Son of Power Read online

  CHAPTER V

  _The Monkey Glen (Continued)_

  In the lull Carlin appeared to have no thought of going back to Hurda.The younger priest made her comfortable with dry leaves. Skag broughta log for her to lean against. For the first time she appeared tonotice that he was not one of the priests of Hanuman. . . . She didnot speak. Dusk was falling. At intervals she would look into hisface. The priests brought fruit and chapattis. Delicate sounds of awide stillness began to steal through the shadows. Creatures of theforest crept out from their lairs and called, one to another. Downtowards the river a tiger coughed; and there was a shiver along thebranches where the monkeys sat. The priests had merely glanced at eachother. Carlin had not seemed to hear.

  Three torches were kept blazing through the night, and by their lightthe girl gave medicine and nourishment to the wounded one from time totime. She did not speak to Skag, who often sat before her for aninterval, but she would occasionally look into his face, her eyesdwelling with a curious calm upon him.

  In the morning the wounded one was conscious. That day the sufferingwore upon him, and they brought wet leaves as the sun rose higher andkept them changed beneath him, for coolness. . . . The fever left himafter the heat of noon. Not until then, did Carlin look upon Skag andspeak at the same time.

  "Have I seen you before? . . . Who are you?"

  When Skag heard himself answer, he realised his voice had something init he had never known before.

  . . . That afternoon Carlin went back to Hurda, but came again for anhour late in the afternoon. The next morning early, she came once moreand Skag was there. That afternoon, the elder priest said:

  "He will live."

  "Yes," Carlin repeated softly.

  "But you don't seem glad," Skag said.

  She was looking back toward the city.

  "I was wondering if I could make them see what it means to spend theafternoon in the jungle with a rifle."

  "Couldn't they understand that this work of yours has delivered yourcousin from death?"

  "Oh, no, they would laugh at that. They would remind me that I havealways been strange. Even if my cousin lost his life, they would notlearn. The priests would be called fanatics and would be made tosuffer and all the monkey-peoples--"

  Skag could see that.

  "Why do you not leave them?"

  "Oh, I do not hate my people. I have many brothers, real men; and thenyou must know English Government does wonderful things."

  They were starting back toward the city leaving the two priests. Moststrangely, as no one Skag had ever met, Carlin could see the native andthe English side of things. He felt that Cadman would say this of her,too. He wanted sanction on such things, because he felt that alreadyhis judgment was not cold--on matters that concerned her. Everythingabout her was more than one expected. She seemed to have an openconsciousness, which saw two or all sides of a question before speech.

  A great weakness had come upon Skag. It was in his limbs and in hisvoice and in his mind. It had not been so when the priests were near,nor when there was work to do. Now they were alone; the jungle wasvast with a new vastness. The girl was taller and more powerful--hersayings veritable, equitable. There were golden flashes among the richshadows of her mind, like the cathedral dimness of the jungle on theirright hand as they walked, slanting shafts of sunlight raining through.

  They walked slowly. Skag reflected that since his first sight of thesambhur, he had watched and done nothing. All his life had been likethat. Yet this girl watched and worked, too. She loved the Englishand the natives, too. She had skilled hands, a trained body, acultured mind--certainly a wonderful mind, as full of wonder as thisjungle, with a sacred river flowing through.

  Moreover, she could ask questions like Cadman--the spirit of things.He told her of his mother, of his running away from school when hefirst saw the animals at Lincoln Park Zoo, how they enveloped him, sothat he thought nothing but of them, lived only for animals later as acircus trainer, and had come to India to see the life of the wildcreatures outside of cages. . . . His tongue fumbled in the telling.

  "But I do not see yet, why the priests of Hanuman let you go withthem--"

  "Nor I," said Skag.

  "But they know you are not an animal-killer--"

  They walked rather slowly. . . . Night was upon them when they reachedthe edge of the jungle and heard voices. The back of Skag's handnearest Carlin was swiftly touched and she whispered breathlessly:

  "My people. They are coming for me--good-bye---"

  The last few words had been just for him; the tone might have come upfrom the centre of himself.

