Oriental Stories/Volume 1/Issue 1/The Curse
The Curse
By Captain Ed Smith
In India it is considered very dangerous to insult a Yogi, or holy man
Janki was a very holy man indeed. Though his coarse matted hair was indescribably filthy and swarmed with vermin, though he smeared mud and ashes on his emaciated, almost naked body, wandering aimlessly through the length and breadth of teeming India, yet his begging-bowl was always full, there was always a bare-legged, ragged lad to make the rounds of the charitable who might wish to acquire merit. If the bowl came back heaped full of curried ghee with a great dab of melting rancid butter atop, who was Janki to begrudge the lad his just share of the spoils from the foray among the bazar habitués, or from the scrawny squalid mothers who dwelt beyond them? If that lad brought back even better provender and a timid request for a love philtre or a charm to assure the speedy birth of a son and heir, who was Janki to refuse so reasonable and modest a return? Impartially he gave such slight tokens, impassively he ate whatever was set before him; then, with the empty bowl hanging in its accustomed place at his girdle, he sat oblivious to sun and shade in the Silence. Truly Janki was a very holy man indeed!
He had come into the Aravalli Hills from the burning plains of Rajputana where the hot earth and its crops turned sere and yellow, even as the jungle itself; where the parched ground baked to a stone-like hardness and opened in huge gaping cracks, where the peasant brats died like flies of the cholera, and the burning-ghats were ever smoking.
The Feringhee, the Anglesi, had sought refuge in the cooler hills; Mount Abu was crowded with them—and with Rajputana princelings come to play polo, to gamble or to royster in such Oriental viciousness as they could find or else bring with them. All who could had left the parched plains for the Aravellis, the long hill road to Mount Abu was dotted with every conceivable conveyance as whites and natives alike fled the murderous heat of the lowlands.
Thither, too, came Janki, impervious alike to heat or cold, sun or rain, impervious also to feast or famine—though I will be frank to say that famines came but rarely to Janki's way.
Perhaps the multitudinous gods of Hind watched over him; perhaps they guided him into paths of peace and plenty—howbeit, when famine and drouth came, when disease spread its somber pinions over the land, Janki was always elsewhere. Truly Janki was a very holy man indeed!
There are Anglesi sahibs who will snort and declare that Janki was a charlatan—a fake and a fraud—instead of a very holy yogi. They will say that these very facts show that he was coldly calculating; that these very things prove their contentions conclusively instead of proving what every native believed about him regardless of his race or creed. I do not know. I refuse to be drawn into any controversy. Those same white sahibs will tell you that no man born of the fertile fruitful earth may peer into the future; they will discourse learnedly and long-windedly on coincidence when that subject happens to come up. Once more I refuse to be drawn into any argument.
But I shall tell you a tale of Janki and you may judge for yourself. The tale was told to me beside the leaping flames in the velvety darkness when the caravanserais and the bazars had been left far behind us, when the keen night winds of the high hills whistled sharply down the Pass and djinns and demons rode abroad on their wintry blasts. The shivering Plainsman who told it to me got it in the Serai that stands hard by the Motee Bazar, interposing its swarming colorful bulk between them and the great iron way that carries the sahibs on their foolish, furious, petty business trips across the great plains that have resounded to the footfalls of so many and so varied a horde of conquerors.
This Plainsman brought with him also a tale about another holy man—oh, such a salt, salt tale—but enough! The lowborn one told me many tales, tales that he swore by the beard of his father were all true talk and he was bound to me by many ties other than that of marriage; but, having heard him bargaining in the horse bazars for the sorry nag that I bestrode, my faith in his probity and virtue was not then so strong as it once was. The tale came to him in the devious, roundabout way that is the Orient, wherein a nautch, an Afridi and various and sundry others figured, so I myself can hardly vouch for it.
On that long steep hill that leads up to Mount Abu, lined with its sweetmeat stalls, horse-traders' camps, and those of vendors of this and that, Janki strode. The natives made a way for him through the press and accorded him far more respect than they did for the haughty hill rajah who had just preceded him.
As Janki stepped around a bend three horsemen spurred out of a narrow side road. White sahibs, all of them, they paid not a second glance at the natives who gave back on either hand. Not so, however, their horses; that of the youngest, a skittish sorrel, became unmanageable. Its rider sawed roughly on the bit as the animal wheeled and snorted, attempting vainly to control its sudden panic, yet unable to prevent it from bolting. In its sudden, furious rush the horse hurled Janki into the dust.
