Captain Swinton had told his bearer to call him early, his life in India having taught him the full value of the glorious early morning for a ride. Lord Victor had balked at the idea of a grey-dawn pleasure trip on horseback, and Swinton had not pressed the point, for he very much desired to make a little tour of inspection off his own bat, a contemplative ride free from the inane comments of his young charge.
At the first soft drawn-out "Sah-h-i-b!" of his bearer, the captain was up with soldierly precision. His eyes lighted with pleasure when he saw the saddle horse that had been provided for him from the maharajah's stable. He was a fine, upstanding brown Arab, the eyes full and set wide. When Swinton patted the velvet muzzle the Arab gave a little sigh of satisfaction, expressing content; he liked to carry men who loved horses.
The bearer, officiously solicitous, had rubbed his cloth over the saddle and bridle reins, and, examining the result, said: "Huzoor, you have clean leathers; it is well. Also the steed has lucky marks and his name is Shabaz."
Shabaz broke into a free-swinging canter as the captain took the road that stretched, like a red ribbon laid on a carpet of green, toward the hill, whereon, high up, gleamed a flat pearl, the palace of Prince Ananda.
On the hillside was a delicate tracery of waving bamboos, through which peeped cliffs of various hues—rose-coloured, ebon black, pearl grey, vermilion red; and over all was a purple haze where the golden shafts of the rising sun shot through lazy-rising vapours of the moist plain. The cliffs resembled castle walls rising from the buried city, mushrooming themselves into sudden arrogance. To the north a river wound its sinuous way through plains of sand, a silver serpent creeping over a cloth of gold. Back from either side of the river lay patches of wheat and barley, their jade green and golden bronze holding of grain suggesting gigantic plates of metal set out in the morning sun to dry.
To the westward of the river lay Darpore City, looking like a box of scattered toys. Beyond the white palace the sal-covered hills lay heavy, mysterious, sombre, as if in rebuke to the eastern sky palpitating with the radiancy that flooded it from the great golden ball of heat that swept upward in regal majesty.
Yawning caves studding a ravine which cut its climbing way up the hillside shattered the poetic spell which had driven from Swinton's mind his real object in that solitary ride. The cave mouths suggested entrances to military underground passages. He was certain that the pearllike palace was a place of intrigue. The contour of the great hill conveyed the impression of a stronghold—a mighty fort, easy of defence. Indeed, as Swinton knew, that was what it had been. Its history, the story of Fort Kargez, was in the India office, and Prince Ananda must have lied the night before when he said he did not know what city lay beneath the palace.
Fort Kargez had been the stronghold of Joghendra Bahi, a Hindu rajah, when the Pathan emperor, Sher Ghaz, had swept through India to the undulating plains of Darpore.
Gazing at the formidable hill, Swinton chuckled over the wily Pathan's manner of capturing Fort Kargez by diplomacy. He had made friends with Rajah Bahi, asking the favour of leaving his harem and vast store of jewels in that gentleman's safe custody till his return from conquering Bengal.
Such a bait naturally appealed to the covetous Hindu. But the palanquins that carried the fair maids and the wealth of jewels had also hidden within enough men to hold the gate while a horde of Pathans rushed the fort. But Rajah Bahi and many of his soldiers had escaped to the underground passages, and either by accident or design—for the vaults had been mined—they were blown up, turning the fort over like a pancake, burying the Pathan soldiers and the vast loot of gold and jewels. Then the jungle crept in, as it always does, and smothered the jagged surface beneath which lay the ruined walls. Many of the artificial lakes remained; they were just without the fort.
Climbing the zigzag roadway, Swinton fell to wondering if all the prince's talk of a desire for removal from the bustle of Darpore City was simply a blind; if his real object weren't a systematic exploration for the vast store of wealth in the buried city and also the preparation of a rebel stronghold.
On the plateau, he took a road that forked to the right, leading between hedges of swordlike aloes to the palace gardens. At a gateway in a brick wall, his guide dropped to his haunches, saying: "There is but one gate, sahib; I will wait here."
Turning a corner of an oleander-bordered path, Swinton suddenly pulled Shabaz to a halt. Twenty yards away a girl sat a grey stallion, the poise of her head suggesting that she had heard the beat of his horse's hoofs. A ripple of wind carried the scent of the Arab to the grey stallion; he arched his tapering neck and swung his head, the eyes gleaming with a desire for combat. A small gloved hand, with a quick slip of the rein, laid the curb chain against his jaw; a spur raked his flank, and, springing from its touch, he disappeared around a turn. Piqued, his query of the night before, "Who was the woman?" recalled to his mind, Swinton followed the large hoofprints of the grey. They led to within six feet of the garden wall, where they suddenly vanished; they led neither to the right nor to the left of the sweeping path.
"Good old land of mystery!" the captain muttered as, slipping from his saddle, he read out the enigma. Back, the greater stride told that the grey had gone to a rushing gallop. Here, six feet from the wall, he had taken off in a mighty leap; two holes cupped from the roadbed by the push of his hind feet told this tale. Swinton could just chin the wall—and he was a tall man. On the far side was a fern-covered terrace that fell away three feet to a roadbed, and just beyond the road the rim of a void a hundred feet deep showed.
"No end of nerve; she almost deserves to preserve her incognito," Captain Swinton thought, remounting Shabaz.
On his way out the captain passed a heavy iron gate that connected the garden with the palace. And from beyond was now coming a babel of animal voices from the zoo. Mingling with the soft perfume of roses a strong odour of cooking curry reminded him of breakfast. At the gate he picked up his man, and, riding leisurely along, sought to learn from that wizened old Hindu the horsewoman's name.
There came a keen look of cautious concealment into the man's little eyes as he answered: "Sahib, the lady I know not, neither is it of profit for one of my labour to converse about fine people, but as to the grey stallion we in the stables allude to him as Sheitan."
"He jumps well, Radha."
"Ha, sahib; all that he does is performed with strength, even when he tore an arm out of Stoll Sahib—he of the Indigo."
"How comes the lady to ride such an evil horse?" the captain asked.
"The stallion's name is Djalma, sahib, which means the favour of sacred Kuda, but to the mem-sahib he comes from the maharani's stable, which is a different thing."
"To bring her harm, even as Stoll Sahib came by it?"
But Radha parried this talk of cause leading to effect by speech relating to Djalma. "It might be that the matter of Stoll Sahib's hand was but an accident—I know not; but of evil omens, as twisted in the hair of a horse, we horsemen of repute all know. The grey stallion carries three marks of ill favour. Beneath the saddle he has the shadow maker, and that means gloom for his owner; at the knee is a curl, with the tail of the curl running down to the fetlock—that means the withdrawal of the peg. That is to say, sahib, that his owner's rope pegs will have to be knocked out for lack of horses to tie to them."
"He seems a bad lot, Radha," Swinton remarked as the attendant stopped to pick a thorn from his foot.
"Worst of all," the little man added dolefully, "is the wall eye."
"Has the grey stallion that?"
A smile of satisfaction wreathed the puckered lips of Radha. "The sahib knows, and does the sahib remember the proverb?"
"That not one will be left alive in your house if you possess a horse with one white eye?" the captain said.
