“I have some bad news, Isobel. At least I suppose you will consider it bad news,” the Major said one morning, when he returned from the orderly room. “You heard me say that four companies were going to relieve those at Deennugghur. Well, I am going with them. It seems that the General is of opinion that in the present unsettled state of affairs there ought to be a field officer in command there, so I have to go. For myself I don't mind, but you will find it dull in a small station like that, after the gayeties of Cawnpore.”
“I don't mind a bit, uncle, in that respect. I don't think I care much for gayeties, but of course the move will be a trouble. We have everything so nice here, it will be horrid having to leave it all. How long will it be for?”
“Six months, in the ordinary state of things, though of course something may occur to bring us in before that. Still, the change won't be as much trouble as you fancy. When we get there you can stay for two or three days with the Hunters till we have got the things to rights. There is one thing that you will be pleased about. Wade is going with us, at any rate for the present; you are a favorite of his, you know, and I think that is the principal reason for his going. At any rate, when he heard I was in orders, he told the Colonel that, as there was no illness in the regiment, he thought, if he did not object, he would change places for a bit with M'Alaster, the assistant surgeon, who has been with the detachment at Deennugghur for the last year, so as to give him a turn of duty at Cawnpore, and do a little shikaring himself. There is more jungle and better shooting round Deennugghur than there is here, and you know the Doctor is an enthusiast that way. Of course, the Colonel agreed at once.”
“I am very glad of that, uncle; it won't seem like going to a strange place if we have him with us, and the Hunters there, and I suppose three or four officers of the regiment. Who are going?”
“Both your boys,” the Major laughed, “and Doolan and Rintoul.”
“When do we go, uncle?”
“Next Monday. I shall get somebody to put us up from Friday, and that morning we will get everything dismantled here, and send them off by bullock carts with the servants to Deennugghur, so that they will be there by Monday morning. I will write to Hunter to pick us out the best of the empty bungalows, and see that our fellows get to work to clean the place up as soon as they arrive. We shall be two days on the march, and things will be pretty forward by the time we get there.”
“And where shall we sleep on the march?”
“In tents, my dear, and very comfortable you will find them. Rumzan will go with us, and you will find everything go on as smoothly as if you were here. Tent life in India is very pleasant. Next year, in the cool season, we will do an excursion somewhere, and I am sure you will find it delightful: they don't know anything about the capabilities of tents at home.”
“Then do I quite understand, uncle, that all I have got to do is to make a round of calls to say goodby to everyone?”
“That is all. You will find a lot of my cards in one of those pigeon holes; you may as well drop one wherever you go. Shall I order a carriage from Framjee's for today?”
“No, I think not, uncle; I will go round to our own bungalows first, and hear what Mrs. Doolan and the others think about it.”
At Mrs. Doolan's Isobel found quite an assembly. Mrs. Rintoul had come in almost in tears, and the two young lieutenants had dropped in with Captain Doolan, while one or two other officers had come round to commiserate with Mrs. Doolan.
“Another victim,” the latter said, as Isobel entered.
“You look too cheerful, Miss Hannay. I find that we are expected to wear sad countenances at our approaching banishment.”
“Are we, Mrs. Doolan? It seems to me that it won't make very much difference to us.”
“Not make any difference, Miss Hannay!” Captain Doolan said. “Why, Deennugghur is one of the dullest little stations on this side of India!”
“What do you mean by dull, Captain Doolan?”
“Why, there are only about six white residents there besides the troops. Of course, as four companies are going instead of one, it will make a difference; but there will be no gayety, no excitement, and really nothing to do.”
“As for the gayety, I am sure I shall not regret it, Captain Doolan; besides, our gayeties are pretty well over, except, of course, dinner parties, and it is getting very hot for them. We shall get off having to go out in the heat of the day to make calls, which seem to me terrible afflictions, and I think with a small party it ought to be very sociable and pleasant. As for excitement, I hear that there is much better shooting there than there is here. Mrs. Hunter was telling me that they have had some tigers that have been very troublesome round there, and you will all have an opportunity of showing your skill and bravery. I know that Mr. Richards and Mr. Wilson are burning to distinguish themselves.”
“It would be great fun to shoot a tiger,” Richards said. “When I came out to India I thought there was going to be lots of tiger shooting, and I bought a rifle on purpose, but I have never had a chance yet. Yes, we will certainly get up a tiger hunt, won't we, Wilson? You will tell us how to set about it, won't you, Doolan?”
“I don't shoot,” Captain Doolan said; “and if I wanted to, I am not sure that my wife would give me leave.”
“Certainly I would not,” Mrs. Doolan said promptly. “Married men have no right to run into unnecessary danger.”
“Dr. Wade will be able to put you in the way, Mr. Richards,” Isobel said.
“Dr. Wade!” Mrs. Rintoul exclaimed. “You don't mean to say, Miss Hannay, that he is going with us?”
“Yes, he is going for a time, Mrs. Rintoul. My uncle told me that he had applied to go with the detachment, and that the surgeon there would come back to the regiment while he is away.”
“I do call that hard,” Mrs. Rintoul said. “The only thing I was glad we were going for was that we should be under Mr. M'Alaster, who is very pleasant, and quite understands my case, while Dr. Wade does not seem to understand it at all, and is always so very brusque and unsympathetic.”
There was a general smile.
“Wade is worth a hundred of M'Alaster,” Captain Roberts said. “There is not a man out here I would rather trust myself to if I were ill. He is an awfully good fellow, too, all round, though he may be, as you say, a little brusque in manner.”
“I call him a downright bear,” Mrs. Rintoul said angrily. “Why, only last week he told me that if I would get up two hours earlier and go for a brisk walk just after sunrise, and give up eating meat at tiffin, and confine myself to two or three dishes at dinner, I should be perfectly well in the course of a month; just as if I was in the habit of overeating myself, when I have scarcely the appetite of a sparrow. I told Captain Rintoul afterwards that I must consult someone else, for that really I could not bear such rudeness.”
“I am afraid we are all against you, Mrs. Rintoul,” Mrs. Doolan said, with a little shake of her head at Isobel, who was, she saw, going to speak out strongly. “No one could possibly be kinder than he is when anyone is really ill. I mean seriously ill,” she added, as Mrs. Rintoul drew herself up indignantly. “I shall never forget how attentive he was to the children when they were down with fever just before he went to England. He missed his ship and lost a month of his leave because he would not go away till they were out of danger, and there are very few men who would have done that. I shall never forget his kindness. And now let us talk of something else. You will have to establish a little mess on your own account, Mr. Wilson, as both the Captains are married men, and the Major has also an incumbrance.”
