[Copyright, 1902. by C. B. Lewis.]
Colonel Ryder, stationed at Bangalore, India, missed from his effects a valuable ruby. The only person who could have taken it was his body servant, who had served him faithfully and honestly for many years. The man protested his innocence, but the colonel ordered him flogged. The accused was a high caste man, and a flogging meant social death to him. In his distress he sent for an old man named Doorunda. The old man came and said to the Colonel:
“Syng Rang is innocent. If you whip him, he must die by his own hand to wipe out the disgrace. Spare him, and I will do my best to find the thief who stole your ruby.”
The colonel at once reasoned that Doorunda was a partner in the theft and announced that the flogging would take place on the morrow if the gem was not given up. It was not restored, and Syng Rang was publicly whipped and committed suicide the same evening. As for the old man, he disappeared from Bangalore, and there were those who thought he might have taken the plunder with him. Four months after the disgrace and death of Syng Rang and when the event was all but forgotten the Colonel and four other officers of the Fifth went on a tiger hunt into the foothills of the western Ghauts.
Three or four tigers and a couple of panthers were bagged, and not an accident had happened. Then one of the servants reported that old Dooruda had been seen near the camp and when accosted by one who knew him well had run away. His only object could be revenge, but yet the matter was treated lightly. No search was made for him until his presence was reported again, and then the servants who were sent out did not wish to find him. He had a reputation of which they stood in fear. After three or four days, however, he entered camp one day when all the officers and most of the servants were away on the hunt. To one of the syces, or grooms, he said:
“I do not wish that harm should come to my own kin, but I will destroy the sahibs root and branch. On the third night from this, an hour after midnight, you will hear me signing behind those rocks up there. When you do so, you must not lose a moment in climbing a tree. Tell this to all others, but say not a word to the sahibs.”
“But what is to happen when you sing?” asked the groom.
“What is to happen will happen.”
With that Doorunda disappeared, to be seen no more. The groom notified all the other servants as they came in and then went to his master with the story. The five officers were made up of the colonel, major and three captains, and the groom served one of the latter. The story was passed along to the colonel, who received it with a sneer and sent word that if the old man was caught sight of again he should be made prisoner and held for a flogging. If any of the officers was inclined to heed the warning, he gave no outward sign of it, but the servants quietly prepared to obey the injunction. At midnight on the third night, while the white men slept, the dark skinned servitors left their campfires and mounted into trees and remained silent and watchful. For an hour all around them was quiet and peaceful, and some of them had begun to laugh at their own fears when the shrill, wailing voice of the old man came to them from the rocks. It was an incantation he wailed out, and he kept it up for ten minutes. None of the officers awoke. The servants shivered with fear as the voice continued, and the horses stamped and snorted and pulled at their halters. It was strange that men who sleep as lightly as soldiers do should not have been aroused, but it was so in this caes. Two or three minutes after the song ended the natives looked down from their perches to see old Doorunda enter camp with as many as a dozen tigers frisking around him like so many dogs. He halted before the colonel’s tent and stood for a moment, and then, clapping his hands, he cried out:
“Now, now, now! Now you may rend and tear and kill to the last!”
A horrible tradedy followed. The tigers separated and rushed upon the tents, and in only one case was a shot fired. It was over in five minutes. Two of the horses broke away and escaped, but the others were dragged down. The maddened tigers sprang at the trees and raged about, but offered no harm to the old man in their midst. When all was over, he quieted them with a whistle, and, standing in the center of the camp, he said to the terror stricken men in the tree above him:
‘Had the sahib colonel spared Syng Rang I would have spared him. This is my vengeance for the wrong that was done an innocent man. Tomorrow you will go back to Bangalore and tell them what has happened, and tell them I brought it about. I am sorry for the sahibs who were innocent, but they were here with the guilty and could not be separated.”
When the morning came, the natives headed for Bangalore, and the tale they told on arriving appeared so incredible that all were locked up until it could be investigated. It was found true to a word. Every officer lay dead in his tent, and each one had been so mangled by teeth and claws that the living turned away from him with a shiver. And when an innocent man had been disgraced and driven to death, and five officers had been torn to pieces by savage beasts, those who overhauled the dead colonel’s effects discovered the ruby in a box to which he had changed it for greater safety and forgotten the circumstances.
M. Quad.
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