Parry's departure served as a hint to Noreen that it was time for her to say good-night to her guests and withdraw. As soon as she left the room there was an instant hush of expectancy, and all eyes were turned to Dermot. The servants had long since gone, but, after asking his host's permission, he rose from his place and strolled with apparent carelessness to each doorway in turn and satisfied himself that there were no eavesdroppers. Then he shut the doors and asked members of the party to station themselves on guard at each of them. The planters watched these precautions with surprise.
Having thus made sure that he would not be overheard Dermot said:
"Gentlemen, a few of you already know something of what I am going to tell you. I want you to understand that I am now speaking officially and in strict confidence."
He turned to his host.
"I must ask you, Mr. Daleham (Fred looked up in surprise at the formality of the mode of address) to promise to divulge nothing of what I say to your friend, Mr. Chunerbutty."
"Not tell Chunerbutty, sir?" repeated the young planter in astonishment.
"No; the matter is one which must not be mentioned to any but Europeans."
"Oh, but I assure you, Major, Chunerbutty's thoroughly loyal and reliable," said Daleham warmly.
"I repeat that you are not to give him the least inkling of what I am going to say," replied Dermot in a quiet but stern voice. "As I have already told you, I am speaking officially."
The boy was impressed and a little awed by his manner.
"Oh, certainly, sir. I give you my word that I shan't mention it to him."
"Very well. The fact is, gentlemen, that we are on the track of a vast conspiracy against British rule in India, and have reason to believe that the activity of the disloyalists in Bengal has spread to this district. We suspect that the Brahmins who, very much to the surprise of any one acquainted with the ways of their caste, are working as coolies on your gardens, are really emissaries of the seditionists."
"By George, is that really so, Major?" asked a young planter in a doubting tone. "We have a couple of these Bengalis on our place, and they seem such quiet, harmless chaps."
"The Major is quite right. I know it," said one of the oldest men present. "I confess that it didn't occur to me as strange that Brahmins should take such low-caste work until he told me. But I have found since, as others of us have, that these men are the secret cause of all the trouble and unrest that we have had lately among our coolies, to whom they preach sedition and revolution."
Several other estate managers corroborated his statement.
"But surely, sir, you don't suspect Chunerbutty of being mixed up in this?" asked Daleham. "He's been a friend of mine for a long time. I lived with him in London, and I'm certain he is quite loyal and pro-British."
"I know nothing of him, Daleham," replied the soldier. "But he is a Bengali Brahmin, one of the race and caste that are responsible for most of the sedition in India, and we must take precautions."
"I'd stake my life on him," exclaimed the boy hotly. "He's been a good friend to me, and I'll answer for him."
Dermot did not trouble to argue the matter further with him, but said to the company generally:
"This outrageous attempt to carry off Miss Daleham—"
"Oh, but you said yourself, sir, that the ruffians were Bhuttias," broke in the boy, still nourishing a grievance at the mistrust of his friend.
Dermot turned to him again.
"Do Bhuttias talk to each other in Bengali? The leader gave his orders in that language to one man—who, by the way, was the only one he spoke to—and that man passed them on to the others in Bhutanese."
This statement caused a sensation in the company.
"By Jove, is that a fact, Dermot?" cried Payne.
"Yes. These two were the men I shot. Do Bhuttias, unless they have just looted a garden successfully—and we know these fellows had not—carry sums like this?" And Dermot threw on the supper-table a cloth in which coins were wrapped. "Open that, Payne, and count the money, please."
All bent forward and watched as the planter opened the knot fastening the cloth and poured out a stream of bright rupees, the silver coin of India roughly equivalent to a florin. There was silence while he counted them.
"A hundred," he said.
Dermot laid on the table a new automatic pistol and several clips of cartridges.
"Bhuttias from across the border do not possess weapons like these, as you know. Nor do they carry English-made pocket-books with contents like those this one has."
He handed a leather case to Granger who opened it and took out a packet of bank notes and counted them. "Eight hundred and fifty rupees," he said.
The men around him looked at the notes and at each other. A young engineer whistled and said: "Whew! It pays to be a brigand. I'll turn robber myself, I think. Poor but honest man that I am I have never gazed on so much wealth before. Hullo! What's that bit of string?"
Dermot had taken from his pocket the cord that he had cut from the corpse of the second raider and laid it on the table.
"Perhaps some of you may not be sufficiently well acquainted with Indian customs to know what this is."
"I'm blessed if I am, Major," said the engineer. "What is it?"
"It's thejaneo, or sacred cord worn by the three highest of the original Hindu castes as a symbol of their second or spiritual birth and to mark the distinction between their noble twice-born selves and the lower caste once-born Súdras. You see it is made up of three strings of spun cotton to symbolise the HinduTrimurti(Trinity), Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and also Earth, Air, and Heaven, the three worlds pervaded by their essence."
"Oh, I see. But where did you get it?" asked the engineer.
"Off the body of the second man that I shot, together with the pistol and pocket-book. Now, Bhuttias do not wear thejaneo, not being Hindus. But high-caste Hindus do—and a Brahmin would never be without it."
"Oh, no. So you mean that the man wasn't a Bhuttia?"