They now slipped from the hill road to the plain, and the Arab broke into a swinging canter.
The captain's breakfast was waiting, so was Gilfain and also—which caused him to swear as he slipped from the saddle—was Baboo Lall Mohun Dass.
In the genial morning sun the baboo looked more heroic in his spotless muslin and embroidered velvet cap sitting jauntily atop his heavy, black, well-oiled hair.
"Wanting to speak to master, sar, this morning," he said. "After debauch, in the morning wisdom smiles like benign god. I am showing to master last night property of maharajah, and he is terrible old boy for raising hell; I am hear the sahib will make call of honour, and, sar, I am beseeching you will not confide to his highness them peccadillos."
"All right, baboo. But excuse me; I've got to have a tub and breakfast."
When Lord Victor and Captain Swinton had finished their breakfast a huge barouche of archaic structure, drawn by a pair of gaunt Waler horses, arrived to take them to the maharajah. On the box seat were two liveried coachmen, while behind rode the syces.
As they rolled along the red road through the cantonments they overtook Baboo Mohun Dass plugging along in an elephantine strut beneath a gaudy green umbrella. When they drew abreast he salaamed and said: "Masters, kind gentlemen!" The coachman drew the horses to a walk, and the baboo, keeping pace, asked: "Will you, kind gentlemans, if you see a vehicle, please send to meet me? I have commanded that one be sent for me, but a humbugging fellow betray my interest, so I am pedestrian." His big, bovine eyes rested hungrily on the capacious, leather-cushioned seat alluringly vacant in the chariot.
"All right, baboo!" Then Swinton raised his eyes to the coachman, who was looking over his shoulder, and ordered: "Hurry!"
The big-framed, alien horses, always tired in that climate, were whipped up, and a rising cloud of dust hid the carriage from Baboo Dass' glaring eyes.
Indignation drove a shower of perspiration through the baboo's greasy pores. He turned toward the sal-covered hills, and in loud resentment appealed to Kali, the dispenser of cholera, beseeching the goddess to punish the sahibs.
Baboo Dass was startled by a voice, a soft, feminine voice, that issued from a carriage that had approached unheard. He deserted the evil goddess and turned to the woman in the carriage. She was attractive; many gold bangles graced her slender arms; on her fingers were rings that held in setting divers stones, even diamonds. A large mirror ring indicated that she was coquettish, and yet a certain modesty told that she was not from Amritsar Bazaar.
Her voice had asked: "What illness troubles you, baboo?"
Now, as he salaamed, she offered him a ride into Darpore town.
Baboo Dass climbed into the vehicle, expressing his gratitude, explaining, as they bowled along, that he was a man of affairs, having business with the maharajah that morning, and that by mischance he had been forced to walk. In reciprocal confidence the lady explained she was the wife of a Marwari banker.
The baboo's resentment welled up afresh; also a little boasting might impress his pleasing companion. "To think, lady," he said, "last night we are roystering together, those two sahibs, who are lords, and me, who am a man of importance in Hamilton Company, and now they are coming in the maharajah's carriage and they pass me as if I am some low-caste fellow in their own country that works with his hands."
"That is the way of the foreigners," the Marwari woman answered softly; "they will put the yoke on your neck and say 'Thank you.' On their lips are the words of friendship, in their hand is the knotted whip."
"When they see I am important man with his highness they will not feel so elegant."
"I will take you to the drawbridge where it crosses the moat to the gate in the big wall," the Marwari woman offered.
"It is undignified for a man of my importance to approach the palace on foot," declared Baboo Dass.
The Marwari woman smiled, her stained red lips parting mischievously. "But also, Baboo Dass, it would not be proper for you to arrive with me. I have a way to arrange it that will save both our good standing. We will drive to my place of banking, then my carriage will take you to the palace, and the sahibs will not see you walk in."
The baboo was delighted. In India opulent people did not call on rajahs afoot; also the carriage was a prosperous-looking vehicle, and the two country-bred horses were well fed.
As they neared the palace, that lay hidden behind massive brick walls, they left the main thoroughfare, and, after divers turnings, entered a street so narrow that their vehicle passed the mud-walled shops with difficulty. A sharp turn, and the carriage stopped in a little court.
Four burly natives rose up from the mud step on which they had been sitting, and, at a word from the Marwari woman, seized her companion. The baboo struggled and sought to cry out for help, but the lady's soft hand deftly twisted a handkerchief into his mouth, hushing his clamour. He was torn from the carriage none too gently, hustled through an open door, and clapped into a chair, where he was firmly held by his four attendants.
A little old man seized a cup wherein was a piece of soap, and with his brush beat up a lather, saying softly: "Do not struggle, baboo; it is for your good. These fevers burn the liver and affect the brain; in no time I will have taken the accursed fever from your head."
Then with a scissors he nimbly clipped the profuse locks of the baboo's head, the latter, having managed to spit out the handkerchief, protesting that it was an outrage, that he was a jewel merchant from Calcutta waiting upon the rajah.
"Yes, yes," the little man told the four stalwarts as he whipped at the lather, "it is even so; his wife spoke of a strange fancy he was possessed of that he was a dealer in jewels, whereas he is but a clerk. And no wonder, with a fever in the blood and with a crown of hair such as a mountain sheep wears."
Then he lathered the scalp, stroked the razor on the skin of his forearm, and proceeded to scrape.
The baboo yelled and struggled; the razor took a nick out of his scalp. At last the blue-grey poll, bearing many red nicks, was clear of hair, and he was released. His first thought was of the jewel. His searching palm fell flat against his chest; it was gone! With a cry of despair he made for the door; the carriage had vanished.
Whirling about, he accused his captors of the theft. The barber, to soothe the fever-demented one, said: "Of a surety, baboo, your wife has taken the jewel because it was an evil stone that but increased the fever that was in your blood."
The plot dawned upon Baboo Dass. He flung out the door and made for the palace.
"It does not matter," the barber said; "his wife is a woman of business, and this morning when she spoke of bringing the sick man she paid in advance." He put in the palm of each of the four a rupee, adding: "The afflicted man will now go home and sleep, his head being cooler, and the fever will go out of his blood, for so the doctor told his wife, who is a woman of method."
Prince Ananda had welcomed Lord Victor and Captain Swinton on a wide, black-marble verandah from which two marvellously carved doors gave them entrance through a lordly hall to a majestic reception chamber.
"This is the 'Cavern of Lies,'" Ananda said, with a smile, "for here come all who wish to do up the governor—and he's pliant. That, for instance"—he pointed to a billowy sea of glass prisms which hid the ceiling—countless chandeliers jostling each other like huge snowflakes.
"No end of an idea, I call it—fetching!" Lord Victor acclaimed.
Prince Ananda laughed. "The governor went into a big china shop in Calcutta one day when Maharajah Jobungha was there. The two maharajahs are not any too friendly, I may say, and when the governor was told Jobungha had already bought something he took a fancy to, he pointed to the other side of the store, which happened to be the lot of glass junk you see above, and told the shop manager to send the whole thing to Darpore. Ah, here comes the maharajah!" the prince added.