“Yes, it will be horribly dull, Mrs. Doolan. Richards and I have quarters together here, and, of course, it will be the same there, and I am sure I don't know what we shall find to talk about when we come to have to mess together. Of course, here, there are the messroom and the club, and so we get on very well, but to be together always will be awful.”
“You will really have to take to reading or something of that sort, Mr. Wilson,” Isobel laughed.
“I always do read the Field, Miss Hannay, but that won't last for a whole week, you know; and there is no billiard table, and no racquet court, or anything else at Deennugghur, and one cannot always be riding about the country.”
“We shall all have to take pity on you as much as we can,” Mrs. Doolan said. “I must say that, like Miss Hannay, I shall not object to the change.”
“I think it is all very well for you, Mrs. Doolan; you have children.”
“Well, Mr. Richards, I will let you both, as a great treat, take them out for a walk sometimes of a morning instead of their going with the ayah. That will make a change for you.”
There was a general laugh, but Wilson said manfully, “Very well, Mrs. Doolan; I am very fond of youngsters, and I should like to take, anyhow, the two eldest out sometimes. I don't think I should make much hand with the other two, but perhaps Richards would like to come in and amuse them while we are out; he is just the fellow for young ones.”
There was another laugh, in which Richards joined. “I could carry them about on my back, and pretend to be a horse,” he said; “but I don't know that I could amuse them in any other way.”
“You would find that very hot work, Mr. Richards,” Mrs. Doolan said; “but I don't think we shall require such a sacrifice of you. Well, I don't think we shall find it so bad, after all, and I don't suppose it will be for very long; I do not believe in all this talk about chupaties, and disaffection, and that sort of thing; I expect in three months we shall most of us be back again.”
Ten days later the detachment was settled down in Deennugghur. The troops were for the most part under canvas, for there was only accommodation for a single company at the station. The two subalterns occupied a large square tent, while the other three officers took possession of the only three bungalows that were vacant at the station, the Doctor having a tent to himself. The Major and Isobel had stayed for the first three days with the Hunters, at the end of which time the bungalow had been put in perfect order. It was far less commodious than that at Cawnpore, but Isobel was well satisfied with it when all their belongings had been arranged, and she soon declared that she greatly preferred Deennugghur to Cawnpore.
Those at the station heartily welcomed the accession to their numbers, and there was an entire absence of the stiffness and formality of a large cantonment like Cawnpore, and Isobel was free to run in as she chose to spend the morning chatting and working with the Hunters, or Mrs. Doolan, or with the other ladies, of whom there were three at the station.
A few days after their arrival news came in that the famous man eater, which had for a time ceased his ravages and moved off to a different part of the country, principally because the natives of the village near the jungle had ceased altogether to go out after nightfall, had returned, and had carried off herdsmen on two consecutive days.
The Doctor at once prepared for action, and agreed to allow Wilson and Richards to accompany him, and the next day the three rode off together to Narkeet, to which village the two herdsmen had belonged. Both had been killed near the same spot, and the natives had traced the return of the tiger to its lair in the jungle with its victims.
The Doctor soon found that the ordinary methods of destroying the tiger had been tried again and again without success. Cattle and goats had been tied up, and the native shikaris had taken their posts in trees close by, and had watched all night; but in vain. Spring traps and deadfalls had also been tried, but the tiger seemed absolutely indifferent to the attractions of their baits, and always on the lookout for snares. The attempts made at a dozen villages near the jungle had all been equally unsuccessful.
“It is evident,” the Doctor said, “that the brute cares for nothing but human victims. No doubt, if he were very hungry he would take a cow or a goat, but we might wait a very long time for that; so the only thing that I can see is to act as a bait myself.”
“How will you do that, Doctor?”
“I shall build a sort of cage near the point where the tiger has twice entered the jungle. I will take with me in the cage a woman or girl from the village. From time to time she shall cry out as if in pain, and as the tiger is evidently somewhere in this neighborhood it is likely enough he will come out to see about it.
“We must have the cage pretty strong, or I shall never get anyone to sit with me; besides, on a dark night, there is no calculating on killing to a certainty with the first shot, and it is just as well to be on the safe side. In daylight it would be a different matter altogether. I can rely upon my weapon when I can see, but on a dark night it is pretty well guesswork.”
The villagers were at once engaged to erect a stout cage eight feet square and four high, of beams driven into the ground six inches apart, and roofed in with strong bars. There was a considerable difficulty in getting anyone to consent to sit by the Doctor, but at last the widow of one of the men who had been killed agreed for the sum of twenty-five rupees to pass the night there, accompanied by her child four years old.
The Doctor's skill with his rifle was notorious, and it was rather the desire of seeing her husband's death avenged than for the sake of the money that she consented to keep watch. There was but one tree suitable for the watchers; it stood some forty yards to the right of the cage, and it was arranged that both the subalterns should take their station in it.
“Now look here, lads,” the Doctor said, “before we start on this business, it must be quite settled that you do not fire till you hear my rifle. That is the first thing; the second is that you only fire when the brute is a fair distance from the cage. If you get excited and blaze away anyhow, you are quite as likely to hit me as you are the tiger. Now, I object to take any risk whatever on that score. You will have a native shikari in the tree with you to point out the tiger, for it is twenty to one against your making him out for yourselves. It will be quite indistinct, and you have no chance of making out its head or anything of that sort, and you have to take a shot at it as best you may.
“Remember there must not be a word spoken. If the brute does come, it will probably make two or three turns round the cage before it approaches it, and may likely enough pass close to you, but in no case fire. You can't make sure of killing it, and if it were only wounded it would make off into the jungle, and all our trouble would be thrown away. Also remember you must not smoke; the tiger would smell it half a mile away, and, besides, the sound of a match striking would be quite sufficient to set him on his guard.”
“There is no objection, I hope, Doctor, to our taking up our flasks; we shall want something to keep us from going to sleep.”
“No, there is no objection to that,” the Doctor said; “but mind you don't go to sleep, for if you did you might fall off your bough and break your neck, to say nothing of the chance of the tiger happening to be close at hand at the time.”