  Skag was alone, but he did not hurry into the city. There was more inthe solitude than ever before, more mystery in the jungle, more in thedusty scent of the open road. Greater than all, in spite of alldoubting and realisation of insignificance, there was unquestionablymore in himself.

  Early the next morning, Skag was abroad in the city and saw the twopriests of Hanuman approach Ratna Ram. They raised their hands insilent greeting as he came near and immediately arose and turned towardCarlin's bungalow. Skag was glad to follow, when they signified hemight, for the thing at hand was his own deep concern. There was acatch in his throat as Carlin appeared on the verandah. Her eyes metSkag's before she spoke to the priests.

  "Is he worse?"

  The elder spoke for both, as is the custom:

  "Peace be on thee, thou of gentle voice and skillful hands. We greetthee in the name of Hanuman; and are come, to render up to thee theforfeit life, even according to our covenant; for thou hast saved thewounded king, and he will not die. Behold the cloth with the shape ofthe foreigner's sign in it; this we held for a token that theforeigner's life was ours: this we render now to thee. His life isthine and not ours."

  The old man laid the silk kerchief at Carlin's feet.

  Skag had thought the danger over yesterday, but he saw that the youngEnglishman's life held in ransom, had only just now been returned tothe girl. . . . That forenoon was the time to Skag of the greattension. Carlin had stood for a moment longer than necessary on theverandah, after the priests had turned away. It was as if she wouldspeak--but that might signify anything or nothing. It was just a pointthat made the hours more breathless now, like the sentence of quick lowtones last night, when the voices of her people were heard at the edgeof the jungle. Were these everything or nothing--glamour or life-lock?Often he remembered that her eyes had sought his to-day, even beforelooking to the priests for news.

  He stood at the edge of the jungle at high noon. The city was filmedin heat. Faint sounds seemed to come out of the sky. Skag waswatching one certain road. The trance of stillness was not broken. Heturned back into the green shade. . . . He would not delay in Hurda.He would not linger. His friend Cadman had been gone for some days.Yet about going there was a new and intolerable pain.

  Skag forced himself back from the clearing. He felt less than himselfwith his eyes fixed upon that certain road; a man always does when hewants something terribly. Still he did not enter the deep jungle. Atlast he heard a step. He turned very slowly, not at all like a man towhom the greatest thing of all has happened. . . . Carlin had come andwas saying:

  ". . . I heard voices in the house this morning when you came. Someonewas listening, so I could not speak. . . . Something keepsgrowing--something about our work in the jungle. I want to go to themonkey glen again--now."

  It was like unimaginable riches. There were moments in which he hadcounterpart thoughts for hers in his own mind; as if she spoke fromanother lobe of his own brain. Her words expressed himself.

  "I thought you would be here," she told him presently. "I wanted tosee you again."

  She was flushed from crossing the broad area tranced in noon heat; andnow the green cool of the jungle was sweet to her, and they were closetogether, but walking not so slowly as last night. . . . Lonelinesscame to them when they reached the empty place where
the wounded onehad lain in the shelter of the rock. They felt strangely excluded fromsomething that had belonged to them. All the wide branches above wereempty. Still that was only one breath of chill. Tides of life brimmedhigh between them; they had vast mercies to spare for outer sorrows.

  "He may not have done so well after being moved," she whispered.

  Skag was thinking of the cough he had heard. The monkeys hadunderstood that. . . . Just now the younger of the two priests ofHanuman appeared magically. There was quiet friendliness deep in hiscalm, desireless eyes.

  "All is well," he told them. "They have carried their king to a yetmore secret place, where we may not--"

  He did not finish that sentence but added: "Only we who serve them maygo there. All is well. They would not have moved him, had they notbeen sure that life was established in him."

