nent session in the palace. The themselves during the next Palace women went off in a three weeks in instructing the body to the hills to a place Chief's enumerators. The occasionally used during the census clerks might with adhot weather, and the Royal vantage be sent to different Secretary made arrangements centres in the State, but this for immediate flight, if it should was a matter which he would appear necessary. leave for decision to the Chief and the British Assistant Commissioner. Then two days later a messenger came in with a letter from the Commissioner. It announced that in a few days the census party would reach Tiger-town. It had not been found possible to send more than six enumerators, there was such a demand for them in other parts of the Division, but the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the party had an escort of five mounted men, which would enable him to move about rapidly and supervise operations wherever the Chief might think that it was necessary. The census forms were rather bulky, and in order that the Chief might be able to keep copies for record in his own archives, five cartloads had been sent. This, with the baggage of the clerks, made up a party of fifty or sixty men, and as the feeding of these might be inconvenient in some parts of the State, some cartloads of rations had been added. The Commissioner, however, hoped that the Chief would arrange for supplies wherever it was possible, and he was requested to see that these were always paid for and a receipt given. The actual enumeration should be made on the last day of the moon, but preliminary figures might be collected, and the clerks and the British officer would occupy The census party arrived the same afternoon. The Commissioner's express messenger had loitered at some local festival in British territory, and had been so dismayed at the perturbation in Tiger-town State that he thought it safest not to arrive too long before the convoy itself, which had started five days after him. Anything might have happened, if it had not been for the chance action of the Assistant Commissioner. He was a Central India Horse man, recently appointed to the Commission and overflowing with energy. This took the form of riding huge distances at the greatest possible pace that the bridle paths permitted. He called it empire-building, and said that it was of the greatest possible importance to show British power everywhere, and often and rapidly as possible. Incidentally he found it quite profitable; for his travelling allowance was calculated by mileage, and when a man once gets the idea that mileage means work, it becomes a mania with him. He chafed desperately at having to keep with the carts; and he could do nothing else, for he had only foot guides. But when as he found village after village should disturb the selling too deserted, and caught occasional much; and it's a smelling glimpses of people disappear- neighbourhood, as an ordinary ing into the jungle, he de- thing. You haven't got a termined to ride on ahead to deserted monastery, have you? see what was the matter. Or a row of zayats? Two or The road was a straight one, three rest-sheds would do. The and consequently he arrived cartmen will sleep in their carts, not long after the runner of course; and there are only with the letter, and dis- about twenty or thirty others. mounted at the Palace while We didn't bring any tents." the Chief and his Ministers were still engaged in agitated and futile discussion. The Chief was quite prepared to make a bolt of it into the inner apartments; but before he had time to do anything the Assistant Commissioner was shaking him by the hand, asking him how he was, and apologising for the abruptness of his appearance, and the fact that he was only wearing khaki dress. "Afraid you consider consider this census a fearful worry, Chief," he ran on. "So do I; so does everybody. But it's got to be done. Only there are some ways of doing it easier than others. I'll put your clerks up to it to-morrow or next day. The best way is really to leave it all to the village headmen. Most of them ought to be able to write it all down out of their own heads. Anyhow, there is no need for you to worry about it. I am afraid your subjects think it is something quite terrible. But I'll put it all right for you. Meanwhile, you might just let me know where you would like us to camp. We'll be here off and on for three weeks or so, so the bazaar will not be a good place. We "We heard you had many hundred men, with cannons and guns," said the Chief, slightly staggered by the volubility of the Wundauk. "I think you had better camp in the paddy - fields west of the town." "That's absurd. There are only the clerks and their servants, besides the five men outside. It would mean running up shelters, and it's not worth the trouble. I'd better go and look round, if you will give me a man. Somewhere not too far from the Palace would be convenient." "We ourselves will come with you," said the Chief, who thought it as well to keep an eye on so headlong a person. "The Ministers will come too," he looked round meaningly,-"and some service- men to keep back the people." So a procession was formed, and, after a good deal of argument, some sheds round a pagoda, at the other side of the town from the Palace, were chosen. By this time the carts had begun to lumber in. The Burmese enumerators were all obtrusively girt with revolver belts round their waists, some of the All weapons large and formidable- vants, too, of course. the houses you know, the You many Don't "That's all right. you worry about this counting business. I am sure we shall get on splendidly." Next day the Assistant Commissioner took the six Burman enumerators to the Palace to introduce them to the Chief, and said they might as well start work with the State clerks and explain things. "We have no enumerators," said the Chief; "such a thing has never been known in our State in the time of my father, my grandfather, and my ancestors for many generations. We have never heard of such a thing." "Oh, but it's perfectly simple. All they've got to do is to write down the name of the head of the house, and his family, wives and children, and the ser This whirlwind way of doing business discomfited