The Elephant God by Gordon Casserly (best classic books of all time txt) 📕

"Why, you're wounded, Dermot!" exclaimed Payne.

"Oh, no. Just a scratch."

"Yes, he is wounded, but he pretends it's nothing," said Noreen. "Do see if it's anything serious, Mr. Payne."

"I assure you it's nothing," protested the soldier, resisting eager and well-meant attempts to drag him into the house and tend his hurts by force. But attention was diverted when a planter cried:

"Good Heavens! what's this? The elephant's tusk is covered with blood."

"Tusk! Why, he's blood to the eyes," exclaimed another.

For the leaping flames revealed the fact that Badshah's tusk, trunk, and legs were covered with freshly-dried blood.

"Good Heavens! he's been wading in it."

"What's that on his tusk? Why, it's fragments of flesh. Oh, the deuce!"

There were exclamations of surprise and horror from the white men. But the mass of coolies, who had been pressing forward to stare, drew back into the darkness and muttered to each other.

"The god! The god! Who can withstand the god?" they whispered.

"Arhé, bhai! (Aye, brother!) But which is the god? The elephant or his rider? Tell me that!" exclaimed a grey-haired coolie.

Among the Europeans the questions showered on Dermot redoubled.

"Look here, you fellows. I can't answer you all at once," he expostulated. "It's a long story. But please remember that Miss Daleham has had a tiring day and must be worn out."

"Oh, no, I'm not," exclaimed the girl. "Not now. I was fatigued, but I'm too excited to rest yet."

"Come into the bungalow everyone and we'll have the whole story there," said her brother. "The servants will get supper ready for us. We must celebrate tonight."

"Indeed, yes. Look you, it shall be very wet tonight in Malpura, whateffer," cried Parry, who was already half drunk. "Here, boy! Boy! Where is that damned black beastie of mine? Boy!"

His khitmagar disengaged himself from the group of servants and approached apprehensively, keeping out of reach of his master's fist.

"Go to the house," said Parry to him in Bengali. "Bring liquor here. All the liquor I have. Hurry, you dog!"

He aimed a blow at him, which the khitmagar dodged with the ease of long practice and ran to execute his master's bidding.

Daleham gave directions to his butler and cook to prepare supper, and led the way into the house with his arm round his sister, who, woman-like, escaped to change her dress and make herself presentable, as she put it. She had already forgotten the fatigues of the day in the hearty welcome and the joy of her safe home-coming.

But before Dermot entered the bungalow he had water brought and washed from Badshah's head and legs the evidences of the terrible vengeance that he had taken upon their assailants. And from the verandah the planters looked at animal and master and commented in low tones on the strange tales told of both, for the reputation of mysterious power that they enjoyed with natives had reached every white man of the district.

The crowd of coolies drifted away to their village on the tea-garden, and there throughout the hot night hours the groups sat on the ground outside the thatched bamboo huts and talked of the animal and the man.

"It is not well to cross this sahib who is not as other sahibs," said a coolie, shaking his head solemnly.

"Sahib, say you? Is he only a sahib?" asked an old man. "Is he truly of the gora logue (white folk)?"

"Why, what else is he? Is not his skin white?" said a youth, presumptuously thrusting himself into the conclave of the elders.

"Peace! Since when was it meet for children to prattle in the presence of their grandsires?" demanded a grey-haired coolie contemptuously. "Know, boy, that Shri Krishn's skin was of the same colour when he moved among us on earth."

Krishna, the Second Person of the Hindu Trinity, the best-loved god of all their mythological heaven, is represented in the cheap coloured oleographs sold in the bazaars in India as being of fair complexion.

"Is he Krishna himself?" asked a female coolie eagerly, the glass bangles on her arm rattling as she raised her hand to draw her sari over her face when she thus addressed men. "Is he Krishna, think you? He is handsome enough to be the Holy One."

"Who knows, daughter? It may be. Shri Krishn has many incarnations," said the old man solemnly.

"Nay, I do not think that he is Krishna," remarked an elderly coolie. "It may be that he is another of the Holy Ones."

"Perhaps he is Gunesh," ventured a younger man.

"No; he bestrides Gunesh. I think he must be Krishna," chimed in another. "What lesser god would dare to use Gunesh as his steed?"

"He is Gunesh himself," asserted a grey-beard. "Does he not range the jungle and the mountains at the head of all the elephants of the Terai? Can he not call them to his aid as Hanuman did the monkeys?"

"He is certainly a Holy One or else a very powerful demon," declared the old man. "It is an evil and a dangerous thing to molest those whom he protects. The Bhuttias, ignorant pagans that they are, carried off the missie baba he favours. What, think ye, has been their fate? With your own eyes ye have all seen the blood and the flesh of men upon the tusk and legs of his sacred elephant."

And so through the night the shuttle of superstitious talk went backward and forward and wove a still more marvellous garment of fancy to drape the reputation of elephant and man. The godship that the common belief had long endowed Badshah with was being transferred to his master; and a mere Indian Army Major was transformed into a mysterious Hindu deity.

