The Heart of Denise, and Other Tales

THE TREASURE OF SHAGUL

It was past two o'clock, and Aladin, the elephant-driver, had gathered together his usual audience under the shade of the mango tree near the elephant-shed. Aladin was a noted story-teller; he had a long memory, and an exhaustless fund of anecdote. It was ten years since he had come from Nepaul with Moula Piari, the big she-elephant, and for ten years he had delighted the inhabitants of the canal-settlement at Dadupur with his tales. It was his practice to tell one story daily, never more than one; and his time for this relaxation was an hour or so after the midday meal, when he would sit on a pile of sal logs, under the mango tree, and his small audience, collecting round him in a semi-circle, would wait patiently until the oracle spoke. No one ever attempted to ask him to begin. Once Bullen, the water-carrier, the son of Bishen, after waiting in impatient expectation through ten long minutes of solemn silence, had suggested that it was time for Aladin to commence. At this the old man rose in wrath, and asking the water-carrier if he was his slave, smote him over the ear, and stalked off to the elephant-shed. For three days there was no story-telling, and Bullen, the son of Bishen, had a hard time of it with his fellows. Finally matters were adjusted; both Aladin and Bullen were persuaded by Gunga Din, the tall Burkundaz guard, to forget the past, and affairs went on in the old way. That was three years ago, but the lesson had not been forgotten. So although it happened on this April afternoon, that all the elephant-driver's old cronies were there, – Gunga Dino the Burkundaz, Dulaloo the white-haired Sikh messenger who had been orderly to Napier of Magdala, Piroo Ditta the telegraph-clerk, and Gobind Ram the canal-accountant, with a half-score others-yet not one of them ventured to disturb the silence of Aladin, as he sat, gravely stroking his beard, on the ant-eaten sal logs which had mouldered there for so many years. They were the remains of a wrecked raft that had come down in a July flood, and having been rescued from the water, were stacked under the mango tree for the owner to claim. No owner ever came, but they had served as food for the white ants, and as a bench for Aladin, for many a year. The afternoon was delicious; a soft breeze was blowing, and the leaves of the trees tinkled overhead. Above the muffled roar of the canal, pouring through the open sluices, came the clear bell-like notes of a blackbird, who piped joyously to himself from a snag that stood up, jagged and sharp, out of the clear waters of the Some. To the north the Khyarda and Kalessar Duns extended in long lines of yellow, brown, and grey, and above them rose the airy outlines of the lower Himalayas, while higher still, in the absolute blue of the sky, towered the white peaks of the eternal snows. Beeroo, the Sansi, saw the group under the mango tree as he crossed the canal-bridge, and hastened towards it. Beeroo was a member of a criminal tribe, a tribe of nomads who lived by hunting and stealing, who are to be found in every Indian fair as acrobats, jugglers, and fortune-tellers, or tramping painfully through the peninsula with a tame bear or performing monkeys. In short the Sansis are very similar to gipsies, if they are not, indeed, the parent stock from which our own "Egyptians" spring. Beeroo came up to the sitters, but as he was of low caste, or rather of no caste, he took up his position a little apart, leaning on a long knotted bamboo staff, his coal-black eyes glancing keenly around him. "It is Beeroo," said Dulaloo the Sikh, and with this greeting lapsed into silence. Aladin ceased stroking his henna-stained beard, and looked at the new-comer. "Ai, Beeroo! What news?"

"There is a tiger at Hathni Khoond, and I have marked him down. Is the Sahib here?"

"The Sahib sleeps now," replied Aladin; "it is the time for his noontide rest. He will awaken at four o'clock."

"I will see His Honour then," replied Beeroo, "and there will be a hunt to-morrow."

"Is it a big tiger?" asked Bullen, the son of Bishen.

"Aho!" and the Sansi, sliding his hands down the bamboo staff, sank to a sitting posture.

"When was it the Sahib slew his last tiger?" asked Piroo Ditta, the telegraph-clerk.

"Last May, at Mohonagh, near the temple," answered Aladin; "I remember well, for the elephant lost a toenail in fording the river-bed-poor beast!"

