The Sending of Dana Da
Once upon a time some people in India made a new heaven and a newearth out of broken teacups, a missing brooch or two, and a hairbrush. These were hidden under bushes, or stuffed into holes inthe hillside, and an entire civil service of subordinate gods usedto find or mend them again; and everyone said: "There are morethings in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy."Several other things happened also, but the religion never seemedto get much beyond its first manifestations; though it added anair-line postal dak, and orchestral effects in order to keepabreast of the times, and stall off competition.This religion was too elastic for ordinary use. It stretcheditself and embraced pieces of everything that medicine men of allages have manufactured. It approved and stole from Freemasonry;looted the Latter-day Rosicrucians of half their pet words; tookany fragments of Egyptian philosophy that it found in theEncyclopaedia Britannica; annexed as many of the Vedas as had beentranslated into French or English, and talked of all the rest;built in the German versions of what is left of the Zend Avesta;encouraged white, gray, and black magic, including Spiritualism,palmistry, fortune-telling by cards, hot chestnuts, double-kernelednuts and tallow droppings; would have adopted Voodoo and Oboe hadit known anything about them, and showed itself, in every way, oneof the most accommodating arrangements that had ever been inventedsince the birth of the sea.When it was in thorough working order, with all the machinery downto the subscriptions complete, Dana Da came from nowhere, withnothing in his hands, and wrote a chapter in its history which hashitherto been unpublished. He said that his first name was Dana,and his second was Da. Now, setting aside Dana of the New YorkSun, Dana is a Bhil name, and Da fits no native of India unless youaccept the Bengali De as the original spelling. Da is Lap orFinnish; and Dana Da was neither Finn, Chin, Bhil, Bengali, Lap,Nair, Gond, Romaney, Magh, Bokhariot, Kurd, Armenian, Levantine,Jew, Persian, Punjabi, Madrasi, Parsee, nor anything else known toethnologists. He was simply Dana Da, and declined to give furtherinformation. For the sake of brevity, and as roughly indicatinghis origin, he was called "The Native." He might have been theoriginal Old Man of the Mountains, who is said to be the onlyauthorized head of the Teacup Creed. Some, people said that hewas; but Dana Da used to smile and deny any connection with thecult; explaining that he was an "independent experimenter."As I have said, he came from nowhere, with his hands behind hisback, and studied the creed for three weeks; sitting at the feet ofthose best competent to explain its mysteries. Then he laughedaloud and went away, but the laugh might have been either ofdevotion or derision.When he returned he was without money, but his pride was unabated.He declared that he knew more about the things in heaven and earththan those who taught him, and for this contumacy was abandonedaltogether.His next appearance in public life was at a big cantonment in UpperIndia, and he was then telling fortunes with the help of threeleaden dice, a very dirty old cloth, and a little tin box of opiumpills. He told better fortunes when he was allowed half a bottleof whisky; but the things which he invented on the opium were quiteworth the money. He was in reduced circumstances. Among otherpeople's he told the fortune of an Englishman who had once beeninterested in the Simla creed, but who, later on, had married andforgotten all his old knowledge in the study of babies andExchange. The Englishman allowed Dana Da to tell a fortune forcharity's sake, and gave him five rupees, a dinner, and some oldclothes. When he had eaten, Dana Da professed gratitude, and askedif there were anything he could do for his host--in the esotericline."Is there anyone that you love?" said Dana Da. The Englishmanloved his wife, but had no desire to drag her name into theconversation. He therefore shook his head."Is there anyone that you hate?" said Dana Da. The Englishman saidthat there were several men whom he hated deeply."Very good," said Dana Da, upon whom the whisky and the opium werebeginning to tell. "Only give me their names, and I will dispatcha Sending to them and kill them."Now a Sending is a horrible arrangement, first invented, they say,in Iceland. It is a thing sent by a wizard, and may take any form,but most generally wanders about the land in the shape of a littlepurple cloud till it finds the sendee, and him it kills by changinginto the form of a horse, or a cat, or a man without a face. It isnot strictly a native patent, though chamars can, if irritated,dispatch a Sending which sits on the breast of their enemy by nightand nearly kills him. Very few natives care to irritate chamarsfor this reason."Let me dispatch a Sending," said Dana Da; "I am nearly dead nowwith