Rangani's Luck

=== RANGANI'S LUCK ===
=== By Ernest Ingersoll. ===
Published in Short Story 1899
The sun was
only just gilding the crowns of the tallest palms of the jungle where the
monkeys were climbing among the topmost twigs to warm their ears in its rays
and search for breakfast. One or two jungle-cocks, up in the rocky nullah, were
still to be heard crowing good morning to each other, and the bubbling notes of
wild bulbuls were answered from many a cage in the little native village, while
fields of young rice and sugar-cane half a mile lower down the valley would
soon glow like a sheet of emerald. 
Down the
hill through a winding path in the thick woods three young villagers,
bare-footed and bare-armed, were coming to their work in the fields, humming a
quaint song as they walked. The chant of the leader suddenly stopped, and he
pointed to the ground. 
'" A
tiger !" he exclaimed ; but the others knew the footprints as well as he,
and each man turned his eyes over his shoulder and bent his ears to the
whispering jungle, for the great beast, dreaded of all men, might be right
beside them. 
The tracks
were many hours old, however, and the claw marks pointed up the nullah, so the
men went on without much fear ; but there was no more singing until they were
free of the shadowy path and out into the open space at the edge of the
cane-fields. Here they sat down to smoke their pipes a few moments and wait
until others came to the day's work. 
"Did
you hear the tale the Fakeer was telling at Father Latchoumana's last
night?" asked Rangani, a powerful young Tamil, who had been the first to
see the tracks, and who was a wonder to his friends for courage, though that
need not praise him very highly, for these farmers and cow-herders of Madras
are a timid folk. 
"No,"
he was answered. "We could not stay there. They told me a 'cheeta' was
prowling about my goats, and I asked Chama here to go with me and help light
fires and beat a drum to scare him away." 
"Huh
!" Rangani grunted, in deep contempt for their fears. "Well, he told
us that over toward Kistnagiri, on the other side of the hills, the people knew
of a tiger that growled around the village every night. They built a trap for
him, setting up a great slab of stone on some sticks and fixing a bait, so that
when the tiger seized the meat he would pull out the sticks and the stone would
fall and smash him as if an elephant had kneeled on him twice." 
"Why
could not we make such a trap?" asked Rangani. 
"Perhaps
we could ; but it would not be worth while, for a tiger does not come here once
a year." 
"No;
that is true. I have not seen any tracks since last summer until this
morning," said Vardapa, the second man of the trio. "But go on with
your story." 
"The
next morning after sunrise — but wait. I will try to tell it as the Fakeer did,
so that you may feel surprise. The good man — may the sweet mahua flowers bloom
over his bones ! — was at the English sahib's post, about ten miles away, where
the collector and his clerks are; and when the sun was about three hours high
there came a few villagers, who brought upon a bamboo a dead tiger and laid it
down at the Sahib's tent, and began to tell him how they had taken it in a
trap, and so on. The Sahib did not listen long, but commanded his men to skin
the beast and to pay them the government reward ; and his clerk gave to the men
forty rupees and then they went away." 
"Forty
rupees ! "Ai,' that is a lot of money !" cried Charma. 
"Yes,"
said Rangani with a deep sigh. "It is — it is. Half of that would give me
all that my heart longs for." 
"Well,
is that all?" asked Vardapa, arousing Rangani from his sighing. 
"No;
good and bad luck go together. An hour afterward another lot of men came
running in from the forest, and all began to shout at once for justice, saying
that it was they who had set the trap, and that the first men had found the
tiger in it, and had stolen it to get the reward wrongfully. This was true. But
nobody knew who the thieves were, or where they belonged, and so the poor
owners of the trap fed with rupees the jackals of another village !" 
The two
listeners laughed at this tale until the mina-birds out in the paddy-field
heard them and flew away ; but Rangani only sighed, and refused to see any fun
in it, or in anything else. 
"
"Ai, ai,' " he lamented, '"if only I could get some of that silver!
"Ai, aiT 
Just then a
lad came running down the path, calling to the men. 
"A
soldier has come from the Sahib, ordering all the men in the village to go and
help build a bridge which the flood has broken, but the headman says you three
are not to go, but must stay here and draw water to-day, for the crops need it
badly." 
So they
knocked the ashes out of their pipes and walked on together to the well. 
This well
was more truly a square cistern, or bowrie, cut in the hard ground and lined
with clay and rocks, making a smooth, hard wall, through which the water could
not leak; and it was fed by the rains and a rivulet, but the latter was. dry
most of the year. 
Such
cisterns are common all over Central and Southern India, and are sometimes of
great size, and constructed of careful masonry, and these are called tanks. In
them is stored up the water that falls in the rainy season for use in
irrigating the rice-fields during the long months of drouth. This was a poor
little village, and its community-fields were only a few acres in extent, so
that the bowrie here was small and cheap ; nevertheless the water in it was six
or eight feet deep, even when, as now, the cistern was only half full. 
Above its
edge hung an "ettam" — one of the quaint contrivances by which the
Hindoos lift water. Two strong posts,, connected near the top by a cross-bar,
were set firmly in the soil near the edge of the cistern ; and resting upon the
crossbar, about fourteen feet above the ground, was laid a heavy spar, so
balanced that its ends would swing up and down like a seesaw. One end of this
spar reached out over the cistern, and there hung from it, by a rope, a metal
bucket as big as a large barrel. 
Tlie men
laid aside their coats, or whatever answered to a coat, and began to work.
