His quarters began to look like an amateur natural-history museum,
in spite of duplicate heads and horns and skulls that he sent home
to Devonshire. The people, very humanly, learned the weak side of
their god. It is true he was unbribable, but bird-skins,
butterflies, beetles, and, above all, news of big game pleased him.
In other respects, too, he lived up to the Chinn tradition. He
was fever-proof. A night's sitting out over a tethered goat in a
damp valley, that would have filled the Major with a month's malaria,
had no effect on him. He was, as they said, "salted before he was
born."
Now in the autumn of his second year's service an uneasy rumour
crept out of the earth and ran about among the Bhils. Chinn heard
nothing of it till a brother-officer said across the mess-table:
"Your revered ancestor's on the rampage in the Satpura country.
You'd better look him up."
"I don't want to be disrespectful, but I'm a little sick of my
revered ancestor. Bukta talks of nothing else. What's the old
boy supposed to be doing now?"
"Riding cross-country by moonlight on his processional tiger.
That's the story. He's been seen by about two thousand Bhils,
skipping along the tops of the Satpuras, and scaring people to
death.
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