THE FLYING MAN

The Ethnologist looked at the bhimraj feather thoughtfully.  “They seemed loth to part with it,” he said.

“It is sacred to the Chiefs,” said the lieutenant; “just as yellow silk, you know, is sacred to the Chinese Emperor.”

The Ethnologist did not answer.  He hesitated.  Then opening the topic abruptly, “What on earth is this cock-and-bull story they have of a flying man?”

The lieutenant smiled faintly.  “What did they tell you?”

“I see,” said the Ethnologist, “that you know of your fame.”

The lieutenant rolled himself a cigarette.  “I don’t mind hearing about it once more.  How does it stand at present?”

“It’s so confoundedly childish,” said the Ethnologist, becoming irritated.  “How did you play it off upon them?”

The lieutenant made no answer, but lounged back in his folding-chair, still smiling.

“Here am I, come four hundred miles out of my way to get what is left of the folk-lore of these people, before they are utterly demoralised by missionaries and the military, and all I find are a lot of impossible legends about a sandy-haired scrub of an infantry lieutenant.  How he is invulnerable—­how he can jump over elephants—­how he can fly.  That’s the toughest nut.  One old gentleman described your wings, said they had black plumage and were not quite as long as a mule.  Said he often saw you by moonlight hovering over the crests out towards the Shendu country.—­Confound it, man!”

The lieutenant laughed cheerfully.  “Go on,” he said.  “Go on.”

The Ethnologist did.  At last he wearied.  “To trade so,” he said, “on these unsophisticated children of the mountains.  How could you bring yourself to do it, man?”

“I’m sorry,” said the lieutenant, “but truly the thing was forced upon me.  I can assure you I was driven to it.  And at the time I had not the faintest idea of how the Chin imagination would take it.  Or curiosity.  I can only plead it was an indiscretion and not malice that made me replace the folk-lore by a new legend.  But as you seem aggrieved, I will try and explain the business to you.

“It was in the time of the last Lushai expedition but one, and Walters thought these people you have been visiting were friendly.  So, with an airy confidence in my capacity for taking care of myself, he sent me up the gorge—­fourteen miles of it—­with three of the Derbyshire men and half a dozen Sepoys, two mules, and his blessing, to see what popular feeling was like at that village you visited.  A force of ten—­not counting the mules—­fourteen miles, and during a war!  You saw the road?”

“Road!” said the Ethnologist.

“It’s better now than it was.  When we went up we had to wade in the river for a mile where the valley narrows, with a smart stream frothing round our knees and the stones as slippery as ice.  There it was I dropped my rifle.  Afterwards the Sappers blasted the cliff with dynamite and made the convenient way you came by.  Then below, where those very high cliffs come, we had to keep on dodging across the river—­I should say we crossed it a dozen times in a couple of miles.