Rangani and Vardapa climbed rapidly up one of the posts, in whose sides were
notches convenient for their bare feet, and perched themselves upon the spar,
while Charma seized the bucket and swung it out over the bowrie, where its
weight tipped and sank it down into the water. As soon as it was full the two
men on the spar walked out toward the landward end until their weight bore down
that end of this big lever and lifted the full bucket up above the surface,
where Charma had only to push it far enough toward one side to tip the water
into a trough, whence it ran away down into the irrigating channels, and thence
spread among the thirsty plants. 
This was
not hard work, and it went on steadily while the sun climbed higher and higher
in the dome of the sky, and the innumerable sounds of the tropical jungle in
the early morning had ceased one by one. The bucket went down with a splash,
the two men walked away along the beam until it came down and the bucket grated
harshly on the stones of the curb ; then the water gurgled and rippled away
through the troughs, and the '"ettam" creaked again as the bucket was
returned to the tank. Finally these were the only sounds heard, for the heat of
the approaching noonday was hushing the wilderness. 
At last
Charma declared that he was weary of his part, and that after they had smoked a
pipeful of betel and tobacco he would go up on the spar and Rangani might take
his place at the well. 
When they
were squatting in the shadow of a tamarind bush, enjoying their rest, Vardapa
noticed the gloom on the face of his friend, and said to him : 
"Brother
Rangani, why are you so sad to-day? What troubles you? You do nothing but sigh,
and we have not once heard you boast of how you could twist out the horn of a
bull gaur, if you cared to." 
" Ai,
ai' !" cried that hero, "I do not care for anything now, because I am
so poor." 
"How
is that? And why do you talk of poverty? All of us are poor, and some much
worse off than you." 
"That
is nothing. A man is not poor until he covets something that he cannot buy. I
have no money to purchase from her parents the wife my heart longs for, and I
am as one lost in the deepest jungle. 
"Do
you know," he went on, after a moment's sympathetic silence, "Adja —
that jewel in the ring — that flower in the garden — of Father Latchoumana? My
eyes have dwelt upon her as she came and went with the goats ; and last night I
watched her as she sat apart with the women while the Fakeer was talking to us.
I knew that happiness would never sit as a welcome guest in my heart until I
could take her away to my own house and see her tending the goats, and going to
and coming from the well with watering, and gathering sticks for the fire, for
mer 
"Did
you speak to her father?" Vardapa asked. 
"Yes ;
but it is of no use. He says he must have two cows for her." 
"Two
cows !" exclaimed the men in chorus. ^"Why didn't he say two
elephants — two rubies!" 
Each felt
that there was no help for the despairing and disconsolate lover if the girl
was held at such a value as that ; although, privately, they did not think she
was worth it. They advised him to wait a while, expressing the opinion that the
price would fall ; but this was of no comfort as a sentiment and useless as
advice, because he had not enough money to buy even a calf, not to speak of two
milch-cows, nor to mention the cost of the wedding feasts. So there was really
nothing to be said or done, and they went back to their duty, the two comrades
climbing up to move the spar, while Rangani stayed below. They were walking
back and forth, seesawing the beam and droning out together, in time to its
creaking, that waterman's song which all India sings at such labor, when 
Flash ! A
great yellow body sprang at the man by the well. 
None of the
three saw the tiger until he was on the point of leaping; but, perhaps, Rangani
perceived the danger an instant sooner than the others, for he found time to
swing around and throw himself down a little out of the way. Perhaps, too, the
men on the spar made some motion, in their alarm, that moved the beam and
bucket, which rested empty on the edge of the bowrie, just ready to go down. At
any rate, the tiger found its iron rim in his grasp instead of sinking his
claws into a man's shoulder. Now the stroke of his paws and the weight of his body
together were enough almost to topple the big bucket over the edge, but not
quite ; and doubtless the great agile cat, clutching at the ground frantically
with his hind legs, would finally have recovered his balance, had not Rangani,
true to his bold nature, picked himself up, rushed to the opposite side of the
bucket, where his face was within a yard of those burning eyeballs and frothing
fangs, and given it a push with all his strength. That impetus alone was
needed, and down went the tiger with a rush that nearly hurled the frightened
men off the beam, and struck the water with an immense souse and a horrible
scream that sent Rangani scrambling up to the very top of the posts, for he had
exhausted the last drop of his valor in that grand effort of boldness — done
before he thought. 
Now the
animal went swimming round and round in the tank, whining, snarling, and
clawing at the stonework in a frantic attempt to find some way up the smooth
walls. 
All the men
were scared and excited almost out of their wits, but finally gathered nerve
enough to lift out the bucket, for fear the brute might try to climb the rope ;
and at last, when they saw he was quite unable to get out of the tank, they
descended from their perches. Then they squatted on the curbing, and while the
poor, beautiful beast struggled round and round his fatal death-pen they
showered upon him all the elaborate abuse of himself, his ancestors and his
progeny, which constitutes the invective of the East ; and having thus relieved
their minds they began to hurl sharp stones at his head. 
Suddenly
Rangani sprang to his feet, and, yelling wild shouts at the top of his voice,
began to clap his hands, dance, spin round, leap and down, and act like a mad
Dervish. His companions forgot their foe, and gazed at him in amazement, until
they caught the burden of his song : 
" 'Ai,
ai' ! The king of the tigers is slain. He will be drowned. I killed him, I,
Rangani ! The Sahib will give me a reward — me, Rangani! Forty rupees will he
bestow upon me, and I shall buy cows as white as milk, and I shall give them to
Father Latchoumana, and the beautiful Adja — she with the grace of the
'chousingha,' whose hair is like the crest of the pucras gleaming at dawn —
^she, whose eyes outshine the orbs of the chital, and whose breath is sought of
all the bees in the jungle — she will be mine, mine ! for I am Rangani, the
brave one, and I have killed the tiger this day !
Category:Ingersoll
Category:ShortStories