Part 10

I pushed him aside and gathered the unconscious little burden up into my arms. There was no time for sentiment. Every minute I expected the miserable old shelter would go over.

We made our way as best we could back through the darkness and driving blasts of rain. The loafer followed with a long series of "God bless you's." He essayed once or twice to hold the umbrella over his "little gal's" head, but each time the wind turned it inside out, and he gave it up with an air of feeble inconsequence that characterized all his movements.

I put my burden down on a couch in the dining room, and chafed her hands and feet, while the boy brought a beer bottle filled with hot water.

It was a sweet little face, pinched and drawn, with big hazel eyes, that looked up into mine as my efforts sent the blood coursing through her veins. She was between five and six years old. A mass of dark brown hair, unkempt and matted, fell about her face and shoulders.

I wrapped a rug about her. She was asleep almost before I had finished.

A little later I roused her, and she nestled her damp little head against my shoulder as I gave her some soup; but her eyelids were heavy, and it seemed almost cruel to keep her awake, even for the food she so badly needed. The father had shuffled about uneasily during my motherly attentions, and seemed relieved when I was through.

While the boy brought a steaming hot curry and a goodly supply of whiskey and soda, I turned the self-confessed father of the big hazel eyes into the bath-room.

With the grime and dirt off his face he was pale and haggard. There were big blue marks under his shifting gray eyes and his hair hung ragged and singed about his ears.

He had discarded his dirty linen for a blue-flannel bathing-suit that some former high official of H. B. M. service had left behind. There were traces of starvation or dissipation in every movement. His hand trembled as he conveyed the hot soup to his blue lips.

Gradually the color came back to his sunken cheeks, and by the time he had laid in the second plate of curry and drank two whiskey and sodas he looked comparatively sleek and respectable. Even his anxiety for the little sleeper seemed to fade out of his weak face.

I had been watching him narrowly during the meal. I could not make up my mind whether he was a clever actor or only an unfortunate; he might be the latter, and still be what I was certain of,--a scamp.

The wind whistled and roared about the great verandas and into the glassless windows with all the vehemence of a New England snowstorm. It caught our well-protected punkah-lamps, and turned their broad flames into spiral columns of smoke. Ever and again a flash of lightning flared in our eyes, and revealed the water of the narrow straits lashed into a white fury.

I should have been thankful for the company of even a dog on such a night, and think the loafer felt it, for I could see that he was more at ease with every crash of thunder. I tiptoed over to the "little gal," and noted her soft, regular breathing and healthful sleep, undisturbed by the fierce storm outside.

I lit a manila, and handed one to my companion. We puffed a moment in silence, while the boy replenished our glasses.

"Now," I said, tipping my chair back against the wall, "tell me your story."

My guest's face at once assumed the expression of the professional loafer. My faith in him began to wane.

"I am an American," he began glibly enough under the combined effects of the whiskey and dinner, "an old soldier. I fought with Grant in the Wilderness, and--"

"Of course," I interrupted, "and with Sherman in Georgia. I have heard it all by a hundred better talkers than you. Suppose you skip it."

I did not look up, but I was perfectly familiar with the expression of injured innocence that was mantling his face.

He began again in a few minutes, but his voice had lost some of its engaging frankness.

"I am the son of a kind and indulgent mother,--God bless her. My father died before I knew him--"

I moved uneasily in my chair.

He hurried on:--

"I fell in bad ways in spite of her saintly love, and ran away to sea."

"Look here, my friend," I said, "I am sorry to spoil your little tale, but it is an old one. Can't you give me something new? Now try again."

He looked at me unsteadily under his thin eyebrows, shuffled restlessly in his seat, and said with something like a sob in his voice:--

"Well, sir, I will. You have been kind to me and taken my little gal in; you saved her life, and, for a change, I'll tell you the truth."

He drew himself up a little too ostentatiously, threw his head back, and said proudly:--

"I am a gentleman born."

"Good," I laughed. "Now you are on the right track, and besides you look it."

"Ah! you may sneer," he retorted, "but I tell you the truth."

His face flushed and his lip quivered. He brought his fist down on the table.

"I tell you my father,--ah! but never mind my father." His voice failed him.

"Certainly," I replied. "Only get on with your story."

"I came out to India from Boston as a young man," he continued, "either in '66 or '68, I forget which."

"Try '67," I suggested.

"It was not '67," he exclaimed angrily, "it was either '66 or '68."

