Little Foxes
A Tale Of The Gihon Hunt
A fox came out of his earth on the banks of the Great River
Gihon, which waters Ethiopia. He saw a white man riding through
the dry dhurra-stalks, and, that his destiny might be fulfilled,
barked at him.
The rider drew rein among the villagers round his stirrup.
"What," said he, "is that?"
"That," said the Sheikh of the village, "is a fox, O Excellency
Our Governor."
"It is not, then, a jackal?"
"No jackal, but Abu Hussein the father of cunning."
"Also," the white man spoke half aloud, "I am Mudir of this
Province."
"It is true," they cried. "Ya, Saart el Mudir" (O Excellency Our
Governor).
The Great River Gihon, well used to the moods of kings, slid
between his mile-wide banks toward the sea, while the Governor
praised God in a loud and searching cry never before heard by the
river.
When he had lowered his right forefinger from behind his right
ear, the villagers talked to him of their crops--barley, dhurrah,
millet, onions, and the like. The Governor stood in his stirrups.
North he looked up a strip of green cultivation a few hundred
yards wide that lay like a carpet between the river and the tawny
line of the desert. Sixty miles that strip stretched before him,
and as many behind. At every half-mile a groaning water-wheel
lifted the soft water from the river to the crops by way of a
mud-built aqueduct. A foot or so wide was the water-channel; five
foot or more high was the bank on which it ran, and its base was
broad in proportion. Abu Hussein, misnamed the Father of Cunning,
drank from the river below his earth, and his shadow was long in
the low sun. He could not understand the loud cry which the
Governor had cried.
The Sheikh of the village spoke of the crops from which the
rulers of all lands draw revenue; but the Governor's eyes were
fixed, between his horse's ears, on the nearest water-channel.
"Very like a ditch in Ireland," he murmured, and smiled, dreaming
of a razor-topped bank in distant Kildare.
Encouraged by that smile, the Sheikh continued. "When crops fail
it is necessary to remit taxation. Then it is a good thing, O
Excellency Our Governor, that you come and see the crops which
have failed, and discover that we have not lied."
"Assuredly." The Governor shortened his reins. The horse cantered
on, rose at the embankment of the water-channel, changed leg
cleverly on top, and hopped down in a cloud of golden dust.
Abu Hussein from his earth watched with interest. He had never
before seen such things.
"Assuredly," the Governor repeated, and came back by the way he
had gone. "It is always best to see for one's self."
An ancient and still bullet-speckled stern-wheel steamer, with a
barge lashed to her side, came round the river bend. She whistled
to tell the Governor his dinner was ready, and the horse, seeing
his fodder piled on the barge, whinnied back.
"Moreover," the Sheikh added, "in the days of the Oppression the
Emirs and their creatures dispossessed many people of their
lands. All up and down the river our people are waiting to return
to their lawful fields."
"Judges have been appointed to settle that matter," said the
Governor. "They will presently come in steamers and hear the
witnesses."
"Wherefore? Did the Judges kill the Emirs? We would rather be
judged by the men who executed God's judgment on the Emirs. We
would rather abide by your decision, O Excellency Our Governor."
The Governor nodded. It was a year since he had seen the Emirs
stretched close and still round the reddened sheepskin where lay
El Mahdi, the Prophet of God. Now there remained no trace of
their dominion except the old steamer, once part of a Dervish
flotilla, which was his house and office. She sidled into the
shore, lowered a plank, and the Governor followed his horse
aboard.
Lights burned on her till late, dully reflected in the river that
tugged at her mooring-ropes. The Governor read, not for the first
time, the administration reports of one John Jorrocks, M.F.H.
"We shall need," he said suddenly to his Inspector, "about ten
couple. I'll get 'em when I go home. You'll be Whip, Baker?"
The Inspector, who was not yet twenty-five, signified his assent
in the usual manner, while Abu Hussein barked at the vast desert
moon.
"Ha!" said the Governor, coming out in his pyjamas, "we'll be
giving you capivi in another three months, my friend."
* * * * *
It was four, as a matter of fact, ere a steamer with a melodious
bargeful of hounds anchored at that landing. The Inspector leaped
down among them, and the homesick wanderers received him as a
brother.
"Everybody fed 'em everything on board ship, but they're real
dainty hounds at bottom," the Governor explained. "That's Royal
you've got hold of--the pick of the bunch--and the bitch that's
got, hold of you--she's a little excited--is May Queen. Merriman,
out of Cottesmore Maudlin, you know."
"I know. 'Grand old betch with the tan eyebrows,"' the Inspector
cooed. "Oh, Ben! I shall take an interest in life now. Hark to
'em! O hark!"
Abu Hussein, under the high bank, went about his night's work. An
eddy carried his scent to the barge, and three villages heard the
crash of music that followed. Even then Abu Hussein did not know
better than to bark in reply.
