Finnerty had slept an hour when he was wakened by the raucous voice of a peacock greeting dawn with his unpleasant call from high up in the sal forest. A cold grey pallor was creeping into the eastern sky as the major, still feeling the holding lethargy of the disturbed night, closed his eyes for a little more of oblivion. But Life, clamorous, vociferous, peopling the hills, the trees, the plain, sent forth its myriad acclaim, as a warming flush swept with eager haste up the vaulted dome, flung from a molten ball that topped the forest line with amazing speed.
A flock of parrakeets swooped like swallows through the air with high-pitched cries; from the feathered foliage of a tamarind came the monotonous drool, "Ko-el—ko-el—ko-el—ke-e-e-e-el!" of the koel bird, harbinger of the "hot spell;" a crow, nesting in a banyan, rose from her eggs, and, with a frightened cry, fled through the air as a hawk cuckoo swooped with shrill whistle as if to strike. The cuckoo, dumping from the nest a couple of the crow's white eggs, settled down to deposit her own embryo chick. From the kennels came the joyous bark of Rampore hounds, and from a native village filtered up the yapping cries of pariah dogs.
Far up the road that wound past the bungalow sounded the squealing skirl of wooden axles in wooden wheels, and the cries of the bullock driver, "Dut, dut, dut, Dowlet! Dut, dut—chelao Rajah!" followed by the curious noise that the driver made with his lips while he twisted the tails of his bullocks to urge them on.
Finnerty thought of the stone on the road, and, passing into the bungalow, wakened Swinton. "Sorry, old boy, but we'd better have a look at that stone—there are carts coming down the hill."
"Bless me! Almost dropped off to sleep, I'm afraid!" and the captain sat up.
When they arrived at the scene of Swinton's adventure, Finnerty, peering over the embankment, said: "The dogcart is hung up in a tree halfway down. I expect you'll find that chita at the bottom, kicked to death by the Cabuli."
Swinton, indicating an abrasion on the boulder that might have been left by the iron tire of a wheel, said: "My cart didn't strike this, and there are no other iron-wheel marks on the road; just part of this beastly plot—to be used as evidence that the stone put me over the bank."
"They even rolled the boulder down to leave an accidental trail. There's not a footprint of a native, though. Hello, by Jove!" Finnerty was examining two bamboos growing from the bank above the road. "See that?" and his finger lay on an encircling mark where a strap had worn a smooth little gutter in the bamboo shell two feet from the ground. Both bamboos, standing four feet apart, showed this line of friction. "Here's where they held the chita in leash, and, when you arrived, took off his hood and slipped the straps. We'll just roll that boulder off the road and go back to breakfast."
"Oh, Lord!" the major exclaimed, as, midway of their breakfast, there came the angry trumpeting of an elephant. "That's Moti, and she wants her bell. She's an ugly devil when she starts; but, while I don't mind losing some sleep, I must eat."
"The devil of it is that all this circumstantial evidence we're gathering isn't worth a rap so far as the real issue is concerned," the captain said from the depths of a brown study.
"I understand," Finnerty answered. "It proves who is trying to get rid of us, but the government is not interested in our private affairs—it wants to check Ananda's state intrigues."
"And also we won't mention any of these things to our young friend whom I hear outside," Swinton added, as the voice of Lord Victor superseded the beat of hoofs on the road.
As he swung into the breakfast room, Gilfain explained cheerily: "Thought I'd ride around this way to see what had happened; my bearer heard in the bazaar Swinton had been eaten by a tiger—but you weren't, old top, were you?"
"My dogcart went wrong," Swinton answered, "so I stayed with the major."
"What made me think something might have happened was that the bally forest here is pretty well impregnated with leopards and things—one of Ananda's hunting chitas escaped last evening and he was worrying about it at dinner; says he's a treacherous brute, has turned sour on his work, and is as liable to spring on a man as on a pronghorn."
"Was the prince anxious about me in particular?" the captain asked innocently.
"Oh, no; he didn't say anything, at least."