  The priest did not linger. Then Carlin wanted to know everything--howIndia had called Skag at the very first. . . . Was it all jungle andanimal interest; or was he called a little to the holy men? Did he notyearn to help in the great famine and fever districts; long to enterthe deep depravities of the lower cities with healing?

  Skag had listened in a kind of passion. Wonderful unfoldment in regardto these things had come to him from Cadman Sahib, but as Carlintouched upon them, they loomed up in his mind like the slow approach tocities from a desert. Carlin's eyes, turned often to his, were likeall the shadows of the jungle gathered to two points of essential dark,and pinned by a star veiled in its own light.

  "I thought it was only the wild animals that called to me, but now Iknow better," he said. "And my friend Cadman, who has gone, opened somuch to me. He often spoke of the holy men, until one had to beinterested--"

  Carlin halted and drew back looking at him with a kind of stillstrength all her own.

  "You do not know that the natives think _you_ are something of thekind?"

  "I--a holy man?"

  "I heard them speak of you last night. You see they have heard of yourdeliverance of the Grass Jungle people."

  Skag was learning how wonderfully news travels in India.

  "Of course, it was all easy to believe, after what I saw--"

  "What did you see?" he asked.

  "That the two priests of Hanuman permitted you to follow them here--"

  Then Carlin verified what Cadman had said, that the priests make nomistakes in these things. . . . Presently Skag was listening toaccounts of Carlin's life. He was insatiable to hear all. In somemoments of the telling, it was like a phantom part of himself that hewas questing for, through her words. Her story ran from the Vindhas tothe Western Ghat mountains, touching plain and height and shore (butnot yet High Himalaya), touching tree jungle, civil station, railwaystation and cantonments; stories including a succession of marvellousnames of cities and men; intimations that many great servants of Indiaand England were of her name; that she had seven living brothers, allolder; all at work over India. Finally Skag heard that Carlin hadspent eight years in England studying medicine and surgery, and againthat the natives called her the _Gul Moti_, which means the Rose Pearl;or _Hakima_, which means physician. But her own name was Carlin!

  When they came back to the edge of the jungle again, it was the hour ofafterglow. Its colours entered into him and were always afterwardidentified with her. Carlin left him, laughingly, abruptly; and Skagwas so full of the wonder of all the world, that he had not thought toask if he should ever see her again.

  As night came on, Skag thought more and more of the parting; and thatthere had been no words about Carlin's coming again. He felt himselfliving breathlessly towards the thought of seeing her; and it was notlong before this fervour itself awoke within him a counter resistance.Manifestly this pain and yearning and tension--was not the way to thefull secret. As carefully stated before, Skag approved emphatically ofthe Now. The present moving point was the best he had at any giventime. He thought a man should forget himself in the Now--like theanimals.

  Yet the hours tortured. That night had little sleep for him, and themarvels of Carlin--face and voice, laugh, heart, hand--grew upon himcontrary to all precedent. This was a battle against all the wildanimals rolled into one; most terribly, a battle because there seemedsuch a beauty about the yearning which the girl awoke in him.

  He was abroad early next day. The thought had come, that she mightfind him in the jungle at noon or soon afterward as yesterday. As thedragging forenoon wore on, Skag was in tightening tension. He hatedhimself for this, but the fact stubbornly remained that all he caredfor in the world was the meeting again. It seemed greater thanhe--this agony of separation. It brought all fears andself-diminishing. It told him that Carlin would run from him, if sheknew he wanted her presence so. He knew her kind of woman lovesself-conquest--the man who can powerfully wait and not be victimised byhis own emotions. . . .

  So it was that Skag fled from himself, when there was still a half hourbefore noon. He could not meet her, longing like this.

  There was sweat on Skag's forehead as his limbs quickened away from theplace of meeting yesterday. The more he left it behind, the more surehe became that Carlin would come. It seemed he was casting away theone dear and holy thing he had ever known--yet it resolved to this:that he dared not stand before her with his heart beating as if he hadrun for miles and his chest suffocating with emotions--the veryfeatures of his face uncertain, his voice unreliable. . . . If a manentered the cage of a strange tiger, as little master of himself asthis--it would be taking his life in his own silly hands. Skagcouldn't get past this point, and he had a romantic adjustment in hismind about Carlin and the tiger--one all his own.