"Well, what about my Province?" the Governor asked.
"Not so bad," the Inspector answered, with Royal's head between
his knees. "Of course, all the villages want remission of taxes,
but, as far as I can see, the whole country's stinkin' with
foxes. Our trouble will be choppin' 'em in cover. I've got a list
of the only villages entitled to any remission. What d'you call
this flat-sided, blue-mottled beast with the jowl?"
"Beagle-boy. I have my doubts about him. Do you think we can get
two days a week?"
"Easy; and as many byes as you please. The Sheikh of this village
here tells me that his barley has failed, and he wants a fifty
per cent remission."
"We'll begin with him to-morrow, and look at his crops as we go.
Nothing like personal supervision," said the Governor.
They began at sunrise. The pack flew off the barge in every
direction, and, after gambols, dug like terriers at Abu Hussein's
many earths. Then they drank themselves pot-bellied on Gihon
water while the Governor and the Inspector chastised them with
whips. Scorpions were added; for May Queen nosed one, and was
removed to the barge lamenting. Mystery (a puppy, alas!) met a
snake, and the blue-mottled Beagle-boy (never a dainty hound) ate
that which he should have passed by. Only Royal, of the Belvoir
tan head and the sad, discerning eyes, made any attempt to uphold
the honour of England before the watching village.
"You can't expect everything," said the Governor after breakfast.
"We got it, though--everything except foxes. Have you seen May
Queen's nose?" said the Inspector.
"And Mystery's dead. We'll keep 'em coupled next time till we get
well in among the crops. I say, what a babbling body-snatcher
that Beagle-boy is! Ought to be drowned!"
"They bury people so damn casual hereabouts. Give him another
chance," the Inspector pleaded, not knowing that he should live
to repent most bitterly.
"Talkin' of chances," said the Governor, "this Sheikh lies about
his barley bein' a failure. If it's high enough to hide a hound
at this time of year, it's all right. And he wants a fifty per
cent remission, you said?"
"You didn't go on past the melon patch where I tried to turn
Wanderer. It's all burned up from there on to the desert. His
other water-wheel has broken down, too," the Inspector replied.
"Very good. We'll split the difference and allow him twenty-five
per cent off. Where'll we meet to-morrow?"
"There's some trouble among the villages down the river about
their land-titles. It's good goin' ground there, too," the
Inspector said.
The next meet, then, was some twenty miles down the river, and
the pack were not enlarged till they were fairly among the
fields. Abu Hussein was there in force--four of him. Four
delirious hunts of four minutes each--four hounds per fox--ended
in four earths just above the river. All the village looked on.
"We forgot about the earths. The banks are riddled with 'em.
This'll defeat us," said the Inspector.
"Wait a moment!" The Governor drew forth a sneezing hound. "I've
just remembered I'm Governor of these parts."
"Then turn out a black battalion to stop for us. We'll need 'em,
old man."
The Governor straightened his back. "Give ear, O people!" he
cried. "I make a new Law!"
The villagers closed in. He called:--
"Henceforward I will give one dollar to the man on whose land Abu
Hussein is found. And another dollar"--he held up the coin--"to
the man on whose land these dogs shall kill him. But to the man
on whose land Abu Hussein shall run into a hole such as is this
hole, I will give not dollars, but a most unmeasurable beating.
Is it understood?"
"Our Excellency," a man stepped forth, "on my land Abu Hussein
was found this morning. Is it not so, brothers?"
None denied. The Governor tossed him over four dollars without a
word.
"On my land they all went into their holes," cried another.
"Therefore I must be beaten."
"Not so. The land is mine, and mine are the beatings."
This second speaker thrust forward his shoulders already bared,
and the villagers shouted.
"Hullo! Two men anxious to be licked? There must be some swindle
about the land," said the Governor. Then in the local vernacular:
"What are your rights to the beating?"
As a river-reach changes beneath a slant of the sun, that which
had been a scattered mob changed to a court of most ancient
justice. The hounds tore and sobbed at Abu Hussein's hearthstone,
all unnoticed among the legs of the witnesses, and Gihon, also
accustomed to laws, purred approval.
"You will not wait till the Judges come up the river to settle
the dispute?" said the Governor at last.
"No!" shouted all the village save the man who had first asked to
be beaten. "We will abide by Our Excellency's decision. Let Our
Excellency turn out the creatures of the Emirs who stole our land
in the days of the Oppression."
"And thou sayest?" the Governor turned to the man who had first
asked to be beaten.
"I say 1 will wait till the wise Judges come down in the steamer.
Then I will bring my many witnesses," he replied.
"He is rich. He will bring many witnesses," the village Sheikh
muttered.
"No need. Thy own mouth condemns thee!" the Governor cried. "No
man lawfully entitled to his land would wait one hour before
entering upon it. Stand aside!" The man, fell back, and the
village jeered him.
