Part 42 (1/2)
”I mean it was utterly dark, sir,” she said. ”It was absolutely dark!”
”But--I'm not able to understand!” her old friend protested.
”It was there Mitha Baba found them,” the Gul Moti explained. ”It was there she did the '_toiling in_.' Then, she was leading them home to Hurda, when we met the caravan--at dawn.”
Some of the mahouts had gathered about. The Chief Commissioner spoke to them in their speech and they answered him--calling others. Soon the men of High Himalaya drew near with grave deference, slowly stooping to touch the ground at her feet.
”No human has ever been in _that_ before,” said Kudrat Sharif. ”We will prepare rest for her--Chosen-of-Vishnu, the Great Preserver!”
It was after they had cared for the Gul Moti with the best they had--water from a mountain stream and food Neela Deo had carried, in a shelter made of tender deodar tips, where she now slept on a bed made of the same--that the mahouts told the Chief Commissioner and Skag, all they themselves had seen.
By this time concern had spread from Hurda throughout the country. Neela Deo had gone out to find the Gul Moti, carrying the Chief Commissioner and Son of Power. No one had come back. Calamity must have fallen. Men went out on horses to trace them. But it was certain priests of Hanuman who found the caravan first. (The Gul Moti having saved the life of a monkey king once, her safety was their concern also.) Without being seen or heard themselves, they went close enough to learn that she was making recovery from great exhaustion; and that the mahouts were caring for an elephant unable to travel by reason of a bad wound. They overheard talk of strange happenings; but more about Neela Deo's undreamed-of achievement.
Before any of the searchers from Hurda reached the caravan, mysterious gifts of provisions--much needed--were found by the mahouts, with a crude writing beside them: ”For the Healer-without-fear.” And those same priests of Hanuman--preparing a signal-system as they came--brought the good word back to the anxious people, who became joyous at once. Their Gul Moti was safe! Neela Deo was safe--everyone was safe. (But that was a strange saying--that Neela Deo had fought!)
Bonfires blazed up in every village within sight of the caravan's way home--from so far away as watchers on Hurda's highest hill could see--burning night and day. At last the one furthest from Hurda went out. The watchers raced in--Neela Deo's caravan was coming! One by one, the bonfires went out--till it was this side the Nerbudda. Then the people made ready.
They thronged out the great Highway-of-all-India, meeting the caravan where the slow-moving elephants turned in from open jungle. Eagerly striving to see the Gul Moti's face, eagerly pointing at Neela Deo, yet it was a stranger silent mult.i.tude. Only many tears on many tears showed their feeling.
The Gul Moti sat in Neela Deo's howdah, with the Chief Commissioner and Son-of-Power. Two men came close, carrying a long slender shape covered with pure white cloth--dripping wet.
”We be poor men,” one said, ”but our hands bring to thee, oh Healer--from the people of Hurda, oh Healer--” and breaking off, because his lips could speak no more, he stooped reverently to lay aside the covering.
A great folded leaf appeared; a long heavy stalk; then the flawless splendour of one bloom--immaculate! a sacred lotus, brought from far lakes. The Gul Moti received its ineffable loveliness and rose to stretch her fingers toward the mult.i.tude. Then their shouts swept the horizon.
Still, their concept of Neela Deo's character must be either shattered or restored--and soon; they would not wait. Ominously quiet questions went up to the mahouts; and the mahouts were full-ready to answer! In the end, it sounded like a wild Himalayan chant about Neela Deo's great fight to save Gunpat Rao. The people listened patiently, till an inward meaning enlightened them. Then they exulted:
”Neela Deo, Neela Deo, King of all elephants!”
”Exalted in majesty, Defender of honour, protecting his own with strength! We will remember him!”
”Neela Deo, Neela Deo, King of all elephants!”
”He with the wisdom of ages. Destroyer of devastators, preserving his friend with blood! Our children shall not forget!”
”He the Discerner of men, Equitable King! He the Discerner of evil, Invincible King! All generations after us shall hear of him; but we have looked upon his face!”
”Neela Deo, Neela Deo, King of all elephants!”
CHAPTER XV
_The Lair_
Carlin appeared to get right again in a few days of quiet after her terrific experience on Mitha Baba. There were a few more wonderful weeks for Skag and herself in the Malcolm M'Cord bungalow in Hurda--weeks always remembered. Then Skag undertook a little adventure of his own that had to do with Tiger. He was away seven days in all and made no report of the thing he had done to his department. He came back with a deeper quiet in his eyes and told no one but Carlin what the days had shown him. Skag never was at his best in trying to make words work. He was slow to explain. He had been hurt two or three times in earlier days, trying to tell something of peculiar interest to his work and finding incredulity and uncertain comment afterward. This made the animal trainer more wary than ever about talk.
But Carlin required few words. Carlin always understood. She didn't praise or fall into excesses of admiration, but she understood, and the older one gets the dearer that becomes. Carlin didn't advise with Skag whether she should speak of the matter. She merely decided that her old friend, Malcolm M'Cord, Hand-of-a-G.o.d, deserved to be told. The silent Scot knew much about animals and this was an affair that would stand high in his collection of musings and memories. M'Cord observed, in a Scotch that had suffered no thinning in thirty years of India, that if he hadn't known Hantee Sahib he would be forced to pa.s.s by Carlin's report as an invention, though a ”fertile” one. It was M'Cord who decided that Government should get at least a private account of the affair.
A remarkable tiger pair had operated for several years in the broken cliff country stretching away toward the valley of the Nerbudda beyond the open jungle round Hurda. As mates they had pulled together so efficiently that the natives had started the interminable process of making a tradition concerning them. These were superb young individuals and not man-eaters, for which reason Hand-of-a-G.o.d had not been called out to deliver the natives; also on this account Skag had been interested from the beginning.