At the far end of the reception room heavy silk curtains had been parted by a gold-and-crimson uniformed servant, who announced in a rich, full voice: "His highness, the Maharajah of Darpore! Salaam, all who are in his noble presence!"
A king had stepped into the room; a reawakened, bronze-skinned Roman gladiator was coming down the centre of the room, his head thrown up like some lordly animal. He was regal in the splendour of his robes. Above the massive torso of the king, with its velvet jacket buttoned by emeralds, the glossy black beard, luxuriantly full, as fine as a woman's hair, was drawn up over the ears, its Rembrandt black throwing into relief a rose tint that flushed the olive-skinned cheek. Deep in the shadow of a massive brow were brilliant, fearless eyes that softened as they fell on Ananda's face. In the gold-edged head-dress a clasp of gold held blue-white diamonds that gleamed like a cascade of falling water. A short sword was thrust in a silk sash, its ruby-studded hilt glinting like red wine.
When Prince Ananda presented Swinton and Lord Gilfain, the latter as the son of Earl Craig, the maharajah's face lighted up; he held out his hand impulsively with simple dignity, saying in Hindustani: "Sit down, sahibs. The young lord's father was my brother; at court his ear heard my heartbeat."
A turmoil of vocal strife fell upon their ears from without. The baboo had arrived.
"Oh, murder!" Swinton groaned, recognising the Dass voice demanding admittance.
The rabble sound was coming down the hall as ineffectually two attendants clung to the ponderous Bengali, mad with his affliction. The words: "The maharajah's jewel is stolen!" caused Prince Ananda to dart to the door. Seeing him, the servants released their grasp of Baboo Dass, and the prince, not daring to leave the king's presence, allowed the half-crazed man to enter the room, where he groveled before the maharajah, bumping his forehead to the marble floor and clawing at the royal feet.
When, at the king's command, the baboo rose, Lord Victor clapped his hand over his mouth to smother his mirth, gasping: "Oh, my aunt! That head!"
Like the rattle of a machine gun, Baboo Dass poured out his tale of wo. When he had finished, the maharajah said calmly: "It doesn't matter," and with a graceful sweep of his hand suggested that Baboo Dass might retire.
Once more the baboo's voice bubbled forth.
"Begone!" And the handsome face of the maharajah took on a tigerish look. For a second it was terrifying; the change was electric. Baboo Dass recoiled and fled.
Then the maharajah's voice was soft, like a rich-toned organ, as he said in Hindustani: "India has two afflictions—famine and the Bengali."
Beside the rajah was a magnificently carved teakwood chair, a padlocked gold chain across the arms indicating that it was not to be used. The carving was marvellous, each side representing a combat between a tiger and a huge python, the graceful curve of whose form constituted the arm. At a question of interest from Gilfain, Prince Ananda spoke in Urdu to his father. The latter nodded, and Ananda, crossing to a silver cabinet, unlocked it and returned bearing a gold casket, upon the top of which was inset a large pearl. Within the casket was a half-smoked cigarette.
As if carried away by the sight of this the maharajah, speaking in Hindustani, which he saw Swinton understood, said: "That cigarette was smoked by the Prince of Wales sitting in this chair which has since been locked. He shook hands with me, sahib; we were friends; he, the son of the empress, and I a king, who was also a son to the empress."
His voice had grown rich and soft and full; the fierce, black, warlike rajput eyes were luminous as though tears lay behind. The maharajah remained silent while Swinton translated this to Lord Victor. "Ah, sahibs, if kings could sit down together and explain, there would not be war nor distrust nor oppression. When your father"—he turned his face toward Gilfain—"was a councillor in Calcutta, close to the viceroy, I had honour; when I crossed the bridge from Howra as many guns would speak welcome from Fort William as did for Maharajah Jobungha. But now I go no more to Calcutta."
If Swinton had been troubled in his analysis of the prince's motives and character, he now swam in a sea of similar tribulation. The maharajah was big. Was he capable of gigantic subtlety, such as his words would veil? He could see that Prince Ananda was abstracted; his face had lost its jaunty, debonair look; worry lines mapped its surface. The loss of the sapphire had hit Ananda hard, but if the robbery had affected the king, he was subtle in a remarkable sense, for he gave no sign.
The maharajah now rose, clapped his hands, and when a servant appeared gave a rapid order. The servant disappeared, and almost immediately returned with a silver salver upon which were two long gold chains of delicate workmanship and an open bottle of attar of rose. The maharajah placed a chain about the neck of each sahib, and sprinkled them with the attar, saying, with a trace of a smile curving his handsome lips: "Sometimes, sahibs, this ceremony is just etiquette, but to-day my heart pains with pleasure because the son of my friend is here." He held out his hand, adding: "Prince Ananda must see that you have the best our land affords."
Swinton was glad when he saw his dogcart turn into the compound to take him to the keddah sahib's for tiffin. Lord Victor had been hypnotised by the splendour of Maharajah Darpore; he went around the bungalow giving vent to ebullitions of praise. "My aunt, but the old Johnnie is a corker! And all the tommyrot one hears at home about another mutiny brewing! Damn it, Swinton, the war chiefs who want every bally Englishman trained to carry a gun like a Prussian ought to be put in the Tower!"
An hour of this sort of thing, and with a silent whoop of joy the captain clambered into his dogcart and sped away, as he bowled along his mind troubled by the maharajah angle of the espionage game.
After tiffin with the major, and out on the verandah, where they were clear of the servant's ears, Swinton asked: "Who is the mysterious lady that rides a grey Persian?"
He was conscious of a quick turn of Finnerty's head; a half-checked movement of the hand that held a lighted match to a cheroot, and as the keddah sahib proceeded to finish the ignition he described the woman and her flight over the brick wall.
"She's Doctor Boelke's niece; she has been here about a month," Finnerty answered, when Captain Swinton had finished.
"I wonder why she risked her neck to avoid me, major?"
"Well, she's German for one thing, and I suppose she knows there's a growing tension between the two peoples."
Captain Swinton allowed a smile to surprise his always set face. "Do you know why I am here, major; that is, have you had advice?"
"Yes," the major answered.
"Very good," Captain Swinton declared. "I'll give you some data. Lord Victor's father, Earl Craig, is under-secretary to India. There was some extraordinary jumble of a state document intended for the Viceroy of India. Whether its misleading phraseology was carelessness or traitorous work on the part of a clerk, nobody knows, but it read that the sircar was to practically conscript Indians—Mussulman and Hindu alike—to fight against the Turks and Germans in the war that we all feel is about to come. This paper bore the official seal; had even been signed. Then Earl Craig's copy of it disappeared—was stolen from Lord Victor, who was acting as his secretary. A girl, with whom the young man was infatuated, was supposed to have taken it for the Prussians for use in India. The girl disappeared, and Lord Victor was sent out here for fear he would get in communication with her again. Neither Lord Victor nor the earl knows I am a secret-service man. Maharajah Darpore is marked 'low visibility' in the viceroy's book of rajah rating, and, as Earl Craig wanted an Anglo-Indian as a companion to his son, this seemed a good chance to investigate quietly. There's another little matter," the captain continued quietly as he drew from his pocket a sapphire in the rough.