The second claimant stooped quickly beneath the lifted
hunting-crop. The village rejoiced.
"Oh, Such an one; Son of such an one," said the Governor,
prompted by the Sheikh, "learn, from the day when I send the
order, to block up all the holes where Abu Hussein may hide
on--thy--land!"
The light flicks ended. The man stood up triumphant. By that
accolade had the Supreme Government acknowledged his title before
all men.
While the village praised the perspicacity of the Governor, a
naked, pock-marked child strode forward to the earth, and stood
on one leg, unconcerned as a young stork.
"Hal" he said, hands behind his back. "This should be blocked up
with bundles of dhurra stalks--or, better, bundles of thorns."
"Better thorns," said the Governor. "Thick ends innermost."
The child nodded gravely and squatted on the sand.
"An evil day for thee, Abu Hussein," he shrilled into the mouth
of the earth. "A day of obstacles to thy flagitious returns in
the morning."
"Who is it?" the Governor asked the Sheikh. "It thinks."
"Farag the Fatherless. His people were slain in the days of the
Oppression. The man to whom Our Excellency has awarded the land
is, as it were, his maternal uncle."
"Will it come with me and feed the big dogs?" said the Governor.
The other peering children drew back. "Run!" they cried. "Our
Excellency will feed Farag to the big dogs."
"I will come," said Farag. "And I will never go." He threw his
arm round Royal's neck, and the wise beast licked his face.
"Binjamin, by Jove!" the Inspector cried.
"No!" said the Governor. "I believe he has the makings of a James
Pigg!"
Farag waved his hand to his uncle, and led Royal on to the barge.
The rest of the pack followed.
* * * * *
Gihon, that had seen many sports, learned to know the Hunt barge
well. He met her rounding his bends on grey December dawns to
music wild and lamentable as the almost forgotten throb of
Dervish drums, when, high above Royal's tenor bell, sharper even
than lying Beagle-boy's falsetto break, Farag chanted deathless
war against Abu Hussein and all his seed. At sunrise the river
would shoulder her carefully into her place, and listen to the
rush and scutter of the pack fleeing up the gang-plank, and the
tramp of the Governor's Arab behind them. They would pass over
the brow into the dewless crops where Gihon, low and shrunken,
could only guess what they were about when Abu Hussein flew down
the bank to scratch at a stopped earth, and flew back into the
barley again. As Farag had foretold, it was evil days for Abu
Hussein ere he learned to take the necessary steps and to get
away crisply. Sometimes Gihon saw the whole procession of the
Hunt silhouetted against the morning-blue, bearing him company
for many merry miles. At every half mile the horses and the
donkeys jumped the water-channels--up, on, change your leg, and
off again like figures in a zoetrope, till they grew small along
the line of waterwheels. Then Gibon waited their rustling return
through the crops, and took them to rest on his bosom at ten
o'clock. While the horses ate, and Farag slept with his head on
Royal's flank, the Governor and his Inspector worked for the good
of the Hunt and his Province.
After a little time there was no need to beat any man for
neglecting his earths. The steamer's destination was telegraphed
from waterwheel to waterwheel, and the villagers stopped out and
put to according. If an earth were overlooked, it meant some
dispute as to the ownership of the land, and then and there the
Hunt checked and settled it in this wise: The Governor and the
Inspector side by side, but the latter half a horse's length to
the rear; both bare-shouldered claimants well in front; the
villagers half-mooned behind them, and Farag with the pack, who
quite understood the performance, sitting down on the left.
Twenty minutes were enough to settle the most complicated case,
for, as the Governor said to a judge on the steamer, "One gets at
the truth in a hunting-field a heap quicker than in your
lawcourts."
"But when the evidence is conflicting?" the Judge suggested.
"Watch the field. They'll throw tongue fast enough if you're
running a wrong scent. You've never had an appeal from one of my
decisions yet."
The Sheikhs on horseback--the lesser folk on clever donkeys--the
children so despised by Farag soon understood that villages which
repaired their waterwheels and channels stood highest in the
Governor's favour. He bought their barley, for his horses.
"Channels," he said, "are necessary that we may all jump them.
They are necessary, moreover, for the crops. Let there be many
wheels and sound channels--and much good barley."
"Without money," replied an aged Sheikh, "there are no
waterwheels."
"I will lend the money," said the Governor.
"At what interest, O Our Excellency?"
"Take you two of May Queen's puppies to bring up in your village
in such a manner that they do not eat filth, nor lose their hair,
nor catch fever from lying in the sun, but become wise hounds."
"Like Ray-yal--not like Bigglebai?" (Already it was an insult
along the River to compare a man to the shifty anthropophagous
blue-mottled harrier.)
"Certainly, like Ray-yal--not in the least like Bigglebai. That
shall be the interest on the loan. Let the puppies thrive and the
waterwheel be built, and I shall be content," said the Governor.