"This is the last exhibit, as they say in the Law Courts," said Dermot, producing a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. "You don't find Bhuttias wearing these."
"By Jove, no," said Granger, taking them up and trying them. "Damned good glasses, these, and cost a bit, too."
Dermot turned towards Daleham.
"Do you remember showing me on this garden one day a coolie whom you said was a B.A. of Calcutta University?"
"Yes; he was called Narain Dass," replied Fred. "We spoke to him, you recollect, Major? He talked excellent English of thebabusort."
"What has happened to him?"
"I don't know. He disappeared a short time ago. Deserted, I suppose, though I don't see why he should. He was getting on well here."
Dermot smiled grimly and touched the cord and spectacles.
"The man who wore these, who led the Bhuttias in the raid, was Narain Dass."
These was a moment's amazed silence in the room. Then a hubbub arose, and there was a chorus of exclamations and questions.
"Good Heavens, is it possible, Major? He appeared to be such a decent, civil chap," exclaimed Daleham.
"His face seemed familiar to me, as he lay dead on the ground," replied Dermot. "I couldn't place him, though, until I found the spectacles. I put them on his nose, and then I knew him. His hair was cropped close, he was wearing Bhuttia clothes, but it was Narain Dass, the University graduate who was working as a coolie for a fewannasa day."
"And he had eight hundred and fifty rupees on him," added the young engineer.
"Yes; and if all the Bhuttias had as much as the one shot that meant over two thousand."
"Where did they get it?"
"Who is behind all this?"
"The seditionists, of course," said an elderly planter.
"Yes; but today it isn't a question of an isolated outrage on one Englishwoman, nor of a few Bengali lawyers in Calcutta and their dupes among hot-headed students and ignorant peasants," said Dermot. "It's the biggest thing we've ever had to face yet in India. What we want to get at is the head and brains of the conspiracy."
"What do you make of this attempt on Miss Daleham?" asked Granger. "What was the object of it?"
"Probably just terrorism. They wanted to show that no one is secure under our rule. It may be that Narain Dass, who had worked on this garden and seen Miss Daleham, suggested it. They may have thought that the carrying off of an Englishwoman would make more impression than the mere bombing of a police officer or a magistrate—we are too used to that."
"But why employ Bhuttias?" asked Payne.
"To throw the pursuers off the track and prevent their being run down. The search would stop if we thought they'd gone across the frontier, so they could get away easily. When they had got Miss Daleham safely hidden away in the labyrinths of a native bazaar, perhaps in Calcutta, they'd have let everyone know who had carried her off."
"Who was the other fellow with Narain Dass—the chap who talked Bengali?"
"Probably a Bhuttia who knew the language was given the Brahmin as an interpreter."
"But I say, Major," cried a planter, "who the devil were the lot that attacked you?"
"I'm hanged if I know," Dermot answered. "I have been inclined to believe them to be a gang of politicaldacoits, probably coming to meet the Bhuttias and take Miss Daleham from them, but in that case they would have been young Brahmins and better armed. This lot were low-caste men and their weapons were mostly old muzzle-loading muskets."
"Perhaps they were just ordinarydacoits," hazarded a planter.
"Possibly; but they must have been new to the business," replied the Major. "For there wouldn't be much of an opening for robbers in the middle of the forest."
"It's a puzzle. I can't make it out," said Granger, shaking his head.
The others discussed the subject for some time, but no one could elucidate the mystery. At length Dermot said to Daleham:
"No answer has come to that telegram you sent to Ranga Duar, I suppose?"
"No, Major; though there's been plenty of time for a reply."
"It's strange. Parker would have answered at once if he'd got the wire, I know," said Dermot. "But did he? Most of the telegraph clerks in this Province are Brahmins—I don't trust them. Anyhow, if Parker did receive the wire, he'd start a party off at once. It's a long forty miles, and marching through the jungle is slow work. They couldn't get here before dawn. And the men would be pretty done up."
"I bet they would if they had to go through the forest in the dark," said a planter.
"Well, I want to start at daybreak to search the scene of the attack on us and the place where I came on the Bhuttias. Will some of you fellows come with me?"
"Rather. We'll all go," was the shout from all at the table.
"Thanks. We may round up some of the survivors."
"I say, Major, would you tell us a thing that's puzzled me, and I daresay more than me?" ventured a young assistant manager, voicing the thoughts of others present. "How the deuce did those wild elephants happen to turn up just in the nick of time for you?"
"They were probably close by and the firing disturbed them," was the careless answer.
"H'm; very curious, wasn't it, Major?" said Granger. "You know the habits of thejungli hathibetter than most other people. Wouldn't they be far more likely to run away from the firing than right into it?"
"As a rule. But when wild elephants stampede in a panic they'll go through anything."
The assistant manager was persistent.
"But how did your elephant chance to join up with them?" he asked. "Judging by the look of him he took a very prominent part in clearing your enemies off."
"Oh, Badshah is a fighter. I daresay if there was a scrap anywhere near him he'd like to be in it," replied Dermot lightly, and tried to change the conversation.
But the others insisted on keeping to the subject. They had all been curious as to the truth of the stories about Dermot's supposed miraculous power over wild elephants, but no one had ever ventured to question him on the subject before.
