The Old Man of the Mountain

"Jolly good curry!" said Bob Jackson, looking up over his spoon. "What do you say, Mac?"

"Ay," responded Alan Mackenzie, in a drawl. He was a man of few words.

"Your Hamid is certainly a treasure of a cook," Jackson went on. "Has he done you yet, Dick?"

"Probably, but I haven't found him out, so it doesn't matter," answered Dick Forrester, the third of the party. "It shows you!"

"What?" asked Mackenzie, who always required statements in full.

"Why, you owl, that it's sometimes better to rely on your instincts than on the advice of kind busybodies. When I came through Calcutta, everybody advised me to wait till I got up country before engaging a man, told me the casuals of the Calcutta hotels were sharks ready to prey on any griffin, and so on. But I came across Hamid, liked the look of him----"

"You've a rummy taste in looks," interposed Jackson, with a laugh. "What with his crooked nose and his one eye, he can't pass for a beauty."

"And that's a fact," said Mackenzie, solemnly.

"Well, anyway, I took him on, and that's three years ago, and I've had no reason to regret it."

"He's a champion cook, at any rate," said Jackson.

"He is that," added Mackenzie, with emphasis.

At this moment the man in question entered with the next course, and further discussion of his qualities was impossible.

The three young fellows were taking their evening meal in a tent pitched near the bank of a stream some twenty miles north of Dibrugarh on the Brahmaputra. They were almost the same age, Mackenzie, the eldest, having recently completed his twenty-first year. Three years before, they had met as strangers on the deck of the liner conveying them to Calcutta, and had struck up one of those shipboard friendships which seldom last. In their case it was otherwise. All three were learning tea-planting in Assam, and, as the "gardens" on which they were severally engaged were many miles apart, their opportunities of foregathering were not very frequent. But they met as often as they could for sport in the form of snipe-shooting, boar-hunting, and other avocations that diversify the monotony of a planter's life, and they had become good comrades, knit one to another closely by the bonds of mutual trust and knowledge.

Three months' leave was now due to each of them. Forrester intended to go home: the others had arranged to make an extended tour in Northern India, and see Delhi, Lahore, and other cities of old renown. But it happened that, a few days before they were to start, they heard that a tiger had been doing mischief in a village some thirty miles from their stations. Fired by the news, they got permission from their managers to make a dash for the scene. Elephants were out of the question. They made the journey on foot, with four coolies to carry the baggage, Forrester's bearer, Hamid Gul--the man whom he had picked up in Calcutta, and who added to his many accomplishments a considerable skill in cooking--and a veteran shikari named Sher Jang, whose services they had often employed in their sporting expeditions. Sher Jang, with the aid of local talent, tracked the animal to its haunt in the jungle; after a few crowded moments it fell to the white men's guns; and its skin, already stripped from the carcase by the deft shikari, now lay stretched on the sward near the tent.

"Excuse, sahib!" said Hamid Gul, as he passed behind his master's chair after handing round the cutlets. He had been so long accustomed to use English of a sort with globe-trotters that he seldom spoke Hindustani with his master, like the average native servant.

"What is it?" asked Forrester.

The man's reply was to dangle a four-inch centipede before his eyes.

"It had cheek to crawl up honourable back, sahib," he explained.

The man dangled a four-inch centipede before his eyes. "It had cheek to crawl up honourable back!" he said.

"Kill the beast!" said Forrester.

Hamid dropped the centipede, settled it with his heel, and moved silently out of the tent.

"I can stand mosquitoes, but centipedes make me squirm," said Forrester. "If you know any sound more horrid than the plop of a centipede falling from the roof to the floor, tell me."

"To me the drone of a mosquito is ten times worse," said Jackson. "Apparently they don't like you, but they can never have enough of me, the brutes!"

"Soft and sweet!" murmured Mackenzie.

"What's the tiger-skin worth, Dick?" asked Jackson, ignoring the Scotsman's jibe.

"I don't know; but a goodish sum, probably. A man-eater's skin is usually mangy, but old Sher says that this is in good condition. Look out, Bob!"

Jackson ducked his head, already warned by a booming noise like the hum of an aeroplane engine that a beetle had flown in at the door. They watched the insect whirling about, until it came blindly in contact with the tent pole, and fell to the ground. There it lay on its back, spinning round and round with ever-increasing uproar, until Mackenzie picked it up, and flung it out--into the face of Hamid, approaching with the dessert.

