Son of Power | Page 4

point of his entry. This was his first deep breath of the jungle--something his soul had been waiting for.
At dinner in the village, Skag inquired about the white man. The native was serving him a curry with drift-white rice on plantain leaves. After that there was a sweetmeat made of curds of cream and honey, with the flavour and perfume of some altogether delectable flower. In good time the native replied that the white man's name was Cadman: that he was an American traveller and writer and artist, said to be almost illustrious; that he had been out recently with a party of English sportsmen, but found tiger-hunting dull after his many wars and adventures. Also, it was said, that Cadman Sahib had the coldest-blooded courage a man ever took into the jungle, almost like a bhakti yogin who had altogether conquered fear. Skag bowed in satisfaction. Had he not looked twice at the face under the helmet--and followed without words?
"How far do they go into the jungle for tigers?" he asked.
"An hour's journey, or a day, as it happens. Tigers are everywhere in season."
"Within an hour's walk?" Skag asked quietly. The other repeated his words in a voice that made Skag think of a grey old man, instead of the fat brown one before him.
"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