"I suppose you know, Major, that the natives have some wonderful tales about Badshah?" said a planter.
"Yes; and of you, too, sir," said the young assistant manager. "They think you both some special brand of gods."
"I'm not surprised," said the Major with assumed carelessness. "They're ready to deify anything. They will see a god in a stone or a tree. You know they looked on the famous John Nicholson during the Mutiny as a god, and made a cult of him. There are still men who worship him."
"They're prepared to do that to you, Major," said Granger frankly. "Barrett is quite right. They call you the Elephant God."
Dermot laughed and stood up.
"Oh, natives will believe anything," he said. "If you'll excuse me now, Daleham, I'll turn in—or rather, turn out. I'd like to get some sleep, for we've an early start before us."
"Yes, we'd better all do the same," said Granger, rising too. "How are you going to bed us all down, Daleham? Bit of a job, isn't it?"
"We'll manage all right," replied the young host. "I told the servants to spread all the mattresses and charpoys that they could raise anywhere out on the verandah and in the spare rooms. I'm short of mosquito curtains, though. Some of you will get badly bitten tonight."
"I'll go to old Parr's bungalow and steal his," said Granger. "He's too drunk to feel any 'skeeter biting him."
"I pity the mosquito that does," joined in a young planter laughing. "The poor insect would die of alcoholic poisoning."
"I've given you my room, Major," said Daleham. "I know the other fellows won't mind."
No persuasion, however, could make Dermot accept the offer. While the others slept in the bungalow, he lay under the stars beside his elephant. The house was wrapped in darkness. In the huts in the compound the servants still gossiped about the extraordinary events of the day, but gradually they too lay down and pulled their blankets over their heads, and all was silence. But a few hundred yards away a lamp still burned in Chunerbutty's bungalow where the Hindu sat staring at the wall of his room, wondering what had happened that day and what had been said in the Dalehams' dining-room that night. For he had prowled about their house in the darkness and seen the company gathered around the supper-table. And he had watched Dermot shut the door between the room and the verandah, and guessed that things were to be said that Indians were not meant to hear. So through the night he sat motionless in his chair with mind and heart full of bitterness, cursing the soldier by all he held unholy.
Long before dawn Noreen, refreshed by sleep and quite recovered from the fatigues and alarms of the previous day, was up to superintend the early meal that her servants prepared for the departing company. No one but her brother was returning to Malpura, the others were to scatter to their own gardens when Dermot had finished with them.
As the girl said good-bye to the planters she warmly thanked each one for his chivalrous readiness to come to her aid. But to the soldier she found it hard, impossible, to say all that was in her heart, and to an onlooker her farewell to him would have seemed abrupt, almost cold. But he understood her, and long after he had vanished from sight she seemed to feel the friendly pressure of his hand on hers. When she went to her rooms the tears filled her eyes, as she kissed the fingers that his had held.
Out in the forest the Major led the way on Badshah, the ponies of his followers keeping at a respectful distance from the elephant. When nearing the scene of the fight the tracks of the avenging herd were plain to see, and soon the party came upon ghastly evidences of the tragedy. The buzzing of innumerable flies guided the searchers to spots in the undergrowth where the scattered corpses lay. As each was reached a black cloud of blood-drunk winged insects rose in the air from the loathsome mass of red, crushed pulp, but trains of big ants came and went undisturbed. The dense foliage had hidden the battered, shapeless bodies from the eyes of the soaring vultures high up in the blue sky, otherwise nothing but scattered bones would have remained. Now the task of scavenging was left to the insects.
Over twenty corpses were found. When an angry elephant has wreaked his rage on a man the result is something that is difficult to recognise as the remains of a human being. So out of the twenty, the attackers shot by Dermot were the only ones whose bodies were in a fit state to be examined. But they afforded no clue to the identity of the mysterious assailants. The men appeared to have been low-caste Hindus of the coolie class. They carried nothing on their persons except a little food—a few brokenchupatis, a handful of coarse grain, an onion or two, and a fewcardamomstied up in a bit of cloth. Each had a powder-flask and a small bag with some spherical bullets in it hung on a string passed over one shoulder. The weapons found were mostly old Tower muskets, the marks on which showed that at one time they had belonged to various native regiments in the service of the East India Company. But there were two or three fairly modern rifles of French or German make.
These latter Dermot tied on his elephant, and, as there was nothing further to be learned here, he led the way to the other spot which he wished to visit. But when, after a canter along the narrow, winding track through the dense undergrowth, jumping fallen trees and dodging overhanging branches, the party drew near the open glade in which Dermot had overtaken the raiders, a chorus of loud and angry squawks, the rushing sound of heavy wings and the rustling of feathered bodies prepared them for disappointment. When they entered it there was nothing to be seen but two struggling groups of vultures jostling and fighting over what had been human bodies. For the glade was open to the sky and the keen eyes of the foul scavengers had detected the corpses, of which nothing was left now but torn clothing, mangled flesh, and scattered bones. So there was no possibility of Daleham's deciding if Dermot had been right in believing that one of the two raiders that he had killed was the Calcutta Bachelor of Arts. On the whole the search had proved fruitless, for no further clue to the identity of either body of miscreants was found.
