CHAPTER I

THE LONELY ENCAMPMENT

An autumn evening in Bengal was rapidly drawing to a close, with a brief afterglow from a vanished sun to soften the rich hues of the tropical foliage, and garb it fittingly for approaching night. The grass beside the Government tents showed grey in the gathering dusk, while a blue haze of smoke, creeping upward, gently veiled the sheltering trees. But for the modulated chatter of servants, the stillness was eerie. The flat, low-lying fields, having yielded their corn to the harvester, were barren and without sign of life, for the cultivators had departed to their homesteads, and the roving cattle were housed.

Far in the misty distance were the huts of the peasantry grouped together, with their granaries, haystacks, and pens; their date-palms, and the inevitable tank illustrating the typical Bengal village—picturesque and insanitary; too far for noxious smells to annoy the senses, or the intermittent beating of the nocturnal "tom-tom" to affect the nerves of the Magistrate and Collector during the writing of his judgments and reports.

The spot for the encampment had been well chosen by the blue-turbaned chaukidar—the sturdy watchman of the village—who was experienced in the ways of touring officials; for even such a little matter as a site for pitching the tents of the hakim,[1] had its influence for good or ill; and what might not be the effect of a good influence on the temper of a lawgiver?

This one, especially, instilled the fear of God and of the British, into his servants and underlings in spite of his sportsmanship and generosity, for he had a great understanding of native character and, like a wizard, could, in the twinkling of an eye, dissect the mind and betray the soul of a false witness! None could look him in the face and persist in falsehood. He was a just man, and courageous; and when roused to wrath, both fierce and fluent. But the diplomatic domestic and cautious coolie, alike, respect justice and fearlessness, determination, and a high hand.

Servants, engaged in culinary duties before open fire-places, gossiped in lowered tones of standing grievances: It was like the exactness of the Great to require a five-course dinner, served with due attention to refinement and etiquette in untoward circumstances, such as an improvised cooking-range of clay and bricks, a hurried collection of twigs, some charcoal, and every convenience conspicuous by its absence! And what a village to rely upon!—no shops; only a weekly market with nothing suitable to the wants of white men fastidious and difficult to please.

Yet, the day that sahibs condescend to study the convenience of their Indian domestics, the prestige of the British Raj will be at an end.

"Ho! Khansaman-jee!" cried an agitated voice in Hindustani. "With a little clemency, look quickly in the rubbish heap for the pepper pot. The masalchi,[2] out of the perversity of his youthfulness, has lost that and every other ingredient for the flavouring of the soup; and now, what can I do? Of a truth, this night will the Sahib give me much abuse for that which is no fault of mine. I shall twist the idle one's ear the moment he returns with firewood from the jungle, just to stimulate his mind and teach him carefulness."

The khansaman[3] uncoiled his legs and rose from the ground where he had been peeling potatoes at his leisure with a table knife, and proceeded to do as he was bid. He was of an obliging nature and could be relied upon to perform odd jobs not strictly his duty, so long as they did not establish a precedent.

After some diligent searching among loose charcoal, dried twigs, kitchen rags, utensils, and vegetable parings, a rusty tin box was discovered and handed to the cook. Old Abdul grunted approval of his own intelligence, and after liberally sprinkling the soup with pepper from between a dirty finger and thumb, he wiped both, casually, in the folds of his loin-cloth.

Altogether, the task of preparing dinner in camp was no mean effort. The business of the moment was to produce a clear soup with its artistic garniture of sliced carrots and turnips; to be followed by tank fish captured that afternoon from the property of a local Hindu landowner and, in the serving, robbed of its earthly flavour by a miracle of savoury dressing. Considering the lapses of the mate-boy's memory, this was a marvel of achievement. Next, the entrée of devilled goat (called by courtesy, mutton) was also a difficulty; nevertheless with a lavish addition of mango chutney, it was on its way to completion. The "chicken roast" was a tolerable certainty in a deep vessel where it baked in its own juices, stuffed with onions, cloves, and rice. But the pudding—alas! black despair, invisible owing to natural pigment, was in possession of Abdul's soul. What to do, he grumbled, but to serve, in fear and trembling, that abomination of sahibs, a "custul-bile" (boiled custard), since every possible ingredient for a respectable pudding had

been left behind at the last Rest Bungalow! What the master would say, might well be imagined, for these were not the easy-going days of his bachelorhood, when such makeshifts, varied with "custul-bake," could be imposed upon him with the regularity of the calendar; for, after a successful day's shikar, with a tiger spread at full length on the grass before the tent for the benefit of an admiring semicircle of enthusiastic villagers, the quality of a meal used to be a secondary consideration.

