low through the mud. Now they begin to quarrel! Now they say
hot words! Now they pull turbans! Now they lift up their lathis
(clubs), and, at last, one falls backward into the mud, and the
other runs away. When he comes back the dispute is settled, as
the iron-bound bamboo of the loser witnesses. Yet they are not
grateful to the Mugger. No, they cry "Murder!" and their
families fight with sticks, twenty a-side. My people are good
people--upland Jats--Malwais of the Bet. They do not give blows
for sport, and, when the fight is done, the old Mugger waits
far down the river, out of sight of the village, behind the
kikar-scrub yonder. Then come they down, my broad-shouldered
Jats--eight or nine together under the stars, bearing the dead
man upon a bed. They are old men with gray beards, and voices as
deep as mine. They light a little fire--ah! how well I know that
fire!--and they drink tobacco, and they nod their heads together
forward in a ring, or sideways toward the dead man upon the
bank. They say the English Law will come with a rope for this
matter, and that such a man"s family will be ashamed, because
such a man must be hanged in the great square of the Jail.
Then say the friends of the dead, "Let him hang!" and the talk
is all to do over again--once, twice, twenty times in the long
night. Then says one, at last, "The fight was a fair fight.
Let us take blood-money, a little more than is offered by the
slayer, and we will say no more about it." Then do they haggle
over the blood-money, for the dead was a strong man, leaving
many sons. Yet before amratvela (sunrise) they put the fire to
him a little, as the custom is, and the dead man comes to me,
and HE says no more about it. Aha! my children, the Mugger
knows--the Mugger knows--and my Malwah Jats are a good people!"