The Taming of the Jungle Part 7

CHAPTER VII

_Chandni_

About a mile below the eastern gorge of Naini Tal, the favorite hill-station of k.u.maon, is a Padhani village overlooking Serya Tal. It is inhabited by a few score of low-caste hill-men, who earn a living, they and their women-folk, by carrying rough-hewn stones from the hillsides for contractors engaged in building houses, or by selling fodder-gra.s.s and firewood to the English residents.

When a Padhani has acc.u.mulated sufficient means he purchases a wife and stays at home every other day; and when he has attained affluence and bought two wives, he stays at home altogether; which accounts for the fact that a large majority of these carriers of wood and stone are women.

It is not to be supposed that the Padhani women look upon their toilsome tasks as a hards.h.i.+p: nature, and the decrees of evolution, have endowed them with superb health and strength, and they are wont, as they carry the most astonis.h.i.+ng loads, to sing joyous choruses, and so lighten their toils. Every one who has been to Naini Tal is familiar with the sight of a string of Padhani women, short-kilted, showing a span of brown skin between their bodices and skirts, and singing in unison.

They never seem to weary of their choruses, and Captain Trenyon of the Forest Department, and his _khansamah_, Bijoo, never tired of looking at them as they pa.s.sed below his bungalow with swaying hips and jaunty carriage. They were a trifle darker than their Rajpoot sisters (_quod tune, si fuscus Amyntas_), and they might have been akin to Pharaoh's daughter, she who was "black but comely."

Now, Bijoo was a Padhani, and he took more than a casual interest--such as Captain Trenyon's, doubtless, was--in the laughing and singing crowd that filed below the captain's house several times a day. Chiefest among them, and distinguished by her beauty and her stature, was Chandni; and, ere the season was over, Bijoo purchased her from her crippled father for ten rupees, and, thereafter, Captain Trenyon turned his back on the Padhani traffic of the Mall to watch Chandni instead, as she helped Bijoo to clean the silver; and the songs of the Padhani women attracted him no more.

The following year, before the snows of February had cleared off from Shere-ke Danda and Larya Kata, Chandni returned alone to the house of her father, Thapa, at Serya Tal. It was night when she pushed back the thatch door of his hut, which was in darkness within, and called him by name:

"It is I, father, Chandni, thy daughter."

"Moon of my Heart!" said the old man, waking from his sleep, and he would have "lifted up his voice and wept," as is the manner of all orientals when greatly moved, but she prevented him by the impressiveness of her "Choop, choop! father; proclaim not my return to the village!"

"Where is Bijoo, the man thy husband?"

"Nana Debi alone knoweth, my father, and I have come back to thee."

"Is he dead, little one?"

"He is dead to me, da-da; and I have returned to cook thy food and carry wood and stone for thee, if thou wilt let me."

"Let thee, O Spray of Jessamine!" and the old man caught his breath, and once more she had to check his emotions with an imperative "Choop, choop!"

He left his charpoi, and raking together the embers in the chula, he blew on them till they kindled into a blaze, at which he lit a smoky chirag, whose dim light showed Chandni sitting on the ground with her back towards him, swaying to and fro, and crying softly "Aho, aho, mai bap!"

He sat by the fire patiently, waiting for her to speak, his hands trembling with apprehension.

When her composure was sufficiently restored, she said, "Thapa Sing, my father, Nana Debi hath no ears for a woman's prayers; do thou, therefore, sacrifice a goat to him to-morrow at Naini Tal, and entreat his curses on all Faringis. See, here is money," and she threw a small bag of coins towards him.

He picked up the purse, and after a pause she went on:

"My father, the Mussulmanis do well to veil their women's faces. Trenyon sahib looked upon me ere I was married to Bijoo, and since then, daily, in his jungle camp hath he scorched me with his eyes, till my cheeks felt as though the hot wind had blown on them.

"One day, Bijoo came home with a coin of gold in his hand, such as I had never seen before, and which, he said, the sahib had given him; and he bored a hole through it and hung it on my forehead, and bade me wear it there at the sahib's request; but he stabbed me with his eyes as he put it on me.

"And the next day, Bhamaraya, the sweeper's lame wife, (Kali Mai afflict her with leprosy!) came to the door of our hut, Bijoo being gone to the village market for food supplies, and she extolled my beauty, and showed a picture of myself made by Trenyon sahib by the help of the sun; and thereafter I veiled myself when I went abroad.

"She came again the next day, and whensoever Bijoo was away from home, always praising my lips and my eyes, and telling me what Trenyon sahib spake concerning me. And yesterday she came to me and said, 'Chandni, O Moon of the Jungle, Trenyon sahib would fain have speech with thee.

To-night will he send Bijoo with a message to the thana at Kaladoongie, and when he is gone and the other servants be asleep I will conduct thee to the sahib's tent. See what he hath sent thee,' and she placed at my feet a gold bangle.