Finnerty sprang to his feet as a big gong boomed a tattoo over at the keddah. "Trouble!" he ejaculated. "Elephant on the rampage—likely Moti."
The bungalow buzzed like a hive of disturbed bees. A bearer came with Finnerty's helmet and a leather belt in which hung a .45 Webley revolver; a saddled horse swung around the bungalow, led by a running syce.
The major turned to Swinton. "Like to go?"
"Rather!"
Finnerty sprang down the steps, caught the bridle rein, and said: "Bring Akbar for the sahib, quick!"
Soon a bay Arab was brought by his own syce. "Come on, Gilfain, and see the sport!" And Finnerty swung to the saddle. "It's not far, but the rule when the alarm gong sounds is that my horse is brought; one never knows how far he may go before he comes back." To the bearer he added: "Bring my 8-bore and plenty of ball cartridges to the keddah."
When they arrived at the elephant lines, the natives were in a fever of unrest. Mahadua had answered the gong summons and was waiting, his small, wizened face carrying myriad wrinkles of excited interest. Moti's mahout was squatted at the tamarind to which she had been chained, the broken chain in his lap wet from tears that were streaming down the old fellow's cheeks.
"Look you, sahib!" he cried. "The chain has been cut with a file."
"Where is Moti?" Finnerty queried.
"She is down in the cane," a native answered; "I have just come from there."
"She has gone up into the sal forest," another maintained. "I was coming down the hill and had to flee from the path, for she ismust."
"Huzoor, the elephant has stripped the roof from my house," a third, a native from Picklapara village, declared. "All the village has been laid flat and a hundred people killed. Will the sircar pay me for the loss of my house, for surely it is a government elephant and we are poor people?"
Finnerty turned to the shikari. "Mahadua, which way has Moti gone?"
"These men are all liars, sahib—it is their manner of speech. Moti went near to Picklapara and the people all ran away; but she is now up on the hills."
The mahout stopped his droning lament long enough to say: "Sahib, Moti is not to be blamed, for she is drunk; she knows not where evil begins, because a man came in the night and gave her a ball ofbhangwrapped up in sweets."
"We've got to capture the old girl before she kills some natives," Finnerty declared. "If you chaps don't mind a wait, I'll get things ready and you'll see better sport than killing something."
First the major had some "foot tacks" brought. They were sharp-pointed steel things with a broad base, looking like enormous carpet tacks. Placed on the path, if Moti stepped on one she would probably come in to the keddah to have her foot dressed. Four Moormen, natives of the Ceylon hills, were selected. These men were entitled to be calledpanakhans, for each one had noosed by the leg a wild elephant that had been captured, and very lithe and brave they looked as they stepped out, a rawhide noose over the shoulder of each. A small army of assistants were also assembled, and Raj Bahadar, a huge bull elephant.
Finnerty sent the men and Raj Bahadar on ahead, saying that Moti might perhaps make up to the bull and not clear off to the deep jungle. Giving them a start of fifteen minutes, the three sahibs, Mahadua, and a man to carry the major's 8-bore elephant gun followed. They travelled for an hour up through graceful bamboos and on into the rolling hills, coming upon the tusker and the natives waiting.
Gothya, the mahout, salaamed, saying:
"We have heard something that moves with noise in the jungle, and, not wishing to frighten Moti, we have waited for the sahib."
"It was a bison," one of the men declared. "Twice have I seen his broad, black back."
"Sahib," the mahout suggested, "it may be that it was a tiger, for Raj Bahadar has taken the wind with his trunk many times, after his manner when there are tiger about."
"Fools, all of you!" Finnerty said angrily. "You are wasting time."
"Sahib"—it was Mahadua's plaintive voice—"these men, who are fitted for smoking opium in the bazaar, will most surely waste the sahib's time. It is better that we go in front."
"I think you're right," Finnerty declared. "Go you in front, Mahadua, for you make little noise; the ears of an elephant are sharp, and we ride horses, but we will keep you in sight." He turned to the mahout. "At a distance bring along Bahadur and the men."