Well—what use to repine? Even a cook must sometimes be excused, since he was not God to create something out of nothing. Peradventure, the timely indisposition of the babe within the tent would offer distraction. In the interludes of stirring the pots and declaiming against fate and the misdemeanours of the masalchi, the cook soothed his ruffled spirits with a pull at his beloved hukha.

Yes, the Sahib was married, worse luck! and lived, above all, to please his Memsahib who, to him, was the sun, moon, and stars; the light of the world. And she?—of a sort wholly unsuited to the conditions of his life; a flower plucked to wither in a furnace-blast. The rough soil of the country was no place for a delicate plant; and such was also apparent in the case of her infant. Since its arrival from the hills where it was born, it daily faded as though a blight had descended upon its vitality; and now it was stricken with a fever.

Devil take sahibs for their folly! This one had been content enough as a bachelor, hunting and shooting in his spare time, and consorting with his kind where games were played to pass the time away; what-for did he allow himself to be shackled thus during his visit to Belait? It passed understanding; for there were many Miss Babas in the country, already acclimatised, from among whom he might have selected a suitable wife; one who could at least have made herself intelligible to his servants in their own language, instead of this one who created endless confusion by non-comprehension. But no! he had been unable to stand the allurements of her person. The rounded outlines of her slender form and the bloom on her flawless cheek had enslaved him, depriving him of the power to resist. Truly she was good to look upon, as every masculine eye betrayed by its open homage.

In all the annals of the District, never had there been a more picturesque creature than this girl-wife, with her hair like ripe corn and eyes like full-blown flowers of heavenly blue. Even the servants in gazing on their wonder forgot to heed the orders she delivered through the ayah, whose linguistic powers commanded the respect of the entire establishment.

The subject of the little lady from Belait was a favourite theme of conversation when domestics congregated in the region of the kitchen to gossip and smoke, and criticism was condescending and tolerant because of her good looks, which made their inevitable appeal. But opinion was agreed that no longer was Meredith Sahib the same man. Henceforth, if they would keep their situations, they must satisfy his lady. Her little hand would point the way he must in future tread.

And he, the respected Magistrate and Collector, representative of the Government in the District—a sahib whose word had authority over thousands on the land, and before whom all delinquents trembled!

Such was the influence of beauty!

According to the words of a local poet who sang his verses in the Muktiarbad bazaar to an accompaniment of tom-tomming:

And these did he compose out of the rumours current in the market-place respecting Meredith Sahib and the Memsahib he had taken to wife. Yah, Khodah! the white race were amazingly simple!

The sound of an infant's distressed wail broke the calm of the descending gloom. Voices within the tent conferred together in agitated whispers. There was a call for hot water, and in a moment the Madrassi ayah rushed forth for the steaming kettle which was boiling for scullery needs, and carried it off without a question. The waterman, clad only in a loin-cloth, hurried round to the bath tent, and a diminutive, tin bath-tub was extracted. Apparently the child was to be immersed.

"What has happened?" called the Sahib's body servant, the bearer, who was the major-domo of the camp. But the waterman, fully appreciative of his temporary importance, refused to reply as he disappeared from view.

"Ice—ice!" the lady cried dashing through the bamboo chick and almost tearing it from its fastenings. "Give me ice quickly." She looked haggard and distracted. Dark circles ringed her eyes; her sleeves rolled above the elbows revealed rounded arms from which water dripped; her skirt was splashed; her blouse and hair were in disarray.

"There is none, huzur," said the bearer in Hindustani. "Hourly is it expected from Muktiarbad, but as yet it is not in sight."

"What is he saying?" she cried vaguely in her distress, refusing to believe that there was none, which the corroborating action of a hand had implied.