"The wheel shall be built, but, O Our Excellency, if by God's
favour the pups grow to be well-smelters, not filth-eaters, not
unaccustomed to their names, not lawless, who will do them and me
justice at the time of judging the young dogs?"
"Hounds, man, hounds! Ha-wands, O Sheikh, we call them in their
manhood."
"The ha-wands when they are judged at the Sha-ho. I have
unfriends down the river to whom Our Excellency has also
entrusted ha-wands to bring up."
"Puppies, man! Pah-peaz we call them, O Sheikh, in their
childhood."
"Pah-peat. My enemies may judge my pah-peaz unjustly at the
Sha-ho. This must be thought of."
"I see the obstacle. Hear now! If the new waterwheel is built in
a month without oppression, thou, O Sheikh, shalt be named one of
the judges to judge the pah-peaz at the Sha-ho. Is it
understood?"
"Understood. We will build the wheel. I and my seed are
responsible for the repayment of the loan. Where are my pah-peaz?
If they eat fowls, must they on any account eat the feathers?"
"On no account must they eat the feathers. Farag in the barge
will tell thee how they are to live."
There is no instance of any default on the Governor's personal
and unauthorized loans, for which they called him the Father of
Waterwheels. But the first puppyshow at the capital needed
enormous tact and the presence of a black battalion
ostentatiously drilling in the barrack square to prevent trouble
after the prize-giving.
But who can chronicle the glories of the Gihon Hunt--or their
shames? Who remembers the kill in the market-place, when the
Governor bade the assembled sheikhs and warriors observe how the
hounds would instantly devour the body of Abu Hussein; but how,
when he had scientifically broken it up, the weary pack turned
from it in loathing, and Farag wept because he said the world's
face had been blackened? What men who have not yet ridden beyond
the sound of any horn recall the midnight run which
ended--Beagleboy leading--among tombs; the hasty whip-off, and
the oath, taken Abo e bones, to forget the worry? The desert run,
when Abu Hussein forsook the cultivation, and made a six-mile
point to earth in a desolate khor--when strange armed riders on
camels swooped out of a ravine, and instead of giving battle,
offered to take the tired hounds home on their beasts. Which they
did, and vanished.
Above all, who remembers the death of Royal, when a certain
Sheikh wept above the body of the stainless hound as it might
have been his son's--and that day the Hunt rode no more? The
badly-kept log-book says little of this, but at the end of their
second season (forty-nine brace) appears the dark entry: "New
blood badly wanted. They are beginning to listen to beagle-boy."
* * * * *
The Inspector attended to the matter when his leave fell due.
"Remember," said the Governor, "you must get us the best blood in
England--real, dainty hounds--expense no object, but don't trust
your own judgment. Present my letters of introduction, and take
what they give you.
The Inspector presented his letters in a society where they make
much of horses, more of hounds, and are tolerably civil to men
who can ride. They passed him from house to house, mounted him
according to his merits, and fed him, after five years of goat
chop and Worcester sauce, perhaps a thought too richly.
The seat or castle where he made his great coup does not much
matter. Four Masters of Foxhounds were at table, and in a mellow
hour the Inspector told them stories of the Gihon Hunt. He ended:
"Ben said I wasn't to trust my own judgment about hounds, but I
think there ought to be a special tariff for Empire-makers."
As soon as his hosts could speak, they reassured him on this
point.
"And now tell us about your first puppy-show all over again,"
said one.
"And about the earth-stoppin'. Was that all Ben's own invention?"
said another.
"Wait a moment," said a large, clean-shaven man--not an
M.F.H.--at the end of the table. "Are your villagers habitually
beaten by your Governor when they fail to stop foxes' holes?"
The tone and the phrase were enough even if, as the Inspector
confessed afterwards, the big, blue double-chinned man had not
looked so like Beagle-boy. He took him on for the honour of
Ethiopia.
"We only hunt twice a week--sometimes three times. I've never
known a man chastised more than four times a week unless there's
a bye."
The large loose-lipped man flung his napkin down, came round the
table, cast himself into the chair next the Inspector, and leaned
forward earnestly, so that he breathed in the Inspector's face.
"Chastised with what?" he said.
"With the kourbash--on the feet. A kourbash is a strip of old
hippo-hide with a sort of keel on it, like the cutting edge of a
boar's tusk. But we use the rounded side for a first offender."
"And do any consequences follow this sort of thing? For the
victim, I mean--not for you?"
Ve-ry rarely. Let me be fair. I've never seen a man die under the
lash, but gangrene may set up if the kourbash has been pickled."
"Pickled in what?" All the table was still and interested.
"In copperas, of course. Didn't you know that" said the
Inspector.
"Thank God I didn't." The large man sputtered visibly.
The Inspector wiped his face and grew bolder.
