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Updated: June 10, 2025
If the Satpura Bhils kept to their villages, and did not wander after dark, they would not see him. Indeed, Bukta, it is no more than that he would see the light again in his own country. Send this news south, and say that it is my word." Bukta bowed to the floor. "Good Heavens!" thought Chinn, "and this blinking pagan is a first-class officer, and as straight as a die!
"If he stands by us and before the anger of the Government we will most strictly obey Jan Chinn, except except we do not go down to that place to-night." They could hear young Chinn below them shouting for Bukta; but they cowered and sat still, expecting the Clouded Tiger. The tomb had been holy ground for nearly half a century. If Jan Chinn chose to sleep there, who had better right?
"Nothing. It is only night-running, as I have said. He rides to see if they obey the Government, as he taught them to do in his first life." "And what if they do not?" "He did not say." The light went out in Chinn's quarters. "Look," said Bukta. "Now he goes away. None the less it is a good ghost, as he has said. How shall we fear Jan Chinn, who made the Bhil a man?
Let Jan Chinn comfort his own, for vain was the help of mortal man. Bukta toned down these beseechings to a simple request for Chinn's presence.
He prepared his plan of action much as his grandfather would have done; and when Bukta appeared in the morning with a most liberal supply of food, said nothing of the overnight desertion. Bukta would have been relieved by an outburst of human anger; but Chinn finished his victual leisurely, and a cheroot, ere he made any sign. "They are very much afraid," said Bukta, who was not too bold himself.
I say it. Go and tell them. And I do hope devoutly," he added, "that it will calm 'em down." Flinging back the tiger-skin, he rose with a long, unguarded yawn that showed his well-kept teeth. Bukta fled, to be received in the lines by a knot of panting inquirers. "It is true," said Bukta. "He wrapped him-self in the skin, and spoke from it. He would see his own country again.
Perhaps it was the tiger's revenge, or perhaps he's huntin' 'em still. You must go to his tomb one of these days and inquire. Bukta will probably attend to that. He was asking me before you came whether by any ill-luck you had already bagged your tiger. If not, he is going to enter you under his own wing. Of course, for you of all men it's imperative. You'll have a first-class time with Bukta."
Bukta made no motion to raise his rifle, but kept his eyes on Chinn, who met the shattering roar of the charge with a single shot it seemed to him hours as he sighted which tore through the throat, smashing the backbone below the neck and between the shoulders.
They covered thirty miles a day on foot and pony, raising the blue wall-like line of the Satpuras as swiftly as might be. Bukta was very silent. They began the steep climb a little after noon, but it was near sunset ere they reached the stone platform clinging to the side of a rifted, jungle-covered hill, where Jan Chinn the First was laid, as he had desired, that he might overlook his people.
The Major was not wrong. Bukta kept an anxious eye on young Chinn at drill, and it was noticeable that the first time the new officer lifted up his voice in an order the whole line quivered. Even the Colonel was taken aback, for it might have been Lionel Chinn returned from Devonshire with a new lease of life.
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