"At Mohonagh! That is where the Shagul Tree is," said Gobind Ram.

"True, brother. Hast heard the tale?"

There was a chorus of "noes," that drowned Gobind Ram's "yes," and Aladin, taking a long pull at his water-pipe, began:

"When Raja Sham Chand had ruled in Suket for six years, he fell into evil ways, and abandoning the shrine of Mohonagh, where his fathers had worshipped for generations, set up idols to a hundred and fifty gods. Prem Chand, the high priest of Mohonagh, cast himself at the Raja's feet, and expostulated with him in vain, for Sham Chand only laughed, saying Mohonagh was old and blind. Then he mocked the priest, and Prem Chand threw dust on his own head, and departed sore at heart. So Mohonagh was deserted, and the Raja wasted his substance among dancing-girls and the false priests who pandered to him. About this time Sham Chand, being a fool although a king, put his faith in the word of the emperor at Delhi, and came down from the hills to find himself a prisoner. In his despair the Raja called upon each one of his hundred and fifty gods to save him, promising half his kingdom if his prayers were answered; but there was no reply. At last the Raja bethought him of the neglected Mohonagh, and falling on his knees implored the aid of the god, making him the same promise of half his kingdom, and vowing that if he were but free, he would put aside his evil ways, return to the faith of his fathers, and destroy the temples of his false gods. As he prayed he heard a bee buzzing in his cell, and watching it, saw it creep into a hollow between two of the bricks in the wall, and then creep out again, and buzz around the room. Sham Chand put his hand to the bricks and found they were loose. He put them back carefully, and waited till night. Under cover of the dark he set to work once more, and removing brick after brick, found that he could make his passage through the wall. This he did and effected his escape. When he came back to Suket he kept his vow, and more than this. Within the walls of the mandar of Mohonagh grows a shagul, or wild pear tree. On this tree the Raja nailed a hundred and fifty gold mohurs, a coin for each one of the false gods whose idols he destroyed, and decreed that every one in Suket who had a prayer answered, should affix a coin or a jewel to the tree. That was a hundred years ago, and now the stem of the Shagul Tree is covered with coins and jewels to the value of lakhs. I saw it with my own eyes. This is not all, for when at Mohonagh I heard that the god strikes blind any thief who attempts to steal but a leaf from the tree. Bus!-there is no more to tell."

"Wah! Wah!" exclaimed the listeners, and Beeroo put in, "Lakhs of rupees didst thou say, Mahoutjee?"

"I have said what I have said, O Sansi, and thou hast heard. Hast thou a mind to be struck blind?"

Beeroo made no answer, and the group shortly afterwards broke up. But Gobind Ram, the canal-accountant, who knew the story of the Shagul Tree, went straight to his quarters. Here he wrote a brief note on a piece of soft yellow paper, and sealed it carefully. Then he drew forth a pigeon from a cage in a corner of the room, and fastening the letter to the bird, freed the pigeon with a toss into the air. The carrier circled slowly thrice above the neem trees, and then spreading its strong slate-coloured wings, flew swiftly towards the hills. Gobind Ram watched the speck in the sky until it vanished from sight, then he went in, muttering to himself, "The high priest will know in an hour that Beeroo the Sansi has heard of the Shagul Tree-Ho, Aladin, thou hast too long a beard and too long a tongue," and the subtle Brahmin squatted himself down to smoke.

An hour afterwards, as Aladin was taking the she-elephant to water, he saw a figure going at a long slouching trot along the yellow sandbanks of the Some, making directly towards the north. The old man shaded his eyes with his hands and looked keenly at it; but his sight was not what it was, and he turned to Mahboob, the elephant-cooly, who would step into his shoes some day, when he died, and asked: "See'st thou that figure on the sandbank there, Mahboob?"

"It is the Sansi," answered Mahboob. "Behold! He limps on the left foot, where the leopard clawed him at Kara Ho. Perchance the Sahib will not hear of the tiger to-day."

