The Track of a Lie

"Consequences of our acts eternal? Bosh!" said Blawkins, at the Club. "That's what the Padres say. See, now!" The smoking-room was empty, except for Blawkins and myself. "I'll tell you an idiotic little superstition I picked up the other day," said he. "The natives say that Allah allows the tiger one rupee eight annas a day for his food; and if you total up the month's cattle-bill of an average tiger, not a man-eater, you'll find that it's exactly forty-five rupees per mensem."

"I know that," said I. "And it happens to be true."

"Very good," said Blawkins. "Do you mean to say that anything is going to come of an idle sentence like that? I say it. You hear it. Well?" Blawkins swung out of the Club, leaving me vanquished.

But the statement rang in my head. There was something catching about the words, "Allah allows the tiger one rupee eight annas a day for his food." It was a quaint superstition, and one not generally known. Would the local paper care for it? It fitted a corner, empty for the moment; and one or two readers said, "What a curious idea!"

That the tiny paragraph should have wandered to Southern India was not very strange, though there was no reason why it should not have trickled to the Bombay side, instead of dropping straight as a plummet to Madras. That it should have jumped Adam's Bridge, and been copied in a Ceylon journal, was strange; but Blawkins had been transferred to the other end of the Empire, just two days before the Ceylon papers told their cinchona planters that "Allah allows the tiger one rupee eight annas a day," etc.

Three weeks passed, and from the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal came in the Burma mail. Boh Ottima was dead, and the Field Force was hard worked; Mandalay was suffering from cholera, but at the bottom of the last page the rest of the world might read that "Allah allows the tiger," etc. Blawkins was on duty in the Bolan, very sick with fever. It was not worth while to follow him with a letter.

Week by week Europe grew to be a hornet- hive, throbbing and humming angrily, as the messages pulsed through the wires. Then Singapur reported that "Allah allows the tiger," etc. Here, assuredly, was the limit of my paragraph's wandering. It might struggle into the Malayan Archipelago, but beyond that scattered heap of islands it could not pass.