"You mustn't think we're careless about our earthstoppers. We've
a Hunt fund for hot tar. Tar's a splendid dressing if the
toe-nails aren't beaten off. But huntin' as large a country as we
do, we mayn't be back at that village for a month, and if the
dressings ain't renewed, and gangrene sets in, often as not you
find your man pegging about on his stumps. We've a well-known
local name for 'em down the river. We call 'em the Mudir's
Cranes. You see, I persuaded the Governor only to bastinado on
one foot."
"On one foot? The Mudir's Cranes!" The large man turned purple to
the top of his bald head. " Would you mind giving me the local
word for Mudir's Cranes?"
From a too well-stocked memory the Inspector drew one short
adhesive word which surprises by itself even unblushing Ethiopia.
He spelt it out, saw the large man write it down on his cuff and
withdraw. Then the Inspector translated a few of its
significations and implications to the four Masters of Foxhounds.
He left three days later with eight couple of the best hounds in
England--a free and a friendly and an ample gift from four packs
to the Gihon Hunt. He had honestly meant to undeceive the large
blue mottled man, but somehow forgot about it.
The new draft marks a new chapter in the Hunt's history. From an
isolated phenomenon in a barge it became a permanent institution
with brick-built kennels ashore, and an influence social,
political, and administrative, co-terminous with the boundaries
of the province. Ben, the Governor, departed to England, where he
kept a pack of real dainty hounds, but never ceased to long for
the old lawless lot. His successors were ex-officio Masters of
the Gihon Hunt, as all Inspectors were Whips. For one reason;
Farag, the kennel huntsman, in khaki and puttees, would obey
nothing under the rank of an Excellency, and the hounds would
obey no one but Farag; for another, the best way of estimating
crop returns and revenue was by riding straight to hounds; for a
third, though Judges down the river issued signed and sealed
land-titles to all lawful owners, yet public opinion along the
river never held any such title valid till it had been confirmed,
according to precedent, by the Governor's hunting crop in the
hunting field, above the wilfully neglected earth. True, the
ceremony had been cut down to three mere taps on the shoulder,
but Governors who tried to evade that much found themselves and
their office compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses who
took up their time with lawsuits and, worse still, neglected the
puppies. The older sheikhs, indeed, stood out for the
unmeasurable beatings of the old days--the sharper the
punishment, they argued, the surer the title; but here the hand
of modern progress was against them, and they contented
themselves with telling tales of Ben the first Governor, whom
they called the Father of Waterwheels, and of that heroic age
when men, horses, and hounds were worth following.
This same Modern Progress which brought dog biscuit and brass
water-taps to the kennels was at work all over the world. Forces,
Activities, and Movements sprang into being, agitated themselves,
coalesced, and, in one political avalanche, overwhelmed a
bewildered, and not in the least intending it, England. The
echoes of the New Era were borne into the Province on the wings
of inexplicable cables. The Gihon Hunt read speeches and
sentiments, and policies which amazed them, and they thanked God,
prematurely, that their Province was too far off, too hot, and
too hard worked to be reached by those speakers or their
policies. But they, with others, under-estimated the scope and
purpose of the New Era.
One by one, the Provinces of the Empire were hauled up and
baited, hit and held, lashed under the belly, and forced back on
their haunches for the amusement of their new masters in the
parish of Westminster. One by one they fell away, sore and angry,
to compare stripes with each other at the ends of the uneasy
earth. Even so the Gihon Hunt, like Abu Hussein in the old days,
did not understand. Then it reached them through the Press that
they habitually flogged to death good revenue-paying cultivators
who neglected to stop earths; but that the few, the very few who
did not die under hippohide whips soaked in copperas, walked
about on their gangrenous ankle-bones, and were known in derision
as the Mudir's Cranes. The charges were vouched for in the House
of Commons by a Mr. Lethabie Groombride, who had formed a
Committee, and was disseminating literature: The Province
groaned; the Inspector--now an Inspector of Inspectors--whistled.
He had forgotten the gentleman who sputtered in people's faces.
"He shouldn't have looked so like Beagle-boy!" was his sole
defence when he met the Governor at breakfast on the steamer
after a meet.
"You shouldn't have joked with an animal of that class," said
Peter the Governor. "Look what Farag has brought me!"
It was a pamphlet, signed on behalf of a Committee by a lady
secretary, but composed by some person who thoroughly understood
the language of the Province. After telling the tale of the
beatings, it recommended all the beaten to institute criminal
proceedings against their Governor, and, as soon as might be, to
rise against English oppression and tyranny. Such documents were
new in Ethiopia in those days.
The Inspector read the last half page. "But--but," he stammered,
"this is impossible. White men don't write this sort of stuff."
"Don't they, just?" said the Governor. "They get made Cabinet
Ministers for doing it too. I went home last year. I know."
"It'll blow over," said the Inspector weakly.
"Not it. Groombride is coming down here to investigate the matter
in a few days."
