Public-domain ebook
The Taming of the Jungle
by C. W. Doyle
Language: en338 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #35644.
The opening · free to read
A Jungle Vendetta
"This was the way of it," said Ram Deen to a circle of listeners sitting round a fire by the side of the jungle road near Lal Kooah. Ram Deen drove the mail-cart in its final stage to Kaladoongie, and with his relay of fresh horses was awaiting the arrival of the mail. He was, next to the Assistant Superintendent of the Forest Department of the District, a power on the road, and his audience, accordingly, listened to him with due respect. "This was the way of it: I owed Bheem Dass one rupee and six annas for flour and pulse and ghee, and my donkey fell sick, so that he could not be forced by goad, nor by the lighting of a fire beneath him, to rise; and I could not convey my earthenware to Moradabad and sell it, and so remove the galling of Bheem Dass's tongue.
"Then the Thanadar came, and read script to me that was written on government paper, whereof I understood but little, save that the words were Urdu, and sounded very terrible to me, who speak Gamari only, and am a poor man. And he took my potter's wheel from me, and bade his chuprassi beat me then, and daily thereafter at noon--twelve strokes each day--till I made restitution to Bheem Dass.
"Brothers, we be all poor men here, and ye know that God hath not given us understanding save to suffer stripes like beasts of burden, and to sleep and eat when we can, and beget children to succeed to our blows."
There was a deep "humph" of assent when he had ceased speaking. The little man who freighted village produce from Kaladoongie to Moradabad by bullock-cart said, as he handed Ram Deen the hookah that was circling round the fire, "A knife-thrust in the dark has settled heavier scores than thine;" and one suggested a blow from a weighted bamboo club, and another the evil eye; but Ram Deen smoked in silence, and after they had all had their say he passed the hookah to his neighbor and went on:
"Whenas my back smarted shrewdly that night from the blows of the chuprassi's shoe, so that I could not sleep, I took the oil from my chirag and anointed my back therewith. As soon as the false dawn blinked in the east I made a fire and light, without waking my son--my babe, Buldeo, and he without a mother--and I made store of chupattis with all the flour that was left, putting the remainder of the ghee on the first batch. Then I dug up three rupees and two annas that I had buried under the hearth, and waking Buldeo I fed him; and whilst he ate I made a bundle of such things as even a poor man has need of,--a blanket, a hookah and lotah, and shoes to wear through the villages, and the food I had prepared.
"And ere the village cocks waked or the minas and crows and green parrots opened council in the peepul trees, Buldeo and I were footing the jungle path to Nyagong, he holding his hand over his head to reach mine, for he was but three years in age.
"And when we had proceeded a mile or twain into the jungle Buldeo spake and said, 'Thy man-child is tired.' And I set him on my shoulder, and so carried him until the sun began to shoot slant rays from the west. Whereon we stopped and ate; and, after, I fastened him with my waistband in the fork of a tree, saying, 'Son of mine, bide here till I return, and be not afraid.'
"Then, collecting grass and scrub, I made a circle of fire round the tree, and sped back to the village; and as the bell tolled the hour of ten that night a flame leaped up from the hut of the bunnia, Bheem Dass, to whom I owed money.
"Ere I returned to the jungle path I could hear Bheem Dass shout as a man being beaten, 'ram dhwy! ram dhwy!' and the smart on my back waxed easier."
By this time the hookah had made the round of the circle and once more reached Ram Deen, and as he paused again to "drink tobacco" his listeners made comment:
"Wah! coach-wan ji," said the little carrier, "knives may be blunt and clubs cracked, but fire loveth stubble and thatch. Ho, ho!"
And Ram Deen smiled grimly as he passed the hookah to his neighbor, who said as he took it, "And what of thy man-child, Buldeo?"
Ram Deen tucked the ends of his parted beard under his turban, and spitting bravely into the fire to conceal the tremor in his voice, he said, "As the dawn broke I reached the tree whereon I had fastened my son. When I came near a pack of jackals that had been worrying something under the tree slunk away. The child was not to be seen, but the bark of the tree was scored with the talons of a leopard, and at its foot was a small red cap and a handful of fresh bones."
Ram Deen puffed the hookah in silence when it reached him again.
By and by, in response to the expectation of his listeners, he said, "Bheem Dass rode after me on the mail-cart to Kaladoongie that night. I knew he would come, and therefore I brake the telegraph wire and fastened it across the road a foot above the ground. When the horse stumbled over it and fell the driver was thrown on his head and killed. But Bheem Dass lay groaning on the road with a broken thigh-bone.
"And I held a lamp taken from the cart to my face, so that he should know me, and I spat and stamped on him; and thereafter I mounted the mail-cart and drove it over his skull as he screamed for mercy.
"I took the mail to Kaladoongie, and it was told the sahib-log that the mail-cart had been overturned and the coach-wan and Bheem Dass killed; and they made me driver because the road was unsafe and I had shown them that I was not afraid.
"Ye are poor men and know naught,--knowledge dieth suddenly!"
And the bullock driver said, "Ho, ho! coach-wan sahib, we be poor men and know nothing, and are fain to live."