Late in the afternoon the Doctor went down to inspect the cage, and pronounced it sufficiently strong. Half an hour before nightfall he and the woman and child took their places in it, and the two beams in the roof that had been left unfastened to allow of their entry were securely lashed in their places by the villagers. Wilson and Richards were helped up into the tree, and took their places upon two boughs which sprang from the trunk close to each other at a height of some twelve feet from the ground. The shikari who was to wait with them crawled out, and with a hatchet chopped off some of the small boughs and foliage so as to give them a clear view of the ground for some distance round the cage, which was erected in the center of a patch of brushwood, the lower portion of which had been cleared out so that the Doctor should have an uninterrupted view round. The boughs and leaves were gathered up by the villagers, and carried away by them, and the watch began.
“Confound it,” Richards whispered to his companion after night fell, “it is getting as dark as pitch; I can scarcely make out the clump where the cage is. I should hardly see an elephant if it were to come, much less a brute like a tiger.”
“We shall get accustomed to it presently,” Wilson replied; “at any rate make quite sure of the direction in which the cage is in; it is better to let twenty tigers go than to run the risk of hitting the Doctor.”
In another hour their eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and they could not only see the clump in which the cage was clearly, but could make out the outline of the bush all round the open space in which it stood. Both started as a loud and dismal wail rose suddenly in the air, followed by a violent crying.
“By Jove, how that woman made me jump!” Wilson said; “it sounded quite awful, and she must have pinched that poor little beggar of hers pretty sharply to make him yell like that.”
A low “hush!” from the shikari at his elbow warned Wilson that he was speaking too loudly. Hours passed by, the cries being raised at intervals.
“It is enough to give one the jumps, Richards; each time she yells I nearly fall off my branch.”
“Keep on listening, then it won't startle you.”
“A fellow can't keep on listening,” Wilson grumbled; “I listen each time until my ears begin to sing, and I feel stupid and sleepy, and then she goes off again like a steam whistle; that child will be black and blue all over in the morning.”
A warning hiss from the shikari again induced Wilson to silence.
“I don't believe the brute is coming,” he whispered, an hour later. “If it wasn't for this bough being so hard I should drop off to sleep; my eyes ache with staring at those bushes.”
As he spoke the shikari touched him on the shoulder and pointed. “Tiger,” he whispered; and then did the same to Richards. Grasping their rifles, they gazed in the direction in which he pointed, but could for some time make out nothing. Then they saw a dim gray mass in front of the bushes, directly on the opposite side of the open space; then from the cage, lying almost in a direct line between it and them, rose the cry of the child. They were neither of them at all certain that the object at which they were gazing was the tiger. It seemed shapeless, the outline fading away in the bush; but they felt sure that they had noticed nothing like it in that direction before.
For two or three minutes they remained in uncertainty, then the outline seemed to broaden, and it moved noiselessly. There could be no mistake now; the tiger had been attracted by the cries, and as it moved along they could see that it was making a circuit of the spot from whence the sounds proceeded, to reconnoiter before advancing towards its prey. It kept close to the line of bushes, and sometimes passed behind some of them. The shikari pressed their shoulders, and a low hiss enforced the necessity for absolute silence. The two young fellows almost held their breath; they had lost sight of the tiger now, but knew it must be approaching them.
For two or three minutes they heard and saw nothing, then the shikari pointed beyond them, and they almost started as they saw the tiger retreating, and knew that it must have passed almost under them without their noticing it. At last it reached the spot at which they had first seen it. The child's cry, but this time low and querulous, again rose. With quicker steps than before it moved on, but still not directly towards the center, to the great relief of the two subalterns, who had feared that it might attack from such a direction that they would not dare to fire for fear of hitting the cage. Fortunately it passed that point, and, crouching, moved towards the bushes.
Wilson and Richards had their rifles now at their shoulders, but, in the feeble and uncertain light, felt by no means sure of hitting their mark, though it was but some thirty yards away. Almost breathlessly they listened for the Doctor's rifle, but both started when the flash and sharp crack broke on the stillness. There was a sudden snarl of pain, the tiger gave a spring in the air, and then fell, rolling over and over.
“It is not killed!” the shikari exclaimed. “Fire when it gets up.”
Suddenly it rose to its feet, and with a loud roar sprang towards the thicket. The two subalterns fired, but the movements of the dimly seen creature were so swift that they felt by no means sure that they had hit it. Then came, almost simultaneously, a loud shriek from the woman, of a very different character to the long wails she had before uttered, followed by a sound of rending and tearing.
“He is breaking down the cage!” Richards exclaimed excitedly, as he and Wilson hastened to ram another cartridge down their rifles. “Come, we must go and help the Doctor.”
But a moment later came another report of a rifle, and then all was silent. Then the Doctor's voice was heard.
“Don't get down from the tree yet, lads; I think he is dead, but it is best to make sure first.”
There was a pause, and then another rifle shot, followed by the shout “All right; he is as dead as a door nail now. Mind your rifles as you climb down.”
“Fancy thinking of that,” Wilson said, “when you have just killed a tiger! I haven't capped mine yet; have you, Richards?”
“I have just put it on, but will take it off again. Here, old man, you get down first, and we will hand the guns to you.”—this to the shikari.
With some difficulty they scrambled down from the tree.
“Now we may as well cap our rifles,” Richards said; “the brute may not be dead after all.”
They approached the bush cautiously.
“You are quite sure he is dead, Doctor?”
“Quite sure; do you think I don't know when a tiger is dead?”
Still holding their guns in readiness to fire, they approached the bushes.
“You can do no good until the villagers come with torches,” the Doctor said; “the tiger is dead enough, but it is always as well to be prudent.”
The shikari had uttered a loud cry as he sprang down from the tree, and this had been answered by shouts from the distance. In a few minutes lights were seen through the trees, and a score of men with torches and lanterns ran up with shouts of satisfaction.
As soon as they arrived the two young officers advanced to the cage. On the top a tiger was lying stretched out as if in sleep; with some caution they approached it and flashed a torch in its eyes. There was no doubt that it was dead. The body was quickly rolled off the cage, and then a dozen hands cut the lashing and lifted the top bars, which was deeply scored by the tiger's claws, and the Doctor emerged.
“I am glad to be out of that,” he said; “six hours in a cage with a woman and a crying brat is no joke.”
