you go
and take you away. I was too lively, and made protestation with anger
against the indignities that they endeavored to press upon me. In those
days I was Brahmin and proud man.
"Now I am dead man and eat"--here he eyed the well-gnawed breast
bone with the first sign of emotion that I had seen in him since we
met--"crows, and other things. They took me from my sheets when they saw
that I was too lively and gave me medicines for one week, and I survived
successfully. Then they sent me by rail from my place to Okara Station,
with a man to take care of me; and at Okara Station we met two other
men, and they conducted we three on camels, in the night, from Okara
Station to this place, and they propelled me from the top to the bottom,
and the other two succeeded, and I have been here ever since two and a
half years. Once I was Brahmin and proud man, and now I eat crows. "
"There is no way of getting out? "
"None of what kind at all. When I first came I made experiments
frequently and all the others also, but we have always succumbed to the
sand which is precipitated upon our heads. "
"But surely," I broke in at this point, "the river-front is open, and
it is worth while dodging the bullets; while at night"--I had already
matured a rough plan of escape which a natural instinct of selfishness
forbade me sharing with Gunga Dass. He, however, divined my
unspoken thought almost as soon as it was formed; and, to my intense
astonishment, gave vent to a long low chuckle of derision--the laughter,
be it understood, of a superior or at least of an equal.
"You will not"--he had dropped the Sir completely after his opening
sentence--"make any escape that way. But you can try. I have tried. Once
only. "
The sensation of nameless terror and abject fear which I had in vain
attempted to strive against overmastered me completely. My long fast--it
was now close upon ten o'clock, and I had eaten nothing since tiffin on
the previous day--combined with the violent and unnatural agitation of
the ride had exhausted me, and I verily believe that, for a few minutes,
I acted as one mad. I hurled myself against the pitiless sand-slope. I
ran round the base of the crater, blaspheming and praying by turns. I
crawled out among the sedges of the river-front, only to be driven back
each time in an agony of nervous dread by the rifle-bullets which cut
up the sand round me--for I dared not face the death of a mad dog among
that hideous crowd--and finally fell, spent and raving, at the curb of
the well. No one had taken the slightest notion of an exhibition which
makes me blush hotly even when I think of it now.
Two or three men trod on my panting body as they drew water, but they
were evidently used to this sort of thing, and had no time to waste
upon me. The situation was humiliating. Gunga Dass, indeed, when he had
banked the embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half
a cupful of fetid water over my head, an attention for which I could
have fallen on my knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all the
while in the same mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my first
attempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, I lay
till noon.
Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, and intimated as much
to Gunga Dass, whom I had begun to regard as my natural protector.
Following the impulse of the outer world when dealing with natives, I
put my hand into my pocket and drew out four annas. The absurdity of the
gift struck me at once, and I was about to replace the money.
Gunga Dass, however, was of a different opinion. "Give me the money,"
said he; "all you have, or I will get help, and we will kill you! " All
this as if it were the most natural thing in the world!
A Briton's first impulse, I believe, is to guard the contents of his
pockets; but a moment's reflection convinced me of the futility
of differing with the one man who had it in his power to make me
comfortable; and with whose help it was possible that I might eventually
escape from the crater. I gave him all the money in my possession, Rs.
9-8-5--nine rupees eight annas and five pie--for I always keep small
change as bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass clutched the coins, and
hid them at once in his ragged loin cloth, his expression changing to
something diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no one
had observed us.
"Now I will give you something to eat," said he.
What pleasure the possession of my money could have afforded him I am
unable to say; but inasmuch as it did give him evident delight I was not
sorry that I had parted with it so readily, for I had no doubt that he
would have had me killed if I had refused. One does not protest against
the vagaries of a den of wild beasts; and my companions were lower than
any beasts. While I devoured what Gunga Dass had provided, a coarse
chapatti and a cupful of the foul well-water, the people showed not the
faintest sign of curiosity--that curiosity which is so rampant, as a
rule, in an Indian village.
I could even fancy that they despised me.
At all events they treated me
with the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad.
I plied him with questions about the terrible village, and received
extremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather, it had been
in existence from time immemorial--whence I concluded that it was at
least a century old--and during that time no one had ever been known to
escape from it. [I had to control myself here with both hands, lest the
blind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me raving
round the crater. ] Gunga Dass took a malicious pleasure in emphasizing
this point and in watching me wince. Nothing that I could do would
induce him to tell me who the mysterious "They" were.
