At the words of the telegram Raymond started and Frank stared in bewilderment at the Colonel.
"But I never asked for the Military Police, sir," he exclaimed. "I——"
The Colonel licked his dry lips and, working himself up into a passion, shouted:
"No, you didn't. But I did. I applied for you to be sent to it. I asked for you to be transferred from this station. You can ask yourself the reason why. I will not tolerate conduct such as yours, sir. I will not have an officer like you under my command."
Frank flushed deeply.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I don't understand. I really don't know what I've done. I should——"
But the Colonel burst in furiously:
"He says he doesn't know what he's done, Major Hepburn. Listen to that! He does not know what he's done"; and the speaker pounded on the desk with his clenched fist, working himself up into a rage, as a weak man will do when he has to carry out an unpleasant task.
"But, sir, surely I have a right——," began Wargrave, clenching his hands until the nails were almost driven into his palms in an effort to keep his temper.
"I cannot argue the question with you, Wargrave," said the Colonel loftily. "You have got your orders. Headquarters approve of my action. I have discussed the matter with my Second in Command, and he agrees with me. You can go. Raymond, make out the necessary warrants for Mr. Wargrave's journey and give him an advance of a month's pay. He will leave to-morrow. Tell the Quartermaster to make the necessary arrangements."
Frank bit his lip. His years of discipline and the respect for authority engrained in him since his entrance to Sandhurst kept the mutinous words back. He saluted punctiliously and, turning about smartly walked out of the Orderly Room. In the glaring sunshine he strode out of the compound and down the white, dusty road to his bungalow, his brain in a whirl, blind to everything, seeing neither the sepoys saluting him nor hissycehurrying after him and dragging the pony by the bridle.
When he reached his house he entered the sitting-room and dropped into a chair. His "boy" approached salaaming and asked if he should go to the Mess to order the Sahib's breakfast to be got ready. Wargrave waved him away impatiently.
He sat staring unseeingly at the wall. He could not think coherently. He felt dazed. His bewildered brain seemed to be revolving endlessly round the thought of the telegram from Headquarters and the Colonel's words "I will not have an officer like you under my command." What was the meaning of it all? What had he done? A pang shot through him at the sudden remembrance of Colonel Trevor's assertion that Major Hepburn agreed with him. Frank held the Second in Command in high respect, for he knew him to be an exceptionally good soldier and a gentleman in every sense of the word. Had he so disgraced himself then that Hepburn considered the Colonel's action justified? But how?
He shifted uneasily in his chair and his eyes fell on Mrs. Norton's portrait. At the sight of it his Company Commander's advice to him about her and Mrs. Trevor's spiteful remarks flashed across his mind. Could Violet be mixed up in all this? Was his friendship with her perhaps the cause of the trouble? He dismissed the idea at once. There was nothing to be ashamed of in their relations.
A figure darkened the doorway. It was Raymond. Wargrave sprang up and rushed to him.
"What in Heaven's name is it all about, Ray?" he cried. "Is the Colonel mad?"
The adjutant took off his helmet and flung it on the table.
"Well, tell me. What the devil have I done?" said his friend impatiently.
Raymond tried to speak but failed.
"Go on, man. What is it?" cried Wargrave, seizing his arm.
The adjutant burst out:
"It's a damned shame, old man. I'm sorry."
"But what is it? What is it, I say?" cried Wargrave, shaking him.
The adjutant nodded his head towards the big photograph on the writing-table.
"It's Mrs. Norton," he said.
"Mrs. Norton?" echoed his friend. "What the—what's she got to do with it?"
Raymond threw himself into a chair.
"Someone's been making mischief. The C.O.'s been told that there might be a scandal so he's got scared lest trouble should come to him."
Frank stared blankly at the speaker, then suddenly turned and walked out of the bungalow. The pony was standing huddled into the patch of shade at the side of the house, thesycesquatting on the ground at its head and holding the reins. Wargrave sprang into the saddle and galloped out of the compound. Raymond ran to the verandah and saw him thundering down the sandy road that led to the residency.
Arrived at the big white building Frank pulled up his panting pony on its haunches and dismounting threw the reins over its head and left it unattended.
Walking to the hall door he cried:
"Koi hai?"
A drowsychuprassiat the back of the hall sprang up and hurried to receive him.
"Memsahib hai? (Is the mistress in?)"
"Hai, sahib. (Yes, sir)" said the servant salaaming.
Wargrave was free of the house and, taking off his hat, went into the cool hall and walked up the great staircase. He entered the drawing-room. After the blinding glare outside the closely-shuttered apartment seemed so dark that at first it was difficult for him to see if it were tenanted or not. But it was empty; and he paced the floor impatiently, frowning in chaotic thought.
"Good morning, Frank. You are early to-day. And what a bad temper you seem to be in!" exclaimed a laughing voice; and Mrs. Norton, looking radiant and delightfully cool in a thin white Madras muslin dress, entered the room.
He went to her.
"They're sending me away, Violet," he said.
"Sending you away?" she repeated in an astonished tone. "Sending you where?"
"To hell, I think," he cried. "Oh, I beg your pardon. I mean—yes, they're sending me away from Rohar, from you. Sending me to the other side of India."
The blood slowly left her face as she stared uncomprehendingly at him.
"Sending you away? Why?" she asked.
"Because—because we're friends, little girl."
"Because we're friends," she echoed. "What do you mean? But you mustn't go."
"I must. I can't help it. I've got to go."
Pale as death Violet stared at him.
"Got to go? To leave me?"
Then with a choking cry she threw her arms about his neck and sobbed.
"You mustn't. You mustn't leave me. I can't live without you. I love you. I love you. I'll die if you go from me."
