Verses 1889-1896 Part 10

The flare of a village -- the tally of slain -- And. . .the Boh was abroad "on the raid" again!

They cursed their luck, as the Irish will, They gave him credit for cunning and skill,

They buried their dead, they bolted their beef, And started anew on the track of the thief

Till, in place of the "Kalends of Greece", men said, "When Crook and his darlings come back with the head."

They had hunted the Boh from the hills to the plain -- He doubled and broke for the hills again:

They had crippled his power for rapine and raid, They had routed him out of his pet stockade,

And at last, they came, when the Day Star tired, To a camp deserted -- a village fired.

A black cross blistered the Morning-gold, And the body upon it was stark and cold.

The wind of the dawn went merrily past, The high gra.s.s bowed her plumes to the blast.

And out of the gra.s.s, on a sudden, broke A spirtle of fire, a whorl of smoke --

And Captain O'Neil of the Black Tyrone Was blessed with a slug in the ulnar-bone -- The gift of his enemy Boh Da Thone.

(Now a slug that is hammered from telegraph-wire Is a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.)

The shot-wound festered -- as shot-wounds may In a steaming barrack at Mandalay.

The left arm throbbed, and the Captain swore, "I'd like to be after the Boh once more!"

The fever held him -- the Captain said, "I'd give a hundred to look at his head!"

The Hospital punkahs creaked and whirred, But Babu Harendra (Gomashta) heard.

He thought of the cane-brake, green and dank, That girdled his home by the Dacca tank.

He thought of his wife and his High School son, He thought -- but abandoned the thought -- of a gun.

His sleep was broken by visions dread Of a s.h.i.+ning Boh with a silver head.

He kept his counsel and went his way, And swindled the cartmen of half their pay.

And the months went on, as the worst must do, And the Boh returned to the raid anew.

But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife, And in far Simoorie had taken a wife.

And she was a damsel of delicate mould, With hair like the suns.h.i.+ne and heart of gold,

And little she knew the arms that embraced Had cloven a man from the brow to the waist:

And little she knew that the loving lips Had ordered a quivering life's eclipse,

And the eye that lit at her lightest breath Had glared unawed in the Gates of Death.

(For these be matters a man would hide, As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.)

And little the Captain thought of the past, And, of all men, Babu Harendra last.

But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road, The Government Bullock Train toted its load.

Speckless and spotless and s.h.i.+ning with _ghee_, In the rearmost cart sat the Babu-jee.

And ever a phantom before him fled Of a scowling Boh with a silver head.

Then the lead-cart stuck, though the coolies slaved, And the cartmen flogged and the escort raved;

And out of the jungle, with yells and squeals, Pranced Boh Da Thone, and his gang at his heels!

Then belching blunderbuss answered back The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack,

And the blithe revolver began to sing To the blade that tw.a.n.ged on the locking-ring,

And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed, As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist,

And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes Watched the souls of the dead arise,

And over the smoke of the fusillade The Peac.o.c.k Banner staggered and swayed.

Oh, gayest of scrimmages man may see Is a well-worked rush on the G.B.T.!

The Babu shook at the horrible sight, And girded his ponderous loins for flight,

But Fate had ordained that the Boh should start On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,

And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe, The Babu fell -- flat on the top of the Boh!

For years had Harendra served the State, To the growth of his purse and the girth of his _p]^et_.

There were twenty stone, as the tally-man knows, On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs.

And twenty stone from a height discharged Are bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.

Oh, short was the struggle -- severe was the shock -- He dropped like a bullock -- he lay like a block;

And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear, Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear.