In the Guardianship of God Part 12

So the old man babbled on garrulously, and the young one listened, till they reached the little village at the foot of the pa.s.s. The moon had risen by this time, and showed the upright slabs of sandstone cl.u.s.tering under the wide-spreading tamarind trees on its outskirts.

Slabs marking the graves of dead and gone inhabitants.

"I am ready now for the young girls to break their pitchers and cover my emptiness with the shards," said the old man, pausing for a second beside a cl.u.s.ter of these stones. Then he raised his hand and spoke to the unseen: "Fear not, Slumberers! He who comes to join you hath no scratch upon his back."

That was his _Nunc Dimittis_. After which he made his way to a low s.h.i.+ngled stone hut, covered with gourds, which stood on some rising ground outside the hamlet towards the pa.s.s; drank to excess--from pure joy--of a nauseous spirit made by the untrustworthy feminine out of wild berries, and then slept as sound as if he were indeed with the Slumberers.

For this question of the due keeping of the pa.s.s had been on the old man's nerves for months. The rains would be due ere long, bringing, no doubt, those twinges of lumbago to a grandfather's back which had of late made it difficult, indeed, to keep the pa.s.s open for travellers; since to do that a man must give the beasts no rest. He must harry their lairs when they were absent, scare them from the road with strange noises and ringing of bells, and, if they were obdurate, face claws and teeth.

But now there was some one to do all this. Some one of the true race, yet by the fiat of the Old G.o.d bigger than most. Ay! and with more personal enmity than most towards the evil ones who stole the Old G.o.d's likeness. For must not those six unborn mouths of wrong, of loss, of grief and anger, count for something?

Yes! Baghela would be a Keeper of the Pa.s.s, indeed! That was the old man's thought as he fell asleep, his dream as he lay sound as the Slumberers themselves. And Baghela slept, too, the badge of his new office, a necklace of tiger claws, round his neck, a ta.s.selled spear, hung with jingling bells, beside him. But the untrustworthy feminine, the mother, the grandmother, still sate by the embers of the fire whispering fearfully; for _they_ knew that those six unborn mouths, translated in _their_ way, might mean something very different.

Baghela himself, however, had no suspicion of the possibility. He set about his new duties with an immense amount of swagger. The least hint of a marauding intruder about the winding path which led to the fertile valleys towards the south, would send him through the village with boastful jinglings of his bells. And, as luck would have it, that jingling seemed all powerful for a time towards the keeping of the pa.s.s.

Nagdeo, who, now that the necessity for presenting a youthful appearance was over, permitted himself a seat amongst the village elders, a certain stiffness of carriage generally, used to boast of this peace dogmatically. Such a thing as no _news_, even, of intruders, so far on in the season, was unheard of. He himself, in his palmiest days, had never been so fear-compelling. It was those six unborn mouths of hereditary hatred which did it, no doubt.

And Baghela thought so too, as long as the rain was slight, as long as the flocks and herds kept to the uplands, and only the shepherds and herdsmen had tales to tell of loss. Then, one day, the clouds broke in slanting shafts of almost solid rain, and the water ran over the rippled sandhills as if it had been a tide once more. Then the sun shone for another day, and at dusk everything but a yard or two of shadow round Baghela as he patrolled the path was a blank nothingness, blotting out even the darkness with wet, impenetrable vapour, dulling even the sound of the bells, deadening all scent.

So, neither he nor the tiger had an instant's warning.

They were face to face in a moment.

Then Baghela knew what those unborn mouths had wrought in him. Terror, absolute, uncontrollable, seized on all his young strength; he knew nothing save the desire to escape. The next instant he felt a hot vapour on his back, heard the husky angry cough that sent it there, and all that young strength of his spent itself in a cry like that of the untrustworthy thing feminine, when they had told it of a young husband's death.

Into the mist he fled, feeling the cold vapour in his face, the hot behind; until, suddenly desperate, every atom of him leaped forward from what lay behind, and he fell.

None too soon; for even as he shot downward a shadow shot over him in the mist, and something ripped his bare back lightly, as, with greater impetus than his, that shadow plunged into the void.

A second afterwards a long-drawn howl of rage and spite rose upward through the mist to meet Baghela's whimpers as he lay, caught above the sheer precipice, by a bush.

After a while he rose and crept carefully up to the verge; then sate and s.h.i.+vered at himself; at this inheritance of fear. And more than once his hand sought that faint scratch upon his back. It was not much; not more than a kitten might have made in play, but he felt it like a brand.

By degrees, however, he began to think. The tiger must be lying dead, or at least helpless, below the rocks. He must get down to it, leave the marks of his spear in it; the mark of its claws ...

A surge of shame swept through him. No! he must go back unscathed; no one must have the chance, in dressing wounds, of seeing that faint mark behind.

So the next morning, old Nagdeo could scarcely contain himself for pride, as he sate among the village elders. The boy had killed his first tiger without a scratch. Had brought home its skin, the biggest seen for years. True, the lad himself had found the fight too hard, and was even now s.h.i.+vering and shaking with ague; but that only proved how hard the fight had been. And the untrustworthy feminine were dosing him, so he would be afoot again in a day or two. Then the village would see that, ere a month was over, a naked child might go through the pa.s.s alone in safety. But it was not so!

Baghela, it is true, was well enough by day, but as the dusk came on, his strong young limbs always fell a s.h.i.+vering and a shaking. "There is more room for quaking, see you, in him than in me," old Nagdeo would explain elaborately to his cronies, as he held out an arm, which with the inaction, the sudden cessation of imperious efforts, began to show its age clearly; "but one must pay for size and strength, and courage; and there is no harm done as yet. The mimicking devils had their lesson when he killed their champion without a scratch."

But the harm came in time. A party of salt-carriers, taking advantage of a break in the rains, arrived at the village carrying an extra load; the body of a man killed by a tiger, half eaten by jackals.

"Ague or no ague, sonling," said old Nagdeo almost coaxingly to the lad half-an-hour after the appearance of this grim visitor, "thy bells must be heard in the pa.s.s to-night. They will be all-sufficient, considering the lesson thou hast taught the beasts. And thou art strong enough for the ringing of bells. Thou canst return afterwards to s.h.i.+ver and shake, sonling, since thou art not of those to do that in the pa.s.s. No! no!"

The old man's chuckle at his little joke was tenderly triumphant; but, when he had gone, and the untrustworthy feminine alone remained, Baghela turned with a sob to his mother, who crouched beside him, and hid his face in her clothes, as if he had been a hurt child.

"Mother!" he cried, "I got it from thee!"

"Yes! heart of my heart," she answered pa.s.sionately, "and from thy murdered father too. Have I not told thee so, often? As for this old man! See you! Since _this_ has come upon us, and the s.h.i.+vering is no longer refuge--go! There is no need to ring the bells--no need to go farther than the little caves. And the old man fails fast. He will not live long. Then, when he is dead, the old tale will be told, and we can tell a new one, like other folk. Why, even now, see you, there is no need for travellers to cross the pa.s.s. Let them take the 'rail' which the _Huzoors_ have made! All this old-world talk is foolishness--yesterday's bread has been eaten, its water drunk; 'tis time for a new dinner!"

It was more than a month after this that some one, sitting on the village das underneath the tamarind trees in sight of the Slumberers, in trying to use a betel-cutter, said carelessly, "_It hath grown rusty, like Baghela's bells!_"

Nagdeo turned on the speaker like lightning. That month had left him curiously aged, with a wistful, anxious expectancy on his old face.

Though when, more than once, folk had commented on his changed looks, and asked what ailed him, he had only replied, almost apologetically, "Death lingers; 'tis time I was with the Slumberers, since Baghela keeps the pa.s.s as his fathers did."