Frank started and tried to hold her at arm's length to look into her face. But the woman clung frenziedly to him, while convulsive sobs shook her body. His arms went round her instinctively and, holding her to his breast, he stared blankly over the beautiful bowed head. It was true, then. She loved him. Without meaning it he had won her heart. He whose earnest wish it had been to save her from pain, to console her, to brighten her lonely life, had brought this fresh sorrow on her. To the misery of a loveless marriage he had added a heavier cross, an unhappy, a misplaced affection. No exultant vanity within him rejoiced at the knowledge that, unsought, she had learned to care for him. Only regret, pity for her, stirred in him. He was aware now as always that his feeling for her was not love. But she must not realise it. He must save her from the bitter mortification of learning that she had given her heart unasked. His must have been the fault; he it must be to bear the punishment. She should never know the truth. He bent down and reverently, tenderly, kissed the tear-stained face—it was the first time that his lips had touched her.
"Dearest, we will go together. You must come with me," he said.
Violet started and looked wildly up at him.
"Go with you? What do you mean? How can I?"
"I mean that you must come away with me to begin a new life—a happier one—together. I cannot leave you here with a man who neglects you, who does not appreciate you, who cannot understand you."
"Do you mean—run away with you?" she asked.
"Yes; it is the only thing to do."
She slowly loosed her clasp of him and released herself from his arms.
"But I don't understand at all. Why are you going? And where?"
He briefly told her what had happened. His face flushed darkly as he repeated the Colonel's words.
"'He wouldn't have an officer like me under his command,' he said. He treated me like a criminal. I don't value his opinion much. But Major Hepburn agrees with him. That hurts. I respect him."
"But where is this place they're sending you to?" she asked.
"Ranga Duar? I don't know. Eastern Bengal, I believe."
"Bengal. What? Anywhere near Calcutta?"
"No; it must be somewhere up on the frontier. Otherwise they wouldn't send Military Police to garrison it."
"But what is it like? Is it a big station?" she persisted.
"I can't tell you. But it's sure not to be. No; it must be a small place up in the hills or in the jungle. There's only a detachment there."
"But what have I got to do with your being sent there?" she asked in perplexity.
"Don't you understand? Someone's been making mischief," he replied. "Those two vile-minded women have been talking scandal of us to the Colonel."
"What? Talking about you and me? Oh!" she exclaimed.
His words brought home to her the fact that these bitter-tongued women whom she despised had dared to assail her—her, theBurra Mem, the Great Lady of their little world. Had dared to? She could not silence them. And what would they say of her, how their tongues would wag, if she ran away from her husband! And they would have a right to talk scandal of her then. The thought made her pause.
"But how could I go with you to this place in Bengal? Where could I live?" she asked.
"You'd live with me."
"Oh! In your bungalow? How could I? And how would I get there?" she continued. "I haven't any money. I don't suppose I've got a ten-rupee note. And I couldn't ask my husband."
"Of course not. I would——" He paused. "By Jove! I never thought of that." It had not occurred to him that elopements must be carried out on a cash basis. He had forgotten that money was necessary. And he had none. He was heavily in debt. The localshroffs—the native money-lenders—would give him no more credit when they knew that he was going away. All that he would have would be the one month's advance of pay—probably not enough for Violet's fare and expenses across India—the Government provided his—and certainly not enough to support them for long. He frowned in perplexity. Running away with another man's wife did not seem so easy after all.
Violet was the first to recover her normal calm.
"Sit down and let us talk quietly," she said. "One of the servants may come in. Or my husband—if people are talking scandal of us."
She touched the switch of an overhead electric fan—the Government of India housed its Political Officer in Rohar much more luxuriously than the military ones—and sat down under it. Wargrave began to pace the room impatiently.
"Come, Frank, stop walking about like a tiger in a cage and let's discuss things properly."
With an effort he pulled himself together and took a chair near her. The woman was the more self-possessed of the two. The shock of suddenly finding herself up against the logical outcome of her desires had sobered her; and, faced with the prospect of an immediate flight involving the abdication of her assured social position and the surrender of a home, she was able to visualise the consequences of her actions. The most sobering reflection was the thought that by so doing she would be casting herself to the female wolves of her world—and she knew the extent of their mercy. There were others of her acquaintance besides Mrs. Trevor who would howl loud with triumph over her downfall. The thought has saved many a woman from social ruin.
Thinking only of what she had so often told him of the misery of living with a man as unsympathetic as her husband, Frank pleaded desperately with a conviction that he was far from feeling. The hard fact of the lack of sufficient money to pay for her travelling expenses, the difficulty of getting off together from this out-of-the-way station, were not to be got over. Then the impossibility of knowing whether she could remain with him when he was on frontier duty and of supporting her away from him, the realisation of the fact that they would have to face the Divorce Court with its heavy costs and probably crushing damages, all made the situation seem hopeless. In despair he sprang up and resumed his nervous pacing of the room.
At last Violet said:
"All I can see, dearest, is that we must wait. It will be harder for me than for you. You at least will not have to live with anyone uncongenial to you. But I must. Yet I can bear it for your sake."
He stopped before her and looked at her in admiration of her courageous and self-sacrificing spirit. Then he bent down and kissed her tenderly. Sitting beside her he discussed the situation more calmly than he had hitherto done. It was finally agreed that he was to go alone to his new station, save all that he could to pay off his debts—he would receive a higher salary in the Military Police and his expenses would be less—and when he was free and had made a home for her Violet would sacrifice everything for love and come to him. With almost tears in his eyes as he thought of her nobility he strained her to his heart. When the time came for parting the woman broke down completely and wept bitterly as she clung to him. He kissed her passionately, then with an effort put her from him and almost ran from the room, while she flung herself on a lounge and sobbed convulsively.
