第59章 LITTLE FOXES(3)

"No!" said the Governor. "I believe he has the makings of a James Pigg!"Farag waved his hand to his uncle, and led Royal on to the barge.

The rest of the pack followed.

* * * * *

Gihon, that had seen many sports, learned to know the Hunt barge well. He met her rounding his bends on grey December dawns to music wild and lamentable as the almost forgotten throb of Dervish drums, when, high above Royal's tenor bell, sharper even than lying Beagle-boy's falsetto break, Farag chanted deathless war against Abu Hussein and all his seed. At sunrise the river would shoulder her carefully into her place, and listen to the rush and scutter of the pack fleeing up the gang-plank, and the tramp of the Governor's Arab behind them. They would pass over the brow into the dewless crops where Gihon, low and shrunken, could only guess what they were about when Abu Hussein flew down the bank to scratch at a stopped earth, and flew back into the barley again. As Farag had foretold, it was evil days for Abu Hussein ere he learned to take the necessary steps and to get away crisply. Sometimes Gihon saw the whole procession of the Hunt silhouetted against the morning-blue, bearing him company for many merry miles. At every half mile the horses and the donkeys jumped the water-channels--up, on, change your leg, and off again like figures in a zoetrope, till they grew small along the line of waterwheels. Then Gibon waited their rustling return through the crops, and took them to rest on his bosom at ten o'clock. While the horses ate, and Farag slept with his head on Royal's flank, the Governor and his Inspector worked for the good of the Hunt and his Province.

After a little time there was no need to beat any man for neglecting his earths. The steamer's destination was telegraphed from waterwheel to waterwheel, and the villagers stopped out and put to according. If an earth were overlooked, it meant some dispute as to the ownership of the land, and then and there the Hunt checked and settled it in this wise: The Governor and the Inspector side by side, but the latter half a horse's length to the rear; both bare-shouldered claimants well in front; the villagers half-mooned behind them, and Farag with the pack, who quite understood the performance, sitting down on the left.

Twenty minutes were enough to settle the most complicated case, for, as the Governor said to a judge on the steamer, "One gets at the truth in a hunting-field a heap quicker than in your lawcourts.""But when the evidence is conflicting?" the Judge suggested.

"Watch the field. They'll throw tongue fast enough if you're running a wrong scent. You've never had an appeal from one of my decisions yet."The Sheikhs on horseback--the lesser folk on clever donkeys--the children so despised by Farag soon understood that villages which repaired their waterwheels and channels stood highest in the Governor's favour. He bought their barley, for his horses.

"Channels," he said, "are necessary that we may all jump them.

They are necessary, moreover, for the crops. Let there be many wheels and sound channels--and much good barley.""Without money," replied an aged Sheikh, "there are no waterwheels.""I will lend the money," said the Governor.

"At what interest, O Our Excellency?"

"Take you two of May Queen's puppies to bring up in your village in such a manner that they do not eat filth, nor lose their hair, nor catch fever from lying in the sun, but become wise hounds.""Like Ray-yal--not like Bigglebai?" (Already it was an insult along the River to compare a man to the shifty anthropophagous blue-mottled harrier.)"Certainly, like Ray-yal--not in the least like Bigglebai. That shall be the interest on the loan. Let the puppies thrive and the waterwheel be built, and I shall be content," said the Governor.

"The wheel shall be built, but, O Our Excellency, if by God's favour the pups grow to be well-smelters, not filth-eaters, not unaccustomed to their names, not lawless, who will do them and me justice at the time of judging the young dogs?""Hounds, man, hounds! Ha-wands, O Sheikh, we call them in their manhood.""The ha-wands when they are judged at the Sha-ho. I have unfriends down the river to whom Our Excellency has also entrusted ha-wands to bring up.""Puppies, man! Pah-peaz we call them, O Sheikh, in their childhood.""Pah-peat. My enemies may judge my pah-peaz unjustly at the Sha-ho. This must be thought of.""I see the obstacle. Hear now! If the new waterwheel is built in a month without oppression, thou, O Sheikh, shalt be named one of the judges to judge the pah-peaz at the Sha-ho. Is it understood?""Understood. We will build the wheel. I and my seed are responsible for the repayment of the loan. Where are my pah-peaz?

If they eat fowls, must they on any account eat the feathers?""On no account must they eat the feathers. Farag in the barge will tell thee how they are to live."There is no instance of any default on the Governor's personal and unauthorized loans, for which they called him the Father of Waterwheels. But the first puppyshow at the capital needed enormous tact and the presence of a black battalion ostentatiously drilling in the barrack square to prevent trouble after the prize-giving.