No More Learning

So the chase--if I can give it so
dignified a name--continued until Gunga Dass had captured seven crows.
Five of them he throttled at once, reserving two for further operations
another day. I was a good deal impressed by this, to me, novel method of
securing food, and complimented Gunga Dass on his skill.

"It is nothing to do," said he. "Tomorrow you must do it for me. You are
stronger than I am. "

This calm assumption of superiority Upset me not a little, and I
answered peremptorily;--"Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I
have given you money for? "

"Very well," was the unmoved reply. "Perhaps not tomorrow, nor the day
after, nor subsequently; but in the end, and for many years, you will
catch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that you
have crows to catch and eat. "

I could have cheerfully strangled him for this; but judged it best under
the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating
one of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking my God that I
had a crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening
meal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform
opposite their dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes.
Death, having once laid his hand upon these men and forborne to strike,
seemed to stand aloof from them now; for most of our company were
old men, bent and worn and twisted with years, and women aged to all
appearance as the Fates themselves.
They sat together in knots and
talked--God only knows what they found to discuss--in low equable tones,
curiously in contrast to the strident babble with which natives are
accustomed to make day hideous. Now and then an access of that sudden
fury which had possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man or
woman; and with yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack the
steep slope until, baffled and bleeding, he fell back on the platform
incapable of moving a limb. The others would never even raise their
eyes when this happened, as men too well aware of the futility of their
fellows' attempts and wearied with their useless repetition. I saw four
such outbursts in the course of the evening.

Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like view of my situation, and
while we were dining--I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, but
it was painful enough at the time-propounded the terms on which he would
consent to "do" for me. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, at the
rate of three annas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-one
days, or about seven weeks; that is to say, he would be willing to cater
for me for that length of time. At the end of it I was to look after
myself. For a further consideration--videlicet my boots--he would be
willing to allow me to occupy the den next to his own, and would supply
me with as much dried grass for bedding as he could spare.

"Very well, Gunga Dass," I replied; "to the first terms I cheerfully
agree, but, as there is nothing on earth to prevent my killing you as
you sit here and taking everything that you have" (I thought of the two
invaluable crows at the time), "I flatly refuse to give you my boots and
shall take whichever den I please. "

The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it had
succeeded. Gunga Dass changed his tone immediately, and disavowed all
intention of asking for my boots. At the time it did not strike me as at
all strange that I, a Civil Engineer, a man of thirteen years' standing
in the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, should thus
calmly threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for a
consideration it is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the world,
it seemed, for centuries. I was as certain then as I am now of my own
existence, that in the accursed settlement there was no law save that
of the strongest; that the living dead men had thrown behind them every
canon of the world which had cast them out; and that I had to depend
for my own life on my strength and vigilance alone. The crew of the
ill-fated Mignonette are the only men who would understand my frame of
mind. "At present," I argued to myself, "I am strong and a match for six
of these wretches.