Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (782 page)

Presently the unbridled screams exhausted themselves and turned into choking, confidential, sobbing whispers: ‘Nursie! I’m so sorry I made an exhibition of myself just now. I won’t do it again — on my honour I won’t — if you’ll just let me — just let me slip out to meet the 7.12. I’ll be back the minute it’s in, and then I’ll be good. Please, take your arm away!’

But it was round her already. The nurse’s head bent down as she blew softly on the woman’s forehead till the grey hair parted and the Three could see the Order for Life, where it had been first written. The body began to relax for sleep.

‘Don’t — don’t be so silly,’ she murmured. ‘Well, only for a minute, then. You mustn’t make me late for the 7.12, because — because... Oh! Don’t forget...”I charge you at the Judgment make it plain — I charge you — ”‘She ceased. The nurse looked as Kalka’il had done, straight into Satan’s eyes, and: — ’Go!’ she commanded.

Satan bowed his head.

There was a knock, a scrabbling at the door, and the seedy-looking man shambled in.

‘Sorry!’ he began, ‘but I think I left my hat here.’

The woman on the couch waked and, turning, chin in hand, chuckled deliciously: — ’What does it matter now, dear?’

The Three found themselves whirled into the Void — two of them a little ruffled, the third somewhat apologetic.

‘How did it happen?’ Gabriel smoothed his plumes.

‘Well — as a matter of fact, we were rather ordered away,’ said Satan.

‘Ordered away? I?’ Azrael cried.

‘Not to mention your senior in the Service,’

Satan answered. ‘I don’t know whether you noticed that that nurse happened to be Ruya’il — ’

‘Then I shall take official action.’ But Azrael’s face belied his speech.

‘I think you’ll find she is protected by that ruling you have so lucidly explained to our young friend. It all turns upon the interpretation of “Who,” you know.’

‘Even so,’ said Gabriel, ‘that does not excuse the neck-and-crop abruptness — the cinema — like trick — of our — our expulsion.’

‘I’m afraid, as the little girl said about her spitting at her nurse, that that was my invention. But, my Brothers’ — the Prince of Darkness smiled — ’did you really think that we were needed there much longer?’

Azrael’s Count

LO! the Wild Cow of the Desert, her yeanling estrayed from her — Lost in the wind plaited sand-dunes — athirst in the maze of them. Hot foot she follows those foot-prints — the thrice tangled ways of them. Her soul is shut save to one thing — the love-quest consuming her. Fearless she lows past the camp, men’s fires affright her not. Ranges she close to the tethered ones — the mares by the lances held. Noses she softly apart the veil in the women’s tent. Next — withdrawn under moonlight, a shadow afar off — Fades. Ere men cry, ‘Hold her fast!’ darkness recovers her. She the love-crazed and forlorn, when the dogs threaten her Only a side-tossed horn, as though a fly troubled her. Shows she hath heard, till a lance in the heart of her quivereth. — Lo, from that carcass aheap — where speeds the soul of it? Where is the tryst it must keep? Who is her pandar? Death!

Men I dismiss to the Mercy greet me not willingly; Crying, ‘Why seekest Thou me first? Are not my kin unslain?’ Shrinking aside from the Sword-edge, blinking the glare of it. Sinking the chin in the neck-bone. How shall that profit them? Yet, among men a ten thousand, few meet me otherwise.

Yet, among women a thousand, one comes to me mistress-wise. Arms open, breasts open, mouth open — hot is her need on her. Crying, ‘Ho Servant, acquit me, the bound by Love’s promises! Haste Thou! He waits! I would go! Handle me lustily!’ Lo! her eyes stare past my wings, as things unbeheld by her. Lo! her lips summonsing part. I am not whom she calls. Lo! My sword sinks and returns. At no time she heedeth it More than the dust of a journey, her garments brushed clear of it. Lo! Ere the blood-rush has ceased, forward her soul rushes. She is away to her tryst. Who is her pandar? Death!

TALES OF INDIA: THE WINDERMERE SERIES

This collection of previously published tales was first published in 1935.

CONTENTS

THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN.

THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

ON GREENHOW HILL

‘THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD’

THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT

THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS

THE CAT THAT WALKED BY HIMSELF

“THEY”

THE HOUSE SURGEON

THE TREE OF JUSTICE

FRIENDLY BROOK

MARY POSTGATE

THE BULL THAT THOUGHT

THE WISH HOUSE

THE GARDENER

THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN.

  “Who is the happy man?  He that sees in his own house at home little

  children crowned with dust, leaping and falling and crying.”

                        Munichandra, translated by Professor Peterson.

The polo-ball was an old one, scarred, chipped, and dinted. It stood on the mantelpiece among the pipe-stems which Imam Din, khitmatgar, was cleaning for me.

“Does the Heaven-born want this ball?” said Imam Din, deferentially.

The Heaven-born set no particular store by it; but of what use was a polo-ball to a khitmatgar?

“By Your Honor’s favor, I have a little son. He has seen this ball, and desires it to play with. I do not want it for myself.”

No one would for an instant accuse portly old Imam Din of wanting to play with polo-balls. He carried out the battered thing into the verandah; and there followed a hurricane of joyful squeaks, a patter of small feet, and the thud-thud-thud of the ball rolling along the ground. Evidently the little son had been waiting outside the door to secure his treasure. But how had he managed to see that polo-ball?

Next day, coming back from office half an hour earlier than usual, I was aware of a small figure in the dining-room — a tiny, plump figure in a ridiculously inadequate shirt which came, perhaps, half-way down the tubby stomach. It wandered round the room, thumb in mouth, crooning to itself as it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly this was the “little son.”

