“Happen!The worst that can happen. Petersen Sahib is a madman.Else why should he go hunting these wild devils?He may even require thee to be an elephant catcher,to sleep anywhere in these fever-filled jungles,and at last to be trampled to death in the Keddah.It is well that this nonsense ends safely.Next week the catching is over,and we of the plains are sent back to our stations.Then we will march on smooth roads,and forget all this hunting. But, son,I am angry that thou shouldst meddle in the business that belongs to these dirty Assamese jungle folk. Kala Nag will obey none but me, so I must go with him into the Keddah, but he is only a fighting elephant, and he does not help to rope them. So I sit at my ease, as befits a mahout,--not a mere hunter,--a mahout, I say, and a man who gets a pension at the end of his service. Is the family of Toomai of the Elephants to be trodden underfoot in the dirt of a Keddah?Bad one!Wicked one!Worthless son!Go and wash Kala Nag and attend to his ears,and see that there are no thorns in his feet.Or else Petersen Sahib will surely catch thee and make thee a wild hunter--a follower of elephant’s foot tracks, a jungle bear. Bah!Shame!Go!”
Little Toomai went off without saying a word,but he told Kala Nag all his grievances while he was examining his feet.“No matter,” said Little Toomai,turning up the fringe of Kala Nag’s huge right ear.“They have said my name to Petersen Sahib,and perhaps--and perhaps--and perhaps--who knows?Hai!That is a big thorn that I have pulled out!”
The next few days were spent in getting the elephants together,in walking the newly caught wild elephants up and down between a couple of tame ones to prevent them giving too much trouble on the downward march to the plains, and in taking stock of the blankets and ropes and things that had been worn out or lost in the forest.
Petersen Sahib came in on his clever she-elephant Pudmini;he had been paying off other camps among the hills,for the season was coming to an end,and there was a native clerk sitting at a table under a tree,to pay the drivers their wages.As each man was paid he went back to his elephant,and joined the line that stood ready to start.The catchers, and hunters, and beaters,the men of the regular Keddah,who stayed in the jungle year in and year out,sat on the backs of the elephants that belonged to Petersen Sahib’s permanent force, or leaned against the trees with their guns across their arms, and made fun of the drivers who were going away, and laughed when the newly caught elephants broke the line and ran about.
Big Toomai went up to the clerk with Little Toomai behind him,and Machua Appa, the head tracker,said in an undertone to a friend of his,“There goes one piece of good elephant stuff at least.’Tis a pity to send that young jungle-cock to molt in the plains. ”
Now Petersen Sahib had ears all over him,as a man must have who listens to the most silent of all living things--the wild elephant. He turned where he was lying all along on Pudmini’s back and said, “What is that?I did not know of a man among the plains-drivers who had wit enough to rope even a dead elephant.”
“This is not a man, but a boy.He went into the Keddah at the last drive,and threw Barmao there the rope,when we were trying to get that young calf with the blotch on his shoulder away from his mother.”
Machua Appa pointed at Little Toomai,and Petersen Sahib looked,and Little Toomai bowed to the earth.
“He throw a rope?He is smaller than a picket-pin. Little one, what is thy name?” said Petersen Sahib.
Little Toomai was too frightened to speak,but Kala Nag was behind him,and Toomai made a sign with his hand,and the elephant caught him up in his trunk and held him level with Pudmini’s forehead, in front of the great Petersen Sahib. Then Little Toomai covered his face with his hands, for he was only a child, and except where elephants were concerned, he was just as bashful as a child could be.
“Oho!” said Petersen Sahib, smiling underneath his mustache,“and why didst thou teach thy elephant that trick?Was it to help thee steal green corn from the roofs of the houses when the ears are put out to dry?”
“Not green corn, Protector of the Poor,--melons,” said Little Toomai,and all the men sitting about broke into a roar of laughter.Most of them had taught their elephants that trick when they were boys.Little Toomai was hanging eight feet up in the air,and he wished very much that he were eight feet underground.
“He is Toomai, my son, Sahib,” said Big Toomai,scowling. “He is a very bad boy,and he will end in a jail, Sahib.”
“Of that I have my doubts,” said Petersen Sahib.“A boy who can face a full Keddah at his age does not end in jails.See, little one, here are four annas to spend in sweetmeats because thou hast a little head under that great thatch of hair. In time thou mayest become a hunter too.” Big Toomai scowled more than ever. “Remember, though, that Keddahs are not good for children to play in,” Petersen Sahib went on.
“Must I never go there, Sahib?” asked Little Toomai with a big gasp.
“Yes.” Petersen Sahib smiled again.“When thou hast seen the elephants dance.That is the proper time.Come to me when thou hast seen the elephants dance,and then I will let thee go into all the Keddahs.”
There was another roar of laughter,for that is an old joke among elephant-catchers,and it means just never.There are great cleared flat places hidden away in the forests that are called elephants’ ball-rooms, but even these are only found by accident, and no man has ever seen the elephants dance. When a driver boasts of his skill and bravery the other drivers say, “And when didst thou see the elephants dance?”
Kala Nag put Little Toomai down,and he bowed to the earth again and went away with his father,and gave the silver four-anna piece to his mother,who was nursing his baby brother,and they all were put up on Kala Nag’s back,and the line of grunting,squealing elephants rolled down the hill path to the plains.It was a very lively march on account of the new elephants,who gave trouble at every ford,and needed coaxing or beating every other minute.
Big Toomai prodded Kala Nag spitefully,for he was very angry,but Little Toomai was too happy to speak.Petersen Sahib had noticed him, and given him money,so he felt as a private soldier would feel if he had been called out of the ranks and praised by his commander-in-chief.
“What did Petersen Sahib mean by the elephant dance?” he said, at last, softly to his mother.
Big Toomai heard him and grunted.“That thou shouldst never be one of these hill buffaloes of trackers.That was what he meant. Oh, you in front,what is blocking the way?”
An Assamese driver, two or three elephants ahead,turned round angrily, crying: “Bring up Kala Nag,and knock this youngster of mine into good behavior.Why should Petersen Sahib have chosen me to go down with you donkeys of the rice fields?Lay your beast alongside, Toomai,and let him prod with his tusks.By all the Gods of the Hills,these new elephants are possessed,or else they can smell their companions in the jungle.” Kala Nag hit the new elephant in the ribs and knocked the wind out of him,as Big Toomai said,“We have swept the hills of wild elephants at the last catch.It is only your carelessness in driving.Must I keep order along the whole line?”
“Hear him!” said the other driver. “We have swept the hills!Ho!Ho!You are very wise, you plains people.Anyone but a mud-head who never saw the jungle would know that they know that the drives are ended for the season. Therefore all the wild elephants to-night will--but why should I waste wisdom on a river-turtle?”
“What will they do?” Little Toomai called out.