"No ice got it, Memsahib," volunteered the khansaman in his best English, learned from a teacher in the Station bazaar. "All finish—melting fast—making saw-dust one porridge."

"No ice?—my God! My child will die if I cannot have ice." She disappeared within the tent, wringing her hands, leaving the servants to hold council together on what was the best course to pursue.

"Without doubt the little one is in a fit," ventured the cook. "Such is sometimes the case when the teeth press their way through the gums."

"What folly," sneered the khansaman, "when the infant is barely three months old!"

"Without doubt it is a fit," the cook repeated, "else why the hot bath? Such is the treatment the doctor-babu ordered for the son of Amir Khan, my relative in Benares when, from fever, his eyes fixed and his limbs grew rigid."

"Thou speakest true words," said the waterman approaching the group in visible excitement. "To see the limbs twisting and the eyes strained upward turns my stomach. Assuredly it will die—and the master away!—ai ma!—what a calamity!"

"It will die, and we shall all be blamed because there was no ice," sighed the bearer feeling the weight of his responsibility.

"God send that he be even now returning," prayed the khansaman devoutly. "The sun has long set, and any moment he may be here, for who can shoot a leopard in the dark?"

"Tell Hosain to drive the hawa-ghari[4] quickly to the Station for the doctor and the ice. If he meet not the ice cart on the road, let him borrow all they will lend him at the houses of the sahibs," said the cook. "Jhut!—lose no time. In these illnesses the life of a child is as the flicker of a candle. A breath, and it is out; and once dead, who can restore it to life again?"

Servants ran to do his bidding while he returned to his pots and pans, anxious lest the roast should burn at the bottom of the pan, and the soup boil over.

"For what dost thou concern thyself?" jeered an old watchman who stood a spectator of the scene. "All that thou cookest will be given to the sweeper's family. Who will eat of thy cooking tonight when the child is like to die?"

"Not the sweeper and his family, bhai,[5] but we of the kitchen shall have a feast, have no fears." "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," was the essence of the cook's philosophy, and since there was no swine-flesh in the menu, there was no reason why Mohammedans should not enjoy the repast he was cooking for the Sahib's table. It was a dispensation of Providence that had not made him at birth a Hindu like the watchman, who took pride in the exclusiveness of his caste, yet feasted on the sly, on things forbidden.

Inside the tent the lady and the ayah together ministered to the small sufferer lying in the warm bath. The sympathetic servant supported the light body which had relaxed its rigidity, while the mother bathed the brows and head with cold water.

"He is better, ayah, don't you think?" asked Mrs. Meredith, dependent on the woman's superior knowledge.

"Plenty better, Ma'am. Heaven is merciful."

"Or do you think he is dying? Don't lie to me."

"He not dying, oh, no! See that black round his mouth?—now fast going. This is what they call bahose."

"Thank God if it's only that. Children recover from fainting fits, don't they? Oh, ayah, I could not bear to lose my baby!" she cried in choked accents.

"Say not like that. Got is goot and the baba will live. Now take out of the water, dry, and keep head cool," said the woman whose experience in the management of infants had gained her her present post at some considerable advantage to herself.

They placed the limp form, when dried, on the cool sheets in its crib and hung upon its every breath.

"Barnes-mem saying, when bad with fever, lap plenty hot place, bed goot," the ayah remarked; "Barnes-mem," a former mistress, being a standard reference in nursery difficulties.

"Had she many children?"

"Children? My lort! Every year a child. She was plenty blest. One child for every finger, and a grand-child older than her last. Master, he shake his head and say, 'Damn-damn,' but Barnes-mem, she say, 'Let come; the Lort will provide.'"

"Were they all brought up in India?"

"In Calcutta they were born and grew up; no Darjeeling pahar;[6] no Munsuri pahar! All living; all plenty strong."

"Yet most children cannot thrive out here—English, I mean."

"English Memsahib making much fuss, like there is no Got Almighty. Everywhere there is sickness, also in pahar."

Mrs. Meredith shivered at the cold consolation. After a short interval spent in anxious suspense, a clatter of hoofs announced the return of the Sahib. Raymond Meredith galloped into the camp and flinging his reins to a saice, leaped to the ground. A messenger had met him on the road with the disturbing news of his infant's bad turn. In another moment he was beside his wife, eagerly sympathetic and anxious to comfort her.