"Or some other date. However, that's but a detail. Proceed."

"Sir, you can make sport of me, but what I am telling you is God's truth. May I be struck dead if one lie passes my lips. I came out to plant coffee; I thought, like many others, that I had only to cut down the jungle and put in coffee plants, and make my everlasting fortune."

"And didn't you?" I asked, glancing at his dilapidated old helmet that hung over the corner of the sideboard.

"Look at me!" he burst forth, springing upon his feet, his breast heaving under his blue pajamas.

"Pardon the question," I answered. "Go on, you are doing bravely."

He sank back into his chair with a commendable air of dignity.

"I had a little money of my own," he continued, "and opened up an estate. It promised well, but I soon came to the end of my small capital. I thought I could go to Calcutta and Bombay and Simla, and cultivate my mind by travel and society, while the bushes were growing. Well it ended in the same old way. I got into the chitties' hands--they are worse than Jews--at two per cent a month on a mortgage on my estate. Then I went back to it with a determination to pay up my debt, make my estate a success, and after that to see the world. I worked, sir, like a nigger, and for a time was able to meet my naked creditor, from month to month, hoping all the time against hope for a bumper crop."

"I understand," I said. "Your bumper crop did not come, and your chitty did. Where does she come in?" I nodded in the direction of the little sleeper.

He glanced uneasily in the same direction, and a tear gathered in his eye.

"I married on credit, sir, the daughter of an English army officer. It was infernal. But, sir, you would have done likewise. Live under the burning sun of India for four years, struggle against impossibilities and hope against hope, and then have a pair of great hazel eyes look lovingly into yours and a pair of red lips turned up to yours,--and tell me if you would not have closed your eyes to the future, and accepted this precious gift as though it were sent from above?"

The pale, shrunken face of the speaker glowed, and his faded eyes lit up with the light of love.

"We were happy for a time, and the little gal was born, but the bumper crop did not come. Then, sir, I sold farm tools and my horse, and sent the wife to a hill station for her health. I kept the little gal. I stayed to work, as none of my natives ever worked. It was a gay station to which she went. You know the rest,--she never came back. That ended the struggle. I would have shot myself but for the little one. I took her and we wandered here and there, doing odd jobs for a few months at a time. I drifted down to Singapore, hoping to better myself, but, sir, I am about used up. It's hard--hard."

He buried his head in his long, thin fingers, and sat perfectly still.

There was a sound outside above the roar of the wind and the rain. At first faint and intermittent, it grew louder, and continuous, and came close. There was no mistaking it,--the march of booted men.

"What's that?" asked my companion, with a start.

"Tommy Atkins," I replied, "the clang of the ammunition boot as big as life."

His face grew ashy white, and he looked furtively around the room.

"What's the matter?" I exclaimed, but as I asked, I knew.

I opened the bath-room door and shoved him in.

"Go in there" I said, "and compose some more fairy tales."

He was scarcely out of sight when the front door was thrown open, and a corporal's guard, wet yet happy, marched into the room.

The corporal stood with his back to the door, and gave himself mental words of command,--"Eyes left, eyes right,"--then, as a last resource,--"eyes under the table." He had not noticed the little bundle in the dark corner. He drew himself up and gave the military salute.

"Beg pardon, sir, but we are out for a deserter from the 58th,--Bill Hulish,--we 'ave tracked him 'ere, and with the compliments of the commanding hofficer, we'll search the 'ouse."

"Search away," I answered, as I heard the outside bath-room door open and close softly.

They returned empty-handed, but not greatly disappointed.

"Wet night, corporal," I ventured.

"One of the worst as ever I knew, sir," he replied, eying the whiskey bottle and the two half-drained glasses.

"'Ad a long march, sir, fourteen miles."

I pushed the bottle toward him, and with a deprecatory salute he turned out a stiff drink.

"'Ere's to yer 'ealth, sir, an' may ye always 'ave an extra glass ready for a visitor."

I smiled, and motioned for his men to do likewise, and then, because he was a man of sweet composure and had not asked any questions as to the extra glass and chair, told him that his bird had flown.

"Bad 'cess to him, sir, 'e's led us a pretty chase for these last four weeks. If 'e was only a deserter I wouldn't mind, but 'e's a kidnapper. Leastways, Tommy Loud's young'n turned up missin' the day he skipped, an' we ain't seen nothin' of 'er since."

"Is this she?" I asked, leading him to the cot.