One of the Residencysyceshad taken charge of the pony; and Wargrave, mounting it, galloped madly back to his bungalow, his heart torn with anguish for the unhappiness of the broken-hearted woman that he was leaving behind.
When he arrived home he found that Raymond and his own "boy" and sword-orderly (his native soldier-servant) had begun his packing for him, for his heavy baggage had to be despatched that afternoon. The bungalow was crowded with his brother-officers waiting to see him. He had intended to avoid them, for he felt disgraced by the Colonel's censure which it was evident the Commanding Officer had not kept secret, though the whole matter should have been treated as confidential. But they made light of his scruples and showed him that he had their sympathy. He had meant to dine alone in his room that night; but his comrades insisted on his coming to the Mess, where they were to give him an informal farewell dinner. They would take no refusal.
Daly, who was the Acting Quartermaster of the battalion, told him that the arrangements for his journey had been made. He was to leave at dawn and drive sixty miles in atonga—a two-wheeled native conveyance drawn by a pair of ponies—to a village called Basedi on the shores of a narrow gulf or deep inlet of the sea which formed the eastern boundary of the State of Mandha. Here he would have to spend the night in a dâk-bungalow—or rest-house—and cross the water in a steam-launch next morning. After that, five days more of travel by various routes and means awaited him.
Before dinner that night a few minutes apart with Hepburn made Frank happier than he had been all day. For his Company Commander told him that he had only agreed with the Colonel's action because he believed that it would be for the subaltern's own good, not because he considered that the latter had done anything to disgrace him. Hepburn added that if he was given command of the regiment in two years' time—as should happen in the ordinary course of events—he would be glad to have Wargrave back again in the battalion then. Frank, with a guilty feeling when he remembered his compact with Violet, thanked him gratefully, and with a lightened heart went to the very festive meal that was to be his last for some long time, at least with his old corps.
The Colonel had refused to agree to his being invited formally to be the guest of the regiment; and neither he nor the other married man, the Doctor, were present. If they slept that night they were the only two officers in the Cantonment that did; for none of the others, not even senior major, Hepburn, left the Mess until it was time to escort their departing comrade to his bungalow to change for the journey. And, as thetonga-ponies rattled down the road and bore him away, Frank's last sight of his old comrades was the group of white-clad figures in the dawn waving frantically and cheering vociferously from the gateway of his bungalow.
The memory of it rejoiced him throughout the terrible hours of the long journey in the baking heat and blinding glare of the Hot Weather day. The worse moments were the stops every ten miles to change ponies, when he had to wait in the blazing sunshine. His "boy," who sat on the front seat of the vehicle beside the driver, produced from a basket packed with wet straw cooled bottles of soda-water, without which Wargrave felt that he would have died of sunstroke.
Then on after each halt; and the endless strip of white road again unrolled before him, while the never-ceasing clank of the iron-shod bar coupling the ponies maddened his aching head with its monotonous rhythm.
As the weary miles slid past him his thoughts were with Violet, so beautiful, so patient and brave in her self-denying endurance. And he cursed himself for having added to her pain, and inwardly vowed that some day he would atone to her for it.
At last thetongarattled into the bare compound of the Basedi dâk-bungalow standing on a high stone plinth. The untidykhansamah—the custodian of the rest-home—hurried on to the verandah to greet the unexpected visitor and show his "boy" where to put the sahib's bedding and baggage in a bleak room with a cane-bottomed wooden bed hung with torn mosquito-curtains.
From a glass case in the sitting-room containing a scanty store of canned provisions thekhansamahprovided a meal with such ill-assorted ingredients as Somebody's desiccated soup lukewarm, a tin of sardines and sweet biscuits to eat with them, and a bottle of beer to wash it down with. Wargrave was too choked with dust, too sickened with the heat and glare, to have any appetite. After a smoke he dragged his weary body to bed and in spite of the mosquitoes that flocked joyously through the holes in the gauze curtains to feast on him slept the profound sleep of utter exhaustion.
He was up at daybreak; for the tide served in the early morning and only at its height could the launch approach the shore, which at low water was bordered with the filthy slime of mangrove swamps.
Landed at the other side of the gulf he had even a worse experience of travel before him than on the previous day. For the next stage of the journey was forty miles across a salt desert in a tram drawn by a camel. The car was open on all sides and covered by a cardboard roof; and its wooden seats were uncomfortably hard for long hours of sitting. The heat was appalling. It struck up from the baked ground and seemed to scorch the body through the clothes. The glare from the white sand and even whiter patches of salt was blinding and penetrated through the closed eyelids. A hot wind blew over the hazy, shimmering desert, setting the whirling dust-devils dancing and striking the face like the touch of a heated iron. Wargrave's small store of ice and mineral water was exhausted, and he felt that he was likely to die of thirst. For in the villages where they changed camels cholera was raging; and he dared not drink the water from their wells.
The tram slid easily along the shining rails that stretched away out of sight over the monotonous plain, the camel loping lazily along, its soft, sprawling feet falling noiselessly on the sand. The last ten miles of the way lay through less sterile country; and the tram passed herds of black buck—the pretty, spiral-horned antelope. Used to its daily passage, the graceful animals, which were protected by the game-laws of the native State through which the line ran, barely troubled to move out of its way. They stood about in hundreds, staring lazily at it, some not ten yards off, the bucks turning their heads away to scratch their sides with the points of their horns or rubbing their noses with dainty hoofs.
