The Road to Mandalay Part 11

"I say, look here, old chap!" he panted, "I'm just off to catch my train to Tonghoo, but I've had a word with FitzGerald; it will be all right about the chummery; they can take you in on Monday. I see Salter on board, one of the head a.s.sistants in Gregory's; I expect he has come to meet you. Well, I must run; so long!"

This good-natured fellow pa.s.senger was immediately succeeded by a cabin steward. "Been looking for you everywhere, sir," he said; "there's a gentleman come aboard asking for you." As he concluded, a spare, middle-aged man wearing a large topee and a dust-coloured suit approached and said:

"Mr. Shafto, I believe?" and offered a welcoming hand.

"Yes," a.s.sented the new arrival.

"I'm Salter from Gregory's. Manders, the head a.s.sistant, asked me to meet you. I'll be glad to help you get your things ash.o.r.e and take you to the Strand Hotel, where I have booked you a room."

"That is most awfully good of you," replied Shafto. "On Monday I believe I am to get quarters in a chummery."

"Ah, so you are settled, I see. Now, if you will show me your baggage, I have a couple of coolies here with a cart and a taxi for ourselves."

Mr. Salter proved to be remarkably prompt in his measures, and in less than ten minutes Shafto found himself following his flat narrow back down the steep gangway and setting his foot for the first time on the soil of Burma. He halted for a moment to look about. Here was a landmark in his life, a new sphere lay before him; the street was humming and alive with people, and he stared at the jostling, motley crowd of British, Burmese, Chinese, mostly a gaily-clad ever-changing mult.i.tude. Among them were shaven priests in yellow robes. Shans in flapping hats; right in front of him stood a stalwart Burman, wearing a white jacket, a pink silk handkerchief, twisted jauntily around his bullet head, and a yellow Lungi, girded to the knee, displayed a three-tailed cat tattooed on the back of each substantial calf.

And what a curious, soft and penetrating atmosphere; moist and loaded with unfamiliar, aromatic odours!

However, Mr. Salter, a man of action, had no time to spare for contemplation, and briskly hustled the stranger into a waiting taxi--for the old days of the rattling, shattered _gharry_ are numbered.

"I suppose this is all new to you?" said Shafto's acquaintance as they struggled up the crowded Strand, lined with imposing offices and vast _G.o.downs_, or warehouses.

"You may say so," he replied, eagerly gazing at the dense pa.s.sing throng--animated women with flower-decked hair, square-shouldered, sauntering men, carrying flat umbrellas and smoking huge cheroots, Khaki-clad Tommies and yellow-faced John Chinamen.

"Oh, there's lots to see in Burma," continued Salter, "an extraordinary mixture of people and races, and a most beautiful country; such splendid rivers and forests--but here, in Rangoon, everyone has but one idea."

In answer to Shafto's glance of interrogation he said:

"We are a commercial community, and our sole aim and object is to work, to get rich, and go home."

"But that doesn't apply to the native?"

"No, the Burman does not work; he is merely a spectator. The industry of others amuses him; his chief object is to enjoy life. Well, here is the hotel; let us go in and have a look at your quarters."

After the baggage had been disposed of and Shafto's room inspected and criticised, his companion still lingered talking. To Salter, the proverbially eccentric, this new-comer appeared to be an intelligent young fellow whom he would like and take to. There was no superior "just out from London to the back of G.o.d-speed" air about him. On the contrary, he appeared to be genuinely interested in his surroundings and insatiable for information. It struck him, too, that the forlorn stranger would put in a mighty dull and solitary evening and, stirred by a benevolent impulse, he said:

"Suppose you come back and dine at my diggings? I may be able to give you a few hints as I am an old hand."

"I should be delighted," a.s.sented Shafto, "if it won't be putting you out?"

"Oh no, not a bit; Mrs. Salter is accustomed to my bringing home a stray guest."

"Had I not better dress?"

"Certainly not; come along with me now, just as you are."

Thus the matter being arranged, the pair once more entered the taxi, and were presently steering through the traffic of various thoroughfares and teeming bazaars. All at once, with an unexpected lurch, the car turned into a wide, well-shaded enclosure and halted before a low, heavily-roofed house, supported on stout wooden legs--an old-time residence.

"Do you go up," urged Shako's host, "whilst I pay the taxi--you can settle with me later." Here spoke the canny Yorks.h.i.+re tyke.