"For himself?"
"The Imperial Government's behind him. Perhaps you'd like to look
t my orders." The Governor laid down an uncoded cable. The
whiplash to it ran: "You will afford Mr. Groombride every
facility for his inquiry, and will be held responsible that no
obstacles are put in his way to the fullest possible examination
of any witnesses which he may consider necessary. He will be
accompanied by his own interpreter, who must not be tampered
with."
"That's to me--Governor of the Province!" said Peter the
Governor.
"It seems about enough," the Inspector answered.
Farag, kennel-huntsman, entered the saloon, as was his privilege.
"My uncle, who was beaten by the Father of Waterwheels, would
approach, O Excellency," he said, "and there are others on the
bank."
"Admit," said the Governor.
There tramped aboard sheikhs and villagers to the number of
seventeen. In each man's hand was a copy of the pamphlet; in each
man's eye terror and uneasiness of the sort that Governors spend
and are spent to clear away. Farag's uncle, now Sheikh of the
village, spoke: "It is written in this book, Excellency, that the
beatings whereby we hold our lands are all valueless. It is
written that every man who received such a beating from the
Father of Waterwheels who slow the Emirs, should instantly begin
a lawsuit, because the title to his land is not valid."
"It is so written. We do not wish lawsuits. We wish to hold the
land as it was given to us after the days of the Oppression,"
they cried.
The Governor glanced at the Inspector. This was serious. To cast
doubt on the ownership of land means, in Ethiopia, the letting in
of waters, and the getting out of troops.
"Your titles are good," said the Governor. The Inspector
confirmed with a nod.
"Then what is the meaning of these writings which came from down
the river where the Judges are?" Farag's uncle waved his copy.
"By whose order are we ordered to slay you, O Excellency Our
Governor?"
"It is not written that you are to slay me."
"Not in those very words, but if we leave an earth unstopped, it
is the same as though we wished to save Abu Hussein from the
hounds. These writings say: 'Abolish your rulers.' How can we
abolish except we kill? We hear rumours of one who comes from
down the river soon to lead us to kill."
"Fools!" said the Governor. "Your titles are good. This is
madness!"
"It is so written," they answered like a pack.
"Listen," said the Inspector smoothly. "I know who caused the
writings to be written and sent. He is a man of a blue-mottled
jowl, in aspect like Bigglebai who ate unclean matters. He will
come up the river and will give tongue about the beatings."
"Will he impeach our land-titles? An evil day for him!"
"Go slow, Baker," the Governor whispered. "They'll kill him if
they get scared about their land."
"I tell a parable." The Inspector lit a cigarette. "Declare which
of you took to walk the children of Milkmaid?"
"Melik-meid First or Second?" said Farag quickly.
"The second--the one which was lamed by the thorn."
"No--no. Melik-meid the Second strained her shoulder leaping my
water-channel," a sheikh cried. "Melik-meid the First was lamed
by the thorns on the day when Our Excellency fell thrice."
"True--true. The second Melik-meid's mate was Malvolio, the pied
hound," said the Inspector.
"I had two of the second Melik-meid's pups," said Farag's uncle.
"They died of the madness in their ninth month."
"And how did they do before they died?" said the Inspector.
"They ran about in the sun, and slavered at the mouth till they
died."
"Wherefore?"
"God knows. He sent the madness. It was no fault of mine."
"Thy own mouth hath answered thee." The Inspector laughed. "It is
with men as it is with dogs. God afflicts some with a madness. It
is no fault of ours if such men run about in the sun and froth at
the mouth. The man who is coming will emit spray from his mouth
in speaking, and will always edge and push in towards his
hearers. When ye see and hear him ye will understand that he is
afflicted of God: being mad. He is in God's hands."
"But our titles--are our titles to our lands good?" the crowd
repeated.
"Your titles are in my hands--they are good," said the Governor.
"And he who wrote the writings is an afflicted of God?" said
Farag's uncle.
"The Inspector hath said it," cried the Governor. "Ye will see
when the man comes. O sheikhs and men, have we ridden together
and walked puppies together, and bought and sold barley for the
horses that after these years we should run riot on the scent of
a madman--an afflicted of God?"
"But the Hunt pays us to kill mad jackals," said Farag's uncle.
"And he who questions my titles to my land "
"Aahh! 'Ware riot!" The Governor's hunting-crop cracked like a
three-pounder. "By Allah," he thundered, "if the afflicted of God
come to any harm at your hands, I myself will shoot every hound
and every puppy, and the Hunt shall ride no more. On your heads
be it. Go in peace, and tell the others."
"The Hunt shall ride no more," said Farag's uncle. "Then how can
the land be governed? No--no, O Excellency Our Governor, we will
not harm a hair on the head of the afflicted of God. He shall be
to us as is Abu Hussein's wife in the breeding season."
When they were gone the Governor mopped his forehead.