"It is so ordered," he would reply, "and I do not yet know any one who
has disobeyed the orders. "
"Only wait till my servants find that I am missing," I retorted, "and I
promise you that this place shall be cleared off the face of the earth,
and I'll give you a lesson in civility, too, my friend. "
"Your servants would be torn in pieces before they came near this place;
and, besides, you are dead, my dear friend. It is not your fault, of
course, but none the less you are dead and buried. "
At irregular intervals supplies of food, I was told, were dropped down
from the land side into the amphitheatre, and the inhabitants fought for
them like wild beasts. When a man felt his death coming on he retreated
to his lair and died there. The body was sometimes dragged out of the
hole and thrown on to the sand, or allowed to rot where it lay.
The phrase "thrown on to the sand" caught my attention, and I asked
Gunga Dass whether this sort of thing was not likely to breed a
pestilence.
"That," said he, with another of his wheezy chuckles, "you may see for
yourself subsequently. You will have much time to make observations. "
Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once more and hastily continued
the conversation:--"And how do you live here from day to day? What do
you do? " The question elicited exactly the same answer as before coupled
with the information that "this place is like your European heaven;
there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. "
Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission School, and, as he himself
admitted, had he only changed his religion "like a wise man," might have
avoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long as I was
with him I fancy he was happy.
Here was a Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless as
a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a
deliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy would
devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled
beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably
to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there
was no escape "of no kind whatever," and that I should stay here till I
died and was "thrown on to the sand. " If it were possible to forejudge
the conversation of the Damned on the advent of a new soul in their
abode, I should say that they would speak as Gunga Dass did to me
throughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer;
all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicable
terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can compare
the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against the
overpowering nausea of the Channel passage--only my agony was of the
spirit and infinitely more terrible.
As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to appear in full strength to
catch the rays of the afternoon sun, which were now sloping in at the
mouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots, and talked among
themselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About four
o'clock, as far as I could judge Gunga Dass rose and dived into his lair
for a moment, emerging with a live crow in his hands. The wretched bird
was in a most draggled and deplorable condition, but seemed to be in no
way afraid of its master, Advancing cautiously to the river front, Gunga
Dass stepped from tussock to tussock until he had reached a smooth patch
of sand directly in the line of the boat's fire. The occupants of the
boat took no notice. Here he stopped, and, with a couple of dexterous
turns of the wrist, pegged the bird on its back with outstretched wings.
As was only natural, the crow began to shriek at once and beat the air
with its claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted the attention
of a bevy of wild crows on a shoal a few hundred yards away, where they
were discussing something that looked like a corpse. Half a dozen crows
flew over at once to see what was going on, and also, as it proved, to
attack the pinioned bird. Gunga Dass, who had lain down on a tussock,
motioned to me to be quiet, though I fancy this was a needless
precaution. In a moment, and before I could see how it happened, a
wild crow, who had grappled with the shrieking and helpless bird, was
entangled in the latter's claws, swiftly disengaged by Gunga Dass, and
pegged down beside its companion in adversity. Curiosity, it seemed,
overpowered the rest of the flock, and almost before Gunga Dass and I
had time to withdraw to the tussock, two more captives were struggling
in the upturned claws of the decoys. So the chase--if I can give it so
dignified a name--continued until Gunga Dass had captured seven crows.
Five of them he throttled at once, reserving two for further operations
another day. I was a good deal impressed by this, to me, novel method of
securing food, and complimented Gunga Dass on his skill.
"It is nothing to do," said he. "Tomorrow you must do it for me. You are
stronger than I am. "
This calm assumption of superiority Upset me not a little, and I
answered peremptorily;--"Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I
have given you money for? "
"Very well," was the unmoved reply. "Perhaps not tomorrow, nor the day
after, nor subsequently; but in the end, and for many years, you will
catch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that you
have crows to catch and eat. "
I could have cheerfully strangled him for this; but judged it best under
the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating
one of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking my God that I
had a crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening
meal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform
opposite their dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes.