That night Wargrave slept at a dâk-bungalow near the terminus in a little native town with a small branch-railway connecting it with a main line. Then for four days he travelled across the scorching plains of India, shut up in stuffy carriages with violet-hued glass windows and Venetian wooden shutters meant to exclude the heat and glare. Over bare plains broken by sudden flat-topped rocky hills, through closely-cultivated fields and stretches of scrub-jungle, by mud-walled villages, he journeyed day and night. The train crossed countless wide river-beds in which the streams had shrunk to mean rivulets; but when it clattered over the Ganges at Allahabad the sacred flood rolled a broad and sluggish current under the bridge on its way to the far-distant Bay of Bengal.
On the fourth night Wargrave slept on a bench in the waiting-room of a small junction, Niralda, from which a narrow-gauge railway branched off to the north from the main line through Eastern Bengal. At an early hour next morning he took his seat in the one first-class carriage of the toy train, which journeyed through typical Bengal scenery by mud-banked rice-fields, groves of tall, feathery bamboos and hamlets of pretty palm-thatched huts, their roofs hidden by the broad green leaves of sprawling creepers. Soon across the sky to the north a dark, blurred line rose, stretching out of sight east and west. It grew clearer as the train sped on, more distinct. It was the great northern rampart of India, the Himalayas. Then, seeming to float in air high above the highest of the dark mountain peaks and utterly detached from them, the white crests of the Eternal Snows shone fairy-like against the blue sky.
As Wargrave gazed enraptured, suddenly hills and plain were shut out from his sight as the train plunged from the dazzling sunlight into the deep shadows of a tropical forest. And the subaltern recognised with a thrill of delight that he was entering the wonderful Terai Jungle, the marvelous belt of woodland that stretches for hundreds of miles along the foot of the Himalayas through Assam and Bengal to the far Siwalik range, clothing their lower slopes or scaling their steep sides into Nepal and Bhutan. Deep in its recesses the rhinoceros, bison and buffalo hide, herds of wild elephants roam, tigers prey on the countless deer, and the great mountain bears descend to prowl in it for food. Frank had learned on the way that Ranga Duar was practically situated in it; and the knowledge almost consoled him for his exile in the promise of sport that kings might envy.
At a small wayside station in a clearing in the forest his railway journey ended. Beside the one small stone building two elephants were standing, incessantly swinging their trunks, flapping their ears and shifting their weight restlessly from leg to leg. Frank, on getting out of his carriage, learned with pleasure from their salaamingmahouts(drivers) that these animals were to be his next means of transport, a novel one that harmonised with the surroundings. On the back of each great beast was a massive, straw-filled pad secured by a rope passing surcingle-wise around its body.
Eachmahoutcarried a gun, one a heavy rifle, the other a double-barrelled fowling-piece, which they offered to Wargrave.
"Huzoor!" (the Presence—a polite mode of address in Hindustani), said one man, "theBurraSahib (the Political Sahib) sends salaams and lends you these, as you might see something to shoot on the way."
"Oh, the Political Officer. Very kind of him, I'm sure," remarked the subaltern. "What is his name?"
"Durro-Mut Sahib."
"What a curious name!" thought Frank. For in the vernacular "durro mut!" means, "Do not be afraid!" He concluded that it was a nickname.
"Why is he called that?" he asked in Hindustani.
"Because the Sahib is a very brave sahib," replied the man. "Where he is there no one need fear."
The othermahoutnodded assent, then said:
"The Commanding Sahib has sent Your Honour from the Mess a basket with food and drink. I have put it on the table in thebabu's(clerk's) office in the station."
Frank blessed his new C.O. for his thoughtfulness and made a welcome meal while he watched his baggage being loaded on to one of the elephants.
"Buth!" (Lie down) cried themahout; and the obedient animal slowly sank to its knees and stretched out its legs before and behind. Frank's "boy" mounted timorously when the luggage had been strapped on to the pad. When the subaltern was ready the second elephant was ordered to kneel down for him; and he clambered up awkwardly and clung on tightly when themahout, getting astride of the great neck, made it rise.
Along a broad road cut through the forest the huge beasts lumbered with a plunging, swaying stride that was very tiring to a novice. Holding both guns Frank glanced continually ahead, aside and behind him with a delicious feeling of excited hope that at any moment some dangerous wild beast might appear. On either hand the dense undergrowth of great, flower-covered bushes and curving fan-shaped palms, restricted the view to a few yards. From its dense tangle rose the giant trunks of huge trees, their leafy crowns striving to push through the thick canopy of vegetation overhead into the life-giving air and sunshine.
But no wild animal appeared to cheer Wargrave on the long way; and as hour after hour went by his whole body ached with the strain of sitting upright without a support to his back and being jolted violently at every step of the elephant. At last they reached a clearing in the forest where stood themahout'shuts and a tall, wooden building, thepeelkhana, or elephant stables. It lay at the foot of the mountains; and from here the road wound upwards among the lower hills, under steep cliffs, by the brink of precipices and beside deep ravines down which brawling streams tumbled.
As the party mounted higher and ever higher the big trees fell away behind them until Frank could look down on a sea of foliage stretching away out of sight east and west but bounded on the south by the Plains of India seen vaguely through the shimmering heat-haze. Up, up they climbed, until far above him he caught glimpses of buildings dotted about among jungle-clad knolls and spurs jutting out from the dark face of the mountains. And at last as evening shadows began to lengthen they reached a lovely recess in the hills, a deep horse-shoe; and in it an artificially-levelled parade-ground, a rifle-range running up a gully, a few bungalows dotted about among the trees and lines of single-storied barracks enclosed by a loopholed stone wall told Wargrave that he had come to his journey's end. This was his place of exile—this was Ranga Duar.
"What a beautiful spot!" thought Frank as he gazed entranced at the scenery. "I've never seen anything like it. It looks like Heaven after the ugliness of Rohar. And how delightfully cool it is, too, up in the mountains! Well, with this climate and good shooting in the forest below life won't be as dreadful as I thought. I wish poor Violet were here out of the heat and glare. How she'd love all this beauty, these trees, these gardens, the glorious mountains!"