"Where the devil did you get that, captain? I thought that old professor pirate had stolen it," Finnerty gasped.
"That's not the stone you lost last night, major."
Finnerty looked at Swinton incredulously as the latter handed him the sapphire, for it was exactly like the stolen stone, even to the inscription.
"Let me explain," Captain Swinton said. "Some time since one Akka, a hillman, came down out of Kululand into Simla leading a donkey that carried two bags of sapphires in the rough. Nobody knew what they were, so, of course, he found it hard to sell his blue stones. That night the stones disappeared, and Akka was found in the morning at the bottom of an abyss with a jade-handled knife sticking in his back. He must have dropped over the rocks so quickly the killer hadn't time to withdraw his knife. About Akka's neck, hidden under his dirty felt coat, was hung this sapphire, and it was given to me, as I was put on the case. I took a trip up into Kululand with a hillman who claimed to have come in with Akka as guide. I got a very fine bharal head—almost a record pair of horns—and a bullet in my left leg that still gives me a limp at times, but as to sapphires in the rough I never saw another until last night."
Finnerty laughed. "India is one devil of a place for mystery."
Swinton related the incidents of the night before, and Baboo Dass' story of the three sapphires, adding: "Of course that's Hindu mythology up to date, the attributing of miraculous powers of good and evil to those blue stones."
Finnerty shifted uneasily in his chair; then, with a little, apologetic smile, said: "I'm getting less dogmatic about beliefs and their trimmings—absolute superstition, I suppose—and if a sapphire, or anything else, were associated in my mind with disaster I'd chuck the devilish thing in the river."
"At any rate, major, the main thing, so far as my mission is concerned, is that if Prince Ananda happens to get possession of the three sapphires every Buddhist—which means all the fighting Nepalese—will believe the expected Buddha has arrived."
"By gad! And the three sapphires are in Darpore—the one that was stolen from me last night, the one stolen from Baboo Dass, and this one."
"Prince Ananda has yours; I saw Boelke purposely tip over that table. But who stole the one from the baboo I don't know; it couldn't have been a raj agent, for it belonged to the maharajah."
"Where did they come from?" Finnerty queried.
"Yours, of course, was on Burra Moti's neck, and she must have been attached to some temple; Akka probably murdered some lama who had this one about his neck; where Prince Ananda got the third one I don't know."
"By Jove!" Finnerty ejaculated. "It was a hillman that Moti put her foot on. He had been sent to steal that bell, as he couldn't carry the elephant."
"Here's another thing," Captain Swinton said. "In the United States there has been arrested a clique of Hindus who have sold a great quantity of rare old jewels, gold ornaments, and sapphires in the rough. Machine guns and ammunition were bought with the money obtained, and quite a consignment is somewhere on the road now between China and India."
"Great Scott! Up this way—to come in through Nepal?"
"The stuff was shipped from San Francisco to Hongkong, and though the British government had every road leading out of that city watched, they never got track of it. Our men there think it was transshipped in Hongkong harbour and is being brought around to India by water."
"Does the government think the maharajah is mixed up in this?"
"I'm here to find out. He mystified me to-day. Gilfain thinks he's magnificent—as natural as a child. But he's too big for me to judge; I can't docket him like I can Ananda. He was as regally disinterested over the disappearance of that sapphire as the Duke of Buckingham was when his famous string of black pearls broke and scattered over the floor at the Tuileries; but the prince was seething."
Finnerty waved his cheroot in the direction of the palace hill. "The trouble is up there. Ananda is wily; he's like a moon bear he has there in a cage that smiles and invites you to tickle the back of his neck; then, before you know it, the first joint of a finger is gone."
A little lull in the talk between Swinton and Finnerty was broken by a turmoil that wound its volcanic force around the bungalow from the stables. Finnerty sprang to his feet as a pair of Rampore hounds reached the drive, galloping toward a tall native at whose heels came a big hunting dog.
"Faith, I was just in time," Finnerty said as he led the two hounds to the verandah, a finger under each collar; "they'd soon have chewed up that Banjara's dog."
The Rampores were very like an English greyhound that had been shaved; they were perhaps coarser, a little heavier in the jaw. A panting keeper now appeared, and the dogs were leashed.
Seeing this, the native approached, and in a deep, sombre voice said: "Salaam, Sahib Bahadur!" Having announced himself, the Banjara came up the steps and squatted on his heels; the long male-bamboo staff he carried betokened he was a herdsman.
"What do you want, Lumbani?" Finnerty queried.
"Yes, sahib, I am a Banjara of the Lumbani caste. The sahib who is so strong is also wise in the ways of my people."
"I wonder what this will cost me in wasted time," the major lamented in English. "I judge his soul is weighted with matters of deep import." Then, in Hindustani: "That's a true Banjara dog, Lumbani."
"Yes, sahib, he is one of that great breed. Also in the sahib's hands are two thoroughbred Rampores; they be true dogs of the Tazi breed, the breed that came from Tazi who slept by the bedside of Nawab Faiz Mahomed five generations since. The sahib must be in high favour with the Nawab of Rampore, for such dogs are only given in esteem; they are not got as one buys bullocks."
"What is it you want?" queried Finnerty.
The Banjara looked at Swinton; he coughed; then he loosened the loin cloth that pinched at his lean stomach.
"This dog, sahib—Banda is the noble creature's name—has the yellow eyes that Krishna is pleased with; that is a true sign of a Banjara." He held out his hand, and Banda came up the steps to crouch at his side.
At this intrusion of the native's dog, the patrician Rampores sprang the full length of their leash with all the ferocity that is inherent in this breed. A pariah dog would have slunk away in affright, but the Banjara's yellow eyes gleamed with fighting defiance; he rose on his powerful, straight legs, and his long fangs shone between curled lips.
"Good stuff!" Finnerty commented, and to his groom added: "Take the hounds away. He's a sure-enough Banjara, Swinton," he resumed in English. "Look at that terrier cast in the face, as though there were a streak of Irish or Airedale in him."
Indeed, the dog was a beauty, with his piercing bright eyes set in the long, flat head that carried punishing jaws studded with strong teeth. The neck was long, rising from flat, sloping shoulders, backed up by well-rounded ribs and arched loins leading to well-developed quarters. The chest was narrow and deep, and the flanks tucked up.
"They're game, too," Finnerty declared. He turned to the owner. "Will Banda tackle a panther?"
"He and his sons have been in at the death of more than one; they will follow a leopard into a cave."
"How much will you take for him?" Swinton asked.
The native looked his scorn. He turned to Finnerty as though his sarcasm might be wasted upon this sahib who thought a Banjara would sell one of the famous breed. "Perhaps the strange sahib will go to Umar Khan, at Shahpur, and buy one of the Salt Range horses—a mare of the Unmool breed. When he has I will sell him Banda."
Swinton laughed, and, taking a rupee from his pocket, passed it to the native, saying: "Food for Banda. The sarcasm was worth it," he added in English, "an Unmool mare being above price."
"All this talk of the dogs," Finnerty declared, "is that our friend has something on his mind. He was studying you, but you've broken the ice with your silver hammer."