Death, having once laid his hand upon these men and forborne to strike,
seemed to stand aloof from them now; for most of our company were
old men, bent and worn and twisted with years, and women aged to all
appearance as the Fates themselves. They sat together in knots and
talked--God only knows what they found to discuss--in low equable tones,
curiously in contrast to the strident babble with which natives are
accustomed to make day hideous. Now and then an access of that sudden
fury which had possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man or
woman; and with yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack the
steep slope until, baffled and bleeding, he fell back on the platform
incapable of moving a limb. The others would never even raise their
eyes when this happened, as men too well aware of the futility of their
fellows' attempts and wearied with their useless repetition. I saw four
such outbursts in the course of the evening.
Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like view of my situation, and
while we were dining--I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, but
it was painful enough at the time-propounded the terms on which he would
consent to "do" for me. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, at the
rate of three annas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-one
days, or about seven weeks; that is to say, he would be willing to cater
for me for that length of time. At the end of it I was to look after
myself. For a further consideration--videlicet my boots--he would be
willing to allow me to occupy the den next to his own, and would supply
me with as much dried grass for bedding as he could spare.
"Very well, Gunga Dass," I replied; "to the first terms I cheerfully
agree, but, as there is nothing on earth to prevent my killing you as
you sit here and taking everything that you have" (I thought of the two
invaluable crows at the time), "I flatly refuse to give you my boots and
shall take whichever den I please. "
The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it had
succeeded. Gunga Dass changed his tone immediately, and disavowed all
intention of asking for my boots. At the time it did not strike me as at
all strange that I, a Civil Engineer, a man of thirteen years' standing
in the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, should thus
calmly threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for a
consideration it is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the world,
it seemed, for centuries. I was as certain then as I am now of my own
existence, that in the accursed settlement there was no law save that
of the strongest; that the living dead men had thrown behind them every
canon of the world which had cast them out; and that I had to depend
for my own life on my strength and vigilance alone. The crew of the
ill-fated Mignonette are the only men who would understand my frame of
mind. "At present," I argued to myself, "I am strong and a match for six
of these wretches. It is imperatively necessary that I should, for my
own sake, keep both health and strength until the hour of my release
comes--if it ever does. "
Fortified with these resolutions, I ate and drank as much as I could,
and made Gunga Dass understand that I intended to be his master, and
that the least sign of insubordination on his part would be visited with
the only punishment I had it in my power to inflict--sudden and violent
death. Shortly after this I went to bed.
That is to say, Gunga Dass gave me a double armful of dried bents which
I thrust down the mouth of the lair to the right of his, and followed
myself, feet foremost; the hole running about nine feet into the
sand with a slight downward inclination, and being neatly shored with
timbers. From my den, which faced the river-front, I was able to watch
the waters of the Sutlej flowing past under the light of a young moon
and compose myself to sleep as best I might.
The horrors of that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly as
narrow as a coffin, and the sides had been worn smooth and greasy by
the contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelled
abominably. Sleep was altogether out of question to one in my excited
frame of mind. As the night wore on, it seemed that the entire
amphitheatre was filled with legions of unclean devils that, trooping up
from the shoals below, mocked the unfortunates in their lairs.
Personally I am not of an imaginative temperament,--very few Engineers
are,--but on that occasion I was as completely prostrated with nervous
terror as any woman. After half an hour or so, however, I was able once
more to calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit by the steep sand
walls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly convinced of
this some time before. It was possible, just possible, that I might, in
the uncertain moonlight, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle shots. The
place was so full of terror for me that I was prepared to undergo
any risk in leaving it. Imagine my delight, then, when after creeping
stealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was not
there. My freedom lay before me in the next few steps!
By walking out to the first shallow pool that lay at the foot of the
projecting left horn of the horseshoe, I could wade across, turn
the flank of the crater, and make my way inland. Without a moment's
hesitation I marched briskly past the tussocks where Gunga Dass had
snared the crows, and out in the direction of the smooth white sand
beyond. My first step from the tufts of dried grass showed me how
utterly futile was any hope of escape; for, as I put my foot down, I
felt an indescribable drawing, sucking motion of the sand below. Another
moment and my leg was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the moonlight
the whole surface of the sand seemed to be shaken with devilish delight
at my disappointment. I struggled clear, sweating with terror and
exertion, back to the tussocks behind me and fell on my face.
My only means of escape from the semicircle was protected with a
quicksand!