But now his old voice rose haughtily, "Like thy wits rather! Canst not see that the youth hath been overbrave? The mimicking devils will not face the bells. And who can kill a foe that keeps his distance? And if the bells ring not, is it not in hopes to lure the cowards close--to take them unawares?"

The arguments came swiftly, as if they had been rehea.r.s.ed before; rehea.r.s.ed without audience; and yet when old Nagdeo moved off as if in displeasure, his hands crept out towards the stones which marked the Slumberers, his eyes sought them almost pitifully.

And that night, after Baghela had gone on his rounds, after the untrustworthy feminine had slothfully sought its bed, the old Keeper of the Pa.s.s crept out in the rear of the young one, spear in hand; yet without the jingles, since what need was there for two sets?

Two! But where was the one?

The old man's face grew more feline in its watchful anxiety, as he prowled among the bushes in the half moonlit darkness, listening for the challenge. And none came, though more than once in the denser shadow of thick jungle, he saw two spots of green light telling that some one was _waiting_ to be challenged. But where was the challenger?

The night was far spent ere he was found, fast asleep on a bed of dry leaves in the little cave.

The sight seemed to take the finder back, not to his more immediate ancestors, the purely savage hunters of those low hills, but to something older still, to the barbarians who had swept down on them to found princ.i.p.alities and powers; for all the calm dignity of the Indo-Scythic sculptures was in Nagdeo's pose as he p.r.i.c.ked the sleeper with his spear.

"Rise up, Keeper of the Pa.s.s; they wait for thee without."

Baghela was on his feet in a second. He knew the time had come, and something of the old racial courage in him held that new fear in check.

Until, not a hundred yards without the cave, in the faint grey light of the now coming dawn, a paler shadow showed in the darker shadows, long, low, sinuous; and something moved across their path with no sound of footfall; only a crackle of dry twigs, a sudden, soft, short wheeze, and then silence.

"Ring the bells, Keeper of the Pa.s.s," came the old man's voice. "There is no fear. Has not the tale of thy prowess spread among the tiger people?"

His prowess! The sting of that slight scratch was as fire on the lad's back; he paused. But a spear from behind reached to his, struck it sideways, and the next instant the challenge echoed through the pa.s.s.

And was accepted.

The shadow grew short, showed paler; till two green lights flashed out, and with a roar that rolled among the rocks, the tiger faced them, crouched and sprang.

Old Nagdeo, his vanished youth returning for a s.p.a.ce, sprang too, watching that other spring; so, spear in hand, found himself close to the striped skin of the base usurper of the Old G.o.d's shape, into which, with all the force he possessed, he drove his weapon's point.

But Baghela, with no thought but flight, felt the full force of those mighty claws on his back, and fell. Perhaps his neck was broken; anyhow, he lay still, heedless of the piteous cry that followed:--

"Face him, Keeper of the Pa.s.s! Face the teeth, face the claws, ere thou seekest the Slumberers!"

Yet the entreaty was not utterly disregarded; since--Baghela dead--that Keepers.h.i.+p pa.s.sed again to one whose face faced the old enemy bravely.

That face, however, had no triumph of victory in it, when Nagdeo stooped over his grandson's body, and turned its scored back to be hidden by Mother Earth. There was no mark anywhere else--not a scratch. That, at any rate, must not be. That must be remedied before the villagers saw it; before even the sun saw it. For was not Budhal Pen, the Old G.o.d, the Sun-G.o.d also?

So he drew the lad's body deliberately within reach of the mighty claws, and used them, slack as they were in newly-come death, for his purpose.

Then he sat down beside the two dead bodies, and looked at his own for scratch or hurt. There was not one; not even a bruise, not a spot of blood. So none need know. The girls might weep as they broke their pitchers over Baghela bewailing his dead courage.

The courage which had died before he did, though none should know of it. Yet it had died. And who was to blame?