As soon as the Doctor had got out, the subalterns eagerly examined the tiger, upon which the natives were heaping curses and execrations.
“How many wounds has it got?” they asked the Doctor, who repeated the question to the shikari in his own language.
“Three, sahib. One full in the chest—it would have been mortal—two others in the ribs by the heart.”
“No others?” the subalterns exclaimed in disgust, as the answer was translated to them. The Doctor himself examined the tiger.
“No; you both missed, lads, but you need not be ashamed of that; it is no easy matter to hit a tiger even at a short distance on a dark night like this, when you can scarce make him out, and can't see the barrel of your rifle. I ought to have told you to rub a little phosphorus off the head of a match onto the sight. I am so accustomed to do it myself as a matter of course that I did not think of telling you. Well, I am heartily glad we have killed it, for by all accounts it has done an immense deal of damage.”
“It has been a fine tiger in its time, although its skin doesn't look much,” Wilson said; “there are patches of fur off.”
“That is generally the case with man eaters. They are mostly old tigers who take, when they get past their strength, to killing men. I don't know whether the flesh doesn't agree with them, but they are almost always mangy.”
“We were afraid for a moment,” Richards said, “that the tiger was going to break into your cage; we heard him clawing away at the timber, and as you didn't fire again we were afraid something was the matter.”
“The mother was,” the Doctor said testily. “The moment the tiger sprang, the woman threw herself down at full length right on the top of my second rifle, and when I went to push her off I think she fancied the tiger had got hold of her, for she gave a yell that fairly made me jump. I had to push her off by main force, and then lie down on my back, so as to get the rifle up to fire. I was sure the first shot was fatal, for I knew just where his heart would be, but I dropped a second cartridge in, and gave him another bullet so as to make sure. Well, if either of you want his head or his claws, you had better say so at once, for the natives will be singeing his whiskers off directly; the practice is a superstition of theirs.”
“No, I don't want them,” Wilson said. “If I had put a bullet into the brute, so that I could have said I helped to kill him, I should have liked the head to get it preserved and sent home to my people, but as it is the natives are welcome to it as far as I am concerned.”
Richards was of the same opinion, and so without further delay they started back for the village, where, upon their arrival, they were greeted with cries of joy by the women, the news having already been carried back by a boy.
“Poor beggars!” the Doctor said. “They have been living a life of terror for weeks. They must feel as if they had woke from a nightmare. Now, lads, we will have some supper. I dare say you are ready for it, and I am sure I am.”
“Is there any chance for supper, Doctor?—why, it must be two o'clock in the morning.”
“Of course there is,” the Doctor replied. “I gave orders to my man to begin to warm up the food as soon as he heard a gun fired, and I will guarantee he has got everything ready by this time.”
After a hearty meal and a cigar they lay down for a few hours' sleep, and at daybreak rode back to Deennugghur, the two subalterns rather crestfallen at their failure to have taken any active part in killing the tiger that had so long been a terror to the district.
“It was an awful sell missing him, Miss Hannay; I wanted to have had the claws mounted as a necklace; I thought you would have liked it.”
“I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Wilson, but I would much rather not have had them. If the tiger hadn't been a man eater I should not have minded, but I should never have worn as an ornament claws that had killed lots of people—women and children too.”
“No, I never thought of that, Miss Hannay; it wouldn't have been pleasant, now one thinks of it; still, I wish I had put a bullet into him.”
“No doubt you will do better next time, Mr. Wilson. The Doctor has been telling me that it is extremely difficult to hit an animal in the dark when you are not accustomed to that sort of shooting. He says he was in a great fright all the time he was lying in the cage, and that it was an immense relief to him when he heard your rifles go off, and found that he wasn't hit.”
“That is too bad of him, Miss Hannay,” Wilson laughed; “we were not such duffers as all that. I don't believe he really did think so.”
“I am sure he was in earnest, Mr. Wilson. He said he should have felt quite safe if it had been daylight, but that in the dark people really can't see which way the rifles are pointed, and that he remembered he had not told you to put phosphorus on the sights.”
“It was too bad of him,” Wilson grumbled; “it would have served him right if one of the bullets had hit a timber of the cage and given him a start; I should like to have seen the Doctor struggling in the dark to get his second rifle from under the woman, with the tiger clawing and growling two feet above him.”
“The Doctor didn't tell me about that,” Isobel laughed; “though he said he had a woman and child with him to attract the tiger.”
“It would have frightened any decent minded tiger, Miss Hannay, instead of attracting it; for such dismal yells as that woman made I never listened to. I nearly tumbled off the tree at the first of them, it made me jump so, and it gave me a feeling of cold water running down my back. As to the child, I don't know whether she pinched it or the doctor stuck pins into it, but the poor little brute howled in the most frightful way. I don't think I shall ever want to go tiger shooting in the dark again; I ache all over today as if I had been playing in the first football match of the season, from sitting balancing myself on that branch; I was almost over half a dozen times.”
“I expect you nearly went off to sleep, Mr. Wilson.”
“I think I should have gone to sleep if it hadn't been for that woman, Miss Hannay. I should not have minded if I could have smoked, but to sit there hour after hour and not be able to smoke, and not allowed to speak, and staring all the time into the darkness till your eyes ached, was trying, I can tell you; and after all that, not to hit the brute was too bad.”
The days passed quietly at Deennugghur. They were seldom alone at Major Hannay's bungalow in the evening, for Wilson and Richards generally came in to smoke a cigar in the veranda; the Doctor was a regular visitor, when he was not away in pursuit of game, and Bathurst was also often one of the party.
“Mr. Bathurst is coming out wonderfully, Miss Hannay,” Mrs. Hunter said one day, as Isobel sat working with her, while the two girls were practicing duets on a piano in the next room. “We used to call him the hermit, he was so difficult to get out of his cell. We were quite surprised when he accepted our invitation to dinner yesterday.”
“I think Dr. Wade has stirred him up,” Isobel said calmly; “he is a great favorite of the Doctor's.”
Mrs. Hunter smiled over her work. “Perhaps so, my dear; anyhow, I am glad he has come out, and I hope he won't retire into his cell again after you have all gone.”
“I suppose it depends a good deal upon his work,” Isobel said.
