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THE REINCARNATION OF MAUNG HKIN

BY CHARLES JOHNSTON

I

WHO would have thought there was a woman in the case?

'Who is he, Babu?'

The old man was squatting on the ground behind his tile, looking up at us with a glint of fire in his eyes. He was not like the rest of our tame Bengali jail-birds. Not only was his face different, wide cheekbones, olive skin, eyes a bit oblique, but there was a vigorous, breezy air about him: big mountains and forests and precipices in the background. Not one of our flatfooted Delta folk.

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'What is his name, Babu?' 'We call him Manmathan, sir!'Again the patronizing wave of the hand. Instantly the old fellow was on his feet, with a vigor that made the Babu jump back and turn gray.

'Sahib! My name is Maung Hkin!' The old chap spoke surprisingly good Bengali.

"The foreign name is difficult for us,' the Babu palliated. "Therefore we have adapted it, speaking of him as Manmathan.'

'Maung Hkin! My name is Maung Hkin!'

The old man was getting angry. 'Maun Kin!' the Babu attempted, cowed.

'Maung Hkin!'

I tried to follow the sounds exactly. The old man was mollified and smiled. "They would take even my name, these Bengali -'

I hastened to interrrupt. A good name! A very good name! What is its significance, Maung Hkin?' And I laid my hand on the old man's shoulder.

He seemed rather to like it and smiled again.

'I was born,' he said, 'at Magwe, on the Great River, on the day of the moon! Therefore I am called Maung Hkin-"he who awakens love"!'

I looked at the old man, sallow,

'Our predecessors'!- The Babu white-haired, wrinkled, withered, a meant the Moguls.

The old Burman's eyes leaped from my face to the Babu's. He was getting a bit restive, though he sat very still, rather like a frog on a water-lily pad.

mat of grizzled hair on his breast. 'He who awakens love'! Then an etymology flashed into my mind.

'Babu! What is the meaning of Manmathan?'

'It is an epithet, sir, of the God of Love!' and the Babu rolled his eyes; "of Kandarpa, "whose bow is of flowers, with honey-bees composing the string." The name signifies "the one who pounds the heart." He laid his plump paw just above his stomach, as if he too had suffered wounds.

"There!' I said to the old man. He was by this time considerably pacified. Perhaps the Babu's poetry did it. 'Manmathan is exactly the same as Maung Hkin! One is Sanskrit; the other is Burmese!'

'Sanskrit, Sahib? Not Bengali?' he asked a bit querulously.

'Pure Sanskrit! Kalidasa, is n't it, Babu?'

The Babu beamed and showed his white teeth. Every one likes his quotations recognized.

'Well,' the old fellow accepted it; 'if Manmathan is the God of Love-'

And with that he sat down on his heels again behind the square tile.

'A fiery old person!' Hari Kishto Babu commented; 'a highly irascible old person!'

We left the old Burman and went on down the line. We had a hundred of them, in four rows, squatting in the shadow of two immense peepul trees, a flat tile nine inches square topping a little mound of earth in front of each of them. That is our jail provision for dinner-tables. On each tile, two large flat leaves were laid, by way of dishes.

Presently the two cooks emerged from the cook-house, and came toward us, blinking, through the glare of sunshine. To each man the cooks, who also were prisoners, doled out, from big earthen pans, first a little hill of wellcooked rice, then a heap of curried vegetables and fish.

'Who are your cooks, Babu?' "They are Khotriys, sir,-men of the Warrior-caste-in jail for felonious assault, sir! Before them, we had

Brahman cooks
Brahman cooks much higher caste

but they were released last month.' Yes! In this heathen land dinner is a rite, even in jail, which only a highcaste man is fitted to administer. I rather fancy the notion.

Behind us, a stir and raised voices. Two or three of the men rose to their feet. Others simply revolved their gleaming dark eyes toward the noise.

I turned quickly on my heel. Our rugged old friend Maung Hkin was the centre of it, drawn to his full gaunt height, wildly brandishing his fist in the face of one of the cooks, who, for a man of the Warrior-caste, looked rather abashed. The Superintendent Babu and I hurried over to them and, I am convinced, just saved the Warrior-cook from getting his head punched.

To the Babu's evident displeasure, I laid my hand on the old man's shoulder. He started and wheeled quick round on his bare heels. His fiery eye met mine; when I smiled, he suddenly quieted down and looked deeply ashamed, blushing a kind of olive brown.

'What is the matter, Maung Hkin?' I asked.

"This Bengali-' he began, flaring up again.

I cut him off. 'Yes, I know! What has the Bengali done?'

'He has stolen my mutton!'

The old man's face was dark with indignation. Hard put to it not to burst out laughing, I turned to the Babu.