The three men soon finished their meal, and, taking their camp chairs, went out into the open. When they were seated, Hamid came up with a brass salver filled with glowing charcoal, and presented to each a pair of small silver tongs with which to lift a ruddy chip for lighting his pipe. He prided himself on keeping up old customs. Then, with a good-night salaam, he passed into the tent to clear away.

It was a glorious night. The candlelight from the open tent paled in the rays of the moon, soaring aloft in a cloudless sky. A faint breeze stirred the feathery tops of the jungle grass, and ruffled the glassy surface of the rivulet. From the distance came the piercing lugubrious notes of bull frogs; the air sang with the hum of innumerable insects; ever and anon a bat flitted past like a shadow. At one side of the tent, on an upturned tub, sat Sher Jang, the shikari, smoking a long pipe, and gazing solemnly into space. A few yards away the coolies squatted round their camp fire, replete from their unaccustomed meal of tiger's meat, which they had devoured in the joyous belief that it would endue them with a ferocious courage.

The white men puffed away in silence, thinking over the day's sport, dreaming, maybe, of the anticipated delights of the approaching holiday. Hamid noiselessly finished his work, and then crouched with his pipe on a mat by the tent, studiously ignoring Sher Jang, as a cat ignores the dog on the hearthrug.

Thus half an hour passed. Then Mackenzie's cutty dropped from his mouth, and he snored.

"Hullo, Mac, it's time you turned in!" said Forrester, shaking him by the arm.

"Ay," said Mackenzie, sleepily. "Where's my pipe?"

"At your feet."

The Scotsman picked it up, stood erect, yawned, stretched himself, then suddenly dropped his hands to his sides.

"What's yon?" he said.

His companions sprang up. They, too, had heard a rustling in the jungle close at hand--a sound louder than the swish and scrape of the grass in the breeze. Sher Jang came up to them silently, and handed them their rifles. They heard the sound again, and stood in line, peering into the thicket up-stream, their fingers on the triggers.

The rustle ceased.

"Is it a tiger?" Forrester whispered in Hindustani to the shikari.

"No, sahib; tigers make no noise. It may be a bear."

"Or a native?" suggested Jackson.

"No, sahib; badmashes might prowl at dawn, but not in the night. I think it is a bear."

The rustle recommenced, and drew nearer and nearer. The white men waited with bated breath, ready to fire the instant the beast showed itself. Hamid had not moved; he was no sportsman, and trusted the sahibs to preserve him from harm. The coolies had run behind the tent.

Moment by moment the sound grew louder. Sher Jang gazed impassively into the jungle; he was too old a hand to show any feeling; but the young planters were tingling with excitement, drew quick breaths, and itched for action. All at once the long grass parted, and in the flicker of the firelight they saw a form emerge.

"Great Scott!" ejaculated Forrester.

They lowered their rifles, and stood for a moment in hesitation. Then all three hastened forward, wondering, alarmed. The form was that of a man, clothed in European style. But he was not walking erect, as men walk. He was creeping slowly, painfully, on all fours. Seeing them advancing towards him, he uttered a faint cry and tried to rise, only to fall forward with a moan. They came to him, and lifted him to his feet.

As they approached, the man tried to rise, uttered a faint cry, then fell forward with a moan.

"Pull--yourself--together--man!" he murmured, brokenly. "Pull--yourself--together!"

"What is it, sir?" asked Forrester, feeling the man shiver in his sodden clothes.

"Hoots, man!" exclaimed Mackenzie, "get him to the fire. He's fair wandered."

Acting on this practical suggestion, they led the stranger to the fire. The shikari meanwhile remained fixedly on guard, his eyes never quitting the jungle, his ears alert for further sounds.

"A blanket, Hamid!" Forrester shouted.

The man brought a blanket from the tent, and in this they rolled the stranger, setting him as close to the fire as they dared. Mackenzie unscrewed a brandy flask, and poured a little of the liquor between his lips. He gasped and lay quite still, his eyes staring without seeing. Every now and then his body twitched convulsively.

"The fever, sahib," said Hamid.

"A bad attack, too," said Forrester. "Quick! A rubber sheet, a pillow, and my bottle of quinine."