Meanwhile in the well-lighted bungalow in which all the sahibs were gathered together the servants were hurriedly preparing a supper such as lonely Malpura had never known. And Noreen's pretty drawing-room was crowded with men in riding costume or in uniform—for most of the planters belonged to a Volunteer Light Horse Corps, and some of them, expecting a fight, had put on khaki when they got Daleham's summons. Their rifles, revolvers, and cartridge belts were piled on the verandah. Chunerbutty, feeling that his presence among them would not be welcomed by the white men that night, had gone off to his own bungalow in jealous rage. And nobody missed him. Dermot, despite his protests, had been dragged off to have his hurts attended to, and it was then seen that he had been touched by three bullets.

When all were assembled in the room the planters demanded the tale of Noreen's adventures; and the girl, looking dainty and fresh in a white muslin dress, unlike the heroine of her recent tragic experience, smilingly complied and told the story up to the point of Dermot's unexpected and dramatic intervention.

"Now you must go on, Major," she said, turning to him.

"Yes, yes, Dermot. Carry on the tale," was the universal cry.

Everyone turned an expectant face towards where the soldier sat, looking unusually embarrassed.

"Oh, there's nothing much to tell," he said. "The raiders—they were Bhuttias—had left a trail easy enough to see, though I confess that I would have lost it once but for my elephant. When I came up to them, as Miss Daleham has just told you, they all ran away except two."

"What did these two do?" asked Granger, his host of the previous night.

"Not much. They tried to stand their ground, but didn't really give much trouble. So I took Miss Daleham up on my elephant and we started back. But like a fool I stopped on the way to have grub, and somebody began shooting at us from the jungle, until wild elephants turned up and cleared them off. Then we came on here. That's all."

These was a moment's silence. Then Granger, in disgusted tones, exclaimed:

"Well, Major, of all the poor story-tellers I've ever heard, you're the very worst. One would think you'd only been for a stroll in a quiet English lane. 'Then we came on here. That's all.'"

"Oh, yes, you can't ask us to believe it was as tame as that, Major," said another planter. "We expected to hear something a little more exciting."

"You go out after thirty or forty raiders—"

"No, only twenty-two all told," corrected Dermot.

"All right, only twenty-two, come back with three hits on you and your elephant up to his eyes in blood and—and—well, hang it all, Major, let's have some more details."

"Come, Miss Daleham," Payne broke in, "you tell us what happened. I know Dermot, and we won't get any more out of him."

"Yes; let's hear all about it, Noreen," said her brother. "I'm sure it wasn't as tame as the Major says."

"Tame?" echoed the girl, smiling. "I've had enough excitement to last me all my life, dear. I think that Major Dermot has put it rather mildly. I'm sure even I could tell the story better."

She narrated their adventures, giving her rescuer, despite his protests, full credit for his courage and resource, only omitting the details of their picnic meal and slurring over their relief by the wild elephants. The planters listened eagerly to her tale, breaking into applause at times. When she had finished Parry laid a heavy hand on Dermot's shoulder and said solemnly, though thickly:

"Look you, you are a bad liar, Major Dermot. Your story would not deceive a child, whateffer. But I am proud of you. You should have been a Welshman."

The rest overwhelmed the soldier with compliments and congratulations, much to his embarrassment, and when Noreen left the room to supervise the arrangement of the supper-table they plied him with questions without extracting much more information from him. But when a servant came to announce that the meal was ready and the planters rose to troop to the dining-room, Dermot reached the door first and held up his hand to stop them.

"Gentlemen, one moment, please," he said. Then he looked out to satisfy himself that the domestic was out of hearing and continued: "I'd be obliged if during supper you'd make no allusion before the servants to what has happened today. Afterwards I shall have something to say to you in confidence that will explain this request of mine."

The others looked at him in surprise but readily agreed. Before they left the room Daleham noticed the Hindu engineer's absence for the first time.

"By Jove, I'd forgotten Chunerbutty," he exclaimed. "I wonder where he is? Perhaps he doesn't know we're going to have supper. I'd better send the boy to tell him."

"Indeed no, he is fery well where he is," hiccoughed Parry, who, seated by a table on which drinks had been placed, had not been idle. "This is not a night for black men, look you."

"Yes, Daleham, Parry's right," said Granger. "Let us keep to our own colour tonight. Things might be said that wouldn't be pleasant for an Indian to hear."

"Forgive my putting a word in, Daleham," added Dermot. "But I have a very particular reason, which I'll explain afterwards, for asking you to leave Chunerbutty out."

"Yes, we don't want a damned Bengali among us tonight, Fred," said a young planter bluntly.

"Oh, very well; if you fellows would rather I didn't ask him I won't," replied their host. "But I'm afraid his feelings will be hurt at being left out when we're celebrating my sister's safe return. He's such an old friend."

"Oh, hang his feelings! Think of ours," cried another of the party.

"All right. Have it your own way. Let's go in to supper," said the host.

The hastily improvised meal was a merry feast, and the loud voices and the roars of laughter rang out into the silent night and reached the ears of Chunerbutty sitting in his bungalow eating his heart out in bitterness and jealousy. Noreen, presiding at one end of the long table, was the queen of the festival and certainly had never enjoyed any supper in London as much as this impromptu meal. General favourite as she always was with