Bagh-Wallah: or, a Gorkha Boys' Feat.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2084, 14 November 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Bagh- Wallah : or, a Gorkha Boys' Feat.

By Daml) Ken. five iirsniiri) r.M'f r«5 hi >\ u:r>. Tnr above reward will bo paid to any one who shall oitch or kill the man-eating tiger whioh h&s kil'cd several persons in this district during the past month. (By order.) " T. H. Bkanc; n tii, Commissioner." Such was the proclamation which, printed both in ] English and in Hindustani, had already drawn an eager crow,d in the marketplace of a town in northern India. Some of those who could read were reoiting it to others who could not, and many an eye sparkled at the thought of a reward whioh ( would give them more at one stroke than most of them had been able to say« by years cf labor. " Rupees are good," said a gaunt, half-clad water carrier, " but they can not help a man much when be is killed and eaten." " And, besides," added a keen eyed Puharri hunter, with a long gun over his shoulder, " what's the nse of hunting a beast that can not be killed? This is no tiger, but a magican in the shape of one. Thrice I have fired at him, and you know, brothers, whether old Ismail's bullets are apt to lose their way ; but I never even scratched his skin." "Ismail speaks the words of wisdom," chimed in a broad-shouldered cooly beside him. " Have not pits been dug for this beast? has not poisoned meat been strewn in his way? hava they not tried to net and trap him ? and has he not escaped all ? He whowould slay an enchanted tiger had need to be an enchanter himself." All this while no one had noticed a figure a little apart from the orowd, looking fixedly at tho paper through the thicket of heads around it. It was that of a slim, brown, sinewy lad, whether man or boy was not easily told, for the face wai perfeotly smooth, and the height barely that of a boy of fourteen. But, boy or man, he was a soldier, as might be seen by his round flat cap, and dark blue uniform trimmed with white. The by-standers knew him at one* for a (lorkha soldier from the mountains of Nepaul, two regiments of whom, commanded by English officers, were then lying in camp about three miles from the town. " Fire hundred rupees ! " he muttered, " and my mother is growing old and sickly, and less than that would make her comfortable for tho rest of her life." About an hour later Colonel Swordsley of the Gorkha Infantry was somewhat surprised to hear that a private of his own regiment wa3 very anxious to speak to him. What the Gorkha had to say appeared to amaze him still more, judging from hia exolamation of astonishment. "Do you know what your« doing, ray boy ?" he was heard to say. Don't go and throw away your life like a madman. That rascally tiger has killed half a dozen men already : what can you do against him singlehanded? " '■Every man must die when his time comes, Colonel Sahib " (master), answered the young soldier, firmly ; " and who is this pig of a tiger, that one should let him eat up men like sheep ? If I kill him my mother will be rioh ; it I should die myself, I pray the Colonel Sahib to be good to her." " She shall never want while Phillip Sffordsley lives," said the Colonel, more moved than he would have oared to oonfess. Go then, since you will go, my brave fellow, and good luck to yon 1 " Had anyone been passing through the forest of Kamadeo that afternoon he would have been considerably astonished to meet there a man who, instead of making haste to get out of that dangerous jungle, seemed bent on getting deeper and deeper into it. And stranger still, instead of creeping softly along, with bated breath and eyes oast timidly around on the watch for the terrible " maneater." ho walked fearlessly through rustling leaves and craokling twigs, singing a lusty song as the top of his voice, as if on purpose to draw the tiger's attention. But our young Gorkha — for he it was — knew well what he was about; and utcerly hopeless as a fight between that slender lad and a full-grown tiger would have scorned to any one else, he did not think it hopeless by any mean*. His sinewy limbs, with hardly any clothing to hamper them, wexe as supple and active as those of the tiger itself ; and though he carried no weapon but a knife, that knife was the terrible Nepaulese " kookri," with a blade as long as a bayonet and as broad as the palm of a man's hand, against which, when handled by a Gorkha, neither man nor boast had much chanop. No ear less quick than the young warrior's could have heard that stealthy tread behind him, but he heard and understood it in a moment. Quick a3lightning he wheeled round just as a huge mass of striped yellow fur shot up out of the bushes at him with a hoarse hungry roar. Bat tho wary Gorkha was not to be caught so easily. Flinging himself on the ground, he let the tiger fly harmlessly over him, while at the same moment a quick upward slash of hia knife out the sinew of the beast 'g hindleg, and stopped its leaping once for all. The wounded monster turned furiously upon its enemy with a sharp, Bnarling cry. Any other man might well have trembled to see that savage face olo3e to him, with Its liary eyes and gaping jaws, from which the great white teeth stood out like spikes. Not so the Gorkha. He sprang to his feet, tho terrible knife flashed and fell, and the dreaded "man-eater" lay dead bt-foro him, with its skull oloven almost in two. The camp resounded that night with ohcers for the •• Bagh- Wallah " (tiger-man), and the British oiUceri added many a cilvor rupee to the reward whioh he lnd so gallantly won. But the young hero himself took it all very quietly, and when I saw him a few days later seemed to think much more of his mother's pleature in the money that he had earned for her than of his own oredit as the bravest man in the regiment.

Some of the jnost brilliant productions of the human rniDd hare been composed at a comparatively early age. Cicero's elegant oration in defence of Koccius was made at the age of twenty-seven. Tho " School for Scandal," considered the best oomedy in the English language, was written by Sheridan at twenty■ix. At twenty-five Byron had reached the height of his dazzling career. At the same age Washington Irving published his humorous " History of New York. " Campbell wroto his beautiful poem, " The Pleasures of Hope," at twenty-one. Pope, at the name early age, wrote his "Essay on Criticism." Shelley, at eighteen, produced that wild, wonderful poem " Queen Mab." Keat published his "Epdyraion" at twenty-four. The marvellous "boy Chatterton commenced to write at eleven, and before he wai seventeen he had written poetry which astonished Dr. Johnson and other eminent critics. At twenty-six Charles Dickens began that oareer whioh baa been tho most splendidly prosperous in literary annals. William Cullen Bryant wrote his magnificent poem, " Thanatopsin," at eighteen. Tom Moore, at fourteen, wroto poetry, whioh was published in a Dublin' Magazine. Marcus Clarke the celebrated Australian novelist, wrote "His Natural Life," at twenty-four. Others, however, have produced their beet works late in life. Chaucer wrote his best poetry after he was sixty. Young was considerably advanced in life when he wrote " Night Thoughts." Cowper was fifty before he was known as a poet. Dryden waa past sixty when he published the translation of " Virgil," the most laborious of all hia works. Benjamin Franklin was fifty before he fully entered upon the study of natural philosophy. Alfieri wa« forty-six when he commenced the study of Greek. Boooaoio had reached the ago of thirty-five before he began his literary career. The celebrated composer, Handel, was forty- eight before he published any of his great works. Milton was verging on sixty when he published "Paradise Lost," the nobleßl poem that ever came from the brain of man. llichardson, the novelist., was past fifty when be wroto " Pamela," hia first woik.