The native salaamed, tucked the rupee in his loin cloth, and the questioning, furtive look that had been in his eyes disappeared. He turned to the major:
"Huzoor, I am a man of many buffaloes, robbing none, going in peace with my herds up into the hills in the hot weather when the new grass comes green and strong from the ashes of the fire that has been set out in the spring, and coming back to the plains when the weather is cold."
"Where is your country?" Finnerty queried.
"Where my grain bags and my cooking pots are is my country, my fathers holding that all lands were theirs to travel in. For fifteen years in this moon have I remained down yonder by the river with my herd, just where the heavy kagar grass makes good hunting for tiger, and always on good terms of friendship with him."
"Gad! I thought so," Finnerty ejaculated. "We'll get news of a kill in a minute."
"If we met in the path—that is, your slave and tiger—I would say: 'Khudawand, pass here, for the thorns in the bush are bad for thy feet,' and if tiger was inclined he would pass, or he would turn. Often lying on the broad back of a buffalo as we crossed where the muck is deep I would see tiger lying in wait for pig or chinkara, and I would call, 'Kudawand, good hunting!' Then what think you, sahib, if after years of such living in peace, this depraved outcast, begotten of a hyena, makes the kill of a cow?"
"A tiger, like a woman, is to be watched," Finnerty declared, quoting a tribal adage.
"And all in the way of evil temper, sahib, for the cow lies yonder with no mark beyond a broken neck, while in the jungles rajah tiger is growling abuse. A young cow, sahib, in full milk. For the sake of God, sahib, come and slay the brute."
The Banjara had worked himself into a passion; tears of rage stood in his eyes. "And to think that I had saved the life of this depraved one," he wailed.
"You saved the tiger's life, Lumbani?"
"Surely, sahib. Of the Banjaras some are Mussulmans—outcasts that lot are—and some are Hindus, as is your servant, so we are careful in the matter of a kill, lest we slay one of our own people who has returned. This slayer of my cow always took pleasure in being near the buffalo. Why, huzoor, I have seen him up in the hills looking as though he had felt lonesome without the herd. Noting that, it was in my mind that perhaps a Banjara herdsman had been born again as a tiger. That is why I saved his life from the red dogs of the jungle; nothing can stand before them when they are many. From the back of a buffalo I saw one of these jungle devils standing on high ground, beckoning, with his tail stuck up like a flag, to others of his kind."
"I've seen that trick," Finnerty commented.
"The tiger had been caught in a snare of the Naga people as he came to partake of a goat they had tied up, as he thought, for his eating; the sahib knows of what like a snare is to retain a tiger. A strong-growing bamboo, young and with great spring, had been bent down and held by a trip so that tiger, putting his paw in the noose, it sprang up, and there he was dancing around like a Nautch girl on the rope that held his wrist, being a loose bamboo too big for a grip of his teeth; it spun around on the rope. The red dogs, hearing his roars, knew he was trapped, and were gathering to settle an old dispute as to the eating of a kill. They would have made an end of him. A mongoose kills a cobra because he is too quick for the snake, and they were too quick for the tiger; so, taking pity upon him as an old friend, with my staff I drove them off; then, climbing into the bamboos, cut the rope."
"Did you tackle them alone, Lumbani?"
"Surely, sahib; jungle dogs run from a man that is not afraid."
Finnerty's shikarri, Mahadua the Ahnd, who had come to the verandah, now said: "The tiger this herder of buffalo tells of is 'Pundit Bagh;' he is well known to all."
"And you never brought word that we might make the hunt," Finnerty reproached.
"Sahib, we Ahnd people when we know a tiger is possessed of a spirit do not seek to destroy that one."
"Why is he called Pundit? Is he the ghost of a teacher?"
"This is the story of Pundit Bagh, sahib: Long ago there was a pundit that had a drug that would change him into an animal, and if he took another it would change him back again."
The Ahnd's little bead eyes watched his master's face furtively.
"One day as the pundit and his wife were walking through the jungle a leopard stepped out in the path to destroy them. He gave his wife one powder to hold, saying: 'I will take this one and change into a tiger, and when I have frightened the leopard away give me the other that I may change back to myself.' But the poor woman when she saw her tiger husband spring on the leopard dropped the powder and ran away; so the pundit has remained a tiger, and is so cunning that it will be small use to make the hunt."
"But coming and going as he must, Mahadua, how know you it is the same one?"
"By the spectacles of the pundit, sahib; there is but one tiger that wears them."
Finnerty laughed. "Does he never drop them, little man?"
"Sahib, they are but black rings around his eyes—such as are on the back of a cobra's head—like unto the horn glasses the pundit wore."
"Baboo Dass declared the tiger that peeped in his window wore spectacles; it must have been this same legendary chap," Swinton remarked.
An old man came running up the road, between its walls of pipal trees, beating his mouth with the palm of his hand in a staccato lament. At the verandah he fell to his knees and clasped Finnerty's feet, crying: "Oh, sahib, Ramia has been mauled by a tiger the size of an elephant, and from the fields all have run away. Come, sahib, and slay him."
"Pundit Bagh keeps busy," the major said; "but by the time we make all our arrangements it will be near evening, and if we wound him we can't follow up in the dark. Go back and keep watch on the tiger; to-morrow we will make the hunt," he told the old man.
To the Hindu to-morrow meant never; when people did not mean to do things they said "to-morrow." Perhaps the sahib was afraid; perhaps he had presented the tiger in too fearful a light, so he hedged. "Come, protector of the poor, come even now, for we are afraid to go into the grass for Ramia. The tiger is not big—he is old and lame; one ball from the sahib's gun will kill him. Indeed, sahib, he is an old tiger without teeth."
Finnerty laughed; but the Banjara flamed into wrath at this trifling. "Son of filth! Skinner of dead cattle! Think'st thou the sahib is afraid? And did an old, toothless tiger kill a buffalo of mine? Begone! When the sahib goes to the hunt, he goes."
The Ahnd now said: "Have patience, man of buffaloes; perhaps another, a leopard, is the guilty one. Pundit Bagh acts not thus; in fact, in the little village of Picklapara, which he guards, more than once when the villagers have made offering to him of a goat has he driven away a leopard that had carried off an old woman or a child."
"Fool! Does a leopard break the neck of a bullock? Does he not slit the throat for the blood? And always does not a leopard first tear open the stomach and eat the heart and the liver? I say it was the tiger," and the Banjara glared at Mahadua.
"It was a small, old tiger," the Hindu declared again.
"Seems a bit of luck; evidently 'Stripes' is inviting trouble," Swinton observed.
"You'll want Lord Victor to have a chance at this first tiger, I suppose, captain?"
"If not too much trouble."
"I fancy our best way will be to make the hunt from elephants," Finnerty said musingly. "We can beat him out of the grass." He spoke to the old Hindu sternly: "Tell me the truth. Is Ramia still with the tiger?"
The Hindu blinked his eyes in fear. "It may be, huzoor, that he ran away to his home, but there is a big cut in his shoulder where the beast smote him."
"Sahib," the Banjara advised, "if the Presence will go on foot, even as he does many times, I will go with him, carrying the spare gun; the tiger knows me well and will wait till we are able to pull his whiskers."
"These Banjaras haven't a bit of fear," Finnerty commented. "Is it good ground for elephants?" he asked.