He sighed as he thought of the woman who was so far away.
"Huzoor, that is the Mess" broke in the voice of hismahout, as he pointed to a long, red-tiled building half-hidden among the trees a few hundred feet above them. To reach it they had to pass a large, well-built stone bungalow, two-storied, unlike all the others and standing in a lovely garden glowing with the vivid hues of the flowers, the flaming red of huge bushes of bougainvillea and poinsettia. Frank, glancing towards it, was about to ask themahoutwho lived in it when he started in horror and cried to the man:
"Stop! Stop your animal! Look there!"
And he snatched at his rifle. For on the farther side of the house a huge tusker elephant in the garden stood over a little European boy about four years old, who was sprawling almost under the huge feet. And high above its head the brute held in its curved trunk a younger child, a girl with long golden curls, as if about to dash it to the ground.
As Frank grasped the rifle themahout, who had turned at his cry, seized the barrel and said with a smile:
"Durro mut, Sahib! Do not fear, sir. Those are Durro Mut Sahib's babies and the elephant is their playmate."
And as he spoke Wargrave saw the elder child spring up from the ground and beat the great animal's legs with his tiny hands, crying:
"Mujh-ko bhi, Badshah!Mujh-ko bhi! Uth! Uth!(Me too, Badshah! Me too! Take me up!)"
And the baby held aloft was crowing in glee and kicking its fat little legs frantically. The elephant lowered it tenderly to the ground and picked up the boy in its stead and lifted him into the air, while he laughed and clapped his hands. The twomahoutsraised their palms respectfully to their foreheads and cried to their animals:
"Salaam kuro! (Salute!)"
And the two trunks were lifted together in theSalaamut, the royal salute given to Kings and Viceroys.
Frank'smahoutexplained.
"Gharib Parwar(Protector of the Poor), the pagan ignorant Hindus around here say that the elephant is a god. Aye, and that his master, Durro Mut Sahib, is one too.That'slike enough. Well, Allah alone knows the truth of everything. But those two are more than mere man and animal, that is certain.Mul, Moti! (Go on, Pearl!)"
And he kicked his elephant under the ears with his bare feet to quicken her pace. But Frank bade him stop. Despite the man's optimism he could not believe it wise to allow tiny tots like that to play with such a huge, clumsy animal. He was sure that their mother would be horrified if she knew it. He loved children, and felt that it was madness to allow these babies to continue their dangerous pastime.
"Have they a mother?" he asked themahout.
"Yes,Huzoor. Themem-Sahib(lady) is doubtless within the house."
"I want to dismount," said Frank; and he grasped the surcingle rope as the elephant sank jerkily to its knees. Then sliding down from the pad he entered the gate and passed up through the garden towards the bungalow. As he did so a dainty little figure in white, a charmingly pretty girl with golden hair and blue eyes, came out on the verandah. Seeing him she walked down the steps to meet him and held out her hand, saying in a pleasant, musical voice:
"You are Mr. Wargrave, of course? Welcome to Ranga Duar."
Frank, uncomfortably conscious of his dishevelled appearance and travel-stained attire, almost blushed as he took off his hat and quickened his steps to meet her, wondering who this delightful young girl—she looked about nineteen—could be. Possibly an elder sister of the children outside. But as they shook hands she said:
"I am the wife of the Political Officer here. My husband, Colonel Dermot, has just gone up to the Mess to see your C.O., Major Hunt."
Frank was astonished. This pretty young girl, scarcely more than a child herself, the mother of the two chubby babies! Touched by her kind manner he shook her hand warmly and said:
"Thank you very much for your welcome, Mrs. Dermot. It's awfully good of you, and I—I assure you I appreciate it a lot just now. I was coming to tell you—I wonder do you know that your babies—I suppose theyareyours—are playing what seems to me rather a dangerous game with an elephant at the side of the house."
Mrs. Dermot smiled; and the dimples that came with the smile carried his mind back for an instant to Violet.
"Yes, they are my chicks," she said. "I left them in Badshah's charge."
Frank was not altogether reassured. The young mother evidently did not know what was happening.
"But—pardon me—is it quite safe? I was a bit scared when I saw them. The animal was tossing them up in the air."
"You needn't be alarmed, Mr. Wargrave—though it's very good of you to be concerned and come to tell me," she replied. "But Badshah—that's the elephant's name—is a most careful nurse and I know that my babies are quite safe when they are in his care. He has looked after them since they were able to crawl. Come and be introduced to him. I must tell you that he is a very exceptional animal. Indeed, we almost forget that he is an animal. He has saved our lives, my husband's and mine, on more than one occasion. Next to the children and me I think that Kevin loves him better than anyone or anything else in the world. And after my chicks and Kevin and my brother I believe I do, too. As for the babies, I'm not sure that he doesn't come first with them."
She led the way round the house, and in spite of her assurances Wargrave felt a little nervous when they came in sight of the strange nurse and its charges. The tiny girl was seated on the ground tightly clasping one huge foreleg; while the boy was beating the other with his little fists, crying:
"Mujk-ko uth! Pir! Pir!(Lift me up! Again! Again!)"
When he saw his mother he ran to her and said:
"Mummie, bad, naughty Badshah won't lift me up."
He suddenly caught sight of the stranger and paused shyly.
"Brian darling, this is a new friend," said his mother, bending down to him. "Won't you shake hands with him?"
The child conquered his shyness with an effort and walked over to Frank, holding out his little hand.
"How do you do?" he said politely.
The subaltern gravely shook the proffered hand. The little girl scrambled to her fat little legs and finger in mouth, surveyed him solemnly. Then satisfied with her inspection she toddled forward to him and said:
"Tiss me."