So the riders turned back. At various points of the homeward journey members of the party went off down tracks leading in the direction of their respective gardens, and there was but a small remnant left when Dermot said good-bye, after hearty thanks from Daleham and cheery farewells from the others.
He did not reach the Fort until the following day. There he learned that Parker had never received the telegram asking for help. Subsequent enquiries from the telegraph authorities only elicited the statement that the line had been broken between Barwahi and Ranga Duar. As where it passed through the forest accidents to it from trees knocked down by elephants or brought down by natural causes were frequent, it was impossible to discover the truth, but the fact that nearly all the telegraph officials were Bengali Brahmins made Dermot doubtful. But he was able to report the happenings to Simla by cipher messages over the line.
Parker was furious because the information had failed to reach him. He had missed the opportunity of marching a party of his men down to the rescue of Miss Daleham and his commanding officer, and he was not consoled by the latter pointing out to him that it would have been impossible for him to have arrived in time for the fight.
Two days after Dermot's return to the Fort he was informed that three Bhuttias wanted to see him. On going out on to the verandah of his bungalow he found an old man whom he recognised as the headman of a mountain village just inside the British border, ten miles from Ranga Duar. Beside him stood two sturdy young Bhuttias with a hang-dog expression on their Mongol-like faces.
The headman, who was one of those in Dermot's pay, saluted and, dragging forward his two companions, bade them say what they had come there to say. Each of the young men pulled out of the breast of his jacket a little cloth-wrapped parcel, and, opening it, poured a stream of bright silver rupees at the feet of the astonished Major. Then they threw themselves on their knees before him, touched the ground with their foreheads, and implored his pardon, saying that they had sinned against him in ignorance and offered in atonement the price of their crime.
Dermot turned enquiringly to the headman, who explained that the two had taken part in the carrying off of the whitemem, and being now convinced that they had in so doing offended a very powerful being—god or devil—had come to implore his pardon.
Their story was soon told. They said that they had been approached by a certain Bhuttia who, formerly residing in British territory, had been forced to flee to Bhutan by reason of his many crimes. Nevertheless, he made frequent secret visits across the border. For fifty rupees—a princely sum to them—he induced them to agree to join with others in carrying off Miss Daleham. They found subsequently that the real leader of the enterprise was a Hindu masquerading as a Bhuttia.
When they had succeeded in their object they were directed to go to a certain spot in the jungle where they were to be met by another party to which they were to hand over the Englishwoman. Having reached the place first they were waiting for the others when Dermot appeared. So terrible were the tales told in their villages about this dread white man and his mysterious elephant that, believing that he had come to punish them for their crime, all but the two leaders fled in panic. Several of the fugitives ran into the party of armed Hindus which they were to meet, a member of which spoke a certain amount of Bhutanese. Having learned what had happened he ordered them to guide the newcomers' pursuit.
When the attack began the Bhuttias, having no fire-arms, took refuge in trees. So when the herd swept down upon the assailants all the hillmen escaped. But they were witnesses of the terrible vengeance of the powerful devil-man and devil-elephant. When at last they had ventured to descend from the trees that had proved their salvation and returned to their villages these two confided the story to their headman. At his orders they had come to surrender the price of their crime and plead for pardon.
Their story only deepened the mystery, for, when Dermot eagerly questioned them as to the identity of the Hindus, he was again brought up against a blank wall, for they knew nothing of them. He deemed it politic to promise to forgive them and allow them to keep the money that they had received, after he had thoroughly impressed upon them the enormity of their guilt in daring to lay hands upon a white woman. He ordered them as a penance to visit all the Bhuttia villages on each side of the border and tell everyone how terrible was the punishment for such a crime. They were first to seek out their companions in the raid and lay the same task on them. He found afterwards that these latter had hardly waited to be told, for they had already spread broadcast the tale, which grew as it travelled. Before long every mountain and jungle village had heard how the Demon-Man had overtaken the raiders on his marvellous winged elephant, slain some by breathing fire on them and called up from the Lower Hell a troop of devils, half dragons, half elephants, who had torn the other criminals limb from limb or eaten them alive. So, not the fear of the Government, as Dermot intended, but the terror of him and his attendant devil Badshah, lay heavy on the border-side.
Chunerbutty, kept at the soldier's request in utter ignorance of more than the fact that Noreen had been rescued by him from the raiders, had concluded at first that the crime was what it appeared on the surface—a descent of trans-frontier Bhuttias to carry off a white woman for ransom. But when these stories reached the tea-garden villages and eventually came to his ears he was very puzzled. For he knew that, in spite of their extravagance, there was probably a grain of truth somewhere in them. They made him suspect that some other agency had been at work and another reason than hope of money had inspired the outrage.
In the Palace at Lalpuri a tempest raged. The Rajah, mad with fury and disappointed desire, stormed through his apartments, beating his servants and threatening all his satellites with torture and death. For no news had come to him for days as to the success or failure of a project that he had conceived in his diseased brain. Distrusting Chunerbutty, as he did everyone about him, he had sent for Narain Dass, whom he knew as one of theDewan'sagents, and given him the task of executing his original design of carrying off Miss Daleham. To the Bengali's subtle mind had occurred the idea of making the outrage seem the work of Bhuttia raiders. But for Dermot's prompt pursuit his plan would have been crowned with success. The girl, handed over as arranged to a party of the Rajah's soldiers in disguise, would have been taken to the Palace at Lalpuri, while everyone believed her a captive in Bhutan.