At any other time she would have received him affectionately upon his return from a long day's outing, and he marked the change, excusing it on the plea of anxiety and distraction.

"This is very sudden, darling," he said in lowered tones, placing his arms tenderly about her. "How did it happen?"

His wife explained emotionally. "Baby was feverish when you left. You remember, perhaps, that I was worried and did not like being left alone?" she concluded resentfully, her eyes refusing to meet his.

"He seemed a bit out of sorts, but nothing to alarm one," her husband allowed in self-defence. "You know, sweetheart, you are often needlessly anxious." He would have kissed her to soften the reproach, but she turned her face aside. "Anyhow, I had to go, you know that? The leopard had done enough damage in the village and was a danger to human life. An infant had been carried off from the doorway of its dwelling the moment its mother's back was turned. I simply had to hunt and shoot the beast, or let the people think I funked it. I managed to bag it in the end, but the fellow gave us a devil of a time," he continued, warming to his subject. "Had it not been for the pluck of the chaukidar, I might never have returned at all—" He waited for some evidence of concern. "He's a fine sportsman," he went on, though disappointed at her lack of interest. "With only a stout stick in his hand, he—" his voice trailed away as he became convinced that he was talking to an inattentive mind. "Don't worry, I'll send post-haste for Dalton. He'll be here before morning."

"Anything might happen before morning," she cried brokenly.

"You mustn't be so pessimistic."

"The car was sent for the doctor when Baby was in convulsions," she said coldly. "It was terrible not having you here to advise. I have been desperate, and you—" a sob—"you were enjoying yourself in the jungles." She had not an atom of sympathy for the sport.

"Surely you are not blaming me?" he cried deprecatingly, afraid that he had injured himself for ever in her sight.

"It is not a question of blame; you have failed me, that is all."

"That's a cruel thing to say, dearest!" he cried kissing her unresponsive lips at last, in the hopes of melting her hardness. "It is only that you are in a mood to be unjust, that you say so. You know I am happiest with you."

"This is a cruel country which I shall hate to the end of my days," she returned miserably. "It is trying at every turn to rob me of my little baby."

Meredith winced almost as though he had been struck. It was not the first time that she had expressed disgust for her life in India, which gave them their living, and every time her words gained in feeling. Early in the summer he had sent her to the hills because of an episode with a snake that had unnerved her and imperilled her condition as an expectant mother. He had not forgotten that her first arrival at the Station had synchronised with an outbreak of cholera, so virulent, that half the community of Europeans among whom she was to live were demoralised. It was a crying shame that Life should be so perverse. He yearned for her to settle down and take kindly to Station ways and doings, but fate eternally intervened. Muktiarbad was a merry little station, full of friendly souls eager to accept the youthful bride as a social leader for her husband's sake, he being the most popular of men.

Meredith was aware of his own popularity and enjoyed it as a healthy-minded individual usually does when success has crowned his efforts to govern a large District with sympathy and tact. But already the young wife and mother was pining for "home," and was declaring that the India he loved was a "cruel country," which she would hate to the end of her days. How should he be able to pin her down to his side in a land she detested and feared? She was too young and uninformed to appreciate his position in the Government and her possibilities as a Bara Memsahib; and too delicately nurtured to endure the rough and tumble of life far from towns and cities, where money could not buy immunity from inconvenience and climatic ills.

He had expected, as many another husband of a very young wife, to mould her ideas to fit his own; instead, his peace of mind was being steadily whittled away.

"There is not even any ice to be had in this God-forsaken spot!" his wife's voice was saying helplessly.

"Damnation!" he swore under his breath, enraged that the servants should have supplied him at the cost of the child; for he recalled the very acceptable iced beer he had drunk in the jungles after a dangerous exploit that had exhausted his energies and reduced him to a perspiring rag of humanity, even though it was autumn.

The urgent need to find a scapegoat to suffer for this miserable muddle sent him outside with a stride and malignant intentions at heart. Never again while he toured with his family would he drink iced stimulants, however damnably hot it was in the sun.