"We must put a few soldiers in every village this Groombride
visits, Baker. Tell 'em to keep out of sight, and have an eye on
the villagers. He's trying 'em rather high."
"O Excellency," said the smooth voice of Farag, laying the Field
and Country Life square on the table, "is the afflicted of God
who resembles Bigglebai one with the man whom the Inspector met
in the great house in England, and to whom he told the tale of
the Mudir's Cranes?"
"The same man, Farag," said the Inspector.
"I have often heard the Inspector tell the tale to ,Our
Excellency at feeding-time in the kennels; but since I am in the
Government service I have never told it to my people. May I loose
that tale among the villages?"
* * * * *
The Governor nodded. " No harm," said he.
The details of Mr. Groombride's arrival, with his interpreter,
whom he proposed should eat with him at the Governor's table, his
allocution to the Governor on the New Movement, and the sins of
Imperialism, I purposely omit. At three in the afternoon Mr.
Groombride said: "I will go out now and address your victims in
this village."
"Won't you find it rather hot?" said the Governor. "They
generally take 'a nap till sunset at this time of year."
Mr. Groombride's large, loose lips set. "That," he replied
pointedly, "would be enough to decide me. I fear you have not
quite mastered your instructions. May I ask you to send for my
interpreter? I hope he has not been tampered with by your
subordinates."
He was a yellowish boy called Abdul, who had well eaten and drunk
with Farag. The Inspector, by the way, was not present at the
meal.
"At whatever risk, I shall go unattended," said Mr. Groombride.
"Your presence would cow them -from giving evidence. Abdul, my
good friend, would you very kindly open the umbrella?"
He passed up the gang-plank to the village, and with no more
prelude than a Salvation Army picket in a Portsmouth slum, cried:
"Oh, my brothers!"
He did not guess how his path had been prepared. The village was
widely awake. Farag, in loose, flowing garments, quite unlike a
kennel huntsman's khaki and puttees, leaned against the wall of
his uncle's house. "Come and see the afflicted of God,." he cried
musically, "whose face, indeed, resembles that of Bigglebai."
The village came, and decided that on the whole Farag was right.
"I can't quite catch what they are saying," said Mr. Groombride.
"They saying they very much pleased to see you, Sar," Adbul
interpreted.
"Then I do think they might have sent a deputation to the
steamer; but I suppose they were frightened of the officials.
Tell them not to be frightened, Abdul."
"He says you are not to be frightened," Abdul explained. A child
here sputtered with laughter. "Refrain from mirth," Farag cried.
"The afflicted of God is the guest of The Excellency Our
Governor. We are responsible for every hair of his head."
"He has none," a voice spoke. "He has the white and the shining
mange."
"Now tell them what I have come for, Abdul, and please keep the
umbrella well up. I think I shall reserve myself for my little
vernacular speech at the end."
"Approach! Look! Listen!" Abdul chanted. "The afflicted of God
will now make sport. Presently he will speak in your tongue, and
will consume you with mirth. I have been his servant for three
weeks. I will tell you about his undergarments and his perfumes
for his head."
He told them at length.
"And didst thou take any of his perfume bottles?" said Farag at
the end.
"I am his servant. I took two," Abdul replied.
"Ask him," said Farag's uncle, "what he knows about our
land-titles. Ye young men are all alike." He waved a pamphlet.
Mr. Groombride smiled to see how the seed sown in London had
borne fruit by Gihon. Lo! All the seniors held copies of the
pamphlet.
"He knows less than a buffalo. He told me on the steamer that he
was driven out of his own land by Demah-Kerazi which is a devil
inhabiting crowds and assemblies," said Abdul.
"Allah between us and evil!" a woman cackled from the darkness of
a hut. "Come in, children, he may have the Evil Eye."
"No, my aunt," said Farag. "No afflicted of God has an evil eye.
Wait till ye hear his mirth-provoking speech which he will
deliver. I have heard it twice from Abdul."
"They seem very quick to grasp the point. How far have you got,
Abdul?"
"All about the beatings, sar. They are highly interested."
"Don't forget about the local self-government, and please hold
the umbrella over me. It is hopeless to destroy unless one first
builds up."
"He may not have the Evil Eye," Farag's uncle grunted, "but his
devil led him too certainly to question my land-title. Ask him
whether he still doubts my land-title?"
"Or mine, or mine?" cried the elders.
"What odds? He is an afflicted of God," Farag called. "Remember
the tale I told you."
"Yes, but he is an Englishman, and doubtless of influence, or Our
Excellency would not entertain him. Bid the down-country jackass
ask him."
"Sar," said Abdul, "these people, much fearing they may be turned
out of their land in consequence of your remarks. Therefore they
ask you to make promise no bad consequences following your
visit."
Mr. Groombride held his breath and turned purple. Then he stamped
his foot.