The shikari grinned with delight; he salaamed the major in gratitude. To lead a hunt! He was in the seventh heaven.
As noiseless as a brown shadow, he slipped through the jungle, and yet so free of pace that at times he had to wait lest the sahibs should lose his trail. Once they lost him for a little; when they came within sight he was standing with a hand up, and when they reached his side he said: "Sahib, sometimes a fool trips over the truth, and those two, who are assuredly fools in the jungle, have both spoken true words, for I have seen the hoofprints of a mighty bison and also the pugs of Pundit Bagh who has a foot like a rice pot. I will carry the 8-bore, and if the sahib will walk he may get good hunting; the matter of Moti can wait."
"You'd better dismount, Lord Victor, and take the shot," Finnerty advised. "A tiger is evidently stalking the bison, so perhaps will be a little off guard. The syces will bring along the ponies."
Swinton dismounted also, saying: "I'll prowl along with you, major, if you don't object."
As Lord Victor slipped from his horse, Finnerty said: "If you don't mind, I'll give you a couple of pointers about still stalking, for if you're quiet you have a good chance of bagging either a tiger or a bull bison. I can't do anything to help you; you've got to depend on yourself and the gun."
"Thanks, old chap; just tell me what I should do."
"You will keep Mahadua in sight. If you hear anything in the jungle that would cause you to look around, don't turn your neck while you are moving, but stand perfectly still—that will prevent a noisy, false step. Don't try to step on a log in crossing it—you might slip; but sit on it and swing your legs over if you can't stride it. When Mahadua holds up a finger that he sees something, don't take a step without looking where you are going to place your foot, and don't step on a stick or a stone. If it is the tiger, don't shoot if he is coming toward you—not until he has just passed; then rake him from behind the shoulder, and he'll keep going—he won't turn to charge. If you wound him when he's coming on, it's a hundred to one he'll charge and maul you, even while he's dying. As to the bull, shoot him any old way that brings him down, for the bison's ferocity is good fiction."
Finnerty had given this lesson in almost a whisper. Now he thrust the 8-bore into Lord Victor's hand, saying: "This shoots true, flat-sighted, up to fifty yards; but don't try to pick off that tiger at over twenty. The gun is deuced heavy—it weighs fifteen pounds—so don't tire your arms carrying it at the ready. It fires a charge of twelve drams of powder, so hold it tight to your shoulder or it'll break a bone. It throws a three-ounce, hollow-nosed bullet that'll mushroom in either a tiger or a bison, and he'll stop."
Mahadua took up the trail again, not following all the windings and zigzag angles of its erratic way, for they were now breasting a hill and he knew that the bull, finding the flies troublesome, would seek the top plateau so that the breeze would blow these pests away. The wind was favourable—on their faces—for the wise old bull travelled into it, knowing that it would carry to him a danger taint if the tiger waited in ambush.
"We'll carry on for a little longer," Finnerty said; "but if we find the bull is heading up into the sal forest we'll give it up and go after Moti; she won't be far away, I fancy."
They followed the bison's trail, that had now straightened out as he fled from the thing that had disturbed his rest, for fifteen minutes, and Mahadua was just dipping over the plateau's far edge when a turmoil of noises came floating up from the valley beyond—a turmoil of combat between large animals. Quickening their pace, Finnerty and Swinton saw, as they reached the slope, Mahadua wiring his way into a wall of bamboo that hung like a screen on a shelving bank.
"Come on!" Finnerty commanded. "There's such a fiendish shindy down there we won't be heard, and the wind is from that quarter."
Creeping through the bamboos, they saw Mahadua, one hand in the air as a sign of caution, peering down into the hollow. Finnerty gasped with surging delight as his eyes fell upon the regal picture that lay against the jungle background. A mighty bull bison, his black back as broad as a table, stood at bay with lowered head, his red-streaked, flashing eyes watching a huge tiger that crouched, ready to spring, a dozen feet away.
"Pundit Bagh—see his spectacles, sahib!" the guide whispered.