In a few minutes the stranger had been dosed with quinine and made comfortable. As yet he was unable to talk. Enveloped in the blanket, only his face was now visible--the face of a man about thirty-five, refined of feature, with thick brown beard and moustache, matted with damp and dirt. The sun-tanned cheeks were sunken, the eyes within their hollow sockets blazed with the fire of fever. They watched him anxiously, their concern for his pitiable condition mingled with curiosity. How came this man to be wandering alone and unarmed in the jungle?

"Poor body!" muttered Mackenzie. "Did you notice his hands?"

"They shook like a leaf," replied Jackson.

"Ay, but the blood!"

"Was there blood on them?"

"Ay, on the palms."

"Torn by thorns as he crawled along," said Forrester. "He saw the glow of our fire, no doubt, and staggered towards it; you remember he said, 'Pull yourself together!' He has been pulling himself together for days, by the look of him--and it came to crawling at the last! No sign of pursuit, Sher?" he asked, as the shikari came up.

"No, sahib, there is no sound."

"Give him another dose," said Mackenzie.

After the brandy and quinine had been poured between the sick man's lips, his eyes closed and he seemed to sleep.

"We must take turns to watch him during the night," said Forrester, "and get him to my bungalow as quickly as we can to-morrow."

"If he's not away!" said Mackenzie, gloomily. "I'm no liking the looks of him."

"We'll hope for the best. Malcolm has pulled through many bad cases. We'll dose him every hour or so. I'll take first watch; you fellows turn in. I'll call one of you in three hours."

Soon the camp slept; only Forrester remained awake. He sat beside the invalid, bending forward to catch any sign of change upon the fever-flushed countenance. He rose once to replenish the fire, and once to brush away a small beetle that was crawling on the blanket. The eerie wail of a jackal broke in presently upon the lesser sounds of the night; but that was so commonly heard in Assam that Forrester scarcely noticed it.

In an hour he repeated the dose of medicine, and started involuntarily when the sick man, opening his eyes, uttered a name.

"Beresford!"

Feeble as his voice was, there was in it a note of eagerness and relief. For a moment Forrester thought of encouraging the delusion, but it flashed upon him that the man might not have been alone after all. Was his companion lost in the jungle? Leaning forward, he said, quietly:--

"My name is not Beresford, it is Forrester."

At first the man appeared not to have understood, but after a few moments a look of dread gathered in his eyes, and he struggled to get up. Gently pressing him down Forrester said, in slow, clear tones:--

"You are with friends. You came towards our light, you remember. Won't you lie still and collect yourself, and tell me about it? 'Pull yourself together,' you know?"

"Pull yourself together!" the man repeated, like a child.

He lay back and closed his eyes, reopening them presently and turning them upon the fire.

"A light!" he muttered, eagerly. "My last chance! Pull yourself--ah! they've got him!" He shuddered, then with a sudden lapse into partial consciousness, he went on: "There's no time to lose. They've got him! Don't you hear? They've got him! The shutter! I came on for help. One company will do it; but hurry them, for heaven's sake! Take your hand off me, you hound!"

Then followed a bewildering jumble of Hindustani and a language of which Forrester was ignorant. Taking a cup, Forrester hastened to the stream, filled it with water, and, returning, bathed the stranger's burning brow. The raving ceased. After a brief silence the weak voice again spoke coherently, though the speaker, as the words showed, did not realise his position.

"Don't wait for me. In the hills--four days; nights are better; you won't meet men by night. But march day and night; there's no time to lose, I tell you."

"How shall we find the way?" asked Forrester, in the quiet tone he had employed before.

"I'll show you," said the man, eagerly, trying again to rise. "No, I'm dead beat," he added, falling back. "I'll follow you up. I made a jotting; you can't miss them. What are you waiting for?"

"The paper. Where is it?"

The man wriggled within the blanket, and a look of agony distorted his face as he felt his helplessness.

Forrester quickly loosed the wrappings.

"Which pocket?" he asked.

But a stream of incoherent babbling poured from the exhausted man's lips. He lay passive as Forrester felt in his breast pocket and drew forth a small leather case. Opening it, Forrester discovered a folded paper lying loose. He spread it out, and saw what at first seemed to be nothing but a smudge. But when he held the paper nearer to the firelight, he distinguished a design. It was disappointing, puzzling. A pencil line slanted from the left-hand top corner to the middle of the sheet, then branched horizontally to the right. The pencil marks had rubbed and smudged in the man's pocket, but looking at them closely, Forrester made out a few words in addition to the line. At the angle he read "Camel's Hump," at the end on the right, "Monkey Face." There was nothing more.