At length a few poor wretches, who had escaped their comrades' terrible doom under the feet of the wild elephants and, mad with terror, had wandered in the jungle for days, crept back starved and almost mad to the capital of the State. Only one was rash enough to return to the Palace, while the others, fearing to face their lord when they had only failure to report, hid in the slums of the bazaar. This one was summoned to the Rajah's presence. His tale was heard with unbelief and rage, and he was ordered to be trampled to death by the ruler's trained elephants. Search was made through the bazaar for the other men who had returned, and when they were caught their punishment was more terrible still. Inconceivable tortures were inflicted on them and they were flung half-dead into a pit full of live scorpions and cobras. Even in these enlightened days there are dark corners in India, and in some Native States strange and terrible things still happen. And the tale of them rarely reaches the ear of the representatives of the Suzerain Power or the columns of the daily press.
A dark pall enveloped the mountains, and over Ranga Duar raged one of the terrifying tropical thunderstorms that signalise the rains of India. Unlike more temperate climes this land has but three Seasons. To her the division of the year into Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter means nothing. She knows only the Hot Weather, the Monsoon or Rains, and the Cold Weather. From November to the end of February is the pleasant time of dry, bright, and cool days, with nights that register from three to sixteen degrees of frost in the plains of Central and Northern India. In the Himalayas the snow lies feet deep. The popular idea that Hindustan is always a land of blazing sun and burning heat is entirely wrong. But from March to the end of June it certainly turns itself into a hell of torment for the luckless mortals that cannot fly from the parched plains to the cool mountains. Then from the last days of June, when the Monsoon winds bring up the moisture-laden clouds from the oceans on the south-west of the peninsula, to the beginning or middle of October, India is the Kingdom of Rain. From the grey sky it falls drearily day and night. Outside, the thirsty soil drinks it up gladly. Green things venture timidly out of the parched earth, then shoot up as rapidly as the beanstalk of the fairy tale. But inside houses dampness reigns. Green fungus adorns boots and all things of leather, tobacco reeks with moisture, and the white man scratches himself and curses the plague of prickly heat.
But while tens of thousands of Europeans and hundreds of millions of natives suffer greatly in the tortures of Heat and Wet for eight weary months of the year in the Plains of India, up in the magic realm of the Hills, in the pleasure colonies like Simla, Mussourie, Naini Tal, Darjeeling, and Ootacamund, existence during those same months is one long spell of gaiety and comfort for the favoured few. These hill-stations make life in India worth living for the lucky English women and men who can take refuge in them. And incidentally they are responsible for more domestic unhappiness in Anglo-Indian households than any other cause. It is said that while in the lower levels of the land many roads lead to the Divorce Court, in the Hillsalldo.
For wives must needs go alone to the hill-stations, as a rule. India is not a country for idlers. Every white man in it has work to do, otherwise he would not be in that land at all. Husbands therefore cannot always accompany their spouses to the mountains, and, when they do, can rarely contrive to remain there for six months or longer of the Season. Consequently the wives are often very lonely in the big hotels that abound on the hill-tops, and sometimes drift into dependence on bachelors on leave for daily companionship, for escort to the many social functions, for regular dancing partners. And so trouble is bred.
Major Dermot was no lover of these mountain Capuas of Hindustan, and had gladly escaped from Simla, chiefest of them all. Yet now he sat in his little stone bungalow in Ranga Duar, while the terrific thunder crashed and roared among the hills, and read with a pleased smile an official letter ordering him to proceed forthwith to Darjeeling—as gay a pleasure colony as any—to meet the General Commanding the Division, who was visiting the place on inspection duty. For the same post had brought him a letter from Noreen Daleham which told him that she was then, and had been for some time, in that hill-station.
The climate of the Terai, unpleasantly but not unbearably hot in the summer months, is pestilential and deadly during the rains, when malaria and the more dreaded black-water fever take toll of the strongest. Noreen had suffered in health in the hot weather, and her brother was seriously concerned at the thought of her being obliged to remain in Malpura throughout the Monsoon. He could not take her to the Hills; it was impossible for him to absent himself even for a few days from the garden, for the care and management of it was devolving more and more every day on him, owing to the intemperate habits of Parry.
Fred Daleham's relief was great when his sister unexpectedly received a letter from a former school-friend who two years before had married a man in the Indian Civil Service. Noreen, who was a good deal her junior, had corresponded regularly with her, and she now wrote to say that she was going to Darjeeling for the Season and suggested that Noreen should join her there. Much as the prospect of seeing a friend whom she had idolised, appealed to the girl (to say nothing of the gaieties of a hill-station and the pleasure of seeing shops, real shops, again), she was nevertheless unwilling to leave her brother. But Fred insisted on her going.