The torn-up ground told the battle had waged for some time. With a warning finger to his lips, Finnerty sat quivering with the joy of having stumbled upon the life desire of every hunter of big game in India—the chance to witness a combat between a full-grown tiger and a bull bison. On one side ferocity, devilish cunning, strength, muscles like piano wire, and lightning speed; on the other, enormous power, cool courage, and dagger horns that if once well placed would disembowel the cat.
Every wary twist of the crouching tiger's head, every quiver of his rippling muscles, every false feint of the pads that dug restlessly at the sward, showed that he had no intention of being caught in a death grapple with the giant bull; he was like a wrestler waiting for a grip on the other's neck, his lips curled in a taunting sneer.
With a snort of defiance the bison suddenly charged; and Pundit Bagh, his yellow fangs bared in a savage growl, vaulted lightly to the top of a flat rock, taking a swipe with spread claws at the bull's eyes as he passed. The bull, anticipating this move, had suddenly lowered his head, catching the blow on a strong, curved horn, and the Pundit sat on the rock holding the injured paw in the air, a comical look of surprise in his spectacled eyes. As the bison swung about, the tiger, slipping from the rock, faced him again, twenty feet away.
Spellbound by the atmosphere of this Homeric duel, the sahibs had crouched, motionless, scarcely breathing, held by intense interest. Now, suddenly recalling his hunting mission, Lord Victor drew the 8-bore forward; but Mahadua's little black eyes looked into Finnerty's in pathetic pleading, and the latter placed his big palm softly on the hand that held the gun. Lord Victor had been trained to understand the chivalry of sport, and he nodded. A smile hovered on his lips as he held up the spread fingers of two hands and then pointed toward the bison.
Finnerty understood, and, leaning forward, whispered: "You're on for ten rupees, and I back Stripes."
"Sahib!" So low the tone of Mahadua's voice that it barely reached their ears; and following the line of a pointed finger they saw on the rounded knob of a little hill across the valley a red jungle dog, his erected tail weaving back and forth in an unmistakable signal.
"He's flagging the pack," Finnerty whispered. "Now we'll see these devils at work."
Whimpering cries from here and there across the valley told that these dreaded brutes, drawn by the tiger's angry roars, were gathering to be in at a death.
The keen-eared bull had heard the yapping pack, and as his head turned for the fraction of a second Pundit Bagh stole three catlike steps forward; but as the horns came into defence he crouched, belly to earth, his stealthy feline nature teaching him that his only hope against his adversary's vast bulk was some trick made possible by waiting a charge.
Like Medusa's hair which changed into serpents, the screening jungle thrust forth its many sinuous tentacles. Lean, red, black-nosed heads appeared from thorny bush and spiked grass, and step by step gaunt bodies came out into the arena. Some sat on their haunches, dripping tongues lapping at yellow fangs as though their owners already drank blood; others, uttering whimpering notes of anticipation, prowled in a semicircle, their movements causing Pundit Bagh to hug closer the bank with its jutting rocks.
Both combatants in the presence of this new danger stayed for a little their battle; they knew that the one that went down first would have the pack against him.
Finnerty whispered: "The cunning devils will wait, and if Pundit Bagh wins out, but is used up—which he will be—the dogs will drive him away and eat his dinner. If he's killed, they will devour him when the bison departs."
"I wouldn't have missed this for a thousand guineas!" Lord Victor panted in a husky whisper.
Finnerty, patting the gun, said: "We'll probably have to settle it with this yet; so have it ready for a quick throw to your shoulder." He picked up a stick from the ground and thrust an end into a clump of growing bamboos, adding: "There! That 8-bore is mighty heavy; rest it across this stick. We won't shoot the bison, no matter what happens; he's like a gentleman assailed by a footpad. It will be Stripes or the dogs; so take your time drawing a bead—I'll tell you when it's necessary."
