o
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. They believe
it devoutly, and all the Satpura chaps are worshipping away at his
shrine--tomb, I mean--like good uns. You really ought to go down there.
Must be a queer thing to see your grandfather treated as a god."

"What makes you think there's any truth in the tale?" said Chinn.

"Because all our men deny it. They say they've never heard of Chinn's
tiger. Now that's a manifest lie, because every Bhil has."

"There's only one thing you've overlooked," said the Colonel,
thoughtfully. "When a local god reappears on earth, it's always an
excuse for trouble of some kind; and those Satpura Bhils are about as
wild as your grandfather left them, young un. It means something."

"Meanin' they may go on the war-path?" said Chinn.

"'Can't say--as yet. 'Shouldn't be surprised a little bit."

"I haven't been told a syllable."

"Proves it all the more. They are keeping something back."

"Bukta tells me everything, too, as a rule. Now, why didn't he tell me
that?"

Chinn put the question directly to the old man that night, and the
answer surprised him.

"Why should I tell what is well known? Yes, the Clouded Tiger is out in
the Satpura country."

"What do the wild Bhils think that it means?"

"They do not know. They wait. Sahib, what is coming? Say only one little
word, and we will be content."

"We? What have tales from the south,