"If ever, Mahboob," answered the Mahout; "would that mine eyes were young again. Hai!" and he tapped Moula Piari's bald head with his driving-hook, for her long trunk was reaching out to grasp a bundle of green grass from the head of a grass-cutter, who was bearing in fodder for the Sahib's pony.

Mahboob was not mistaken; it was Beeroo. When the party broke up, he alone remained apparently absorbed in thought. After a time he took some tobacco from an embroidered pouch hanging at his waist, crushed it in the palm of his hand, and rolled a cone-shaped cigarette with the aid of a leaf, fastening the folds of the leaf together with a small dry stick which he stuck through the cigarette like a hair-pin. At this he sucked, his forehead contracted into a frown, and his bead-like eyes fixed steadily before him. Finally he rose quickly, as one who has made a sudden resolve.

"The tiger can wait for the Sahib," he said to himself; "but lakhs of rupees-they wait also-for me. I will go and worship at Mohonagh. The idol will surely make the convert a gift."

Laughing softly to himself, he stole off with long cat-like steps in the direction of the river. He forded the Some where it was crossed by the telegraph-line, and the water was but breast-deep. Once on the opposite bank, he shook himself like a dog, and breaking into a trot, headed straight for the hills. His way led up a narrow and steep track, hedged in with thorns over which the purple convolvulus twined in a confused network. On either hand were sparse fields of gram and corn, which ran in lozenge shapes up the low hillsides, ending in a tangle of underwood, beyond which rose the solid outlines of the forest. As the sun was setting he came to a long narrow ravine, over which the road crossed. Here he stopped, and instead of keeping to the road, turned abruptly to the right and trotted on. In the darkening woods above him he heard the cry of a panther, and the alarmed jabbering of the monkeys in the trees above their most dreaded enemy. Beeroo marked the spot with a glance as he went on: "I will buy a gun when I come back from Mohonagh," he muttered to himself, "a two-barrelled gun of English make. The Thanadar at Thakot has one for sale, a birich-lodas;1 and then I will shoot that panther." Hough! Hough! The cry of the animal rang through the forest again, as if in assent to his thoughts, and Beeroo continued his way. Just as the sun sank and darkness was setting in, he saw the wavering glimmer of a circle of camp-fires and the outlines of figures moving against the light. The flare of the burning wood discovered also a few low tents, shaped like casks cut in half lengthwise, and lit up with red the grey fur of a number of donkeys that were tethered within the radius of the fires. In a little time he heard the barking of dogs, and five minutes later was with the tents of his tribe.

One or two men exchanged brief greetings with him, and answering them, he stepped up to the centre fire, where a tall good-looking woman addressed him. "Aho, Beeroo, is it you? Is the hunt to be to-morrow?"

"The Sahib was asleep," answered Beeroo; "give me to eat."

The woman brought him food. It was a stew made of the flesh of a porcupine that had been kept warm in an earthenware dish, and Beeroo ate heartily of this, quenching his thirst with a draught of the fiery spirit made from the blossoms of the mhowra, after which he began to smoke once more, using a small clay pipe called a chillum. His wife, for so the woman was, made no attempt to converse with him, but left him to the company of his tobacco and his thoughts. Beeroo sat moodily puffing blue curls of smoke from his pipe, and with a black blanket drawn over his shoulders, stared steadily into the fire. So he sat for hours, no one disturbing him, sat until the camp had gone to rest, and the wind alone was awake and sighing through the forest. Sagoo, his big white hound, came close to him, and lay by his side, as if to hint that it was time to sleep. Beeroo stroked the lean, muscular flank of the dog, and looked around him. "In a little time," he said to himself, "I will be Beeroo Naik, with a village of my own and wide lands. Beeroo Naik," he repeated softly to himself, with a lingering pride on the title implied in the last word. Then he rolled himself up in his blanket; Sagoo snuggled beside him, and they slept.