As if during this little lull following the jungle pack's advent the bison had thought along the same lines as Major Finnerty, and had come to the conclusion that if he turned tail dogs and tiger would pull him down, lowered his head, and, with a defiant snort, charged. A stride, and Pundit Bagh, who had plotted as he crouched, shot into the air, a quivering mass of gold and bronze in the sunlight. But he had waited the fraction of a second too long; he missed the neck, landing on the high, grizzled wither. Like a flash his mighty arms were about the bull, and his huge jaws, wide-spread, snapped for a grip that, if secured, would break the vertebra—it would go like a pipestem in the closing of that vise of arms and jaw. But the little shift from wither to neck caused him to miss the spine; his fangs tore through flesh and he was crushed against a rock, his hold broken.
The dogs, eager in bloodthirst, dashed in, snapping at the tiger's rumps, and, as he whirled, sprang at his face. One blow of a paw, like the cut of a gold scimitar, and a dog landed ten feet away—pulp.
A sigh of relief escaped from Finnerty as the dogs slunk back and Pundit Bagh, seemingly none the worse, crouched again for battle.
"That is their way," Mahadua whispered; "they seek to cut Bagh in his vitals behind, while in front others spit poison in his eyes to blind him; the white froth that spouts from their mouths when they fight is poison."
Blood was dripping from the bison's neck as he faced about, but the snap at his neck had not discouraged him; his actions showed that he would battle to the end. The taste of blood had broken the Pundit's debonair nonchalance. Before he had been like a cat playing with a mouse; he had purred and kinked his long tail in satirical jerks. Now he lashed his sides or beat the ground in anger. From his throat issued a snarling "W-o-u-g-h-n-ng!" Again he waited for his antagonist's charge, slipping to one side as the black mass came hurtling toward him to swipe at the eyes, cutting clean away an ear and leaving red-blooded slits from cheek to shoulder, his damaged paw once more suffering from contact with that hard skull.
The dogs had edged in as the two clashed, but dropped back to their waiting line as tiger and bison faced each other again, the latter shaking his massive head and pawing fretfully, as if angered at his enemy's slipping away when they came to close quarters. Something of this must have stirred his own strategy, for, as he thundered in a charge, he swept his head sidewise as the tiger swerved, catching Stripes a crashing blow, the sharp incurve of the horn all that saved him from being ripped wide open. Half stunned, he was pinned to earth as the bull swung short to a fresh attack; and, seeing this, taking it for the end, the dogs, with yaps of fury, closed in, snapping with their cutting teeth at flesh, wherever found.
With a bellow of rage, the bull backed away three paces, and a dog that had gripped his neck was ground to death against the earth. Pundit Bagh thrust his body up through a dozen dogs that clung like red ants, and, whether in chivalry or blind anger, the bull, with lowered head, rushed on the yapping, snarling, lancing pack, at the first thrust his daggerlike horns piercing a dog. The outstretched black neck, the taut, extended spine almost brushing Pundit's nose, flashed into his tiger mind the killing grip. Forgotten were the dogs in the blind call of blood lust. The wide-spread jaws crunched astride the neck, and, with a wrench that he had learned from his mother when a cub, the bull was thrown, the dogs pouncing upon him with hunger in their hearts.
At the first treacherous snap of the tiger's jaws, Finnerty had acted. With the subservience of a medium, at the word "Now!" Lord Victor pressed the gunstock against his shoulder; his head drooped till his eye ranged the barrels; and, penetrating the booming thump of his heart, a calming voice was saying: "Take your time; aim behind the tiger's shoulder. Stead-d-y, man!" His finger pulled heavily on the trigger, the gun roared, and a sledge-hammer blow on his shoulder all but sprawled him; then the gun was snatched from his hands. Half dazed, he saw Finnerty send another bullet into something. There was a "Click! Snap!" as two fresh shells were slipped into the barrels, and again the 8-bore thundered twice.
Springing to his feet, Gilfain saw a great mass of gold and brown flat to earth, and the black rump of a bison bull galloping off into the jungle. Then his fingers were being crushed in the huge hand of Finnerty, who was saying: "My dear boy, a corking shot—straight through the heart; he never moved! I shot two or three dogs!"
"Demme!" was all the pumped-out Lord Victor could gasp, as he sank back to the knob of earth he had been sitting on.