The yogi rose to his feet, his face a mask of diabolical anger. His eyes glared. He shook his fist after the swiftly receding form, mouthing curses after that devil and his demon steed.
Contemptuously the older of the two remaining sahibs tossed a few rupees at the holy man, who let them fall unheeded into the dusty way.
Moments passed. The two sahibs sat their mounts impassively as they awaited the return of their comrade. The holy man raged and rained vituperations and nameless obscenities after the absent one. Flecks of foam dripped from his
lips onto his heaving chest.
"Have done, beggar," the older sahib admonished Janki at last. "Pick up your rupees and begone?"
Janki swung about and glared at him; his curses stuck in his throat. He drew a deep breath.
"Beggar!" he snorted. "You dare to call me beggar—to think that a few miserable annas can right the wrong the accursed foreign devil"
The sahib raised his riding-crop in a threatening manner.
"Peace, you!" he shouted.
His companion placed a restraining hand on his arm. The older man shook it impatiently aside as Janki darted between them, face contorted, a shaking accusing finger pointed at the choleric white.
"You, too!" he shouted. "You, too, I curse! Hear me, gods! Smite this impious one. Lay his proud form in agony before me. Teach him the folly of insulting your resistless might! As for chat other, I call upon the wild beasts of the jungle to tear the life from his white throat. When he feels their claws rending his flesh, their hoc breath in his face, may his dying thoughts be of the holy ones he has offended!"
About them the natives drew slowly back in superstitious awe as the shaking yogi seemed to swell and dwarf them into insignificance. Janki turned slowly away. Contemptuously leaving the silver coins lying in the road, he strode up the hill as the youngest sahib rejoined his fellows.
"Rubbish!" snorted the choleric sahib.
"Damn him! What is India coming to? That dirty beggar dared to threaten me—and you, too, Sawyer!"
He turned to the youngster.
"The beggar had the impudence to threaten us because your mare bowled him over when she bolted. Damn his filthy hide?"
The youngster chuckled.
"That's rich! What was it, unk? The usual bunk? Hell-fire and brimstone, like the old rector at home?"
"It's no laughing-matter, Sawyer," Kensington interposed. "That was a yogi—a mahatma! When you've been here as long as I have"
"You've been here too long, Kensington; that's the trouble!" The choleric major cut him short. "Listening every day to these superstitious beggars, living among them, has made you into an old woman afraid of the dark!"
Kensington subsided once more. Major Ellison turned to his nephew:
"That filthy beggar called on the wild animals of the jungle to claw you up, to tear open your throat"
Sawyer Ellison chuckled.
"That's a ripping long shot, unk! How he knew of my passion for big game hunting beats me, unless he got it from some of Ken's native servants. Elephants in Africa—lions—bear in the Kodiak Island region, that tiger in Nepal—he almost got me—remember? Maybe one of them will get me yet, though I doubt it. Well, it's all in the game. It's a chance I take without thinking. What did he promise you, unde?" Sawyer's eyes were merry.
The major turned to Kensington disgustedly.
"What was it, Ken?" he growled. "Something about stretching me out in agony, wasn't it?"
Kensington nodded soberly.
"Just the same, I wish you fellows would call that leopard hunt off for tonight, old chap." His eyes were gloomy.
"What! Call it off just because a balmy beggar goes musty when I upset his apple cart in the little old road? Nothing doing, Ken!" Sawyer interposed quickly. "Why, the bait is set, the machin is built and the tonga will be around for us tonight after tiffin. Never! That's a bit too thick, old thing. No sir! the hunt goes on as per schedule—and may we bag the brace of them! Leopards! Big ones, too, from the size of their pugs—I measured them myself! I've got to have a leopard hide for the den; don't I, unk?" Sawyer turned to his uncle for support. The elder Ellison nodded dourly.
"Watch your step, then," Kensington said resignedly. "I'll go, of course," he added quickly.
"Good!" Major Ellison snapped. His grim face expanded with satisfaction. "That's all poppycock, Ken. I'll bet that old beggar has forgotten all about his momentary anger before this. . . . I hope we bag a big 'un. If we should shoot a pair of them—well, that will be a tale co tell at the club!"
He touched his horse lightly with his crop and the trio made their way swiftly to the Kensington bungalow.
Dinner was over. In the black night
the tonga stopped abruptly. The
three hunters dismounted with alacrity,
saw to their guns, inspected the mutilated
bodies of the goats that the two leopards
had slain the night before and that had
been left carefully untouched at Kensington's
orders. Swiftly they climbed up to
the machin, the hunter's platform, in the
wild fig tree that overlooked the clearing,
hurriedly built that very day by Kensington's
numerous native servants.