Frank laughed joyously.
"With all my heart, you darling," he cried.
This delightful welcome in the dreaded place of exile was inexpressibly cheering. He swung the dainty mite up in his arms and kissed her. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him.
"Me like 'oo," she said.
"You little flirt, Eileen," exclaimed her mother laughing. "Now it's Badshah's turn."
She walked to the elephant, a splendid specimen of its race, though it had only one tusk, the right. She held out her hand to it. The long trunk shot out, brushed her fingers and then her cheek with a light touch that was almost a caress. She stroked the trunk affectionately.
"Now, Badshah, this is a new Sahib."
Frank, with the baby girl seated on his shoulder, stepped forward and extended his hand. The animal smelt it and then laid its trunk for a moment on his free shoulder.
"Badshah accepts you, Mr. Wargrave," said Mrs. Dermot seriously. "And there are few whom he takes to readily."
Eileen, with one arm around Frank's neck, stretched out the other to the elephant.
"Me love Badshah," she said.
The snake-like trunk lingered caressingly on her golden head. The baby caught and kissed it.
"Now then, chickies, time for bed," said their mother. "Say goodnight to Badshah."
The little boy ran to the great animal and hugged its leg tightly, while the snaky trunk touched the child's face affectionately.
"Come along, Brian. Let him go now"; and at his mother's bidding the boy released his clasp and ran to her.
"Goodnight, Badshah.Salaam!" said Mrs. Dermot, waving her hand to the mammoth, while her little daughter on Wargrave's shoulder imitated her.
The big animal raised its trunk in salute and, turning, walked with swaying stride out of sight behind the bungalow.
"By Jove, what a splendid beast!" exclaimed Frank. "And how wonderfully well trained he is. I'm not surprised now that you let the kiddies play with him."
Mrs. Dermot smiled.
"You would be even less so if you knew his story," she said. "He is my husband's private property now. The Government of India presented him to Kevin. Now come back to the house and have tea. Oh, no, after your long ride you'll prefer a whiskey and soda."
"I'd really rather have the tea, I think, Mrs. Dermot. I don't feel thirsty up in this deliciously cool air. It's awful down in the Plains now. But what about my elephants and baggage?"
"Tell themahoutsto go to the Mess. You are to have a room there."
Frank did so; and the two animals lumbered away up the hill after themahoutshad brought the Colonel's guns into the bungalow.
Mrs. Dermot led the way into the house. The little boy had possessed himself of Wargrave's free hand, the other one being engaged in holding Eileen, who was perched on the subaltern's shoulder. Mrs. Dermot found it difficult to separate the children from their new friend when at last she bore them off to bed.
Left to himself, Frank examined with deep interest and admiring envy the splendid display of Colonel Dermot's trophies of big game shooting that filled the bungalow. From the walls many heads of bison and buffalo, ofsambhurandbarasingh, those fine Indian stags, looked mildly at him with their glass eyes; while tigers, bears and panthers snarled at him from the ground. Long elephant-tusks leaned in corners, smoking and liqueur-tables made up from the mammoths' legs and feet stood about, and crossed from ceiling to floor; on the walls were the skins of enormous snakes such as Frank had never seen or imagined. He had thought a six-foot cobra or an eight-foot python long—here were reptiles sixteen or eighteen feet in length, and he hoped that he would never meet their equals alive in the jungle.
While he was gazing with admiration at the fine collection of trophies Mrs. Dermot returned.
"What a magnificent lot of heads and skins you've got here!" he exclaimed. "All your husband's, I suppose?"
She laughed as she glanced round the room, while pouring out the tea that her butler had brought.
"I'm afraid they make the house rather like a museum of natural history," she answered. "Yes, they are all Kevin's, or nearly all. There are a few of mine among them."
He looked at her in open admiration.
"Oh, you shoot? How splendid!" he said. "Have you ever got a tiger?"
"A couple," she replied, smiling.
"I envy you awfully," he said. "I've never even seen one—out of a cage."
"Well, if you are keen on shooting, Mr. Wargrave, you ought to have little difficulty in bagging a tiger or two before long," she said.
"I'd love to have the chance of going after big game. I'm hoping for it here. Shall I? I've never had any, although I've shot a panther or two and a few black buck andchinkara."
"You will have every opportunity of good sport here. Neither of the other two Europeans, your Commanding Officer and the doctor of your detachment, go in for it, the latter because his sight is very bad, Major Hunt because he doesn't care for it. I'm sure my husband will be glad to take you out with him; and nobody in the whole Terai knows more about big game than he."
"By Jove; how ripping," exclaimed Frank eagerly. "Would he?"
"I'm sure he would. He'll be only too delighted to have someone for company. I used to go with him always, until my babies came. Now Kevin has no one but Badshah."
"Badshah? Oh, yes, that ripping elephant. I don't know much about those animals, but isn't it unusual for him to have only a single tusk?"
"Yes; Badshah is what the natives call a 'Gunesh.' You know that Gunesh is the Hindu God of Wisdom and is represented as having an elephant's head with only the right tusk? Consequently any of these animals born with a single tusk, and that the right, is considered sacred and looked upon as a god."
"One of themahoutssaid that the Hindus here regard your husband as one, too," said Frank, "and he seemed inclined to believe it himself. I like the name they've given Colonel Dermot—Durro Mut Sahib, Fear Not Sahib."
A look of pride came in the young wife's eyes as she repeated the name softly to herself.
"Fear Not Sahib. Yes, it suits him." Then aloud she continued:
"I think you'll like my husband, Mr. Wargrave. All men do. He's a man's man. The hill and jungle people worship him. He understands them. Ah! here he is, I think."