"One never knows," Finnerty said, shoving a fresh cartridge into the 8-bore, "if a tiger is really dead till he's skinned. Come on; we'll look."
Mahadua, saying, "Have patience, sahib," threw a stone, hitting Pundit Bagh fair on the head. There was no movement. Then, striding in front, Finnerty prodded the fallen monarch with his gun muzzle. He was indeed dead.
"I got a couple of those vermin, anyway," and Finnerty pointed to two dogs the big 8-bore bullet had nearly blown to pieces.
Mahadua, on his knees, was muttering: "Salaam, Pundit Bagh!" and patting the huge head that held the fast-glazing yellow globes set in black-rimmed spectacles. There was a weird reflex of jungle reverence in his eyes as, rising, he said, addressing Finnerty: "Sahib, Pundit Bagh did not kill men nor women nor children; this was the way he fought." And then, when there were no eyes upon him, he surreptitiously plucked three long bristles from the tiger's moustache, slipping them into his jacket pocket to be kept as a charm against jungle devils.
Lord Victor had come down the hill, dead to sensation; he had walked like one in a dream. The fierce press of contained excitement had numbed his brain; now he loosened to the erratic mood of a child; he laughed idiotically, while tears of excited joy rolled down his pink cheeks; he babbled incoherent, senseless words; he wanted to kiss Finnerty, Pundit Bagh, or something, or somebody; he would certainly give Mahadua a hundred rupees; he fell to unlacing and lacing his shoes in nervous dementia. What would the earl say? What would the fellows at the London clubs say?
Finnerty had a tape out, and, passing his notebook to Swinton, he, with Mahadua at one end of the tape, rapidly ruled off the following measurements:
"There!" And Finnerty put his tape in his pocket. "Pundit Bagh is a regal one. I feel sorry we had to shoot him in just that way; but the dogs spoiled a good fight. Fancy your getting a skin like that to take back, Lord Victor—it's luck! And remember, gentlemen, we must spread this mandate that a bull bison with one ear goes free of the gun, for he was a right-couraged one."
"Rather!" Lord Victor ejaculated. "To-night we'll drink a toast in fizz to the one-eared bull—a thoroughbred gentleman!"
"We'll need the elephant up to pad this tiger," Finnerty said. Mahadua, who was sent to bring on Raj Bahadar, had not been gone two minutes when from their back trail came, upwind, the shrill trumpeting of two elephants, and mingling with this was the harsh honk of a conch shell.
"That's Moti, or wild elephants tackling Raj Bahadar," Finnerty declared. "I must get back. The tiger will be all right here for a little—those dogs won't come back—and I'll send Mahadua and the elephant after him."
It was a stirring scene that greeted the three sahibs on their arrival at the conflict. Like a family of monkeys the natives decorated the tree, while below was Burra Moti giving lusty battle to the tusker. Either out of chivalry or cowardice, Raj Bahadar was backing up, refusing to obey the prod of his mahout's goad, and charge.
As Moti came at the bull like a battering-ram he received her on his forehead, the impact sounding like the crash of two meeting freight cars, and she, vindictively cunning, with a quick twist of her head, gashed him in the neck with a long tusk.
"Come down out of there, you women of the sweeper caste!" Finnerty commanded. The natives dropped to the ground. One of them, uncoiling his rawhide rope, darted in behind Moti, noosed a lifted foot, and ran back with the trailing end.
Raj Bahadar, discouraged by the thrust in his neck, wheeled and fled, pursued by Moti, the native lassooer, clinging to the trailing noose, being whipped about like a wind-tossed leaf. With a shout Finnerty followed, the others joining in the chase.
A thick growth of timber checked Raj Bahadar, and, as Moti slackened her pace, the man with the rawhide darted around a tree with the rope; Finnerty and the others grasped the end, the rawhide creaked and stretched, and as Moti plunged forward her hind leg was suddenly yanked into the air, bringing her down. Another man sprang in to noose a foreleg, but Moti was too quick for him; she was up to stand for a little sullen meditation.