The mail-cart drove up in a few minutes out of the darkness, the horses were rapidly changed, and Ram Deen dashed off into the jungle with a brave tarantara.
Hasteen
"Ram deen," said the stout Thanadar of Kaladoongie, "it is by the order of the sircar (government) that I question thee concerning this jungle wanderer. Whatsoever thou sayest will be set down by the munshi and laid before the commissioner sahib."
The "wanderer" put one hand on a tubby stomach that ill-assorted with his attenuated limbs, and with the fingers of the other in close apposition he pointed to his mouth, whining and saying to those round him, "Oh, my father and my mother, we be hungry,--Hasteen and I."
He was a wee little manikin of the chamar (tanner) caste, and about six years old. There was not a rag on him, save a sorry whisp of puggri that made no pretence of covering the top-knot of hair which all Hindoos of the male sex, and of whatever caste, wear on their heads as a handle for the transportation of their souls to heaven.
He crouched in front of the fire of cowpats and grass, holding up his little hands to the blaze, and beside him lay a huge pariah dog with its head on his lap. One of its ears had been recently cut off close to the skull, and it moved the bloody stump to and fro as the heat of the fire fell on it. When any one approached the little chamar the dog growled threateningly, and the small crowd of listeners was fain to keep at a respectful distance.
"Thanadar ji," replied Ram Deen, the redoubtable driver of the mail-cart to Kaladoongie, "the night air is shrewd, and it were well to feed the little one and to put a blanket round him ere I tell you of his finding."
"Ay, and forget not Hasteen," said the small chamar, pointing to the dog. When the great beast heard its name it slapped its tail against the ground.
A woman standing on the outskirt of the crowd took off her chudder and passed it to Ram Deen, who, keeping a wary eye on Hasteen, wrapped it round the little waif; and Tulsi Ram, the village pundit, also handed his blanket to Ram Deen. By the time the little one was duly happed up, Gunga Deen, the fat sweetmeat vender, returned with a tray of cates and milk, sufficient for three grown men, and set it before the new arrival, who, to his honor be it told, shared bite and bite with his four-footed friend. And between mouthfuls he answered questions and told his story to the Thanadar:
"My name, Most Honorable, is Biroo, and we be chamars of the village of Budraon,--my father and mother, Hasteen and I. There were none others of our family, and Hasteen and I be brothers, for we sucked the same pap, and that my mother's, as she hath so often told me. I am the older by three months, wherefore he mindeth me.
"Whence is Hasteen's name? How should I know, Protector of the Poor? I am but a poor man and know naught."
Tulsi Ram, the pundit, ventured to throw some light on the derivation of Hasteen's name. He hoped, ere he died, to pass the entrance examination of the Calcutta University; and, after the manner of his kind, he was preparing himself for it by the slow and steady process of learning the prescribed text-books off by heart.
"Thanadar ji, the dog hath its name from Warren Hasteen, the great sahib who killed the Kings of Delhi, as thou wottest, and daily fed on young babes, whereof midwives and old women who saw him tell to this day. And, moreover, he was a great fighter."
"Wah, Tulsi Ram!" exclaimed the Thanadar, "thou shalt yet become a baboo in the post-office at Naini Tal."
"But there never was fighter like Hasteen," said the little chamar, whose courage rose as his hunger abated, and rolling up a chupatti he gave it to the dog, who made one mouthful of it. "He hath blackened the faces of all the dogs of our village," he went on; "and last winter he overcame a dog of fierce countenance and crooked legs, that belonged to the sahib who camped near our village, and left it for dead on the plain; and the sahib would have beaten me, but Hasteen rose upon him and threw him down, and stood over him till I smote Hasteen with my bamboo club and dragged him off the sahib. Ah, thou wicked one, thou budmash!" and the great beast cowered before the wee man's threatening finger and licked his feet. "And therefrom came all our woes, for our folk drave us from Budraon, fearing trouble for the killing of the sahib's dog, and my father would have slain Hasteen, but I restrained him. So we went to Nyagong, and there thieves came by night and would have despoiled us of our hides, but Hasteen prevented them; and thereafter the son of the Jamadar of Nyagong, who was a vain fellow and wore his turban awry, walked lame for many a day; and the bunnia (shopkeeper), who is the Jamadar's brother, put ground glass in the raw sugar he sold us--for so my father said--and my mother died.
"Last week my father came not home, and for three days I saw him not; then--I looking on--they drew a man out of the village well with his hands tied behind his back and a great stone fastened to his feet,--and it was my father!
"And this night a flame leaped up from our hut, and Hasteen went swiftly forth into the moonlight, his crest standing on his neck and back. I followed with what haste I could, and thereafter I came up with Hasteen, and he lay beside a dead man, whose eyes were wide open and on whose lips was froth, and a sharp knife in his hand;--and it was the son of the Jamadar!
"Thereupon I caught Hasteen by one ear and smote him on the other,--for he had done this killing; and the hand wherewith I smote him was covered with blood, so I saw his hurt, and that he had lost an ear.
The book keeps going
Keep reading, and see it illustrated
Reading is free forever. Sign up and watch scenes appear while you read.
Scenes Storieta drew for other classics.