From Darjeeling she told Dermot in a long and chatty epistle all her sensations and experiences in this new world. It was her first real letter to him, although she had written him a few short notes from Malpura. It was interesting and clever, without any attempt to be so, and Dermot was surprised at the accuracy of her judgment of men and things and the vividness of her descriptions. He noticed, moreover, that the social gaieties of Darjeeling did not engross her. She enjoyed dancing, but the many balls, At Homes, and other social functions did not attract her so much as the riding and tennis, the sight-seeing, the glimpses of the strange and varied races that fill the Darjeeling bazaar, and, above all, the glories of the superb scenery where the ice-crowned monarch of all mountains, Kinchinjunga, forty miles away—though not seeming five—and twenty-nine thousand feet high, towers up above the white line of the Eternal Snows.
Dermot was critically pleased with the letter. Few men—and he least of all—care for an empty-headed doll whose only thoughts are of dress and fashionable entertainments. He liked the girl for her love of sport and action, for her intelligence, and the interest she took in the varied native life around her. He was almost tempted to think that her letter betrayed some desire for his companionship in Darjeeling, for in it she constantly wondered what he would think of this, what he would say of that.
But he put the idea from him, though he smiled as he re-read his orders and thought of her surprise when she saw him in Darjeeling. Would she really be pleased to meet her friend of the jungle in the gay atmosphere of a pleasure colony? Like most men who are not woman-hunters he set a very modest value on himself and did not rate highly his power of attraction for the opposite sex. Therefore, he thought it not unlikely that the girl might consider him as a desirable enough acquaintance for the forest but a bore in a ballroom. In this he was unjust to her.
He was surprised to discover that he looked forward with pleasure to seeing her again, for women as a rule did not interest him. Noreen was the first whom he had met that gave him the feeling of companionship, of comradeship, that he experienced with most men. She was not more clever, more talented, or better educated than most English girls are, but she had the capacity of taking interest in many things outside the ordinary range of topics. Above all, she inspired him with the pleasant sense of "chum-ship," than which there is no happier, more durable bond of union between a man and a woman.
The Season brought the work in which Dermot was engaged to a standstill, and, keen lover of sport as he was, he was not tempted to risk the fevers of the jungle. Life in the small station of Ranga Duar was dull indeed. Day and night the rain rattled incessantly on the iron roofs of the bungalows—six or eight inches in twenty-four hours being not unusual. Thunderstorms roared and echoed among the hills for twenty or thirty hours at a stretch. All outdoor work or exercise was impossible. The outpost was nearly always shrouded in dense mist. Insect pests abounded. Scorpions and snakes invaded the buildings. Outside, from every blade of grass, every leaf and twig, a thin and hungry leech waved its worm-like, yellow-striped body in the air, seeming to scent any approaching man or beast on which it could fasten and gorge itself fat with blood. Certainly a small station on the face of the Himalayas is not a desirable place of residence during the rains, and to persons of melancholy temperament would be conducive to suicide or murder. Fortunately for themselves the two white men in Ranga Duar took life cheerily and were excellent friends.
By this time Noreen considered herself quite an old resident of Darjeeling. But she had felt the greatest reluctance to go when her brother had helped her into the dogcart for the long drive to the railway. Fred was unable to take her even as far as the train, for his manager had one of his periodic attacks of what was euphemistically termed his "illness." But Chunerbutty volunteered to escort Noreen to the hills, as he had been summoned again to his sick father's side, the said parent being supposed to be in attendance on his Rajah who had taken a house in Darjeeling for the season. As a matter of fact his worthy progenitor had never left Lalpuri. However, Daleham knew nothing of that, and, being empowered to do so when Parry was incapacitated, gladly gave him permission to go and gratefully accepted his offer to look after the girl on the journey.
Noreen would much have preferred going alone, but her brother refused to entertain the idea. Although she knew nothing of the suspicions of her Bengali friend entertained by Dermot, she sensed a certain disapproval on his part of Fred's and her intimacy with Chunerbutty, and it affected her far more than did the open objection of the other planters to the Hindu. Besides, she was gradually realising the existence of the "colour bar," illiberal as she considered it to be. But it will always exist, dormant perhaps but none the less alive in the bosoms of the white peoples. It is Nature herself who has planted it there, in order to preserve the separation of the races that she has ordained. So Noreen, though she hated herself for it, felt that she would rather go all the way alone than travel with the Hindu.
The thirty miles' drive to the station of the narrow-gauge branch railway which would convey them to the main line did not seem long. For several planters who resided near her road had laid adâkfor her, that is, had arranged relays of ponies at various points of the way to enable the journey to be performed quickly. Noreen's heavy luggage had gone on ahead by bullock cart two days before, so the pair travelled light.
After her long absence from civilisation the diminutive engine and carriages of the narrow-gauge railway looked quite imposing, and it seemed to the girl strange to be out of the jungle when the toy train slid from the forest into open country, through the rice-fields and by the trim palm-thatched villages nestling among giant clumps of bamboo.
In the evening the train reached the junction where Noreen and Chunerbutty had to transfer to the Calcutta express, which brought them early next morning to Siliguri, the terminus of the main line at the foot of the hills, whence the little mountain-railway starts out on its seven thousand feet climb up the Himalayas.