The Banjara's face clouded. "Sahib, the elephants make much noise. Perhaps the tiger will escape; perhaps if he comes out in an evil way of mind the elephant will run away."
"Well, Swinton, if you'll ride back and get Gilfain—what guns have you?"
"I've a Certus Cordite and my old .450 Express."
"Good as any. Soft-nosed bullets?"
"Yes, I have some."
"Well, use them; we'll be pretty close, and you'll want a stopping bullet if the old chap charges. What's Gilfain got?"
"A battery—a little of everything, from a .22 Mannlicher up to a double-barrel, ten-bore Paradox."
"Tell him to bring the Paradox—it won't take as much sighting as the rifle; Gilfain has probably done considerable grouse shooting. He's almost sure to miss his first tiger; nerves go to pieces generally. I'll get two elephants—you and Lord Victor in one howdah, and I'll take Mahadua in the other."
"If you've got a bullet-proof howdah I'd use it, major; I've seen that young man do some bally fool things."
"I wish I could take Burra Moti," Finnerty said regretfully; "she's a good hunting elephant, but without her bell I couldn't depend on her."
"Use the stone I've got for a clapper."
"No, thanks."
"Why not? It will be under your eye all the time. You can take it off at night and put it in your box. Besides, nobody will suspect that there's another sapphire in the bell."
"I won't have time to have a goldsmith beat the bell into shape to-day."
Swinton drove back to get Lord Victor. When his two elephants were ready, Finnerty, with the Banjara marching at his side, took the road that, halfway to Darpore City, forked off into a wide stretch of dusty plain that was cut here and there by small streams and backwaters; these latter places growing a heavy rush grass that made good cover for both the tiger and his prey—swamp deer and pig.
Swinton and Lord Victor were at the fork in the road, the latter attired in a wondrous Bond Street outfit. "Awfully good of you, old chap," he bubbled. "Devilish quick work, I call it; I'll feel like cabling the governor in the morning if I bag that man-killer."
"If I had Burra Moti under me, I'd think that we as good as had the tiger padded," the major declared; "but I don't know anything about my mount to-day. I don't know whether he'll stand a charge or bolt. Keep your feet under those iron straps; they're the stirrups, Lord Victor."
"Right-o."
They went down off the hill, with its big rhododendron trees, and out onto the wide plain, directed by the Banjara. In an hour they came to a small stream fringed by green rushes; along this for half a mile, and the Banjara pointed with his bamboo to a heavy, oval clump of grass, saying: "The outcast of the jungle is in that cover, sahib."
"Now this is the plan," Finnerty outlined to Swinton. "Stripes is evidently pretty well fed, and hasn't been shot at, so he's cheeky. He won't leave that grass in this hot sun unless he has to—that's tiger in general—but this cuss may have some variations. He's quite aware that we're here. Hark back on this road that we've come by till you reach that old, dry river bed, and go down that till you come to analathat runs out of this big patch of grass. I'll wait till you're posted there, then I'll beat in slowly through the grass from this side, not making much fuss so that Stripes won't think I'm driving him. When he breaks cover from the other end he'll make for thatnala. Don't shoot till you're sure of your shot; just behind the shoulder, if possible, but raking forward—that's the spot."
"Sahib," and the Banjara pointed with his bamboo to where a small bird was circling and darting with angry cries above the canes.
"Yes, that's where he is," Finnerty declared; "that's a bulbul—pugnacious little cuss—trying to drive Stripes away."
Finnerty waited until he was quite sure Swinton and his companion would be in position; then at a command his mahout prodded the elephant with a hooked spear, crying: "Dut-dut, king of all elephants, dut-dut!"
With a fretful squeak of objection the elephant, curling his trunk between his tusks for its safety, forged ponderously ahead. Like a streamer from the topmast of a yacht the bulbul, weaving back and forth, showed Finnerty the tiger was on the move. The major did not hurry him, knowing that if pressed too close he might break back, thinking he was being driven into a trap.
The Banjara, anxious to see the finish of the beast that had slain his cow, worked his way along the grass patch, watching the bulbul and Finnerty's howdah, which just showed above the canes. As the tiger stealthily slipped away from the advancing elephant other jungle dwellers in the kagar grass moved forward to escape from the killer. Knowledge of this movement of game came scenting the wind that smote on the Banjara hound's nostrils. He was a hunting dog; his very living depended on it. He saw a honey badger slip from the reeds and disappear in a hole in a bank; he caught a glimpse of a mouse deer; and all the time his master was shaping his course and timing it by the bulbul. Where there were so many small dwellers of the jungle afoot there surely would be some eating, so the hound slipped into the cane and drifted ahead of the tiger.
The wind that had been blowing across the grass now took a slant and came riffling the feathered tops of the heavy cane from the opposite point, carrying a taint of the Gilfain party.
The tiger, who had been slowly working his way in that direction, stopping every few feet to look back over his shoulder, threw up his head and read the warning message—the sahib scent that was so different from that of the coconut-oiled natives.
The sun, slanting in between the reeds, threw shadow streaks of gold and brown and black. The tiger knew what that meant—that with his synthetic-striped skin he was all but invisible at ten paces. He circled to the left, and when he had found a thick tangle of cane that promised cover, burrowed into it like a jungle pig. With his head flat to his forepaws, hiding his white ruff—so like the chin whisker of an old man—he easily might be passed without discovery.
The bulbul eyed this performance thoughtfully; a tiger lying down for a sleep was something not to waste time over. With a little tweak of triumph he settled for an instant on the bare arm of a leafless, leper-marked dalbergia tree; then, catching sight of something he disliked even more than a tiger, and still in a warlike mood, he continued on with the dog.
When Gilfain's mahout pointed with his goad to the bulbul's squawking approach, the Englishman cocked both barrels of his Paradox and waited.
The dog gradually worked up to the edge of the cane, and lay down just within its cover, ready for a sudden spring on any small animal that might come ahead of the tiger.
"There is the tiger, just within the tall grass. He has seen us and will not come out," the mahout advised.
"What shall we do, captain?" Lord Victor asked. "Go in and beat him out?"
"No; he'll break back or take to the side for it. If we wait till Finnerty beats up, the tiger will make a dash across to that other big stretch of heavy grass on our right. There's a game path between the two, and he'll stick to that."
"But I can't hit him on the gallop—not in a vital spot."
"If you get a chance at him before he breaks cover let go; if you don't bowl him over I'll take a pot shot."
Suddenly Lord Victor, quivering with excitement, his heart beating a tattoo that drowned something Swinton whispered, drew a bead on a patch of rufous fur that showed between the quivering reeds.
Back in the canes sounded a squealing trumpet note from Finnerty's elephant. With his keen scent he had discovered the tiger. Their elephant answered the call, and Lord Victor, fearing the animal his gun covered would break back, pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, and by chance, his aim was good.
A howl of canine agony followed the report, and the Banjara's dog pitched headfirst out of the cover, sat up on his haunches, looked at them in a stupid, dazed way, then raised his head and howled from the pain of a red-dripping wound in his shoulder.