Her face brightened, and Frank saw the light of love shine in her eyes as she turned expectantly to the door. He sprang up as a tall man with handsome, clear-cut features, dark complexion and eyes, and close-cropped black hair touched at the temples with grey, entered the room. With a pleasant smile the newcomer walked towards the subaltern with outstretched hand, saying in a friendly voice:
"Glad to welcome you to Ranga Duar, Wargrave."
"Thank you very much, sir," replied Frank gripping his hand and greatly taken at once by the Political Officer's appearance and friendly manner. "It was very kind of you to send those guns for me. But I had no luck. We saw nothing on the way."
After greeting him Colonel Dermot bent over his wife and kissed her fondly. It was obvious to the subaltern that after their five years of married life they were lovers still. Frank looked at them a little enviously. He wondered would it be so with Violet and him after the same lapse of time; for the sight of their happiness sent his thoughts flying to the woman who loved him.
"Are you keen on shooting, Wargrave?" said the Colonel.
"Oh, yes, he is, Kevin," broke in his wife. "I told him that I was sure you'd be glad to take him with you into the jungle sometimes."
"I'll be happy to do so, if you care to come with me, Wargrave," said the Colonel.
"I'd love to, sir. It would be awfully good of you," replied the subaltern eagerly. "But I've only a Mannlicher rifle."
"Ah, you'll need a bigger bore than that. But I can lend you a .470 high velocity cordite weapon. You want something with great hitting power for dangerous game," said Dermot.
He went on to speak of the jungle and its denizens; and his conversation was so interesting that Wargrave forgot the flight of time until his hostess reminded him that he had to report his arrival to his commanding officer and find his new quarters. Her husband volunteered to show him the way to the Mess and introduce him to Major Hunt.
As Wargrave shook hands with Mrs. Dermot, she said:
"I wanted to ask you to dinner this evening; but Kevin thought you might prefer to spend your first night with your brother officers. But we shall expect you to-morrow, when they are coming, too."
On their way up the steep road from his bungalow the Political Officer spoke of the great forest below them and the sport to be found in it. Then he said:
"It's lucky you like shooting, Wargrave, for Ranga Duar is very isolated and life in it dull to a person who has no resources. Still, it has its advantages, and chief among them is the climate. It's delightful in the cold weather and pleasant in the hot."
"By Jove, it is indeed, sir! It's like Heaven after the heat in the Plains below. I don't know how I lived through it coming across India."
"The rainy season is the hardest to bear. We have five months of it and over three hundred inches of rain during them. One never sees a strange face then—not that we ever do have many visitors here at any time. Still, you'll like your C.O., and Burke the doctor is a capital fellow. Here we are."
He turned in through a narrow gate leading to a pretty though neglected garden in which stood the Mess, a long, single-storied building raised on piles. On the broad wooden verandah to which a flight of steps led from the ground two men were reclining in long chairs reading old newspapers. On seeing Dermot and his companion they rose, and the Colonel introduced Frank. They shook hands with him and gave him a hearty welcome, which, coming on the top of the Dermot's, cheered the subaltern exceedingly and for the time made him forget the circumstances of his coming.
"It's mighty glad I am to see you here, Wargrave," said Burke, the doctor, in a mellow brogue, "aven av it's only to have someone living in the Mess wid me. The Major there lives in solitary state in his little bungalow; and I'm all alone here at night widshaitans(devils) and wild beasts walking on the verandah."
"What? Has that panther been prowling round the Mess again?" asked the Political Officer.
"Faith! and he has that. Sure, I heard him sniffing at me door last night. I wish to the Powers ye'd shoot him, sir."
"I can't get him. I've tried often enough."
"Troth! and it's waking up one fine morning I'll be to find he's made a meal av me. Keep your door shut at night, Wargrave. Merrick, who lived in the room you'll have, forgot to do it once and the divil nearly had him."
"Is that really a fact?" asked Frank, delighted at the thought of having come to a place with such possibilities of sport.
"Yes; we're plagued by a brute of a panther that prowls about the station at night, jumps the wall of the Fort and carries off the sepoys' dogs, and has actually entered rooms here in the Mess. He has killed several Bhuttia children on the hills around here. Nobody can ever get a shot at him. He's too cunning. Will you have a drink, Colonel?" said Hunt.
The Political Officer thanked him but declined, and, reminding them all of his wife's invitation for the morrow, bade them goodnight.
"That's one av the finest men in India," exclaimed Burke, as they watched Dermot's figure receding down the road. The doctor had a pleasant, ugly face and wore spectacles.
"He is, indeed. He keeps the whole Bhutan border in order," said the commandant, Major Hunt, a slight, grey-haired man with a quiet and reserved manner. "The Bhuttias are more afraid of a cross look from him than of all our rifles and machine-guns. Have a drink, Wargrave? Yes? And you, Burke? Hi, boy!"
A Gurkha servant with the ugly, cheery face of his race appeared and was ordered to bring three whiskeys and sodas.
"Ranga's not a bad place if you can stand the loneliness," continued the Major. "Are you fond of shooting."
"Yes, sir, awfully."
"Hooray! That's good," cried Burke. "Now we'll have someone to go down to the jungle and shoot for the Mess. We want a change from tinned Army rations and the tough ould hins that these benighted haythins call chickens."
"Yes, you'll be a Godsend to us if you're a good shot, Wargrave," added the Commandant. "We never get meat here unless someone shoots a stag or a buck in the jungle; and for that we generally have to rely on Dermot. But he is away such a lot, wandering along the frontier, keeping an eye on the peace of the Border. Now we'll be able to look to you. We have three transport elephants with the detachment, all steady to shoot from."
Frank was delighted.