Beeroo awoke long before sunrise. He drank some milk, stole into his tent, and crept out again with a stout canvas haversack in his hands. Into this sack, which contained other things besides, he stuffed some broken meat and bread made of Indian corn, and slung is over his shoulders. Then grasping his staff, he gave a last look around him, and plunged into the jungle. Sagoo would have followed, but Beeroo ordered him back, and the hound with drooping tail and wistful eyes watched the figure of his master until it was lost in the gloom of the trees. Beeroo walked on tirelessly, and by midday was far in the hills. He could go from sunrise to sunset at that long trotting pace of his, rest a little, eat a little, and then keep on till the sun rose again. He was now high up in the hills. The sal trees had given place to the screw-pine, silk-cotton and mango were replaced by holm-oak and walnut. In the tangle of the low bushes the dog-rose and wild jasmine bloomed, and the short green of the grass was spangled with the wood violet, the amaranth, and the pimpernel. Far below the Jumna hummed down to the plains in a white lashing flood, and the voice of the distant river reached him, soft and dreamy, through the murmur of the pines. As he glanced into the deep of the valleys, a blue pheasant rose with its whistling call, and with widespread wings sailed slowly down into the mist below. The sunlight caught the splendour of his plumage, and he dropped like a jewel into the pearl grey of the vapour that clung to the mountain-side. Beeroo looked at the bird for a moment, and then lifting his gaze, fixed it on a white spot on the summit of the forest-covered hill to his left. He made out a cone-like dome, surmounting a square building, built like an eagle's nest at the edge of the precipice which fell sheer for a thousand feet to the silver ribbon of the river. It was the mandar, or temple of Mohonagh, and so clear was the air, that it seemed as if Beeroo had only to stretch out his staff to touch the white spot before him. He knew better than that, however, and knew too that the sun must rise again before he could rest himself beneath the walls of the temple, and look on the treasure of the shagul.

"Ram, ram, Mohonagh!" he cried, saluting the far-off shrine in mockery, and then continued his way. When he had gone thus for another hour or so, he came upon the traces of a recent encampment. There was a heap of stale fodder, one or two earthenware pots were lying about, and the remains of a fire still smouldered under the lee of a walnut tree. Hard by, on the opposite side of the track, a huge rock rose abruptly, and from its scarred side a bubbling spring plashed musically into a natural basin, and, overflowing this, ran across the path in a small stream, past the tree and over the precipice, where it lost itself in a spray in which a quivering rainbow hung. Here Beeroo halted, and having broken his fast and slaked his thirst, proceeded to totally alter his personal appearance. This he did by the simple process of removing his turban of Turkey red and his warm vest, the only covering he had for the upper portion of his body. After this he let down his long straight hair, which he wore coiled in a knot, to fall freely over his shoulders. Then he smeared himself all over, head and all, with ashes from the fire; and when this was done he stood up a grisly phantom in which no one would have recognised the Sansi tracker. He hid his sandals and the wearing apparel he had removed in a secure place in a cleft in the rocks, and marking the spot carefully, went on-no longer Beeroo the Sansi, a man of no caste, but a holy mendicant. In his left hand he held one of the earthen vessels he had found under the walnut, in his right, his bamboo staff, and the knapsack hung over his shoulders. When he had gone thus for about a mile he heard the melancholy "Aosh! Aosh!" of cattle-drivers in the hills and the tinkling of bells. Turning a bluff he came face to face with a small caravan of bullocks, returning from the interior, laden with walnuts, dried apricots, and wool. Each bullock had a bundle of merchandise slung on either side, and the frontlet of the leading animal was adorned with strings of blue beads and shells. The caravan-drivers walked, and as they urged their beasts along, repeated at intervals their call, which to European ears would sound more like a sigh of despair than a cry of encouragement. Beeroo stood by the side of the road, and, stretching out his ash-covered hands, held out the vessel for alms. Each man as he passed dropped a little into it for luck, one a brown copper, another some dried fruit, a third a handful of parched grain, and Beeroo received these offerings in a grave silence as became his holy calling. He stayed thus until the caravan was out of sight; then he collected the few coins and tossed the rest of the contents of the vessel on to the roadside. He was satisfied that his disguise was complete, and that he could face the priests of the temple at Mohonagh without fear of discovery, for the carriers were Bunjarees, members of a tribe allied to his own, whose lynx-eyes would have discovered a Sansi in a moment unless his disguise was perfect.