Pandemonium broke loose. Down in the cane there was the coughing roar of a charging tiger; the squeal of a frightened elephant; the bark of a gun; and out to one side the harsh voice of the Banjara calling, the growing cadence of his tones suggesting he was approaching with alacrity.
Lord Victor, a presentiment of ribald retribution because of his too excellent marksmanship flashing through his mind, sprang to his feet just as the elephant, excited by all these wondrous noises, commenced a ponderous buck; that is to say, an attempt to bolt. At the first stride a huge foot went into the soft, black cotton soil, and the young nobleman, thrown off his balance, dove headfirst out of the howdah. The soft muck saved him from a broken neck; it also nearly smothered him. Eyes, nose, mouth full—it was squirted in large quantities down his spine.
Swinton started to swear, angered by the mess Lord Victor had made of things; but when that young man pulled himself like a mud turtle out of the ooze and stood up, the reproach trailed off into a spasm of choking laughter. But the Banjara arriving on the scene checked this hilarity; indeed it was probably Gilfain's grotesque appearance that saved his life.
Finnerty, too, hove hugely onto the scene, a little rivulet of blood streaming from his elephant's trunk. "Were there two tigers?" he called as he emerged from the cane.
His circling eye fell upon the black-mucked nobleman. "Gad, man, what's happened?" he queried, clapping a hand to his mouth to smother his laughter. Then he saw the dog and its owner, and hastily dropping from the howdah pushed over beside Lord Victor, saying: "Get back on your elephant."
"Look, huzoor!" And the Banjara spread his big palm in a denunciatory way toward the dying dog. "I, having had my buffalo slain by a tiger that I had befriended, and bringing the word to the sahib that he might obtain a cherished skin, now have this accursed trial thrust upon me. Why should the young of the sahibs go forth to do a man's work, huzoor?"
"It was an accident," the major replied. "Come to the bungalow to-night and you will be given the price of two dogs."
"Better make it the price of five dogs, major," Swinton called.
"I'll pay for a whole pack of hounds; I'll stock a kennel for him. I was too devilish quick on the trigger." Lord Victor emptied the black muck from his ears.
The Banjara, not understanding English, looked suspiciously at Finnerty, who hedged: "The sahib says you will be given the price of three dogs."
"Sahib, how shall we fix the price of Banda, that is a Banjara? Such are not sold. I have dogs that are just dogs, and if I had known that this sahib was young in the ways of the hunt I would have brought them for his practice. And was there a kill of tiger, or did the sahib also shoot somebody's dog?"
"Be careful!" Finnerty took a step toward the ironical one, who backed up. Then the major said in a mollifying way: "We'll kill the tiger to-morrow."
Muttering "Kul, kul—it is always to-morrow for a difficult work," the herdsman took under his arm his wounded dog and strode angrily away.
"Too devilish bad! He's fond of that cur," Lord Victor said mournfully.
"I had a corking good chance at Stripes," Finnerty offered, "but I muddled it when my elephant almost stepped on the smooth old cuss, who was lying doggo; he got up with a roar of astonishment and took a swipe at the beast's trunk. I was holding the ten-bore, loaded with shot to fire across the cane should Stripes try to break back, and, rattled by his sudden charge, I blazed away, peppering him with bird shot. So, you see, Gilfain, we're all liable to blunder in this game. We'll go back now and take up the hunt to-morrow."
As they went back Mahadua put his hand on Finnerty's foot and asked: "Did you see the spectacles on Pundit Bagh?"
Finnerty nodded, for he had seen the black rings when the tiger lifted his head.
"And did sahib put down the ball gun and take up the one that is for birds and shoot over Pundit's head because he, too, thinks that it is the spirit of a man?"
"It is not good to offend the gods, Mahadua, if one is to live with them, so we will save the killing of the pundit for the young sahib who soon goes back to Inglistan, where the anger of the gods cannot follow him," Finnerty answered solemnly.
In the other howdah, Lord Victor, in whose mind rankled the dog's shooting, brought up in extenuation this same matter of Finnerty's confessed blunder, for he had not caught the chivalry of the major's lie. "I didn't miss like the major, anyway," he began.
"No, you didn't—unfortunately." Swinton was holding a cheroot to a lighted match.
"Really, captain, I wasn't so bad. Fancy an old hunter like him getting fuzzled and banging at a tiger with bird shot."
Swinton shot a furtive look at the thin, long-nosed face that was still piebald with patches of caked lava; then he turned his eyes away and gazed out over the plain with its coloured grass and wild indigo scrub. A pair of swooping jheel birds cut across, piping shrilly: "Did you do it, did you do it!"
"That'll be a corking fine yarn for the club when I get back," Lord Victor added.
"And will you tell them about the dog you shot?"
"Rather! I didn't miss, and the major did."
Swinton turned his brown eyes on the cheerful egoist. "Gilfain, you're young, therefore not hopeless."
"I say, old chap, what's the sequel to that moralising?"
"That probably before you get out of India you'll understand just how good a sportsman Major Finnerty is."
Their elephant had been traversing a well-worn path along the bottom of a hollow, and where it left thenalato reach the plain they suddenly came upon the Banjara's encampment. It was a tiny village of dark-coloured tents; to one side of this was a herd of buffalo that had come in from the plain to be milked. They could see the herdsman sitting moodily on his black blanket, and beside him lay the dead dog.
The young Englishman viewed not without alarm the women who wore belts beneath which were stuck old-fashioned pistols and knives. This was the Banjara custom, but the guilty man feared it was a special course of punishment for him.
Finnerty's elephant had overtaken them, and now again the major had to explain that the dog would be paid for three times over, and the tiger would be surely shot on the morrow.
At this promise, a ponderous woman who had the airs of a gipsy queen pointed to the slayer of the dog and said: "Tomorrow the sahib will hunt again!"
The youngsters whooped with joy, catching the satire.
Finnerty ordered the march resumed.
At a turn, Mahadua pointed to some little red-and-white flags that fluttered above a square plinth of clay upon which was the crude painting of a vermilion tiger, saying: "That is the shrine of Pundit Bagh, and if the sahib wishes to slay him, it being necessary in the law of the jungle, it might avert evil if sacrifice were made at the shrine."
"An offering of sweetmeats and silver?"
"No, huzoor. If a goat is purchased by the sahib and a bottle of arrack, Mahadua will take the goat to the shrine, pour the wine on his head till he has bowed three times to the god, and cut his throat so that the blood falls upon the shrine to appease the god. Also I will hang up a foot of the goat."
"What becomes of the goat?" the major asked.
"We will make kabobs of the flesh in the little village yonder, and hold a feast to-night."
Finnerty remained silent, and the Ahnd, to secure a feast, fell back upon tangible arguments. "Sahib, if the villagers are full with feasting and happy because of a little arrack warm in their stomachs, they will not go forth in the early morning with conch horns and axes to beat upon trees to drive Pundit Bagh up into the hills so he may not be slain."
"All right, Mahadua, I'll furnish the goat."
They had come to where the open plain gave way to patches of jungle and rolling land clad with oak and rhododendron.
The other elephant came alongside, and Finnerty suggested: "We might walk back to my bungalow from here on the chance of getting some game for the pot. There's quail, grey and painted pheasants, green pigeon, and perhaps a peacock—I heard one call up in the jungle. I've got shells loaded with number six for my 10-bore."