How long I lay I have not the faintest idea; but I was roused at last
by the malevolent chuckle of Gunga Dass at my ear. "I would advise you,
Protector of the Poor" (the ruffian was speaking English) "to return to
your house. It is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when the boat
returns, you will most certainly be rifled at. " He stood over me in the
dim light of the dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself. Suppressing
my first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him on to the
quicksand, I rose sullenly and followed him to the platform below the
burrows.
Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I spoke, I asked--"Gunga Dass,
what is the good of the boat if I can't get out anyhow? " I recollect
that even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the
waste of ammunition in guarding an already well protected foreshore.
Gunga Dass laughed again and made answer:--"They have the boat only in
daytime. It is for the reason that there is a way. I hope we shall have
the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasant spot
when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow long enough. "
I staggered, numbed and helpless, toward the fetid burrow allotted to
me, and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing
scream--the shrill, high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those who
have once heard that will never forget the sound. I found some little
difficulty in scrambling out of the burrow. When I was in the open, I
saw Pornic, my poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they
had killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse was
better than crow, and "greatest good of greatest number is political
maxim. We are now Republic, Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a fair
share of the beast. If you like, we will pass a vote of thanks. Shall I
propose? "
Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic of wild beasts penned at the
bottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted
no protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sight
in front of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this,
Pornic's body was divided, in some unclear way or other; the men and
women had dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing
their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible
impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me
afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass
was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another
remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat.
This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him say
something.
"You will live here till you die like the other Feringhi," he said,
coolly, watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing.
"What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at once, and don't stop to tell me a
lie. "
"He is over there," answered Gunga Dass, pointing to a burrow-mouth
about four doors ta the left of my own. "You can see for yourself. He
died in the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and as all these men
and women and the one child will also die. "
"For pity's sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he
come, and when did he die? "
This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered and
replied:--"I will not--unless you give me something first. "
Then I recollected where I was, and struck the man between the eyes,
partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and,
cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led
me round to the burrow which he had indicated.
"I know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witness
that I do not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was
shot from the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from
attempting. He was shot here. " Gunga Dass laid his hand on his lean
stomach and bowed to the earth.
"Well, and what then? Go on! "
"And then--and then, Your Honor, we carried him in to his house and
gave him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his
house and gave up the ghost. "
"In how long? In how long? "
"About half an hour, after he received his wound. I call Vishnu to
witness," yelled the wretched man, "that I did everything for him.
Everything which was possible, that I did! "
He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles. But I had
my doubts about Gunga Dass's benevolence, and kicked him off as he lay
protesting.
"I believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in a
minute or two. How long was the Sahib here? "
"Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad. But hear me
swear, Protector of the Poor! Won't Your Honor hear me swear that I
never touched an article that belonged to him? What is Your Worship
going to do? "
I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had hauled him on to the
platform opposite the deserted burrow. As I did so I thought of my
wretched fellow-prisoner's unspeakable misery among all these horrors
for eighteen months, and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole,
with a bullet-wound in the stomach. Gunga Dass fancied I was going
to kill him and howled pitifully. The rest of the population, in the
plethora that follows a full flesh meal, watched us without stirring.
"Go inside, Gunga Dass," said I, "and fetch it out. "
I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gunga Dass nearly rolled
off the platform and howled aloud.
"But I am Brahmin, Sahib--a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by your
father's soul, do not make me do this thing! "
"Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father's soul, in you go! "
I said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head into
the mouth of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down,
covered my face with my hands.
At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga
Dass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft
thud--and I uncovered my eyes.
The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a
yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it.
The body--clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn,
with leather pads on the shoulders--was that of a man between thirty and
forty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and a
rough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and
a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of
the left hand was a ring--a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with
a monogram that might have been either "B. K. " or "B. L. " On the third
finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled
cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of
trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the
face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give
the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of the
unfortunate man:
1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn and
blackened; bound with string at the crew.
2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken.
3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel name-plate, marked
with monogram "B. K. "
4. Envelope, postmark Undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp,
addressed to "Miss Mon-" (rest illegible) -"ham-'nt. "
5. Imitation crocodile-skin notebook with pencil. First forty-five pages
blank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with private
memoranda relating chiefly to three persons--a Mrs. L. Singleton,
abbreviated several times to "Lot Single," "Mrs. S. May," and
"Garmison," referred to in places as "Jerry" or "Jack. "
6. Handle of small-sized hunting-knife. Blade snapped short.