"This man is a Buddhist, your honor,' he explained, with a slight Brahmanical sneer, and he eats sheep. It is prepared for him each day. - Where is his sheep?' He turned haughtily upon the brow-beaten cook.

'His sheep is in the kitchen. I cannot serve it! It is against my caste!' the Warrior-cook explained.

'Who usually serves it?' I asked.

'We had a Mohammedan boy, Khoda Baksh!' the Babu explained.

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'Come, Maung Hkin! Come, Babu!' I found a solution. 'We shall get it from the kitchen ourselves!'

We crossed the glaring sunlight, plunged into the redolent darkness of the brick cook-house, and found the mutton stewing in a little earthen pot over charcoal. Maung Hkin stooped to lift it, burned his fingers on the rim of the pot, and laughed happily-until he saw the Babu laughing. Then he laid the little pot down and rushed at the Babu, who precipitately fled.

I grabbed the Burman by the arm; his withered body swung against me. He was trembling with wrath.

'Bengali pig! Bengali pig!' he panted, his eyes on fire.

I held him tight, remonstrating. 'Maung Hkin! Maung Hkin! You would hit a Bengali ?'

It was as if I had accused him of maltreating a child.

He was quieting down, when Hari Kishto Babu came striding back with two up-country warders armed with batons. At the door, he stepped behind them, pushing them in first. Had I not been there, unpleasantness would have supervened. There was one quick way out of it.

'Babu!' I said, magisterially, 'I have ordered Maung Hkin to solitary confinement, for insubordination! Get the keys of the cells! Maung Hkin, bring your mutton and come!'

The old Burmese followed trustingly, while the Babu bustled off for the keys, his white garb fluttering, in heart exultant over his enemy, of whom, to

tell the truth, he was horribly afraid. I took the bunch of big, well-oiled keys, opened the cell-door myself, to soften it to the old man, signed to him to go in and then had an idea.

'Babu,' I said, 'I shall see to this man! Go to the office and get the ac

counts ready for me! I shall go over them minutely!'

The Babu went off haltingly, with an uneasy mind. He is quite honest, is Hari Kishto Babu, but he has a haunting fear of what might happen if some day the accounts should not come out.

There was a low bench at the back of the cell, which was a quiet, cool little chamber, like a garden-house, well fitted for meditation. I bade Maung Hkin sit down on the bench, followed him into the cell, and pulled the door to, leaving a space of six inches. I watched him eat his mutton, daintily, with his lean finger-tips, which he then carefully polished on his one garmentrather like blue bathing-trunks, with white stripes. Then I sat down beside him on the bench, and pulled out a cigarette case. Maung Hkin's eyes sparkled as he watched me, but he said nothing. In cells, smoking is strictly forbidden. I lit a cigarette, drew in the scented smoke, and puffed it out in a blue cloud in his direction. He sniffed it up gleefully with his big round nostrils, murmuring, 'Ah!'

I met his eyes, fine, honest old eyes they were, - smiled, laid a hand on his bony knee, and handed him the cigarette, saying, 'It is permitted!'

He smoked it long and lovingly, inhaling and holding the smoke in his lungs, then letting it filter out through his nostrils.

Finally I said, 'Maung Hkin, tell me the story of your coming here!'

At first he hesitated, looking down, his cheeks dull brown. I laid my hand on his.

"That is why,' I said, 'I have brought you here away from the Bengalis!'

'Yes, Sahib! A light people, like the fluff of the silk-cotton tree! - or like the Bunder monkeys in the jungle.'

'Or like the peacock that cries before the rain?' I suggested.

The old man chuckled, delighted, as

he puffed at my cigarette. Then he fell into a reverie, seeing things far off and long ago. I was careful to keep silent. At last he began to speak, and his voice came over the spaces of the years.

II

'It was on account of her, my beloved, that I was brought here! - Ma Ma San Nyun, her name was; born like me on the day of the moon; therefore the moon-god drew our hearts together! She was very fair and small and merry, very lovely to the eyes. And I think that, in the beginning, her heart was mine. For I was a fine young fellow in those days, Sahib, worth any girl's eye, and I had boats upon the great river, in the grain-trade, and all things prospered with me! And I loved her and had it in my heart, when the young moon that drew us should come again, to persuade her, and carry her off with me to the forest. But one of your own people, Sahib, a masterful man and cunning, came between us. He was hunting elephants in our mountains, and he stayed three days at Ma San Nyun's village. When he departed, she was gone also; and never since then have I set eyes on her or heard of her.