Out of the big carriages of the express the passengers tumbled reluctantly and hurried half asleep to secure their seats in the quaint open compartments of the tiny train. White-clad servants strapped up their employers' bedding—for in India the railway traveller must bring his own with him—and collected the luggage, while the masters and mistresses crowded into the refreshment room forchota hazri, or early breakfast. Noreen was unpleasantly aware of the curious and semi-hostile looks cast at her and her companion by the other Europeans, particularly the ladies, for the sight of an English girl travelling with a native is not regarded with friendly eyes by English folk in India.
But she forgot this when the toy train started. As they climbed higher the vegetation grew smaller and sparser, until it ceased altogether and the line wound up bare slopes. And as they rose they left the damp heat behind them, and the air grew fresher and cooler.
The train twisted among the mountains and crawled up their steep sides on a line that wound about in bewildering fashion, in one place looping the loop completely in such a way that the engine was crossing a bridge from under which the last carriage was just emerging. Noreen delighted in the journey. She chatted gaily with her companion, asking him questions about anything that was new to her, and striving to ignore the looks of curiosity, pity, or disgust cast at her by the other European passengers, among whom speculation was rife as to the relationship between the pair.
The leisurely train took plenty of time to recover its breath when it stopped at the little wayside stations, and many of its occupants got out to stretch their legs. Two of them, Englishmen, strolled to the end of the platform at a halt. One, a tall, fair man, named Charlesworth, a captain in a Rifle battalion quartered in Lebong, the military suburb of Darjeeling, remarked to his companion:
"I wonder who is the pretty, golden-haired girl travelling with that native. How the deuce does she come to be with him? She can't be his wife."
"You never know," replied the other, an artillery subaltern named Turner. "Many of these Bengali students in London marry their landladies' daughters or girls they've picked up in the street, persuading the wretched women by their lies that they are Indian princes. Then they bring them out here to herd with a black family in a little house in the native quarter."
"Yes; but that girl is a lady," answered Charlesworth impatiently. "I heard her speak on the platform at Siliguri."
"She certainly looks all right," admitted his friend. "Smart and well-turned out, too. But one can never tell nowadays."
"Let's stroll by her carriage and get a nearer view of her," said Charlesworth.
As they passed the compartment in which Noreen was seated, the girl's attention was attracted by two gaily-dressed Sikkimese men with striped petticoats and peacocks' feathers stuck in their flowerpot-shaped hats, who came on to the platform.
"Oh, Mr. Chunerbutty, look at those men!" she said eagerly. "What are they?"
The Hindu had got out and was standing at the door of the compartment.
"Did you notice that?" said Charlesworth, when he and Turner had got beyond earshot. "She called him Mr. Something-or-other."
"Yes; deuced glad to hear it, too," replied the gunner. "I'd hate to see a white woman, especially an English lady, married to a native. I wonder how that girl comes to be travelling with the beggar at all."
"I'd like to meet her," said Charlesworth, who was returning from ten days' leave in Calcutta. "If I ever do, I'll advise her not to go travelling about with a black man. I suppose she's just out from England and knows no better."
"She'd probably tell you to mind your own business," observed his friend. "Hullo! it looks as if the engine-driver is actually going to get a move on this old hearse. Let's go aboard."
More spiteful comments were made on Noreen by the Englishwomen on the train, and the girl could not help remarking their contemptuous glances at her and her escort.
When the train ran into the station at Darjeeling she saw her friend, Ida Smith, waiting on the platform for her. As the two embraced and kissed each other effusively Charlesworth muttered to Turner:
"It's all right, old chap. I'll be introduced to that girl before this time tomorrow, you bet. I know her friend. She's from the Bombay side—wife of one of the Heaven Born."
By this lofty title are designated the members of the Indian Civil Service by lesser mortals, such as army officers—who in return are contemptuously termed "brainless military popinjays" by the exalted caste.
Their greeting over, Noreen introduced Chunerbutty to Ida, who nodded frigidly and then turned her back on him.
"Now, dear, point out your luggage to my servant and he'll look after it and get it up to the hotel. Oh, how do you do, Captain Charlesworth?"
The Rifleman, determined to lose no time in making Noreen's acquaintance, had come up to them.
"I had quite a shock, Mrs. Smith, when I saw you on the platform, for I was afraid that you were leaving us and had come to take the down train."
"Oh, no; I am only here to meet a friend," she replied. "Have you just arrived by this train? Have you been away?"
Charlesworth laughed and replied:
"What an unkind question, Mrs. Smith! It shows that I haven't been missed. Yes, I've been on ten days' leave to Calcutta."
"How brave of you at this time of year! It must have been something very important that took you there. Have you been to see your tailor?" Then, without giving him time to reply, she turned to Noreen. "Let me introduce Captain Charlesworth, my dear. Captain Charlesworth, this is Miss Daleham, an old school-friend, who has come up to keep me company. We poor hill-widows are so lonely."
The Rifleman held out his hand eagerly to the girl.
"How d'you do, Miss Daleham? I hope you've come up for the Season."
"Yes, I think so," she replied. "It's a very delightful change from down below. This is my first visit to a hill-station."