"I'd love to go into the jungle if you'd let me, sir."
"Yes, I'll be glad if you do. There's not much work for you here; and this is a dull place for a youngster unless he's keen on sport. I'm not, myself; and Burke's as blind as a bat. But you can always have an elephant when they aren't wanted to bring up supplies from the railway."
The subaltern thanked him gratefully and inwardly decided that his new commanding officer was a great improvement on Colonel Trevor.
"Now, Burke, I'm off to my bungalow. Show Wargrave his quarters," said the Major rising. "See you at dinner."
Burke showed the subaltern his room, one of the four into which the Mess was divided. Like the doctor's quarters, it was at one end of the building, the centre apartment being the officers' anteroom and dining-room. Frank found that his "boy," with the ready deftness of Indian servants, had unpacked his trunks, hung up his clothes and stowed his various belongings about the scantily-furnished room. He had stood Violet's photo on the one rickety table and laid out his Master's white mess uniform on the small iron cot.
Major Hunt, Wargrave learned, lived in a bungalow a few hundred yards away, but, being unmarried, took his meals in the Mess. The Indian officers and sepoys of the detachment were quartered in barracks in the Fort.
Frank dressed and entered the anteroom or officers' sitting-room, from which a door led into the messroom. Both apartments were poorly furnished, but the walls were adorned with the skulls and skins of many beasts of the jungle, presented by Colonel Dermot, as Frank learned. Shelves filled with books ran across one end of the anteroom.
As the interior of the Mess was rather hot at that time of year—though to Wargrave it seemed very cool after Rohar—the dinner-table was laid on the verandah; and while the officers sat at their meal the pleasant mountain breeze played about them. Frank thought with gratitude of his escape from the burning heat which at that moment was tormenting the hundreds of millions in the furnace of the Plains of India stretching away from the foot of the cool hills.
The meal was not luxurious, for it consisted almost exclusively of tinned provisions, fresh meat being unprocurable in Ranga Duar—except fowls of exceeding toughness—and vegetables and bread being rare dainties.
During dinner Wargrave learned how completely isolated his new station was. Their only European neighbours were the planters on tea-gardens scattered about in the great forest below, the nearest thirty miles off. The few visitors that Ranga Duar saw in the year were the General on his annual inspection, an occasional official of the Indian Civil Service, the Public Works or the Forest Department, or some planter friend of the Dermots.
The reason of the existence of this outpost and its garrison was the guarding of theduars, or passes, through the Himalayas against raiders from Bhutan, that little-known independent State lying between Tibet and the Bengal border. Its frontier was only two miles from, and a few thousand feet above, Ranga Duar.
"You are just in time for our one yearly burst of gaiety, Wargrave," said the Commandant, "the visit of the Deb Zimpun."
"What on earth is that, sir?" asked the subaltern.
"Sounds like a new disease, doesn't it?" said Burke laughing. "But it isn't. The Deb Zimpun is a gintleman av high degree, the Heridithary Cup Bearer to the Deb Raja."
"To the what?" demanded the bewildered Frank.
Major Hunt smiled.
"Bhutan is supposed to be ruled by a temporal monarch called the Deb Raja and also by a spiritual one, known in India as the Durma Raja. In reality it is under the sway of the most powerful of the several great feudal lords of the land, the Tongsa Penlop or Chief of Tongsa, whom we regard as the Maharajah of Bhutan. He has placed himself, as far only as the foreign relations of the country go, under the suzerainty of the Government of India; and in return we grant him a subsidy of alakhof rupees a year. It used to be fifty thousand, but the sum was doubled years ago. To get the money one of the State Council comes every year. He is an official called the Deb Zimpun."
"Faith! he's a rum old beggar, Wargrave," broke in Burke. "Looks like the Pope av Rome in his thriple crown, for he wears a high gold-edged cap and a flowing red robe av Chinese silk, out av which sticks a pair av hairy bare legs."
"The Political Officer receives him indurbar; and we furnish a Guard of Honour. The Colonel gives a dinner to him and us, and we have another spread in the Mess. That reminds me. I suppose Dermot will be going into the jungle soon to shoot for the pot, as thedurbaris next week. You'd better get him to take you. You can have one of our elephants and provide for our larder."
"Thanks very much, Major," said the delighted subaltern. "The Colonel promised to let me accompany him and lend me a rifle."
When he went to his room that night the subaltern turned up the oil lamp that lighted it and before he undressed sat down before Violet's photograph. As he looked at it he thought affectionately and a little sadly of the lonely woman so far away from him now. He pitied her for the isolation in which she lived, an isolation far completer than his own, for she had few friends, no intimates, and a husband worse than a stranger in his lack of understanding of her. Surely it would be only right to take her from such a man, right to give her a fresh chance of finding the happiness that she had missed; for the warm-hearted, intelligent and artistic-natured woman would be far happier with him in this beautiful spot, remote from the world though it was. And his new comrades would appeal to her, Dermot, strong, capable, one who would always stand out from his fellows; Hunt grave, kindly, well-read; Burke witty, clever and good-hearted. And, little though Violet cared for her own sex, as a rule, surely in Mrs. Dermot she would find a friend. This happy wife, this loving mother, was so sweet and sympathetic that she would win the older woman's liking, while the two delightful children would take her heart by storm. Poor, lonely Violet, so beautiful, so ill-fated! Frank sighed as he took up her portrait and kissed it.
When he extinguished the lamp and lay down in bed it was pleasant, after the heat in Rohar, to find it so cool that he was obliged to pull a blanket over him. Only those who have endured the torment of hot nights in the tropics can appreciate his thankfulness as in the silence broken only by the monotonous cry of the nightjars he drowsed contentedly to sleep. Already he was reconciled to Ranga Duar.