the Chief very much. He did not want the Assistant Commissioner to go riding round the country at all, but he was too slow of speech and thought to stop him, and the Wundauk was out of the Palace stockade before an objection occurred to the Chief. But he had a talk with the Burmese clerks, and they reassured him in the usual Oriental way. the dis Meanwhile, however, Royal Secretary had covered that one of the enumerators had been a constable in the Lower Burma town from which he had levanted with the post office takings. He knew the man quite well, and took himself off the moment he had made the discovery. But he was tortured by doubts as to whether he himself had been recognised. If he had been, there was an end of his State Secretaryship, and he did not know where to go to with British districts all round about. So he resolved to arouse the Chief's alarms again. After dark he began: "Your Highness, I think the Wundauk is a very dangerous man. He pretends to be bluff and friendly, but he is really here to find out who is in the State. Did your Highness hear him say that the names of everybody in the State must be written down? When he discovers that Bo Hla and Aung Gyaw are here he will demand their arrest, or will arrest them himself, and he will fine your Highness's State. He has galloped off to Pindalè where Aung Gyaw is now, but I had him warned last night, so it will be Aung Gyaw's own fault if he is caught. But that is not all. One of the Burmese clerks is a policeman in disguise. I have seen him before in Lower Burma, and know him to be dangerous. Your Highness will remember him-the tall man tattooed with a mantra on the neck, with a slight stammer. I think it would be well to have him cleared away. It can easily be done without causing suspicion." "Oh, you think that, do you?" said the Chief. "The Wundauk is certainly a very curious man. He talks to us as if he were a kind of elder brother, and had known us all his life. We must have them all watched, but it will not be easy to follow the Wundauk. He rides so fast, the Ministers tell me." "The Wundauk does not matter so very much. If your Highness can get him plenty to shoot far far away, he will not care for anything else. The Government pays him for riding, so he may not have time to ask questions. But the constable sits about in the bazaar all day, and talks to everybody. He will do much mischief. He does nothing but ask questions, and he will tell the Wundauk what he chooses." The Chief grunted, and retired heavily to the inner rooms. The Royal Secretary went off very dissatisfied and uneasy. On his way home, at a corner, he suddenly came face to face with the very man he had been talking about. The ex-constable said, "You are the Royal Secretary, aren't you? A Lower Burma man, I think. I seem to have met you somewhere, but I cannot remember where." The Secretary hurriedly denied ever having been in Lower Burma. He was a Mandalay man, who came to Tiger-town with the Burmese Governor, and remained behind when that official left the State. "You don't talk like a Mandalay man," said the Burman, "but, look here, there is a lot of money to be made in Tigertown. There are big rewards on half a dozen or more dacoitbos. If you give me good information you shall have some of it." Just then footsteps were heard approaching, and the enumerator said: "Meet me to-morrow in the bazaar. It will be worth your while,” and went off. The Royal Secretary was now in desperation. He was convinced the man knew him and only wanted to make use of him before denouncing and arresting him, so the same night he rode off to the village where the dacoit Aung Gyaw was in hiding. The day but one afterwards, the British officer, on the suggestion of the Royal Secretary, made a particularly long excursion, a chukker he called it, and made arrangements for sleeping the night at a place some fifteen miles from the capital. The chance was too good a one to be lost. One of Aung Gyaw's men came in after dark and crept in below the shed where the census party was sleeping. About one in the morning he fired a handful of nails and bits of lead and iron between the planks into the body of the man sleeping above. It was the wrong man, but that did not matter. There was a silence of two seconds, and then a tremendous outcry from the shed. All the clerks were shouting at once, and several of them fired revolvershots at random into the dark. In a minute or two these were echoed by guns fired in the Palace stockade, and even in the town. The census clerks were scared out of their senses. After a hurried consultation they saddled their ponies and rode off by the nearest gate, leaving the dead man behind. By chance more than anything else they met the British officer and his guard just starting at daybreak for the capital. They informed him that the whole town had risen without warning and attacked them. They made the best defence they could and fought their way out, leaving one man dead. The ex-constable declared that he had seen Bo Hla and other noted desperadoes among the attackers, and that there were several hundreds of them. The Assistant Commissioner had nothing but an express rifle with him, and had shot most of his cartridges away. The escort had no more ammunition than what was in their pouches. So they all rode off for the nearest point of the frontier, which happened to be the B district. News was telegraphed off to headquarters that Tiger-town State had risen in revolt. A brigade was hurriedly made up for service, but meanwhile the Deputy Commissioner of B went off with a hundred men to reconnoitre, and, if possible, recover the baggage. He found the villages empty the whole way, and when he reached the capital that was deserted too. The Chief had made off for his hill-fort. The Deputy Commissioner followed him up slowly, pending the arrival of the expeditionary force, but the Chief continued his flight, and eventually made off through some thinly inhabited country to the Kachin Hills, and SO into China. The brigade duly arrived, but found nothing to do and no one to treat with. Tiger-town was declared to be formally annexed and to have become Britishadministered territory. There was no census held. That had to wait till the next decennial term came round. |