want, and drink, and opium; but I should like to kill a manbefore I die. I can send a Sending anywhere you choose, and in anyform except in the shape of a man."The Englishman had no friends that he wished to kill, but partly tosoothe Dana Da, whose eyes were rolling, and partly to see whatwould be done, he asked whether a modified Sending could not bearranged for--such a Sending as should make a man's life a burdento him, and yet do him no harm. If this were possible, he notifiedhis willingness to give Dana Da ten rupees for the job."I am not what I was once," said Dana Da, "and I must take themoney because I am poor. To what Englishman shall I send it?""Send a Sending to Lone Sahib," said the Englishman, naming a manwho had been most bitter in rebuking him for his apostasy from theTeacup Creed. Dana Da laughed and nodded."I could have chosen no better man myself," said he. "I will seethat he finds the Sending about his path and about his bed."He lay down on the hearthrug, turned up the whites of his eyes,shivered all over, and began to snort. This was magic, or opium,or the Sending, or all three. When he opened his eyes he vowedthat the Sending had started upon the warpath, and was at thatmoment flying up to the town where Lone Sahib lives."Give me my ten rupees," said Dana Da, wearily, "and write a letterto Lone Sahib, telling him, and all who believe with him, that youand a friend are using a power greater than theirs. They will seethat you are speaking the truth."He departed unsteadily, with the promise of some more rupees ifanything came of the Sending.The Englishman sent a letter to Lone Sahib, couched in what heremembered of the terminology of the creed. He wrote: "I also, inthe days of what you held to be my backsliding, have obtainedenlightenment, and with enlightenment has come power." Then hegrew so deeply mysterious that the recipient of the letter couldmake neither head nor tail of it, and was proportionatelyimpressed; for he fancied that his friend had become a "fifthrounder." When a man is a "fifth rounder" he can do more thanSlade and Houdin combined.Lone Sahib read the letter in five different fashions, and wasbeginning a sixth interpretation, when his bearer dashed in withthe news that there was a cat on the bed. Now, if there was onething that Lone Sahib hated more than another it was a cat. Herated the bearer for not turning it out of the house. The bearersaid that he was afraid. All the doors of the bedroom had beenshut throughout the morning, and no real cat could possibly haveentered the room. He would prefer not to meddle with the creature.Lone Sahib entered the room gingerly, and there, on the pillow ofhis bed, sprawled and whimpered a wee white kitten, not a jumpsome,frisky little beast, but a sluglike crawler with its eyes barelyopened and its paws lacking strength or direction--a kitten thatought to have been in a basket with its mamma. Lone Sahib caughtit by the scruff of its neck, handed it over to the sweeper to bedrowned, and fined the bearer four annas.That evening, as he was reading in his room, he fancied that he sawsomething moving about on the hearthrug, outside the circle oflight from his reading lamp. When the thing began to myowl, herealized that it was a kitten--a wee white kitten, nearly blind andvery miserable. He was seriously angry, and spoke bitterly to hisbearer, who said that there was no kitten in the room when hebrought in the lamp, and real kittens of tender age generally hadmother cats in attendance."If the Presence will go out into the veranda and listen," said thebearer, "he will hear no cats. How, therefore, can the kitten onthe bed and the kitten on the hearthrug be real kittens?"Lone Sahib went out to listen, and the bearer followed him, butthere was no sound of Rachel mewing for her children. He returnedto his room, having hurled the kitten down the hillside, and wroteout the incidents of the day for the benefit of his coreligionists.Those people were so absolutely free from superstition that theyascribed anything a little out of the common to agencies. As itwas their business to know all about the agencies, they were onterms of almost indecent familiarity with manifestations of everykind. Their letters dropped from the ceiling--un-stamped--andspirits used to squatter up and down their staircases all night.But they had never come into contact with kittens. Lone Sahibwrote out the facts, noting the hour and the minute, as everypsychical observer is bound to do, and appending the Englishman'sletter because it was the most mysterious document and might havehad a bearing upon anything in this world or the next. An outsiderwould have translated all the tangle thus: "Look out! You laughedat me once, and now I am going to make you sit up."Lone Sahib's coreligionists found that meaning in it; but theirtranslation was refined and full of four-syllable words. They helda sederunt, and were filled with