“My experience of men is that they can always make time if they like, my dear. When a man says he is too busy to do this, that, or the other, you may always safely put it down that he doesn't want to do it. Of course, it is just the same thing with ourselves. You often hear women say they are too busy to attend to all sorts of things that they ought to attend to, but the same women can find plenty of time to go to every pleasure gathering that comes off. There is no doubt that Mr. Bathurst is really fond of work, and that he is an indefatigable civil servant of the Company, but that would not prevent him making an hour or two's time of an evening, occasionally, if he wanted to. However, he seems to have turned over a new leaf, and I hope it will last. In a small station like this, even one man is of importance, especially when he is as pleasant as Mr. Bathurst can be when he likes. He was in the army at one time, you know.”
“Was he, Mrs. Hunter?”
“Yes. I never heard him say so himself, but I have heard so from several people. I think he was only in it for a year or so. I suppose he did not care for it, and can quite imagine he would not, so he sold out, and a short time afterwards obtained a civil appointment. He has very good interest; his father was General Bathurst, who was, you know, a very distinguished officer. So he had no difficulty in getting into our service, where he is entirely in his element. His father died two years ago, and I believe he came into a good property at home. Everyone expected he would have thrown up his appointment, but it made no difference to him, and he just went on as before, working as if he had to depend entirely on the service.”
“I can quite understand that,” Isobel said, “to a really earnest man a life of usefulness here must be vastly preferable to living at home without anything to do or any object in life.”
“Well, perhaps so, my dear, and in theory that is, no doubt, the case; but practically, I fancy you would find nineteen men out of twenty, even if they are what you call earnest men, retire from the ranks of hard workers if they come into a nice property. By the way, you must come in here this evening. There is a juggler in the station, and Mr. Hunter has told him to come round. The servants say the man is a very celebrated juggler, one of the best in India, and as the girls have never seen anything better than the ordinary itinerant conjurers, my husband has arranged for him to come in here, and we have been sending notes round asking everyone to come in. We have sent one round to your place, but you must have come out before the chit arrived.”
“Oh, I should like that very much!” Isobel said. “Two or three men came to our bungalow at Cawnpore and did some conjuring, but it was nothing particular; but uncle says some of them do wonderful things—things that he cannot account for at all. That was one of the things I read about at school, and thought I should like to see, more than anything in India. When I was at school we went in a body, two or three times, to see conjurers when they came to Cheltenham. Of course I did not understand the things they did, and they seemed wonderful to me, but I know there are people who can explain them, and that they are only tricks; but I have read accounts of things done by jugglers in India that seemed utterly impossible to explain—really a sort of magic.”
“I have heard a good many arguments about it,” Mrs. Hunter said; “and a good many people, especially those who have seen most of them, are of opinion that many of the feats of the Indian jugglers cannot be explained by any natural laws we know of. I have seen some very curious things myself, but the very fact that I did not understand how they were done was no proof they could not be explained; certainly two of their commonest tricks, the basket trick and the mango, have never been explained. Our conjurers at home can do something like them, but then that is on a stage, where they can have trapdoors and all sorts of things, while these are done anywhere—in a garden, on a road—where there could be no possible preparation, and with a crowd of lookers on all round; it makes me quite uncomfortable to look at it.”
“Well, I must be off now, Mrs. Hunter; it is nearly time for uncle to be back, and he likes me to be in when he returns.”
Dr. Wade was sitting in the veranda smoking and reading an English paper that had arrived by that morning's mail, when Isobel returned.
“Good morning, Doctor. Is uncle back?”
“Not yet. He told me he might be half an hour late, and that I was to come round and amuse you until he came back.”
“So in my absence you have been amusing yourself, Doctor. I have been round at Mrs. Hunter's; she is going to have a juggler there this evening, and we are all to go.”
“Yes, I got a chit from her this morning. I have seen scores of them, but I make a point of never missing an exhibition when I get the chance. I hate anything I don't understand, and I go with the faint hope of being able to find things out, though I know perfectly well that I shall not do so.”
“Then you think it is not all quite natural, Doctor?”
“I don't say it is not natural, because we don't know what all the natural laws are, but I say that some of the things I have seen certainly are not to be accounted for by anything we do know. It is not often that the jugglers show their best tricks to the whites—they know that, as a rule, we are altogether skeptical; but I have seen at native courts more than once the most astounding things—things absolutely incomprehensible and inexplicable. I don't suppose we are going to see anything of that sort tonight, though Mrs. Hunter said in her note that they had heard from the native servant that this man was a famous one.
“There is a sect of people in India, I don't mean a caste, but a sort of secret society, who, I believe, claim to be able by some sort of influence to suspend altogether the laws of nature. I do not say that I believe them—as a scientific man, it is my duty not to believe them; but I have seen such things done by some of the higher class of jugglers, and that under circumstances that did not seem to admit of the possibility of deception, that I am obliged to suspend my judgment, which, as you may imagine, my dear, is exceedingly annoying to me; but some of them do possess to a considerable extent what the Scotch call second sight, that is to say, the power of foreseeing events in the future. Of that I am morally certain; I have seen proofs of it over and over again. For example, once an old fakir, whom I had cured of a badly ulcerated limb, came up just as I was starting on a shooting expedition.
“'Do not go out today,' he said. 'I foresee evil for you. I saw you last night brought back badly wounded.'
“'But if I don't go your dream will come wrong,' I said.
“He shook his head.
“'You will go in spite of what I say,' he said; 'and you will suffer, and others too;' and he looked at a group of shikaris, who were standing together, ready to make a start.
“'How many men are there?' he said.
“'Why, six of course,' I replied.
“'I see only three,' he said, 'and three dull spots. One of those I see is holding his matchlock on his shoulder, another is examining his priming, the third is sitting down by the tire. Those three will come back at the end of the day; the other three will not return alive.'
“I felt rather uncomfortable, but I wasn't, as I said to myself—I was a good deal younger then, my dear—such a fool as to be deterred from what promised to be a good day's sport by such nonsense as this; and I went.
“We were going after a rogue elephant that had been doing a lot of damage among the natives' plantations. We found him, and a savage brute he turned out to be. He moved just as I fired, and though I hit him, it was not on the fatal spot, and he charged right down among us. He caught the very three men the fakir said were doomed, and dashed the life out of them; then he came at me. The bearer had run off with my second gun, and he seized me and flung me up in the air.
“I fell in a tree, but broke three of my ribs and one of my arms; fortunately, though the beast tried to get at me, I was out of his reach, and the tree was too strong for him to knock down. Then another man who was with me came up and killed him, and they got me down and carried me back, and I was weeks before I was about again. That was something more than a coincidence, I think. There were some twenty men out with us, and just the four he had pointed out were hurt, and no others.