  Deeper and deeper into the jungle he went, along the little river, butall paths appeared to lead him to the monkey glen; and there he satdown at last and remembered all that Alec Binz had told him abouthandling himself in relation to handling animals, and all that CadmanSahib had told him from the lips of wise men of India . . . but allthat Skag could find was pain--rising, thickening clouds of pain.

  He kept seeing her continually as she entered the jungle (walking sosilently and swift, her face flushed from crossing the open space thisside of the city in the terrible heat of noon)--and then not findinghim there. Something about this hurt like degrading a sacred thing,but he didn't mean to. He repeated that he didn't mean to hurther. . . . Then suddenly it occurred to him that it was all his ownthinking about her coming at noon. There had been no word about it.She might not have thought of coming again. This was like a coldbreath through the jungle. It was as intolerable as the other thoughtof her disappointment.

  . . . There was an almost indistinguishable _slithering_ of soft padsin the branches. Skag looked up suddenly and the air seemed jerkedwith a concussion of his start. The monkeys were back. They had beenwatching, the branches filling. When he looked up, the whole companystirred nervously.

  Skag laughed. It was good. There was but one formulated thought--thatCarlin would be glad to hear this; she would appreciate this. Thereturn of the monkeys had a deep significance to Skag, because he hadreally first seen the wonder of Carlin just here--working over thewounded one. The immediate tree-lanes were filled with watchers insuffocating tension then. It was curiosity now--nothing covered, butplayful. Skag wished he could chant like the priests, for themonkey-folk. He wished he had many baskets of chapattis to spread outupon the grasses for them. . . . As he sat, face-lifted, he heard thattiger-cough again.

  The monkeys huddled a second--it was panic--then they melted fromsight. It was like the swift blowing away one by one, of the toppapers of a deep pile on a desk.

  Skag was now essentially absorbed. It couldn't be a mistake. Themonkeys knew. He himself knew from days and nights with the big cats.There was no cough just like that. It was in a different directionfrom before, back toward the city this time, but as before, muffled andclose down to the riverbed. . . . Nothing of the cub left in thatcough; neither was there hurry or hunger or any particular
rage orfear. A big beast finishing a sleep, down in some sandy niche by theriver; a solitary beast full of years, a bit drowsy just this moment,and in no particular hurry to take up the hunt. Such was the picturethat came to Skag with a keen kind of enjoyment. The thrill had liftedhis misery for a minute. This was something to cope with. It tookaway the heart-breaking sense of inadequacy.

  It wasn't the thrill of a hunt that animated Skag. The fact is, hehadn't even a six-shooter along. This was the closeness of the realthing again--the deep joy, perhaps, of testing outside of cages oncemore, the power that had never failed. And just now along the riverand beyond the place where the cough came from--Carlin was coming!

  The last of the monkeys had flicked away. Skag arose and held his handhigh, palm toward her. She beckoned, but still came forward. Skagmoved without haste, but rapidly. All the beauty and wonder of Carlinwas the same; it lived in his heart, integrate and unparalleled asever, but some power had come to him from the cough of the tiger.Around all the fear, even for her life, was the one splendidthing--that she had followed him into the monkey glen.

  She was nearing the place where the cough had come from, yet Skag didnot run. A second time he held up his hand, palm outward, but shestill came forward laughing.

  "You ran from me?"

  "I did not think of you coming so far--to-day."

  Skag had stepped between her and the river, turning her toward thecity, but Carlin drew back.

  "I have come so far. I want to go to our--to the monkey glen!"

  She was watching him strangely. Skag understood something that moment:that he might know of Carlin's delight through her eyes, of all joy andgood that he might bring, but that he should never know from her eyesif he brought hurt. Skag put this back into the deep place of his mind.

