"Within an hour's walk? Ha, Ji! They come to the edge of the village and slay the goats for food—and the sound cattle—and the children!"
Skag laughed inwardly, thinking how good it had been in the deep places. However, it was now plain that these native folk were afraid of tigers—afraid as of a sickness. He walked out into the street. Though dark, it was still hot, and the breeze brought the dry green of the jungle to him and life was altogether quite right.
That night he met Cadman Sahib. They talked until dawn. Skag was helpless before the other who made him tell all he knew, and much that had been nicely forgotten. Sometimes in the midst of one story, the great traveller would snap over a question about one Skag had already told. Then before he was answered fully, he would say briefly:
"That's all right—go on!"
" … Behold a phenomenon!" he said at last. "Here is one not a liar, and smells have meanings for him, and he has come, beyond peradventure, to travel with me to the Monkey Forest and the Coldwater Ruins!"
It had been an altogether wonderful night for Skag. Talking made him very tired, as if part of him had gone forth; as if, having spoken, he would be called upon to make good in deeds. But he had not done all the talking and Cadman Sahib was no less before his eyes in the morning light—which is much to say for any man.
These two white men set out alone, facing one of the most dangerous of all known jungles. The few natives who understood, bade them good-bye for this earth.
Many stories about Cadman had come to Skag in the three or four days of preparation—altogether astonishing adventures of his quest for death, but there was no record of Cadman's choosing a friend, as he had done for this expedition. Skag never ceased to marvel at the sudden softenings, so singularly attractive, in Cadman's look when he really began to talk. Sometimes it was like a sudden drop into summer after protracted frost, and the lines of the thin weathered face revealed the whole secret of yearning, something altogether chaste. And that was only the beginning. It was all unexpected; that was the charm of the whole relation. Skag found that Cadman had a real love for India; that he saw things from a nature full of delicate inner surfaces; that his whole difficulty was an inability to express himself unless he found just the receiving-end to suit. Indian affairs, town and field, an infinite variety, Cadman discussed penetratingly, but as one who looked on from the outside.
"She is like my old Zoo book to me," he said, speaking of India their first night out. "A bit of a lad, I used to sit in my room with the great book opened out on a marble table that was cold the year round. There were many pictures. Many, many pictures of all beasts—wood-cuts and copies of paintings and ink-sketchings—ante-camera days, you know. All those pictures are still here—"
Cadman blew a thin diffusion of smoke from his lungs, and touched the third button down from the throat of his grey-green shirt.
"One above all," he added. "It was the frontispiece. All the story of creation on one page. Man, beautiful Man in the centre, all the tree-animals on branches around him, the deeps drained off at his feet, many monsters visible or intimated, the air alive with wings—finches up to condors. That picture sank deep, Skag, so deep that in absent-minded moments I half expected to find India like that—"
There were no better hours of life, than these when Cadman Sahib let himself speak.
"I haven't found the animals and birds and monsters all packed on one page," he added, "but highlights here and there in India, so that I always come back. I have often caught myself asking what the pull is about, you know, as I catch myself taking ship for Bombay again. Oh, I say, my son, and you never got over to the lotus lakes?"
"Not yet," Skag said softly.
"There's a night wind there and a tree—I could find it again. I've lain on peacock feathers on a margin there—unwilling to sleep lest I miss the perfume from over the pools. … And the roses of Kashmir, where men of one family must serve forty generations before they get the secrets; where they press out a ton of petals for a pound of essential oil! And that's where the big mountains stand by—High Himalaya herself—incredible colours and vistas—get it for yourself, son."
It was always the elusive thing that Cadman didn't say, that left Skag's mind free to build his own pictures. Meanwhile Cadman as a companion was showing up flawlessly day by day.
At the end of a long march, after many days out, they smelled the night cooking-fires from a village. A moment later they passed tiger tracks, and the print of native feet.
The twilight was thick between them as they hastened on. Cadman Sahib stepped back suddenly, lifting his hand to grasp the other, but not quite soon enough. That instant Skag was flicked out of sight, taken into the folds of mother-earth and covered—the bleat of a kid presently identifying the whole mystery.
Skag fell about twelve feet into the black earth coolness. He was unhurt, and knew roughly what had happened before he landed. His rush of thoughts: shame for his own carelessness, gladness that Cadman Sahib was safe above, the meaning of the kid's cry and the tracks they had seen; this rush was broken by another deluge of earth that all but drowned the laugh of Cadman. Skag had jerked back against the wall of earth to avoid being struck by the body of his companion who coughed and laughed again faintly, for his wind was very low.
"You couldn't ask more of a friend than that, son. I couldn't get you up to me, so I came down with you—"
Of course, it was an accident. Cadman presently explained that he had set down his dunnage and crept close on his knees to look into the pit when the dry earth caved. Doubtless it was intended to do so, since this was a native tiger-trap baited with live meat. But Cadman had not considered fully in time. … Dust of the dry brown earth settled upon them now; the grey twilight darkened swiftly. The chamber was about nine by fifteen feet, hollowed wider at the bottom than the top, and covered with a thin frame of bamboo poles, upon which was spread a layer of leaves and sod. The kid had been tethered to escape the stroke if possible.
"It's all night for us," Cadman remarked. "They won't look at the trap until morning. My packs are above—rifle and blanket—"
"I have the camera," Skag chuckled.
Cadman's thin hand came out gropingly.
"The cigarettes are in the tea-pot," he said in a voice dulled with pain.
"I have the pistol," Skag added dreamily. Something of the situation had touched him with joy. If he spoke at such times, it was very dryly.
"Doubtless you have our bathing-suits," Cadman suggested.
"And my cigarette-case has—" Skag felt in the dark, "has one—two—three—"
"Go on," the other said tensely.
"Three," said Skag.
"Let's smoke 'em now. They're calling me already."
Skag passed him the case, saying; "I'm not ready. I do not care just now."
The other puffed dismally.
"I don't always quite get you, son," he said. "But it's all right when
I do—"
Skag mused over this. He was hungry and he put the thought away. He was athirst and he put that thought away also. The wants came back, but he dealt with them more firmly. The two men talked of appetites in general, and Skag explained that he handled his, just as he had handled the wild animals in the circus, being straight with them and gaining their friendliness.
"Don't fight them," he said. "Get them on your side and they will pull for you in a pinch."
"You talk like a Hindu holy man—"
"Do they talk like that?" Skag asked quickly. … "It was my old friend with the circus—who taught me these things. He taught me to make friends with my own wild animals. It is true that he was many years in India. … "
"He