“I have seen scores of other cases in which these predictions have come true, especially in cases of disease; though I grant that here the predictions often bring about their own fulfilment. If a native is told by a fakir, or holy man, that he is going to die, he makes no struggle to live. In several cases I have seen natives, whose deaths have been predicted, die, without, as far as my science could tell me, any disease or ailment whatever that should have been fatal to them. They simply sank—died, I should say, from pure fright. But putting aside this class, I have seen enough to convince me that some at least among these fanatics do possess the power of second sight.”
“That is very extraordinary, Doctor. Of course I have heard of second sight among certain old people in Scotland, but I did not believe in it.”
“I should not have believed in it if I had not seen the same thing here in India. I naturally have been interested in it, and have read pretty well everything that has been written about second sight among the Highlanders; and some of the incidents are so well authenticated that I scarcely see how they can be denied. Of course, there is no accounting for it, but it is possible that among what we may call primitive people there are certain intuitions or instincts, call them what you like, that have been lost by civilized people.
“The power of scent in a dog is something so vastly beyond anything we can even imagine possible, that though we put it down to instinct, it is really almost inexplicable. Take the case that dogs have been known to be taken by railway journeys of many hundred miles and to have found their way home again on foot. There is clearly the possession of a power which is to us absolutely unaccountable.
“But here comes your uncle; he will think I have been preaching a sermon to you if you look so grave.”
But Major Hannay was too occupied with his own thoughts to notice Isobel.
“Has anything gone wrong, Major?” the Doctor asked, as he saw his face.
“I have just learnt,” the Major said, “that some more chupaties were brought last night. It is most annoying. I have questioned several of the native officers, and they profess to have no idea whence they came or what is the meaning of them. I wish we could get to the bottom of this thing; it keeps the troops in a ferment. If I could get hold of one of these messengers, I would get out of him all he knew, even if I had to roast him to make him tell.”
“My dear uncle,” Isobel said reprovingly, “I am sure you don't mean what you say.”
“I don't know,” he said, half laughing; “I should certainly consider myself perfectly justified in taking uncommonly strong steps to try to get to the bottom of this business. The thing is going on all over India, and it must mean something, and it is all the worse if taken in connection with this absurd idea about the greased cartridges. I grant that it was an act of folly greasing them at all, when we know the idiotic prejudices the natives have; still, it could hardly have been foreseen that this stir would have been made. The issue of the cartridges has been stopped, but when the natives once get an idea into their minds it is next to impossible to disabuse them of it. It is a tiresome business altogether.”
“Tiffin ready, sahib,” Rumzan interrupted, coming out onto the veranda.
“That is right, Rumzan. Now, Isobel, let us think of more pleasant subjects.”
“We are to go into the Hunters' this evening, uncle,” Isobel said, as she sat down. “There is going to be a famous juggler there. There is a note for you from Mrs. Hunter on the side table.”
“Very well, my dear; some of these fellows are well worth seeing. Bathurst is coming in to dinner. I saw him as he was starting this morning, just as he was going down to the lines, and he accepted. He said he should be able to get back in time. However, I don't suppose he will mind going round with us. I hope you will come, Doctor, to make up the table. I have asked the two boys to come in.”
“I shall have to become a permanent boarder at your establishment, Major. It is really useless my keeping a cook when I am in here nearly half my time. But I will come. I am off for three days tomorrow. A villager came in this morning to beg me to go out to rid them of a tiger that has established himself in their neighborhood, and that is an invitation I never refuse, if I can possibly manage to make time for it. Fortunately everyone is so healthy here at present that I can be very well spared.”
At dinner the subject of juggling came up again, and the two subalterns expressed their opinion strongly that it was all humbug.
“Dr. Wade believes in it, Mr. Wilson,” Isobel said.
“You don't say so, Doctor; I should have thought you were the last sort of man who would have believed in conjurers.”
“It requires a wise man to believe, Wilson,” the Doctor said; “any fool can scoff; the wise man questions. When you have been here as long as I have, and if you ever get as much sense as I have, which is doubtful, you may be less positive in your ideas, if you can call them ideas.”
“That is one for me,” Wilson said good humoredly, while the others laughed.
“Well, I have never seen them, Doctor, except those fellows who come around to the veranda, and I have seen conjurers at home do ever so much better tricks than they.”
“What do you think of them, Mr. Bathurst?” Isobel asked. “I suppose you have seen some of the better sort?”
“I do not know what to think of them, Miss Hannay. I used to be rather of Wilson's opinion, but I have seen things since that I could not account for at all. There was a man here two or three months back who astounded me.”
“Mrs. Hunter said that the girls had had no opportunity of seeing a good conjurer since they came out, Mr. Bathurst. I suppose they did know this man you are speaking of being here?”
“He was only here for a few hours, Miss Hannay. I had happened to meet him before, and he gave me a private performance, which was quite different to anything I have ever seen, though I had often heard of the feats he had performed. I was so impressed with them that I can assure you that for a few days I had great difficulty in keeping my mind upon my work.”
“What did he do, Mr. Bathurst?”
Bathurst related the feat of the disappearing girl.
“She must have jumped down when you were not looking,” Richards said, with an air or conviction.
“Possibly,” Bathurst replied quietly; “but as I was within three or four yards of the pole, and it was perfectly distinct in the light of my lamp, and as I certainly saw her till she was some thirty or forty feet up in the air I don't see how she can have managed it. For, even supposing she could have sprung down that distance without being hurt, she would not have come down so noiselessly that I should not have heard her.”
“Still, if she did not come down that way, how could she have come?” Wilson said.
“That is exactly what I can't make out,” Bathurst replied. “If it should happen to be the same man, and he will do the same thing again, I fancy you will be as much puzzled as I was.”
After dinner was over the party walked across to Mr. Hunter's bungalow, where, in a short time, the other officers, their wives, and all the other residents at the station were assembled. Chairs were placed in the veranda for the ladies, and a number of lamps hung on the wall, so that a strong light was thrown upon the ground in front of it. In addition, four posts had been driven into the ground some twenty feet from the veranda, and lamps had been fastened upon them.