"When I would have spurned her and her lures from my door she laughed wickedly, saying, 'Ho, ho, my Pretty Partridge! if golden grain will not catch thee, a.s.suredly thou art entangled in the snare of necessity, thou Wife of a Thief!' and she pointed at the coin on my forehead.

"Then, as my heart turned to water, she went on: 'To-morrow the Thanadar will return with Bijoo, and, unless thou asketh the clemency of the sahib, Bijoo will be charged with theft and taken back to Kaladoongie as a prisoner.--The Sircar sends men across the Black Water for lesser offences than this!'

"And being a woman, and fearing I knew not what dangers for Bijoo and myself, I entreated Bhamaraya to take me to the sahib's tent, promising to say naught to Bijoo.

"And thus it fell out, Bijoo being away, that I went with the lame she-wolf to Trenyon sahib's tent last night to make appeal for my husband."

She paused in her narrative once more, swaying herself to and fro and moaning, "Aho, aho!" Then, after a while, she went on:

"When we were in the sahib's presence Bhamaraya plucked the chudder from my face, saying, 'Lo, sahib, I have brought thee the Rose of the Terai!'

Whereon he filled her palms with rupees. And as she left the room she spake to me, saying, 'The saving of Bijoo were an easy task for thy beauty, thou Flower-Faced Chandni.'

"And I stood suppliant before the sahib, with folded palms and downcast eyes, and in the silence I could hear the beating of my heart. After a while, and because he spake not, I looked up and met his eyes that burned upon my face; and then I knew the price that was set on Bijoo's safety.

"Falling before him, I clasped his feet, saying, 'Provider of the Poor, let thy servant depart in honor, and so add one more jewel to the crown of thy worth. See, here is the coin Bhamaraya says was stolen from thee by the man Bijoo, my husband.' And, unwinding the gold piece from my head, I laid it at his feet.

"Thereupon he raised me from the ground, and because great fear was upon me, and because my limbs shook, he seated me upon his bed, whereon was a leopard's skin. Then, filling a crystal vessel with sparkling waters that bubbled and frothed, he bade me drink. And my courage revived, and once more I made plea for Bijoo.

"And then I noticed, for the first time, that the air of the tent was heavy with the odor of attar; slumbrous music came from a magical box on the table, and the thought of Bijoo seemed to go far from me, as though he were in another land, and I became as one who had smoked apheem or churrus. Then the sahib bound the gold coin on my brow again, and spake words to me such as I had never heard from man, a.s.suring me of Bijoo's safety, and calling me Queen of the Stars, Dew of the Morning, Breath of Roses, and putting a strange stress upon me that cared not for any consequences.

"When I had flown, as it seemed to me, to the highest peak of elation, he gave me another draught of the sparkling waters, and, as I sank back on the pillows, the last thing I had sense of was his hand on mine. Oh, Nana Debi, that I had never waked again! Aho, aho!"

And once more the woman stopped to indulge her grief.

"When I waked again," she resumed, "the sahib sat by the table, asleep, with his head on his arm, the light still burning brightly over him. A bird cheeped uneasily in the peepul-tree above the tent, and through the c.h.i.n.k of the doorway I could discern the faint glimmer of the false dawn. Fearing to be seen in or near the sahib's tent by the servants, who would soon begin to stir, I made s.h.i.+ft to rise from the bed, but my head swam from the effects of the strong waters I had drunk, and I fell back on the pillows and shut my eyes for a few moments.

"When I looked again Bijoo stood within the doorway. Holding up a menacing finger that enjoined silence, he advanced stealthily on Trenyon sahib with an unsheathed khookri. Arrived within striking distance, he touched the sahib on the shoulder, and, as the sleeper raised his head from the table, the heavy blade descended on it and sh.o.r.e it from the shoulders, and Trenyon sahib pa.s.sed from sleep to death without any waking.

"Tearing the coin from my forehead, Bijoo wound his fingers in my hair and bade me follow him without any outcry on pain of instant death.

"When we had pa.s.sed into the jungle a mile from the camp he bade stand, and then, O my father, he inflicted the punishment our men exact from unfaithful wives."

"O Moonlight of my Heart, say not thou art a nakti! Not that! not that!"

For answer she rose slowly to her feet and turned towards him. Drawing from her face the chudder, which was soaked with blood, she disclosed to his horrified gaze a countenance with a hideous gap between the eyes and mouth, and bearing no resemblance to that of the once beautiful Chandni.

CHAPTER VIII

_One Thousand Rupees Reward_

The Terai was in consternation: Captain Trenyon of the Forest Department had been killed by his khansamah, Bijoo; the latter's wife, Chandni, had been horribly mutilated by her infuriated husband in accordance with an immemorial right claimed by the men of the Terai in such cases, and the government had offered a reward of one thousand rupees for the capture of the injured husband.

"Are we dogs?" said Ram Deen, indignantly, when the Thanadar had displayed a notice of the reward printed in Nagari that was to be posted throughout the Terai. "Are we dogs, brothers, that the sircar should tempt us with base money to betray men for exacting just retribution from those who wrong them?"