Hardly looking at the child, he raised her in his arms and kissed her.

"God be praised, sir," he said with a show of feeling. "We 'ave got her back. I think her mother would 'ave died if we 'ad come back again without her,--but, O my little darlin', you look cruel bad. Drugged, sir, that's what she is. Drugged to keep 'er quiet and save food. The blag'ard!"

"But what did he take her for?" I asked.

"Bless you, sir," replied the corporal, "she was his stock in trade. I reckon she's drawn many dibs out of other people's pockets that would 'ave been nestlin' there to-day if it 'adn't 'a' bin for 'er."

Then a broad grin broke over his ruddy features, and he looked at me quizzically.

"But 'e was a great play hactor, sir."

"And a poet," I added enthusiastically.

"'E could beat Kipling romancin', sir." He checked himself, as though ashamed of awarding such meed of praise to his ex-colleague.

"But we must be goin'; orders strict. With your permission, sir, I will leave her with a guard of one man for to-night, and send the ambulance for her in the morning."

He drew up his little file, saluted, and marched out into the rain and wind, with all the cheerfulness of a duck.

I could hear them singing as they crossed the compound and struck into the jungle road:--

"Oh, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, go away'; But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play, The band begins to--"

A peal of thunder that shook the bungalow from its attap roof to its nebong pillars drowned the melody and drove me inside.

A PIG HUNT

In the Malayan Jungle

The thermometer stood at 155 degrees in the sun. The dry lallang grass crackled and glowed and returned long irregular waves of heat to the quivering metallic dome above.

The sensitive mimosa, at our feet, had long since surrendered to the fierce wooing of the sun-god, submissively folding its leaves and then its branches and putting aside its morning dress of green for one more in keeping with the color of the earth and sky. Even the clamorous cicada had hushed its insistent whir.

We were dressed in brown kaki suits. Wide-spreading cork helmets were filled with the stiff varnished leaves of the mango, and wet handkerchiefs were draped from underneath their rims; yet, after an hour of exposure, our flesh ached--it was tender to the touch. The barrel of my Express scorched my hand, and I wrapped my camerabuna about it. But then it was no hotter than any other day. In fact, we never gave a thought to the weather.

We were formed in a line, perhaps two miles in length, in a deserted pepper plantation, fronting a jungle of timboso trees and rubber-vines. I squatted patiently under the checkered shade of a neglected coffee tree and kept my eyes fixed on the seemingly impenetrable walls of the jungle. A hundred feet to the right and the left, under like protection, were two of my companions, determined like myself to be successful in three points,--to have the first shot at the pigs, to avoid getting shot, or shooting a neighbor. But our minds rose above mental cautions with the first faint halloos of the Hindu shikaris on the opposite side of the jungle. In another moment the babel gave place to a confusion of shrieks, howls, yells, laughs, barking of dogs, beating of tins, blowing of horns, explosions of crackers, and a din that represents all that is wild and untamable in three nations. It is a weird, almost appalling prologue. Those laughs!--they are a study--they fairly chill the blood--they would make the fortune of a comic actor--so intense, thrilling, surprising, and seemingly filled with a ghoulish glee. Over and over they would break out clear and distinct above the tintamarre. I have never been able to find out whether it belongs to the Malay or the Kling or the Tamil.

The yelling became more distinct. A troop of brown and silver wah-wahs swung with their long arms out to the very edge of the jungle and then up to the tops of the highest trees, the while uttering the full, clear note from which they take their name; followed by a troop of gray little jungle monkeys, whistling and scolding at the unwonted disturbance. A colony of cicadas on the limbs of a great gutta tree awoke into life and pierced our ears with buzz-saw strains.

In an instant we were all alert,--the heat was forgotten. At any minute a herd of pigs might dart out and on to us, or possibly our drivers might rouse a tiger. The screaming ascended to a delirious pitch--the pigs were discovered! I threw my cartridge from the magazine into the barrel. It was a 50×95 Express and I had perfect confidence that one ball to a pig was sufficient.

The yelling grew nearer until, with a sudden deploy, one hundred Klings and Malays dashed out into the open, close on the heels of a dozen wild pigs. We could just see their black backs above the grass, as they broke down a little ravine in single file, led by a big, hoary boar with tusks. They were three hundred yards off, but I could not resist the temptation. I brought my rifle to my shoulder and fired twice in rapid succession. Two or three more shots were heard beyond. I threw out the shells as the herd lunged on me. It was so sudden that I was dazed, but fortunately so were the pigs, with the exception of a wary old leader, who made into the jungle behind, almost between my legs. One little fellow threw himself on his haunches for an instant and stared at me. I came to my senses first and put a ball into his wondering eyes. My second shot was so near that it tore away a pound of meat from his shoulder and killed him instantly.

