The Death of the Devil

IT was a stifling afternoon in. April at the beginning of the pig-sticking. Dust-whirls danced on the maidan ; leaves and branches stirred to a breeze that was almost too hot to breathe. We are waiting for a pig to break, Jack and I. e, e, r, The beaters were tapping their slow way through latnsugri Bagh, where the heavy boar recline in the green shade of bamboos, wallowing with their wives ud their gold-and-black-banded infants, careless, cool, 5 omesticated. We were some two hundred yards away, order a kikr's shade. Came the yap of Majira, a beater's log, which was a sound of happy omen, for it meant that sounder was afoot. The Devil (my clean-bred waler) ifted his beautiful head, nostrils wide, ears cocked ; Jack tared into the covert with his field-glasses ; and Lashk- nan Piari (the small she-elephant who carried our ice and rink) crashed through the line to the place where Majira itl ave tongue. There was a sudden babel of voices, ollowed by an equally sudden silence. Two peacock iraneed into the glare and flapped back to the village.

Renee again. Then one, two, three, came the sounders, ith a dozen pig in each.

* The maidan seems black with boar, streaming towards ie canal. But we don't mount yet, for the quarry lust break clear of covert. The Devil is Charlestoning ound and round impatient. Majira scutters yelping ni rom the bush in full cry, her little dachsund legs in topeless pursuit. Lashkman Piari's mahout waves a ellow turban in ease we haven't seen the six rideable oar that are under our noses and their two score kindred. A nod to Jack, and we're off. He is after a lonely red n Soar who has gone up the canal towards the irrigation ongalow. My boar, on the contrary, goes down stream, xl eading for -a covert two miles away. When he sees le he links sharply to the left and through some vile ad-menders' pits. He stumbles, grunts, recovers him- elf in a rage, and goes on in a cloud of dust. The Devil keeps well within his stride. He has °unded up stock in the days of his colthood, and can his his feet down as cleverly as any man ; in spite of As he is on his knees once. Beyond the pits there is mile of pretty open country, then a dark patch of rushwood (jhow), then an arm of the Jumna, and beyond, ross the river, sanctuary for the hunted in a big forest.

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le is d ie el A fast horse like The Devil can catch a pig in a mile— but only just. My boar is tall and lean, an -athlete among the urban populace of the lush bamboo thickets of Ratmugri, perhaps, or a traveller from the Kadir country, perhaps. What a glorious gallop it is t The Devil eats up the open going with his easy stride ; he shortens it on his own account suddenly, and, before I have time to wonder why, an irrigation cut looms up and is left behind, as if it had been a Water-jump on a racecourse. We are both in a muck of sweat (the temperature is 100° F. in the shade) and the boar is blown too. As we come on terms with him, I can see by his wicked eye that he means to fight and not to fly.

He stops with mouth a little open, lips snarling. I gather The Devil with leg and rein, and feel his heart thump, thump against my boot. Invisibly quick, the boar turns on us. Two woof-zvooft, a jar, a scrunch, a wrench.

I have speared, but badly. My steel must have struck his skull and glanced across his shoulder. I turn. The Devil with an oath and an unkind hand on the bit. He is a handful when charged, for he thinks he' should do some of the killing himselt• with his forefeet. That's the worst of thinking—horses shouldn't do it.

The boar is half stunned. But he shakes himself and comes on again, like the gallant chap he is. At the last moment, however, he changes his plans, not from fear, but because the river is close. We are at the edge of the jhow now ; he jinks into it. We are round as if on a -polo field ; but even so, the boar has gained six lengths. I can hear bins -panting towards the Jumna and see the ridge of his black back thrusting through a sea of scrub.

He can't make it. He's heat. Almost I'm sorry, yet the boar is too noble for pity. We're level. I can see his angry eye. Only just in the nick of time do I get my spear down to meet his charge. I've struck him rather far back. He slews and bites at the shaft. His breath is hot on my hand. Why doesn't The Devil stand still ? Now he's clipped the boar on the snout with his off forefoot—a right to the jaw—and also he has splintered my spear !

There is a scuffle underneath. The boar has rolled over. And The Devil is passaging away sideways, with a jerky, unnatural step. Something wrong ? My poor Devil ! * * * * I had killed my horse as well as the boar. As we fell together in a heap, I knew it instinctively. The spear had transfixed the pig, splintered, and a foot of jagged shaft had entered The Devil's belly, close to the girth.

If only Lashkman Piari had been visible ! But she was miles away with the stimulants and the medicine chest. We three were alone in the great plains, where Siva, Destroyer of Forms, is king. Alone, save for some kites, circling in the pale steel sky. They had seen, and knew. . . .

The boar was dead. My friend lay dying. The long, clean limbs that had been stretched just now in full career were moving still, but slowly, as lie struggled from his side. For a moment he held his proud head up, looking over the world for the last time. Then, before my eyes, his muzzle shrank, his teeth bared, his eyes dimmed. Suddenly, irrevocably, his fleetness and pride had turned to dust. With a jolly whinny, as if his master had brought him corn, his spirit passed. * * * * If I have a soul, The Devil has one too. Perhaps I shall meet him, across that other Jumna where Charon plies. Meanwhile, I have had one of his four white fetlocks mounted as an inkstand here in London.

F. YEATS-BROWN.