Far up the hill above them the light of Mount Abu twinkled, vying with the fat tropical stars and the flitting, twinkling fireflies. Ghostly whisperings and furtive rustlings filled the air as the jungle awoke from its day-dreaming for the serious business of the night.
Sawyer Ellison slapped at the mosquitos that hovered about them in swarms, biting every exposed place. He stifled a groan as he rubbed cramped aching leg muscles. Fervently he wished that he dared to move, to stretch, to turn from that intolerable position, yet mindful that his companions suffered similarly, and stoically forbore to relieve themselves lest they scare away any lurking game.
The moon rose, flooding the opening with its silver. The minutes passed in maddening slowness. A twig snapped sharply. The three in the machin tensed to instant watchfulness.
From the dense, shadowy jungle stole a sleek spotted body. Sawyer's eyes widened. A leopard! He eyed its lithe, wicked grace, its huge bulk—a real trophy—one to be proud of—if he could manage to secure it. Slowly his rifle raised.
At that instant the leopard's mate crept into view on his right, another splendid cat, almost the equal of the other. The female leaped playfully at her mate; the two played like enormous cats, though their playful slaps at each other would have broken bones for any of the hunters had they been there on the ground with the two. Reluctantly the two Ellisons held their fire for a surer shot. The leopards ceased their playful antics and crept swiftly toward the mutilated carcasses of the goats.
At almost the same instant Ellison's guns roared. The female leopard leaped high, clawing and growling in her death agonies, tearing up the tough jungle grasses in flying shards. The other beast dropped like a stone.
Incredulously Kensington eyed his silent weapon. Sheepishly he slipped off the safety catch that had prevented an echoing, answering roar when his nervous finger had pressed the trigger.
"Buck fever!" Sawyer jeered softly as he watched in amusement. "After all these years! Ken, old dear, I'm surprized!"
"Didn't need the other gun, anyway," the major muttered. "They're both dead." He eased himself into a better position.
Kensington misinterpreted the movement.
"Don't go down, my dear fellow," he whispered. "I've known supposedly dead leopards to charge and kill an over-hasty hunter."
"Never thought of doing such a thing," the major growled testily. Tm not such a greenhorn!"
An hour passed and still the clearing lay as silently as before.
"I hear the tonga coming back!" Sawyer exclaimed. "Come on! Let's go!"
He slid swiftly down one side of the rope ladder, sailor fashion, his gun slung over his back. Kensington saw him carelessly kick the female with a hurried foot as he passed the body. There was no response. The beast was dead. Sawyer Ellison ran over to the larger animal.
The major cautiously thrust his portly bulk over the edge of the machin, feeling with his legs for the rounds of the swaying, spidery rope ladder.
The supposedly dead leopard sprang up with a roar. Before Kensington could recover from his stupor Sawyer lay on the ground with the snarling, raging beast above him. Its murderous claws were shredding his clothing, tearing his flesh to ribbons, the snarling head was thrust into his face as its white fangs sought his throat.
With a hoarse shout Major Ellison slipped from the edge of the machin and fell heavily to the ground twenty feet below.
Twice Kensington sighted at that raging beast, each time pausing and staying his eager finger lest he kill his friend. At last, in desperation, he fired.
The beast rolled over and over, a snarling, spitting, clawing, squalling fury of destruction. Gradually its struggles subsided, it lay sprawled in the white moonlight.
Kensington reloaded the empty barrel and slid swiftly to the ground. The major was groaning, his florid face ashen and drawn. One glance was enough. Kensington felt sick. The fall had broken both the major's legs; through the bloody trousers protruded a splintered bone. Before Kensington's eyes floated a wavering picture of a face screwed into a demoniac mask of rage under filthy matted hair, of glowing, glaring eyes and foam-flecked lips—in his ears sounded again wild screaming curses. . . .
He hurried to the younger man. He stared at the gaping, tom throat through which life had already fled. He shuddered anew at the bloody mass of torn flesh that had been his friend and schoolmate. . . .
From the dense jungle behind him floated an elfin laugh, faint, clear, bell-like—was it one of the memsahibs up there at Mount Abu?
With excited gabblings, and swirling, smoking torches held high above their heads, that swayed in a wild grotesque dance, his servants broke through the jungle screen into the clearing.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling;
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.