tremulous joy, for, in spite oftheir familiarity with all the other worlds and cycles, they had avery human awe of things sent from ghostland. They met in LoneSahib's room in shrouded and sepulchral gloom, and their conclavewas broken up by a clinking among the photo frames on themantelpiece. A wee white kitten, nearly blind, was looping andwrithing itself between the clock and the candlesticks. Thatstopped all investigations or doubtings. Here was themanifestation in the flesh. It was, so far as could be seen,devoid of purpose, but it was a manifestation of undoubtedauthenticity.They drafted a round robin to the Englishman, the backslider of olddays, adjuring him in the interests of the creed to explain whetherthere was any connection between the embodiment of some Egyptiangod or other (I have forgotten the name) and his communication.They called the kitten Ra, or Toth, or Shem, or Noah, or something;and when Lone Sahib confessed that the first one had, at his mostmisguided instance, been drowned by the sweeper, they saidconsolingly that in his next life he would be a "bounder," and noteven a "rounder" of the lowest grade. These words may not be quitecorrect, but they express the sense of the house accurately.When the Englishman received the round robin--it came by post--hewas startled and bewildered. He sent into the bazaar for Dana Da,who read the letter and laughed. "That is my Sending," said he."I told you I would work well. Now give me another ten rupees.""But what in the world is this gibberish about Egyptian gods?"asked the Englishman."Cats," said Dana Da, with a hiccough, for he had discovered theEnglishman's whisky bottle. "Cats and cats and cats! Never wassuch a Sending. A hundred of cats. Now give me ten more rupeesand write as I dictate."Dana Da's letter was a curiosity. It bore the Englishman'ssignature, and hinted at cats--at a Sending of cats. The merewords on paper were creepy and uncanny to behold."What have you done, though?" said the Englishman; "I am as much inthe dark as ever. Do you mean to say that you can actually sendthis absurd Sending you talk about?""Judge for yourself," said Dana Da. "What does that letter mean?In a little time they will all be at my feet and yours, and I, oh,glory! will be drugged or drunk all day long."Dana Da knew his people.When a man who hates cats wakes up in the morning and finds alittle squirming kitten on his breast, or puts his hand into hisulster pocket and finds a little half-dead kitten where his glovesshould be, or opens his trunk and finds a vile kitten among hisdress shirts, or goes for a long ride with his mackintosh strappedon his saddle-bow and shakes a little sprawling kitten from itsfolds when he opens it, or goes out to dinner and finds a littleblind kitten under his chair, or stays at home and finds a writhingkitten under the quilt, or wriggling among his boots, or hanging,head downward, in his tobacco jar, or being mangled by his terrierin the veranda--when such a man finds one kitten, neither more norless, once a day in a place where no kitten rightly could or shouldbe, he is naturally upset. When he dare not murder his daily trovebecause he believes it to be a manifestation, an emissary, anembodiment, and half a dozen other things all out of the regularcourse of nature, he is more than upset. He is actuallydistressed. Some of Lone Sahib's coreligionists thought that hewas a highly favored individual; but many said that if he hadtreated the first kitten with proper respect--as suited a Toth-RaTum-Sennacherib Embodiment--all his trouble would have beenaverted. They compared him to the Ancient Mariner, but none theless they were proud of him and proud of the Englishman who hadsent the manifestation. They did not call it a Sending becauseIcelandic magic was not in their programme.After sixteen kittens--that is to say, after one fortnight, forthere were three kittens on the first day to impress the fact ofthe Sending, the whole camp was uplifted by a letter--it cameflying through a window--from the Old Man of the Mountains--thehead of all the creed--explaining the manifestation in the mostbeautiful language and soaking up all the credit of it for himself.The Englishman, said the letter, was not there at all. He was abackslider without power or asceticism, who couldn't even raise atable by force of volition, much less project an army of kittensthrough space. The entire arrangement, said the letter, wasstrictly orthodox, worked and sanctioned by the highest authoritieswithin the pale of the creed. There was great joy at this, forsome of the weaker brethren seeing that an outsider who had beenworking on independent lines could create kittens, whereas theirown rulers had never gone beyond crockery--and broken at that--wereshowing a desire to break line on their own trail. In fact, therewas the promise of a schism. A second round robin was drafted tothe Englishman, beginning: "Oh, Scoffer," and