The Bull

“Here be more beside ourselves,” said Findlayson, his head against the
treepole, looking through half-shut eyes, wholly at ease.
“Truly,” said Peroo, thickly, “and no small ones.”
“What are they, then? I do not see clearly.”
“The Gods. Who else? Look!”
“Ah, true! The Gods surely--the Gods.” Findlayson smiled as his head
fell forward on his chest. Peroo was eminently right. After the Flood,
who should be alive in the land except the Gods that made it--the Gods
to whom his village prayed nightly--the Gods who were in all men’s
mouths and about all men’s ways. He could not raise his head or stir a
finger for the trance that held him, and Peroo was smiling vacantly at
the lightning.

The Bull paused by the shrine, his head lowered to the damp earth. A
green Parrot in the branches preened his wet wings and screamed against
the thunder as the circle under the tree filled with the shifting
shadows of beasts. There was a black Buck at the Bull’s heels-such a
Buck as Findlayson in his far-away life upon earth might have seen in
dreams--a Buck with a royal head, ebon back, silver belly, and gleaming
straight horns. Beside him, her head bowed to the ground, the green eyes
burning under the heavy brows, with restless tail switching the dead
grass, paced a Tigress, full-bellied and deep-jowled.

The Bull crouched beside the shrine, and there leaped from the darkness
a monstrous grey Ape, who seated himself man-wise in the place of the
fallen image, and the rain spilled like jewels from the hair of his neck
and shoulders. Other shadows came and went behind the circle, among
them a drunken Man flourishing staff and drinking-bottle. Then a hoarse
bellow broke out from near the ground. “The flood lessens even now,” it
cried. “Hour by hour the water falls, and their bridge still stands!”

“My bridge,” said Findlayson to himself “That must be very old work now. What have the Gods to do with my bridge?”

His eyes rolled in the darkness following the roar. A Mugger--the
blunt-nosed, ford-haunting Mugger of the Ganges--draggled herself before
the beasts, lashing furiously to right and left with her tail.

“They have made it too strong for me. In all this night I have only torn
away a handful of planks. The walls stand. The towers stand. They have
chained my flood, and the river is not free any more. Heavenly Ones,
take this yoke away! Give me clear water between bank and bank! It is I,
Mother Gunga, that speak. The Justice of the Gods! Deal me the Justice
of the Gods!”

“What said I?” whispered Peroo. “This is in truth a Punchayet of the
Gods. Now we know that all the world is dead, save you and I, Sahib.”

The Parrot screamed and fluttered again, and the Tigress, her ears flat
to her head, snarled wickedly.

Somewhere in the shadow, a great trunk and gleaming tusks swayed to and
fro, and a low gurgle broke the silence that followed on the snarl.

“We be here,” said a deep voice, “the Great Ones. One only and very
many. Shiv, my father, is here, with Indra. Kali has spoken already.
Hanuman listens also.”

“Kashi is without her Kotwal to-night,” shouted the Man with the
drinking-bottle, flinging his staff to the ground, while the island rang
to the baying of hounds. “Give her the Justice of the Gods.”

“Ye were still when they polluted my waters,” the great Crocodile
bellowed. “Ye made no sign when my river was trapped between the walls.
I had no help save my own strength, and that failed--the strength of
Mother Gunga failed--before their guard-towers. What could I do? I have
done everything. Finish now, Heavenly Ones!”

“I brought the death; I rode the spotted sick-ness from hut to hut of
their workmen, and yet they would not cease.” A nose-slitten, hide-worn
Ass, lame, scissor-legged, and galled, limped forward. “I cast the death
at them out of my nostrils, but they would not cease.”

Peroo would have moved, but the opium lay heavy upon him.

“Bah!” he said, spitting. “Here is Sitala herself; Mata--the small-pox. Has the Sahib a handkerchief to put over his face?”

“Little help! They fed me the corpses for a month, and I flung them out
on my sand-bars, but their work went forward. Demons they are, and sons
of demons! And ye left Mother Gunga alone for their fire-carriage to
make a mock of The Justice of the Gods on the bridge-builders!”

The Bull turned the cud in his mouth and answered slowly: “If the
Justice of the Gods caught all who made a mock of holy things there
would be many dark altars in the land, mother.”

“But this goes beyond a mock,” said the Tigress, darting forward a
griping paw. “Thou knowest, Shiv, and ye, too, Heavenly Ones; ye know
that they have defiled Gunga. Surely they must come to the Destroyer. Let
Indra judge.”

The Buck made no movement as he answered: “How long has this evil been?

“Three years, as men count years,” said the Mugger, close pressed to the
earth.