"Then you'll be sure to enjoy it. Are you going to the Lieutenant-Governor's ball on Thursday?"
"I don't suppose so. I don't know anything about it," she replied. "You see, I've only just arrived."
"You are, dear," said Ida. "I told Captain Craigie, one of the A.D.C.'s, that you were coming up, and he sent me your invitation with mine."
"Oh, how jolly!" exclaimed the girl. "I do hope I'll get some partners."
"Please accept me as one," said Charlesworth. Then he tactfully added to Ida, "I hope you'll spare me a couple of dances, Mrs. Smith."
"With pleasure, Captain Charlesworth," she replied. "But do come and see us before then."
"I shall be delighted to. By the way, are you going to the gymkhana on the polo-ground tomorrow?"
"Yes, we are."
Charlesworth turned to Noreen.
"In that case, Miss Daleham, perhaps you'll be good enough to nominate me for some of the events. As you have only just got here you won't have been snapped up yet by other fellows. I know it's hopeless to expect Mrs. Smith not to be."
Ida smiled, well pleased at the flattery, although, as a matter of fact, no one had yet asked her to nominate him.
"I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to do," answered Noreen. "I've never been to a gymkhana in India. I haven't seen or ridden in any, except at Hurlingham and Ranelagh."
Charlesworth made a mental note of this. If the girl had taken part in gymkhanas at the London Clubs she must be socially all right, he thought.
"They're just the same," he said. "In England they've only copied India in these things. Have you brought your habit with you?"
"Yes; Mrs. Smith told me in her letters that I could get riding up here."
"Good. I've got a ripping pony for a lady. I'll raise a saddle for you somewhere, and we'll enter for some of the affinity events."
The girl's eyes sparkled.
"Oh, how delightful. Could I do it, Ida?"
"Yes, certainly, dear."
"I should love to. It's very kind of you, Captain Charlesworth. Thank you ever so much. It will be splendid. I hope I shan't disgrace you."
"I'm sure you won't. I'll call for you and bring you both down to Lebong if I may, Mrs. Smith."
"Will you lunch with us then?" asked Ida. "You know where I am staying—the Woodbrook Hotel. Noreen is coming there too."
"Thank you, I'll be delighted," replied the Rifleman.
"Very well. One o'clock sharp. Now we'll say good-bye for the present."
Charlesworth shook hands with both ladies and strode off in triumph to where Turner was awaiting him impatiently.
"Now, dear, we'll go," said Ida. "I have a couple ofdandieswaiting for us."
"Dandies?" echoed the girl in surprise. "What do you mean?"
The older woman laughed.
"Oh, not dandies like Captain Charlesworth. These are chairs in which coolies carry you. In Darjeeling you can't drive. You must go indandies, or rickshas, unless you ride. Here, Miguel! Have you got the missiebaba'sluggage?" This to her Goanese servant.
"Yes,mem sahib. All got," replied the "boy," a native Christian with the high sounding name of Miguel Gonsalves Da Costa from the Portugese Colony of Goa on the West Coast of India below Bombay. In his tweed cap and suit of white ducks he did not look as imposing as the Hindu or Mohammedan butlers of other Europeans on the platform with their long-skirted white coats, colouredkamarbands, and bigpuggris, or turbans, with their employers' crests on silver brooches pinned in the front. But Goanese servants are excellent and much in demand in Bombay.
"All right. You bring to hoteljeldi(quickly). Come along, Noreen," said Mrs. Smith, walking off and utterly ignoring the Hindu engineer who had stood by unnoticed all this time with rage in his heart.
Noreen, however, turned to him and said:
"What are you going to do, Mr. Chunerbutty? Where are you staying?"
"I am going to my father at His Highness's house," he replied. "I should not be very welcome at your hotel or to your friends, Miss Daleham."
"Oh, of course you would," replied the girl, feeling sorry for him but uncertain what to say. "Will you come and see me tomorrow?"
"You forget. You are going to the gymkhana with that insolent English officer."
"Now don't be unjust. I'm sure Captain Charlesworth wasn't at all insolent. But I forgot the gymkhana. You could come in the morning. Yet, perhaps, I may have to go out calling with Mrs. Smith," she said doubtfully. "And how selfish of me! You have your own affairs to see to. I do hope that you'll find your father much better."
"Thank you. I hope so."
"Do let me know how he is. Send me achit(letter) if you have time. I am anxious to hear. Now I must thank you ever so much for your kindness in looking after me on the journey. I don't know what I'd have done without you."
"It was nothing. But you had better go. Your haughty friend is looking back for you, angry that you should stop here talking to a native," he said bitterly.
Ida was beckoning to her; even at that distance they could see that she was impatient. So Noreen could only reiterate her thanks to the Hindu and hurry after her friend, who said petulantly when she came up:
"I do wish you hadn't travelled up with that Indian, Noreen. It isn't nice for an English girl to be seen with one, and it will make people talk. The women here are such cats."
Noreen judged it best to make no reply, but followed her irate friend in silence. Theirdandieswere waiting outside the station, and as the girl got into hers and was lifted up and carried off by the sturdy coolies on whose shoulders the poles rested, she thought with a thrill of the last occasion on which she had been borne in a chair.