  "All right. We'll go back," he said. "They were here--the wholetroupe. Just a minute ago, they swung away--"

  He saw for an instant her wonderment that he had come alone. She wouldhave been very glad to see the monkey people again; she could not quitesee why she should have missed this; she did not understand hiswords--that he had not expected her to follow into the glen.

  She was sitting down on her own log, but he stood. Skag was driven tospeak. The need had now to do with one of his favourite words. It wasa matter of _equity_ that he speak. The words came in a slow orderedtone:

  "I was waiting for you there--back at the edge of the jungle--but itcame to me that I was not ready."

  Carlin had been looking away into the three-lanes. Her eyes came up tohis.

  "Not ready?" she said.

  "All night I could only remember one thing--"

  "What thing?"

  "That you had not told me you would come again."

  Carlin's shoulders lifted a little. She cleared her throat, saying:

  "I thought of it."

  "This morning the idea occurred that you might come to the jungle atnoon--like yesterday, but the hours wouldn't pass after that. I metsomething different that would not be quiet--"

  "Where?"

  "I mean in myself."

  Carlin's eyes widened a little, but she only said:

  "Oh!"

  "It would not rest. I could not wait in calm. I was afraid youwouldn't come--yet I was afraid of your coming. My face worked of itsown accord, and my words would not say what I knew--"

  "When was that?"

  "It was worse when I reached the jungle a little before noon and beganto watch for you."

  "And--you ran away?"

  "I was not good to look upon."

  "But you are not like that now--quite controlled--like blue ice--"

  Skag turned his eyes slowly back the path by the river where the coughhad come from.

  "I am better now," he said.

  "I wonder if anyone ever thought of running away like that?"

  "It is not a good feeling to be at the mercy of oneself," Skag said.

  Carlin caught a quick breath. There was a steadiness in his eyes. Itwas steadier than anything she knew. The light of it was so high andkeen that it seemed _still_.

  "Nothing like this has happened before," he said quietly.

  Carlin arose. Their eyes met level.

  "Everything is changed," he went on. "It was like a grief that youwere not here--when the monkeys came in. . . . I'm not right. I didnot know before that a girl was part of me. It was all animals before.I'm not ready--but I will be! You are good to listen, but really youhad to--"

  Carlin let her lids fall a second.

  "I mean I couldn't stop when it started."

  There was silence before he finished: "I know everything better. Iknow all the creatures better--all the cries they make. And yet I'mless--I'm only half--"

  It was then her hand came out to him.

  "Does it mean anything to you?" he asked.

  "Yes--"

  "_Does it mean everything to you--too?_"

  Her voice trailed. It was closer. It was everywhere. It was like avoice coming up from his own heart:

  "Yes, everything--especially because you could run away. . . . ButI--came!"

  They were walking toward Hurda among the shadows, Skag closer to theriver. . . . The night was coming with a richness they had neverseen--tinted shadows of purple, orange and rose--almost a living gleamto the colours; the evening air cool and sweet.

  Carlin told him that her family must understand and be considered andgive approval. . . . There was an eldest brother in Poona who must beseen. . . . All arrangements must be made with him. Skag said hewould go to Poona at once. . . .

  They were lingering now at the edge of the jungle; its spices upon themin the dry air.

  ". . . And I will wait here in Hurda," Carlin was saying. "You may begone many days. You may not find him at once, and you will have towait at Poona, but I shall know when you come. The train coming _up_is before noon. Listen! You will not find me at the bungalow. No,that would not be the way for us. . . . This will be perfect. I willbe waiting for you--our place--back in the monkey glen."

  "It is the perfect thought, but you must not go back there alone," hesaid. "I had not meant to tell you now, but it was that--made mesteady--a tiger back there. He gave me nerve for your coming--a goodturn it was, the most needful turn! . . . Yes, a tiger lying down onthe river margin, as we talked--do not go in deeper, when I amaway. . . . And on the day I come, meet _me here_ at the edge of thejungle and we will go in there to our place--together."