They came out of little creeks one after another, as the logs come down in the Rains. When the river rose they rose also in companies from the shoals they had rested upon; and the falling flood dragged them with it across the fields and through the Jungle by the long hair. All night, too, going North, I heard the guns, and by day the shod feet of men crossing fords, and that noise which a heavy cart-wheel makes on sand under water;and every ripple brought more dead. At last even I was afraid, for I said: "If this thing happen to men, how shall the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut escape?" There were boats, too, that came up behind me without sails, burning continually, as the cotton-boats sometimes burn, but never sinking.""Ah!" said the Adjutant. "Boats like those come to Calcutta of the South. They are tall and black, they beat up the water behind them with a tail, and they----""Are thrice as big as my village. MY boats were low and white;they beat up the water on either side of them" and were no larger than the boats of one who speaks truth should be.
They made me very afraid, and I left water and went back to this my river, hiding by day and walking by night, when I could not find little streams to help me. I came to my village again, but I did not hope to see any of my people there. Yet they were ploughing and sowing and reaping, and going to and fro in their fields, as quietly as their own cattle.""Was there still good food in the river?" said the Jackal.
"More than I had any desire for. Even I--and I do not eat mud--even I was tired, and, as I remember, a little frightened of this constant coming down of the silent ones. I heard my people say in my village that all the English were dead; but those that came, face down, with the current were NOT English, as my people saw. Then my people said that it was best to say nothing at all, but to pay the tax and plough the land. After a long time the river cleared, and those that came down it had been clearly drowned by the floods, as I could well see; and though it was not so easy then to get food, I was heartily glad of it.
A little killing here and there is no bad thing--but even the Mugger is sometimes satisfied, as the saying is.""Marvellous! Most truly marvellous!" said the Jackal. "I am become fat through merely hearing about so much good eating.
And afterward what, if it be permitted to ask, did the Protector of the Poor do?""I said to myself--and by the Right and Left of Gunga! I locked my jaws on that vow--I said I would never go roving any more.
So I lived by the Ghaut, very close to my own people, and I watched over them year after year; and they loved me so much that they threw marigold wreaths at my head whenever they saw it lift. Yes, and my Fate has been very kind to me, and the river is good enough to respect my poor and infirm presence; only----""No one is all happy from his beak to his tail," said the Adjutant sympathetically. "What does the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut need more?""That little white child which I did not get," said the Mugger, with a deep sigh. "He was very small, but I have not forgotten.
I am old now, but before I die it is my desire to try one new thing. It is true they are a heavy-footed, noisy, and foolish people, and the sport would be small, but I remember the old days above Benares, and, if the child lives, he will remember still. It may be he goes up and down the bank of some river, telling how he once passed his hands between the teeth of the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut, and lived to make a tale of it. My Fate has been very kind, but that plagues me sometimes in my dreams--the thought of the little white child in the bows of that boat."He yawned, and closed his jaws. "And now I will rest and think.
Keep silent, my children, and respect the aged."He turned stiffly, and shuffled to the top of the sand-bar, while the Jackal drew back with the Adjutant to the shelter of a tree stranded on the end nearest the railway bridge.