The firing had opened up all along the line. The drivers were pushing in nearer and nearer, beating the grass and clumps of bushes, seemingly regardless of the widely flying balls. I suspect they held our prowess in contempt. I know they looked it, when it was discovered that out of the dozen pigs they had raised, we had allowed over half to escape. Then, too, their lives were insured, in a way; for they knew that their deaths would cost us twenty big Mexican dollars.

Pig-hunting is the one big-game hunt that can be indulged in on the Malay Peninsula without great preparation and danger. Deer and tapirs are scarce. Tigers, or harimau as the Malays call them, abound, but live in the depths of the almost inaccessible jungle, and come forth only at rare intervals, except in the case of the man-eaters, who are usually ignominiously caught in pitfalls, very seldom affording true sport. Elephants are still hunted in the native states north of Singapore, but the sport is too expensive for the generality of sportsmen. One of the peculiar attributes of the Malayan tiger is his decided penchant for Chinese flesh, repeatedly striking down Chinese coolies in the fields to the exclusion of the Malays or Europeans who are working by their side. Perhaps once a month, a tiger or his skin will be brought into the city by natives, and several times at night I have heard them in the jungle; but to my knowledge only three have been shot by European sportsmen during my residence in the island. So wild pigs really remain the one item of big game.

The pigs live in the jungle bordering plantations in which they can range for pineapples, sweet potatoes, and tapioca root. They are the ordinary wild hog, black in color, and fleet of foot. The older ones have good-sized tusks and show fight when cornered. The lone sportsman has very little chance of obtaining a shot, so they are hunted in large companies of from five to fifteen guns. Such parties generally organize a hunt at least once a week and leave Singapore early in the morning for an all-day shoot.

The pig hunts organized by the officers of the Royal Artillery are the largest, and as a description of one is a description of all, I will take one up in regular order, rather than quote from many.

We left Singapore at six o'clock in the morning in a four-horse dray. As the sun had not reached the tops of the trees, the atmosphere was mild and pleasant. A half-hour took us outside the great cosmopolitan city, of three hundred thousand inhabitants. The low, cool bungalows with their wide-spreading lawns gave place to the grass-thatched huts of the Chinese coolies, and the omnipresent eating-stalls. A hard-packed road carried us through almost endless cocoanut groves. At intervals a Malay kampong, or village, was revealed in the heart of the grove, its queer attap-thatched houses raised a man's height from the ground, and connected with it by rickety ladders. Dozens of nude little children played under the shadow of the palms, while the comely faces and syrah-stained teeth of their mothers peeped at us from behind low barred windows. The cocoanut groves were superseded by tapioca, pepper, and coffee plantations. At regular distances were neat stations, manned by Malay and Sikh police. The roads over which we dashed were in perfect repair. In another hour we were nine miles from Singapore and near our first "beat."

Major Rich had sent his shikaris on the night before to collect beaters, so that when we arrived we were welcomed by a small army of Klings, Tamils, and Malays, and the usual sprinkling of pariah dogs. A wild, strange set are these beaters. They toil not, neither do they spin. Their wives do that occasionally, making a few sarongs for home use and an odd one for the market. Cocoanuts, pineapples, a little patch of paddy with a dozen half-wild chickens, and perchance, if they are not Mohammedans, a pig with its litter, afford them sustenance. For their day's beating they were to receive fifteen cents apiece. They were all ranged in line and counted, after which we took up our march through a plantation of tapioca, the brush standing about level with our heads. Chinese coolies were working about its roots keeping down the great pest of Malayan farmers,--lallang grass. The tapioca was broken in places by a few acres of pepper vines and again by neglected coffee shrubs.

Our procession was truly formidable. Fifty or more natives went on ahead making a path. Then we followed, fifteen in number, each with a native to carry his gun. The rear was brought up by twoscore more and half as many dogs. Three-quarters of an hour's walk brought us to our first beat. The head shikaris placed us in an open position, from fifty to one hundred yards apart, facing the jungle. The beaters, in the meantime, had gone by a long detour around the jungle to drive whatever it contained within reach of our guns.