"Good!" Swinton answered. "I'm cramped sitting here."
"I'm game," Lord Victor agreed.
Finnerty sent the elephants on, keeping Mahadua, the shikari.
A hot sun was shooting rapidly down close to the horizon, glaring like a flaming dirigible. A nightjar was swooping through the air like a swallow, uttering his weird evening call, "Chyeece, chyeece, chyeece!" as they went through a fringe of dwarf bamboos and up into the shadow of the trees.
Here Finnerty checked, saying: "I'm afraid I'll have to keep in the lead." He lifted a foot, showing a boot made of soft sambar skin with a cotton sole. "Every creature in the jungle is on the qui vive, and for stalking on foot one has to wear these silent creepers."
They had not travelled far along the narrow jungle path that had been worn smooth by the bare feet of natives crossing from village to village when Finnerty stood rigid and beckoned gently with a forefinger; and when they had reached his side they could hear the jabber of monkeys scolding angrily far up the path. Between them and the jungle discord was a large monkey sitting on the limb of a tree, with his face turned away and his long tail hanging down.
Finnerty put a finger to his lips, and, slipping forward with the soft stealthiness of a leopard, undetected by the monkey, who was intent on his companions' squabble, gave the tail a pull. The startled and enraged lungur whisked about and thrust his black face, with its fringe of silver-grey whiskers, forward pugnaciously, pouring out a volley of simian oaths. Seeing a sahib, he stopped with a gasping cry of fright and raced up the tree to take a diving flight to another.
"No end of a funny caper!" Lord Victor laughed.
"No use of keeping quiet now," the major declared; "those noisy devils have stirred up everything. If I were following up a tiger I'd know they had spotted him."
"Behold, sahib!" And Mahadua pointed to the trunk of the rhododendron.
When Finnerty had closely examined some marks about the height of his head in the tree, he said: "Even if our friend Pundit Bagh hasn't an evil spirit, he has a sense of humour; he's sharpened his claws here, and not long ago, either."
"Really? Oh, I say, old top, you're spoofing. No end of a good draw, though." And Lord Victor chuckled.
"I'm in earnest," Finnerty declared crisply. "A rhododendron has a bark like rough sandpaper—it's a favourite whetstone for the cat tribe; and this was a big tiger, as you can judge by the height of the marks."
"There are no pugs on the path, sahib," Mahadua advised, after a search.
"We'll keep close together for a bit," Finnerty advised, starting on.
At Finnerty's elbow the shikari whispered: "Tell the sahibs to talk, so that we come not in a startling way upon the Pundit, that he may escape in peace."
The major conveyed this message to his companions.
For a hundred yards they walked through a jungle that was now silent save for their voices and the slip of their feet on the smooth earth. From a tangle of raspberry bushes ahead a king crow rose in excited flight.
"That's a bird that always gets in a rage when tiger is about," Finnerty explained; "so keep your eye open—the jungle's thick here."
The major had taken a knife from his pocket, and he now ran its sharp blade around two 10-bore shells, just between the wads which separated the powder from the shot, saying, as he slipped first the shot half and next the powder half into his gun: "That is now practically a ball cartridge, for the shot packet will carry like a bullet for a good many yards. I don't think we'll see him, though. Ah! Mistaken!"
A magnificent striped creature slipped without noise from some thick undergrowth twenty yards ahead, and now stood across the path, his huge head turned so that the questioning yellow eyes were full upon them.
"Pundit Bagh—see his spectacles, sahib!" Mahadua gasped.
The curious black oval markings added to the sinister malignity of the unblinking eyes.
"Don't move, you chaps; he's only bluffing. If you weaken he'll charge," Finnerty cautioned.
"I will speak to Pundit Bagh," Mahadua said, stepping a pace forward. "Kudawand, Protector of the Village, go in peace. Did not the sahib this day give you back your life? Did not the sahib put down the rifle and take up the bird gun and shoot in the air over your head? Go in peace, Kudawand, lest the sahib now smite thee with the ball gun."
"Have you a box of matches, Swinton?" the major asked, a quick thought coming to him that probably the tiger, in his migrations to the hills, had learned to dread the fire line of the burning grass.
Something of this scheme registered in Swinton's brain, for he answered: "I've got a newspaper, too."
"Give the paper and matches to Mahadua." Then to the servant he added: "Roll the paper like a torch and light it."
The tiger watched this performance with interest. There is no dweller of the jungle but is a victim of curiosity—the unusual will always arrest their attention; and the tiger's attitude assured Finnerty that he really had no fixed purpose; it would take very little to make him either attack or retreat. If it had not been for the Banjara's buffalo, killed out of pure deviltry, and the mauled native, Finnerty would have had no hesitation in thinking the tiger would turn from the path if they kept steadily advancing.
When Mahadua struck a match on the box, its snapping hiss and flare of light caused an uneasy shift of the spectacled eyes. When the paper showed its larger flame, the look of distrust and suspicion increased; the bristled lips twisted in a nervous snarl; the powerful tail that had been swinging in complacent threatening from side to side now stilled and dropped.
"Move on!" Finnerty commanded, stepping slowly forward, the 10-bore held waist-high, both fingers on the triggers.
Mahadua, holding the burning paper straight in front of him, kept pace with his master, Swinton and Lord Victor following close.
The sinister ominousness of this performance, its silent aggression, wakened in the tiger's wary mind the dominant thought of his lifetime—caution, suspicion of a trap. It was a supreme test of unheated courage between two magnificent creatures, each of his own species—the gigantic man and the regal tiger; and the physical advantage was with the beast. Step by step, slow-measured, Finnerty and the shikari pressed forward. The Pundit now swung his lithe body with sinuous grace till he stood aggressively straight in the path, his head lowered so that a little furrow showed between his shoulder blades and the red-green eyes slanted evilly upward through the spectacles.
Finnerty read the sign. If the tiger crouched flat to earth, ready for a spring, it would be well to halt and try still further his courage by calmly waiting his attack. The big tail had ceased its rhythmic swing, but did not stiffen in ferocity; it curved downward. Even that beat of the pulse of events Finnerty gauged.
At ten yards Lord Victor had ceased to breathe; he wanted to scream under the cracking strain. He felt a hand on his arm—it was Swinton's. The paper torch palpitated in the native's trembling hand; but he faltered not, though the vicious eyes were ever on him and the fire. Nine yards, eight yards—all a hell of silent, nervous strain. Seven yards—the tiger turned in a slow, voluptuous glide, his ominous eyes still on the torchbearer, and slipped through the bushes to the jungle beyond.
Finnerty quickened his pace to a fast walk, saying: "Put the light out—save the paper."
Presently Mahadua touched Finnerty's elbow and held up a hand. Listening, the major heard the "miouw" of a peacock—not the usual, droning note, but a sharp, angry screech. Immediately the alarmed belling of a sambar came from the direction in which the peacock had called, followed by a short, muffled roar from the tiger.
"Missed him!" Finnerty commented. He turned to his companions. "Our shooting has been spoiled; we'll just push on to my bungalow."