“Does Mother Gunga die, then, in a year, that she is so anxious to
see vengeance now? The deep sea was where she runs but yesterday, and
to-morrow the sea shall cover her again as the Gods count that which men
call time. Can any say that this their bridge endures till to-morrow?”
said the Buck.

There was a long hush, and in the clearing of the storm the full moon
stood up above the dripping trees.

“Judge ye, then,” said the River, sullenly. “I have spoken my shame. The
flood falls still. I can do no more.”

“For my own part,”--it was the voice of the great Ape seated within the
shrine--“it pleases me well to watch these men, remembering that I also
builded no small bridge in the world’s youth.”

“They say, too,” snarled the Tiger, “that these men came of the wreck of
thy armies, Hanuman, and therefore thou hast aided--”

“They toil as my armies toiled in Lanka, and they believe that their
toil endures. Indra is too high, but Shiv, thou knowest how the land is
threaded with their fire-carriages.”

“Yea, I know,” said the Bull. “Their Gods instructed them in the
matter.”

A laugh ran round the circle.

“Their Gods! What should their Gods know? They were born yesterday, and
those that made them are scarcely yet cold,” said the Mugger. “To-morrow
their Gods will die.”

“Ho!” said Peroo. “Mother Gunga talks good talk. I told that to the
padre-sahib who preached on the Mombassa, and he asked the Burra Malum
to put me in irons for a great rudeness.”

“Surely they make these things to please their Gods,” said the Bull
again.

“Not altogether,” the Elephant rolled forth. “It is for the profit of
my mahajuns--my fat money-lenders that worship me at each new year, when
they draw my image at the head of the account-books. I, looking over
their shoulders by lamplight, see that the names in the books are
those of men in far places--for all the towns are drawn together by
the fire-carriage, and the money comes and goes swiftly, and the
account-books grow as fat as--myself. And I, who am Ganesh of Good Luck,
I bless my peoples.”

“They have changed the face of the land-which is my land. They have
killed and made new towns on my banks,” said the Mugger.

“It is but the shifting of a little dirt. Let the dirt dig in the dirt
if it pleases the dirt,” answered the Elephant.

“But afterwards?” said the Tiger. “Afterwards they will see that Mother
Gunga can avenge no insult, and they fall away from her first, and later
from us all, one by one. In the end, Ganesh, we are left with naked
altars.”

The drunken Man staggered to his feet, and hiccupped vehemently.

“Kali lies. My sister lies. Also this my stick is the Kotwal of Kashi,
and he keeps tally of my pilgrims. When the time comes to worship
Bhairon-and it is always time--the fire-carriages move one by one, and
each bears a thousand pilgrims. They do not come afoot any more, but
rolling upon wheels, and my honour is increased.”

“Gunga, I have seen thy bed at Pryag black with the pilgrims,” said the
Ape, leaning forward, “and but for the fire-carriage they would have
come slowly and in fewer numbers. Remember.”

“They come to me always,” Bhairon went on thickly. “By day and night
they pray to me, all the Common People in the fields and the roads. Who is
like Bhairon to-day? What talk is this of changing faiths? Is my
staff Kotwal of Kashi for nothing? He keeps the tally, and he says that
never were so many altars as today, and the fire-carriage serves them
well. Bhairon am I--Bhairon of the Common People, and the chiefest of
the Heavenly Ones to-day. Also my staff says--”

“Peace, thou,” lowed the Bull. “The worship of the schools is mine, and
they talk very wisely, asking whether I be one or many, as is the
delight of my people, and ye know what I am. Kali, my wife, thou knowest
also.”

“Yea, I know,” said the Tigress, with lowered head.

“Greater am I than Gunga also. For ye know who moved the minds of men
that they should count Gunga holy among the rivers. Who die in that
water--ye know how men say--come to us without punishment, and Gunga
knows that the fire-carriage has borne to her scores upon scores of such
anxious ones; and Kali knows that she has held her chiefest festivals
among the pilgrimages that are fed by the fire-carriage. Who smote at
Pooree, under the Image there, her thousands in a day and a night, and
bound the sickness to the wheels of the fire-carriages, so that it
ran from one end of the land to the other? Who but Kali? Before the
fire-carriage came it was a heavy toil. The fire-carriages have served
thee well, Mother of Death. But I speak for mine own altars, who am not
Bhairon of the Common Folk, but Shiv. Men go to and fro, making words
and telling talk of strange Gods, and I listen. Faith follows faith
among my people in the schools, and I have no anger; for when all words
are said, and the new talk is ended, to Shiv men return at the last.”

Tr