Shafto, as requested, climbed the stairs leading up to a wide veranda, on which opened a sitting-room, lined with teak wood and lighted by long gla.s.s doors. Here he was confronted by a little Burmese woman with a beaming face. She wore a short white jacket, an extraordinarily tight satin petticoat, or, _tamain_ of wonderful b.u.t.terfly colours, enormous gold ear-rings, and a flower stuck coquettishly behind her left car. At first he supposed her to be a picturesque attendant, but when she extended a tiny hand loaded with rings and murmured "Pleased to see you!" he realised that he was addressed by the mistress of the house.

"This is my wife," announced Salter as he entered. "Mee Lay, here's Mr. Shafto, one of our new a.s.sistants, just out from England; I hope you can give him a good dinner?"

"Oh yes, it will be all right," and once more she beamed upon her guest, "I will go and see about it now."

And in spite of her tight skirt, Mee Lay glided out of the room with an air of surpa.s.sing grace.

"I dare say you are surprised to see that Mrs. Salter is of _this country_," said her husband, as he sank into a chair; "but it is by no means an uncommon match here. Burmese women are very good-humoured and capable; they make capital wives, and there is no denying the fascination of the Burmese girl--always so piquant and smiling and dainty. They have also a wonderful capacity for business and money-making, and a real hunger for land; some of the best plots in and about Rangoon have been picked up by these shrewd little creatures.

The men-folk, on the other hand, are incurably lazy. They loaf, gamble and amuse themselves and leave their women-kind to trade, or to weave silks and manufacture cheroots; numbers of them are in business. Mee Lay, my wife owns and runs a good-sized rice mill; and if you were to look into the back compound you would see it entirely surrounded by her matted paddy-bins, biding a rise in the market."

A yet further surprise awaited Shafto, in the shape of a little sallow girl, with clouds of crimped golden hair, beautifully dressed in European style, in a white embroidered frock and wide silk sash.

Rosetta had inherited the high cheek-bones and short nose of her mother's race, the blue eyes and firm jaw of her Yorks.h.i.+re parent. On the whole, she was an attractive child.

Miss Rosetta Salter received the strange gentleman with overpowering condescension, and spoke English in a thin, squeaky voice. In a flatteringly short time she had descended from her high horse, and accepted Shafto as a friend, revealed her age (eight years) and told him all about her French doll and her new brown boots--also from Paris.

The dinner, which was announced directly after the return of Mrs.

Salter, proved to be excellent, well cooked and a novelty. For the first time Shafto tasted real curry, also mango fool. The appointments were exclusively European, with the exception of a ma.s.sive silver bowl, filled with purple orchids, which adorned the centre of the table. Two snowy-clad Madras servants waited with silent dexterity and conversation never flagged. Salter discoursed of chummeries and the _Blanks.h.i.+re_ pa.s.sengers, and Mrs. Salter thoughtfully prepared the new arrival for the alarming insects of Lower Burma, whilst Rosetta, for her part, kept up an accompaniment on a high chirruping note.

During a momentary pause Shafto was startled by an odd sound--an imperious, unnatural voice that called, "Tucktoo! Tucktoo! Tucktoo!"

"What is it--or _who_ is it?" he inquired anxiously.

"Oh, it's only a large lizard that lives under the eaves," explained Salter, "one of our specialities. In the rains, when he is in good voice, he is deafening."

"He brings good and bad luck," added Mrs. Salter. "Oh, yes, that is so," and she flipped the air with her two first fingers, a favourite gesture among Burmese women.

"How do you mean luck?" Shafto asked.

"If he gives seven 'Tucktoos' without stopping, that is luck--great big luck--but if he goes on, he brings trouble."

"Only if he stops at an odd number," corrected the child.

"I see you know all about it," remarked the guest.

"Oh, yes, our Tucktoo never goes beyond seven--I think he is old--and mother says the _nats_ are kind to us."

"The cats are kind to you!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Shafto. "But why not?"

"No, no," hastily broke in Salter, "nats are spirits, good spirits or bad, who live in the trees; you will hear enough about them before you are a month in Burma. Their wors.h.i.+p is the national faith."

"But I thought Buddhism----" began Shafto, and hesitated.

"Oh, yes, ostensibly and ostentatiously, but wait and see."

"I am a Catholic," announced the child abruptly.

She was excessively self-conscious and anxious to show off before Shafto.