“I don't know whether the juggler will like that,” Mr. Hunter said, “and I shan't light them if he objects. I don't think myself it is quite fair having a light behind him; still, if he agrees, it will be hardly possible for him to make the slightest movement without being seen.”
The juggler, who was sitting round at the other side of the house, was now called up. He and the girl, who followed him, salaamed deeply, and made an even deeper bow to Bathurst, who was standing behind Isobel's chair.
“You must have paid them well, Bathurst,” Major Hannay said. “They have evidently a lively remembrance of past favors. I suppose they are the same you were talking about?”
“Yes, they are the same people, Major.” Then he said in the native dialect to the juggler, “Mr. Hunter has put some posts with lamps behind you, Rujub, but he hasn't lit them because he did not know whether you would object.”
“They can be lighted, sahib. My feats do not depend on darkness. Any of the sahibs who like to stand behind us can do so if they do not come within the line of those posts.”
“Let us go out there,” Wilson said to Richards, when the answer was translated; “we will light the lamps, and we shall see better there than we shall see here.”
The two went round to the other side and lit the lamps, and the servants stood a short distance off on either side.
The first trick shown was the well known mango tree. The juggler placed a seed in the ground, poured some water upon it from a lota, and covered it with a cloth. In two or three minutes he lifted this, and a plant four or five inches high was seen. He covered this with a tall basket, which he first handed round for inspection. On removing this a mango tree some three feet high, in full bloom, was seen. It was again covered, and when the basket was removed it was seen to be covered with ripe fruit, eliciting exclamations of astonishment from those among the spectators who had not before seen the trick performed.
“Now, Wilson,” the Doctor said, “perhaps you will be kind enough to explain to us all how this was done?”
“I have no more idea than Adam, Doctor.”
“Then we will leave it to Richards. He promised us at dinner to keep his eyes well open.”
Richards made no reply.
“How was it done, Mr. Bathurst? It seems almost like a miracle.”
“I am as ignorant as Wilson is, Miss Hannay. I can't account for it in any way, and I have seen it done a score of times. Ah! now he is going to do the basket trick. Don't be alarmed when you hear the girl cry out. You may be quite sure that she is not hurt. The father is deeply attached to her, and would not hurt a hair of her head.”
Again the usual methods were adopted. The basket was placed on the ground and the girl stepped into it, without the pretense of fear usually exhibited by the performers.
Before the trick began Major Hannay said to Captain Doolan, “Come round with me to the side of those boys. I know the first time I saw it done I was nearly throwing myself on the juggler, and Wilson is a hot headed boy, and is likely as not to do so. If he did, the man would probably go off in a huff and show us nothing more. From what Bathurst said, we are likely to see something unusual.”
As soon as the lid was put down, an apparently angry colloquy took place between the juggler and the girl inside. Presently the man appeared to become enraged, and snatching up a long, straight sword from the ground, ran it three or four times through the basket.
A loud shriek followed the first thrust, and then all was silent.
Some of the ladies rose to their feet with a cry of horror, Isobel among them. Wilson and Richards both started to rush forward, but were seized by the collars by the Major and Captain Doolan.
“Will you open the basket?” the juggler said quietly to Mrs. Hunter. As she had seen the trick before she stepped forward without hesitation, opened the lid of the basket and said, “It is empty.” The juggler took it up, and held it up, bottom upwards.
“What on earth has become of the girl?” Wilson exclaimed.
As he spoke she passed between him and Richards back to her father's side.
“Well, I am dashed,” Wilson murmured. “I would not have believed it if fifty people had sworn to me they had seen it.” He was too much confounded even to reply, when the Doctor sarcastically said: “We are waiting for your explanation, gentlemen.”
“Will you ask him, Major,” Richards said, as he wiped his forehead with his pocket handkerchief, “to make sure that she is solid?”
The Major translated the request, and the girl at once came across, and Richards touched her with evident doubt as to whether on not she were really flesh and blood.
There was much curiosity among those who had seen jugglers before as to what would be the next feat, for generally those just seen were the closing ones of a performance, but as these were the first it seemed that those to follow must be extraordinary indeed.
The next feat was the one shown to Bathurst, and was performed exactly as upon that occasion, except that as the girl rose beyond the circle of light she remained distinctly visible, a sort of phosphoric light playing around her. Those in the veranda had come out now, the juggler warning them not to approach within six feet of the pole.
Higher and higher the girl went, until those below judged her to be at least a hundred and fifty feet from the ground. Then the light died out, and she disappeared from their sight. There was silence for a minute or two, and then the end of the pole could be seen descending without her. Another minute, and it was reduced to the length it had been at starting.
The spectators were silent now; the whole thing was so strange and mysterious that they had no words to express their feeling.
The juggler said something which Mr. Hunter translated to be a request for all to resume their places.
“That is a wonderful trick,” the Doctor said to Bathurst. “I have never seen it done that way before, but I once saw a juggler throw up a rope into the air; how high it went I don't know, for, like this, it was done at night, but it stood up perfectly stiff, and the juggler's attendant climbed up. He went higher and higher, and we could hear his voice coming down to us. At last it stopped, and then suddenly the rope fell in coils on the ground, and the boy walked quietly in, just as that girl has done now.”
The girl now placed herself in the center of the open space.
“You will please not to speak while this trick is being performed,” the juggler said; “harm might come of it. Watch the ground near her feet.”
A minute later a dark object made its appearance from the ground. It rose higher and higher with an undulating movement.
“By Jove, it is a python!” the Doctor whispered in Bathurst's ear. A similar exclamation broke from several of the others, but the juggler waved his hand with an authoritative hush. The snake rose until its head towered above that of the girl, and then began to twine itself round her, continuously rising from the ground until it enveloped her with five coils, each thicker than a man's arm. It raised its head above hers and hissed loudly and angrily; then its tail began to descend, gradually the coils unwound themselves; lower and lower it descended until it disappeared altogether.
It was some time before anyone spoke, so great was the feeling of wonder. The Doctor was the first to break the silence.
“I have never seen that before,” he said, “though I have heard of it from a native Rajah.”
“Would the sahibs like to see more?” the juggler asked.
The two Miss Hunters, Mrs. Rintoul, and several of the others said they had seen enough, but among the men there was expressed a general wish to see another feat.
“I would not have missed this for anything,” the Doctor said. “It would be simple madness to throw away such a chance.”
The ladies, therefore, with the exception of Mrs. Hunter, Mrs. Doolan, and Isobel, retired into the house.