"Tell them," he cried, "that if a hair of any one of their heads
is touched by any official on any account whatever, all England
shall ring with it. Good God! What callous oppression! The dark
places of the earth are full of cruelty." He wiped his face, and
throwing out his arms cried: "Tell them, oh! tell the poor, serfs
not to be afraid of me. Tell them I come to redress their
wrongs--not, heaven knows, to add to their burden."
The long-drawn gurgle of the practised public speaker pleased
them much.
"That is how the new water-tap runs out in the kennel," said
Farag. "The Excellency Our Governor entertains him that he may
make sport. Make him say the mirth-moving speech."
"What did he say about my land-titles?" Farag's uncle was not to
be turned.
"He says," Farag interpreted, "that he desires, nothing better
than that you should live on your lands in peace. He talks as
though he believed himself to be Governor."
"Well. We here are all witnesses to what he has said. Now go
forward with the sport." Farag's uncle smoothed his garments.
"How diversely hath Allah made His creatures! On one He bestows
strength to slay Emirs; another He causes to go mad and wander in
the sun, like the afflicted sons of Melik-meid."
"Yes, and to emit spray from the mouth, as the Inspector told us.
All will happen as the Inspector foretold," said Farag. " I have
never yet seen the Inspector thrown out during any run."
"I think," Abdul plucked at Mr. Groombride's sleeves, "I think
perhaps it is better now, Sar, if you give your fine little
native speech. They not understanding English, but much pleased
at your condescensions."
"Condescensions?" Mr. Groombride spun round. "If they only knew
how I felt towards them in my heart! If I could express a tithe
of my feelings! I must stay here and learn the language. Hold up
the umbrella, Abdull I think my little speech will show them I
know something of their vie intime."
It was a short, simple; carefully learned address, and the
accent, supervised by Abdul on the steamer, allowed the hearers
to guess its meaning, which was a request to see one of the
Mudir's Cranes; since the desire of the speaker's life, the
object to which he would consecrate his days, was to improve the
condition of the Mudir's Cranes. But first he must behold them
with his own eyes. Would, then, his brethren, whom he loved, show
him a Mudir's Crane whom he desired to love?
Once, twice, and again in his peroration he repeated his demand,
using always--that they might see he was acquainted with their
local argot--using always, I say, the word which the Inspector
had given him in England long ago--the short, adhesive word
which, by itself, surprises even unblushing Ethiopia.
There are limits to the sublime politeness of an ancient people.
A bulky, blue-chinned man in white clothes, his name red-lettered
across his lower shirtfront, spluttering from under a green-lined
umbrella almost tearful appeals to be introduced to the
Unintroducible; naming loudly the Unnameable; dancing, as it
seemed, in perverse joy at mere mention of the
Unmentionable--found those limits. There was a moment's hush, and
then such mirth as Gihon through his centuries had never heard--a
roar like to the roar of his own cataracts in flood. Children
cast themselves on the ground, and rolled back and forth cheering
and whooping; strong men, their faces hidden in their clothes,
swayed in silence, till the agony became insupportable, and they
threw up their heads and bayed at the sun; women, mothers and
virgins, shrilled shriek upon mounting shriek, and slapped their
thighs as it might have been the roll of musketry. When they
tried to draw breath, some half-strangled voice would quack out
the word, and the riot began afresh. Last to fall was the
city-trained Abdul. He held on to the edge of apoplexy, then
collapsed, throwing the umbrella from him.
Mr. Groombride should not be judged too harshly. Exercise and
strong emotion under a hot sun, the shock of public ingratitude,
for the moment rued his spirit. He furled the umbrella, and with
t beat the prostrate Abdul, crying that he had been betrayed. In
which posture the Inspector, on horseback, followed by the
Governor, suddenly found him.
* * * * *
"That's all very well," said the Inspector, when he had taken
Abdul's dramatically dying depositions on the steamer, "but you
can't hammer a native merely because he laughs at you. I see
nothing for it but the law to take its course."
"You might reduce the charge to--er--tampering with an
interpreter," said the Governor. Mr. Groombride was too far gone
to be comforted.
"It's the publicity that I fear," he wailed. "Is there no
possible means of hushing up the affair? You don't know what a
question--a single question in the House means to a man of my
position--the ruin of my political career, I assure you."
"I shouldn't have imagined it," said the Governor thoughtfully.
"And, though perhaps I ought not to say it, I am not without
honour in my own country--or influence. A word in season, as you
know, Your Excellency. It might carry an official far."
The Governor shuddered.
"Yes, that had to come too," he said to himself. "Well, look
here. If I tell this man of yours to withdraw the charge against
you, you can go to Gehenna for aught I care. The only condition I
make is that if you write--I suppose that's part of your business
about your travels, you don't praise me!"
So far Mr. Groombride has loyally adhered to this understanding.
-THE END-
Rudyard Kipling's short story: Little Foxes
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