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The bullet went straight to the heart, and the ruffian Bheel fell dead without uttering a groan or sound. "What is the matter," enquired the sentry, stopping at the door of the tent, which had been closed to keep out the night dews. "Nothing," Arthur had promptly replied, "I have discharged my pistol by accident, and am going to reload it, that is all.
And all this on a handful of parched grain! My friend the Shikarry delights to clothe himself in the coarse fabrics manufactured in gaol, which, when properly patched and decorated with pockets, have undoubtedly a certain wild-wood appearance. As the hunter does not happen to be a Bheel with the privileges of nakedness conferred by a brown skin, this is perhaps the only practical alternative.
I feel that I have only to yield myself for a few days to its hospitable importunities and it will waft me away to profound forest depths, to the awful penetralia of the bison and the tiger. Even here everything is strange to me; the common native has become a Bheel, the sparrowhawk an eagle, the grass of the field a vast, reedy growth in which an elephant becomes a mere field mouse.
But we have now many Bheel villages entirely under our teaching, and quite a number of Bheel Officers who have learnt to read their own language, and to lead their countrymen as fully to follow Christ as they do themselves. So many of our people in Guzerat were weavers that one Officer set himself specially to the task of improving their loom.
The movements of the bheel are those of the serpent. If you sleep in your tent, with a servant lying across each entrance, the bheel will come and crouch on the outside, in some shady corner, where he can hear the breathing of those within. As soon as the European sleeps, he feels sure of success, for the Asiatic will not long resist the attraction of repose.
This party he was directed to take charge of as far on the road as he was going. Nor was his journey without an adventure as the following incident will show: Within the deep shadow of a grove of stately tamarind trees that grew on the roadside, and distant about half a mile from a large and populous Bheel village the tent of our young traveller had been pitched.
By and by the head and shoulders of the identical Bheel showed themselves inside the tent; his hawk eye darted a rapid glance all around, but most especially at the prostrate and apparently sleeping form of Carlton he then drew the remainder of his body, which was perfectly naked, through the aperture and stood erect and for a few seconds remained at the foot of Arthur's bed, and listened to the heavy breathing which he effected; then, with a gliding motion, moved towards the trunk containing the rupees, but still keeping his face half turned in the direction of the bed so that he could observe the slightest alteration, should any be made in the position of its occupant, he then endeavored to force open the lid with his creese, but finding he could not succeed in this, he took from behind his ear a small piece of wire, with which he attempted to pick the lock, but in order to effect this he had to rest his eye on the key hole for a second or two.
Good, easy Horace Barton had got over that sort of thing, for after returning from the Suddur Aydowlett, he would seek the quiet of his sanctum sanctorum, and with his Hooka and iced Sherbet, would regale himself until the dressing bell rang for dinner, after which he would entertain Arthur with stories of the Pindaree War, the suppression of Thuygee, and relate wonderful feats of looting, perpetrated by the most expert robbers in the world, the Bheel tribes.
This old Bheel is girt about the loins with knives, pouches, powder-horns, and ramrods; and he carries on his shoulder an aged flintlock. He looks old enough to be an English General Officer or a Cabinet Minister; and you might assume that he was in the last stage of physical and mental decay. But you would be quite wrong.
Soon after joining he wrote to Sir Jasper informing him of his safe arrival, and to Edith a long and interesting account of his journey from Calcutta to Karricabad, in which he portrayed with faithful accuracy his encounter with a Bheel, and many other incidents which he thought likely would interest or amuse her.
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