ending with aselection of curses from the rites of Mizraim and Memphis and theCommination of Jugana; who was a "fifth rounder," upon whose namean upstart "third rounder" once traded. A papal excommunication isa billet-doux compared to the Commination of Jugana. TheEnglishman had been proved under the hand and seal of the Old Manof the Mountains to have appropriated virtue and pretended to havepower which, in reality, belonged only to the supreme head.Naturally the round robin did not spare him.He handed the letter to Dana Da to translate into decent English.The effect on Dana Da was curious. At first he was furiouslyangry, and then he laughed for five minutes."I had thought," he said, "that they would have come to me. Inanother week I would have shown that I sent the Sending, and theywould have discrowned the Old Man of the Mountains who has sentthis Sending of mine. Do you do nothing. The time has come for meto act. Write as I dictate, and I will put them to shame. Butgive me ten more rupees."At Dana Da's dictation the Englishman wrote nothing less than aformal challenge to the Old Man of the Mountains. It wound up:"And if this manifestation be from your hand, then let it goforward; but if it be from my hand, I will that the Sending shallcease in two days' time. On that day there shall be twelve kittensand thenceforward none at all. The people shall judge between us."This was signed by Dana Da, who added pentacles and pentagrams, anda crux ansata, and half a dozen swastikas, and a Triple Tau to hisname, just to show that he was all he laid claim to be.The challenge was read out to the gentlemen and ladies, and theyremembered then that Dana Da had laughed at them some years ago.It was officially announced that the Old Man of the Mountains wouldtreat the matter with contempt; Dana Da being an independentinvestigator without a single "round" at the back of him. But thisdid not soothe his people. They wanted to see a fight. They werevery human for all their spirituality. Lone Sahib, who was reallybeing worn out with kittens, submitted meekly to his fate. He feltthat he was being "kittened to prove the power of Dana Da," as thepoet says.When the stated day dawned, the shower of kittens began. Some werewhite and some were tabby, and all were about the same loathsomeage. Three were on his hearth-rug, three in his bathroom, and theother six turned up at intervals among the visitors who came to seethe prophecy break down. Never was a more satisfactory Sending.On the next day there were no kittens, and the next day and all theother days were kittenless and quiet. The people murmured andlooked to the Old Man of the Mountains for an explanation. Aletter, written on a palm leaf, dropped from the ceiling, buteveryone except Lone Sahib felt that letters were not what theoccasion demanded. There should have been cats, there should havebeen cats--full-grown ones. The letter proved conclusively thatthere had been a hitch in the psychic current which, colliding witha dual identity, had interfered with the percipient activity allalong the main line. The kittens were still going on, but owing tosome failure in the developing fluid, they were not materialized.The air was thick with letters for a few days afterwards. Unseenhands played Gluck and Beethoven on finger-bowls and clock shades;but all men felt that psychic life was a mockery withoutmaterialized kittens. Even Lone Sahib shouted with the majority onthis head. Dana Da's letters were very insulting, and if he hadthen offered to lead a new departure, there is no knowing whatmight not have happened.But Dana Da was dying of whisky and opium in the Englishman's go-down, and had small heart for new creeds."They have been put to shame," said he. "Never was such a Sending.It has killed me.""Nonsense," said the Englishman, "you are going to die, Dana Da,and that sort of stuff must be left behind. I'll admit that youhave made some queer things come about. Tell me honestly, now, howwas it done?""Give me ten more rupees," said Dana Da, faintly, "and if I diebefore I spend them, bury them with me." The silver was countedout while Dana Da was fighting with death. His hand closed uponthe money and he smiled a grim smile."Bend low," he whispered. The Englishman bent."Bunnia--mission school--expelled--box-wallah (peddler)--Ceylonpearl merchant--all mine English education--outcasted, and made upname Dana Da--England with American thought-reading man and--and--you gave me ten rupees several times--I gave the Sahib's bearertwo-eight a month for cats--little, little cats. I wrote, and heput them about--very clever man. Very few kittens now in thebazaar. Ask Lone Sahib's sweeper's wife."So saying, Dana Da gasped and passed away into a land where, if allbe true, there are no materializations and the making of new creedsis discouraged.But consider the gorgeous simplicity of it all!
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