He had no business in my room, of course; but was so deeply absorbed in his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway. I stepped into the room and startled him nearly into a fit. He sat down on the ground with a gasp. His eyes opened, and his mouth followed suit. I knew what was coming, and fled, followed by a long, dry howl which reached the servants’ quarters far more quickly than any command of mine had ever done. In ten seconds Imam Din was in the dining-room. Then despairing sobs arose, and I returned to find Imam Din admonishing the small sinner who was using most of his shirt as a handkerchief.

“This boy,” said Imam Din, judicially, “is a budmash, a big budmash. He will, without doubt, go to the jail-khana for his behavior.” Renewed yells from the penitent, and an elaborate apology to myself from Imam Din.

“Tell the baby,” said I, “that the Sahib is not angry, and take him away.” Imam Din conveyed my forgiveness to the offender, who had now gathered all his shirt round his neck, string-wise, and the yell subsided into a sob. The two set off for the door. “His name,” said Imam Din, as though the name were part of the crime, “is Muhammad Din, and he is a budmash.” Freed from present danger, Muhammad Din turned round, in his father’s arms, and said gravely: — ”It is true that my name is Muhammad Din, Tahib, but I am not a budmash. I am a MAN!”

From that day dated my acquaintance with Muhammad Din. Never again did he come into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground of the compound, we greeted each other with much state, though our conversation was confined to “Talaam, Tahib” from his side and “Salaam Muhammad Din” from mine. Daily on my return from office, the little white shirt, and the fat little body used to rise from the shade of the creeper-covered trellis where they had been hid; and daily I checked my horse here, that my salutation might not be slurred over or given unseemly.

Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about the compound, in and out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious errands of his own. One day I stumbled upon some of his handiwork far down the ground. He had half buried the polo-ball in dust, and stuck six shrivelled old marigold flowers in a circle round it. Outside that circle again, was a rude square, traced out in bits of red brick alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a little bank of dust. The bhistie from the well-curb put in a plea for the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby and did not much disfigure my garden.

Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the child’s work then or later; but, that evening, a stroll through the garden brought me unawares full on it; so that I trampled, before I knew, marigold-heads, dust-bank, and fragments of broken soap-dish into confusion past all hope of mending. Next morning I came upon Muhammad Din crying softly to himself over the ruin I had wrought. Some one had cruelly told him that the Sahib was very angry with him for spoiling the garden, and had scattered his rubbish using bad language the while. Muhammad Din labored for an hour at effacing every trace of the dust-bank and pottery fragments, and it was with a tearful apologetic face that he said, “Talaam Tahib,” when I came home from the office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that by my singular favor he was permitted to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to eclipse the marigold-polo-ball creation.

For some months, the chubby little eccentricity revolved in his humble orbit among the castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always fashioning magnificent palaces from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer, smooth water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers pulled, I fancy, from my fowls — always alone and always crooning to himself.

A gayly-spotted sea-shell was dropped one day close to the last of his little buildings; and I looked that Muhammad Din should build something more than ordinarily splendid on the strength of it. Nor was I disappointed. He meditated for the better part of an hour, and his crooning rose to a jubilant song. Then he began tracing in dust. It would certainly be a wondrous palace, this one, for it was two yards long and a yard broad in ground-plan. But the palace was never completed.

Next day there was no Muhammad Din at the head of the carriage-drive, and no “Talaam Tahib” to welcome my return. I had grown accustomed to the greeting, and its omission troubled me. Next day, Imam Din told me that the child was suffering slightly from fever and needed quinine. He got the medicine, and an English Doctor.

“They have no stamina, these brats,” said the Doctor, as he left Imam Din’s quarters.

A week later, though I would have given much to have avoided it, I met on the road to the Mussulman burying-ground Imam Din, accompanied by one other friend, carrying in his arms, wrapped in a white cloth, all that was left of little Muhammad Din.

THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO

     A stone’s throw out on either hand

     From that well-ordered road we tread,

       And all the world is wild and strange;

     Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite

     Shall bear us company to-night,

     For we have reached the Oldest Land

       Wherein the Powers of Darkness range.

                  From the Dusk to the Dawn.

The house of Suddhoo, near the Taksali Gate, is two-storied, with four carved windows of old brown wood, and a flat roof. You may recognize it by five red hand-prints arranged like the Five of Diamonds on the whitewash between the upper windows. Bhagwan Dass, the bunnia, and a man who says he gets his living by seal-cutting, live in the lower story with a troop of wives, servants, friends, and retainers. The two upper rooms used to be occupied by Janoo and Azizun and a little black-and-tan terrier that was stolen from an Englishman’s house and given to Janoo by a soldier. To-day, only Janoo lives in the upper rooms. Suddhoo sleeps on the roof generally, except when he sleeps in the street. He used to go to Peshawar in the cold weather to visit his son, who sells curiosities near the Edwardes’ Gate, and then he slept under a real mud roof. Suddhoo is a great friend of mine, because his cousin had a son who secured, thanks to my recommendation, the post of head-messenger to a big firm in the Station. Suddhoo says that God will make me a Lieutenant-Governor one of these days. I daresay his prophecy will come true. He is very, very old, with white hair and no teeth worth showing, and he has outlived his wits — outlived nearly everything except his fondness for his son at Peshawar. Janoo and Azizun are Kashmiris, Ladies of the City, and theirs was an ancient and more or less honorable profession; but Azizun has since married a medical student from the North-West and has settled down to a most respectable life somewhere near Bareilly. Bhagwan Dass is an extortionate and an adulterator. He is very rich. The man who is supposed to get his living by seal-cutting pretends to be very poor. This lets you know as much as is necessary of the four principal tenants in the house of Suddhoo. Then there is Me, of course; but I am only the chorus that comes in at the end to explain things. So I do not count.