“You must all go on one side now,” the juggler said, “for it is only on one side what I am now going to do can be seen.”
He then proceeded to light a fire of charcoal. When he had done this, he said, “The lights must now be extinguished and the curtains drawn, so that the light will not stream out from the house.”
As soon as this was done he poured a powder over the fire, and by its faint light the cloud of white smoke could be seen.
“Now I will show you the past,” he said. “Who speaks?”
There was silence, and then Dr. Wade said, “Show me my past.”
A faint light stole up over the smoke—it grew brighter and brighter; and then a picture was clearly seen upon it.
It was the sea, a house standing by itself in a garden, and separated from the water only by a road. Presently the figure of a girl appeared at the gate, and, stepping out, looked down the road as if waiting for someone. They could make out all the details of her dress and see her features distinctly. A low exclamation broke from the Doctor, then the picture gradually faded away.
“The future!” the juggler said, and gradually an Indian scene appeared on the smoke. It was a long, straight road, bordered by a jungle. A native was seen approaching; he paused in the foreground.
“That is you, Doctor!” Mr. Hunter exclaimed; “you are got up as a native, but it's you.”
Almost at the same moment two figures came out from the jungle. They were also in native dress.
“You and Miss Hannay,” the Doctor said in a low tone to Bathurst, “dressed like a native and dyed.” But no one else detected the disguise, and the picture again faded away.
“That is enough, Rujub,” Bathurst said, for he felt Isobel lean back heavily against the hand which he held at the back of her chair, and felt sure that she had fainted.
“Draw back the curtains, someone; I fancy this has been too much for Miss Hannay.”
The curtains were thrown back, and Mrs. Hunter, running in, brought out a lamp. The Doctor had already taken his place by Isobel's side.
“Yes, she has fainted,” he said to Bathurst; “carry her in her chair as she is, so that she may be in the room when she comes to.”
This was done.
“Now, gentlemen,” the Doctor said, “you had better light the lamps again out here, and leave the ladies and me to get Miss Hannay round.”
When the lamps were lit it was evident that the whole of the men were a good deal shaken by what they had seen.
“Well,” Mr. Hunter said, “they told me he was a famous juggler, but that beat anything I have seen before. I have heard of such things frequently from natives, but it is very seldom that Europeans get a chance of seeing them.”
“I don't want to see anything of the sort again,” Major Hannay said; “it shakes one's notions of things in general. I fancy, Hunter, that we shall want a strong peg all round to steady our nerves. I own that I feel as shaky as a boy who thinks he sees a ghost on his way through a churchyard.”
There was a general murmur of agreement and the materials were quickly brought.
“Well, Wilson, what do you and Richards think of it?” the Major went on, after he had braced himself up with a strong glass of brandy and water. “I should imagine you both feel a little less skeptical than you did two hours ago.”
“I don't know what Richards feels, Major, but I know I feel like a fool. I am sorry, Bathurst, for what I said at dinner; but it really didn't seem to me to be possible what you told us about the girl going up into the air and not coming down again. Well, after I have seen what I have seen this evening, I won't disbelieve anything I hear in future about these natives.”
“It was natural enough that you should be incredulous,” Bathurst said. “I should have been just as skeptical as you were when I first came out, and I have been astonished now, though I have seen some good jugglers before.”
At this moment the Doctor came out again.
“Miss Hannay is all right again now, Major. I am not surprised at her fainting; old hand as I am at these matters, and I think that I have seen as much or more juggling than any man in India. I felt very queer myself, specially at the snake business. As I said, I have seen that ascension trick before, but how it is done I have no more idea than a child. Those smoke scenes, too, are astonishing. Of course they could be accounted for as thrown upon a column of white smoke by a magic lantern, but there was certainly no magic lantern here. The juggler was standing close to me, and the girl was sitting at his feet. I watched them both closely, and certainly they had no apparatus about them by which such views could be thrown on the smoke.”
“You recognized the first scene, I suppose, Doctor?” Bathurst asked.
“Perfectly. It took me back twenty-five years. It was a cottage near Sidmouth, and was correct in every minute detail. The figure was that of the young lady I married four years afterwards. Many a time have I seen her standing just like that, as I went along the road to meet her from the little inn at which I was stopping; the very pattern of her dress, which I need hardly say has never been in my mind all these years, was recalled to me.
“Had I been thinking of the scene at the time I could have accounted for it somehow, upon the theory that in some way or other the juggler was conscious of my thought and reflected it upon the smoke—how, I don't at all mean to say; but undoubtedly there exists, to some extent, the power of thought reading. It is a mysterious subject, and one of which we know absolutely nothing at present, but maybe in upwards of a hundred years mankind will have discovered many secrets of nature in that direction. But I certainly was not thinking of that scene when I spoke and said the 'past.' I had no doubt that he would show me something of the past, but certainly no particular incident passed through my mind before that picture appeared on the smoke.”
“The other was almost as curious, Doctor,” Captain Doolan said, “for it was certainly you masquerading as a native. I believe the other was Bathurst; it struck me so; and he seemed to be running off with some native girl. What on earth could that all mean?”
“It is no use puzzling ourselves about it,” the Doctor said. “It may or may not come true. I have no inclination to go about dressed out as a native at present, but there is no saying what I may come to. There is quite enough for us to wonder at in the other things. The mango and basket tricks I have seen a dozen times, and am no nearer now than I was at first to understanding them. That ascension trick beats me altogether, and there was something horribly uncanny about the snake.”
“Do you think it was a real snake, Doctor?”
“That I cannot tell you, Richards. Every movement was perfectly natural. I could see the working of the ribs as it wound itself round the girl, and the quivering of its tongue as it raised its head above her. At any other time I should be ready to take my affidavit that it was a python of unusual size, but at the present moment I should not like to give a decided opinion about anything connected with the performance.”
“I suppose it is no use asking the juggler any questions, Hunter?” one of the other men said.
“Not in the least; they never do answer questions. The higher class of jugglers treat their art as a sort of religious mystery, and there is no instance known of their opening their lips, although large sums have frequently been offered them. In the present case you will certainly ask no questions, for the man and girl have both disappeared with the box and apparatus and everything connected with them. They must have slipped off directly the last trick was over, and before we had the lamp lighted. I sent after him at once, but the servant could find no signs of him. I am annoyed because I have not paid them.”