'My heart was full of thorns and fire. I left my boats there on the river, with the grain in them, to rot, and took to the jungle. We were fifty men, well armed, with good flint guns, and we made the villages along the Great River and through the hills pay tribute to us, or, if they would not, we fought them for it! And, Sahib, in the rush of the fight, when bullets were singing about our ears and men were shouting to each other through the smoke of burning huts, I forgot the face and name of Ma San Nyun, and my heart had peace. But in the evening, as we lay about the camp-fires in our hill fortress, reckoning up our spoils, her

face would come back to me, small and merry and lovely, her eyes like stars, and then the fire broke out again in my heart, and gnawed me like a leopard. Then I wandered out into the night, moaning to myself, and all the time her face was before me, beckoning to me.

'Just before the red of the dawn she led me to her village; and it came to me, as I lay there looking through the undergrowth, that, if I burned the village, her face would leave me, and I would have rest in my heart. It was the dry season then, at the end of the month of flowers. So I made fire

I had my gun with me and ran from house to house in the gray of the dawn, setting the red torch to the thatch and the palm-leaf matting of the walls; and as the smoke surged up into the sky, the dogs began to bark, and the whole village broke forth in an uproar, with shrieking and cries, and it brought great quietude to my heart. I could have fled then to the river, and escaped, going back to our band, but the fire held me, for it was burning the pain out of my heart! So I crouched there behind a tree, watching the red tongues licking along the eaves of the thatch, when the dogs found me, and came howling about me. The watchmen ran to the sound. One I shot, and wounded another, hitting him with the butt of my gunI was a good man, in those days, Sahib! - and would have done for more of them, but a stray bullet caught me, and I fell. But my heart was cooled and solaced by the flames. As the houses burned down to ashes and blackness, so did my pain burn out; and as the village was gone, leaving bare jungle, so her face was burned from my heart, leaving peace. Then I knew I had done well.

'These Bengalis would not know how killing solaces a man; but, Sahib,

you understand! And then they carried me away in chains, and I was sent hither, but there was laughter in my heart! And here they love me, as one who has fought well, for many times I have told the tale. But of her, of Ma San Nyun, I have not spoken, er until to-day! Now the Sahib must go, for it is not seemly for the Sahib to remain here with an old daghee like Maung Hkin. Do not fear, Sahib! I will do no violence to the Babu! I will sleep and dream.'

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'Very well, Maung Hkin,' I replied, as I rose and patted him on the shoulder. 'When the sun sets, I return and open the door. In the meantime, farewell! It was a good tale, such a tale as warms the heart!'

As I left him, the old man was happily chewing what was left of the cig

arette.

At sunset I came back and unlocked his cell, having in the meantime harassed the blameless Babu concerning his accounts, which, though irregular in shape, with some vouchers missing, were in substance accurate. Wherefore the Babu was properly subdued when he came with me for the old man, and hung a little behind me, lest the 'irascible old person' might flare up again. But Maung Hkin had had a good nap, and went off quite quietly for his supper.

It must have been about nine that same evening when, after a comfortable dinner, I was sipping my coffee and turning over the pages of a monthold Graphic, in the cool stillness of my veranda. The crickets in the trees along the square had ceased their vesper concert, and the mosquitoes, happily, seemed to have gone elsewhere.

Something moved out under the flame-flowered acacia across the grass, and then came toward me through the gloom, emerging into the circle of lamplight as an extraordinary pillar of

vivid green. It was old Maung Hkin, draped in a heavy piece of green baize, that looked as if it had come straight off a billiard table. I admit I was somewhat taken aback.

'But, Maung Hkin!' I expostulated, rising. 'You have no business to be here! You ought to be in jail!'

'It is well known, Sahib. But - I had need to talk with you,' he answered with innocent earnestness.

"That's all very well, Maung Hkin! But how did you get out? And where did you get this?' I twitched the end of his baize shawl. It is not of the kind we furnish to our guests.

'The Babu was going home, Sahib,' he answered gravely. 'He stood at the gate!' Then a glint of humor lit his honest old eyes. He would have delayed me. Therefore I - butted him in the stomach, and borrowed this! After we have talked, Sahib, I shall return, taking this back to the Babu!'

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'Maung Hkin, this is highly irregular. I am afraid I shall have to put you back in cells to-morrow!'

'It is well, Sahib!' The old gentleman grinned. 'I have other stories, of the old days! There was the raid on Bwe, and the fight for the river boats, and the meeting with the elephant herd; many stories, Sahib! But that is for to-morrow, in cells! I have other matter to-night; it cannot be said to a Bengali!'

'All right, Maung Hkin! Go ahead! I am listening!' And I made the old man sit down beside me, where I could watch the play of his fine wrinkled old face in the lamplight.

Maung Hkin's face, sallow, wrinkled, rough-hewn, grew pensive, almost melancholy. No; that does not express it: an unworldly light glowed in the fine old eyes, and he seemed infinitely remote from the earth.

'Sahib!' his deep voice began, after a long pause which I was careful not

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