The native flashed in and out, almost within reach of her trunk, trying to make her raise a forefoot that he might noose it and slip his rawhide about a tree, when Moti, tethered fore and aft, would be helpless.
"Be careful!" Finnerty called as the noose man slipped in and flicked Moti on the knee with no result but the curling up of her trunk, as if out of harm's way. Again he danced in, and as the long trunk shot out like a snake darting from a coil he sprang beneath the big head, giving a laugh of derision; but Moti struck sidewise with a forefoot, and with a sickening crunch the man dropped ten feet away.
Uttering a squeal of rage, the elephant whipped about and charged back, the rawhide noose breaking like a piece of twine. Finnerty was fair in her path, but with a grunt, as if to say, "Get out of the way, friend," she brushed by him, and would have gone straight off to the jungle had not a man, in a sudden folly of fright, darted from behind a tree only to stumble and fall before he had taken a dozen steps. Down on her knees went Moti, seeking to spear the fallen man with her tusks, but at the first thrust one went either side of his body, and, being long, the great, crushing head did not quite reach him. Grasping both pillars of this ivory archway, the man wriggled out and escaped as Moti, pulling her tusks out of the soft earth, rose, cocked her ears, drove a whistle of astonishment through her trunk, and then scuttled off to the jungle.
"We won't follow her up," Finnerty declared; "the noosing has flustered the old girl and we'll not get near her again to-day; she'd keep going if she heard us and we'd lose her forever up in the hills."
Mahadua advised: "If the mahout will tickle Bahadar with his hook so that he speak now and then, perhaps Moti, being lonesome and remembering of cakes and home, will come back like an angry woman who has found peace."
Thinking this a good plan, Finnerty gave the mahout orders to entice Moti in if she came about. A dozen men were sent to bring the tiger, slung from a pole, to the bungalow; they would bring back food to the others.
Telling the natives he would join them in the hunt next day, Finnerty and his companions mounted their horses to ride back.
Coming to the road that wound through the cool sal forest, they saw Prince Ananda riding toward them.
"What luck?" he greeted when they met. "I heard that an elephant had taken to the jungle." He wheeled his Arab with them, adding: "You look done up. Come along to the palace and have a cooling drink."
Lord Victor ranged his horse alongside Ananda's Arab as they started, but as they drew near the palace grounds Darpore halted his horse, and, pointing his hunting crop across the broad valley below in which lay the town, said: "Yonder was the road along which, so many centuries ago, Prince Sakya Singha's mother came when he was born here in the Lumbini Garden."
Swinton, in whose mind the prince was arraigned as a vicar of the devil—at least as a seditious prince which, to a British officer, was analogous—felt the curious subtlety of this speech; for, sitting his beautiful Arab, outlined against the giant sal trees, their depths holding the mysteries of centuries, he had an Oriental background that made his pose compelling.
Lord Victor moved a little to one side, as if his volatile spirits felt a dampening, the depression of a buried past; and Prince Ananda, turning his Arab, drew Swinton along to his side by saying: "Have you come in contact with the cleavage of religious fanaticism in India, captain?"
"My experience was only of the army; there the matter of Hindu or Mussulman is now better understood and better arranged," Swinton answered cautiously as he and Ananda rode forward side by side.
The captain was puzzled. Training had increased the natural bent of his mind toward a suspicious receptivity where he felt there was necessity. He had decided that the prince, with Oriental lethargy, never acted spontaneously—that there was something behind every move he made; his halt, back on the road, was evidently to make a change from Lord Victor to himself in their alignment. Temporarily the captain fancied that the prince might wish to draw from him some account of the preceding night's adventure. Indeed, as a Raj horse had probably been killed, Ananda could not have missed hearing of the accident.
It was Lord Victor's voice that stirred these thoughts to verbal existence. "I say, Prince Ananda," he suddenly asked, "did you hear that my mentor had been devoured by a tiger last night?"
As if startled into a remembrance, Ananda said: "Sorry, captain, I forgot to ask if anything did happen you last night. My master of horse reported this morning that your pony was found with a broken leg at the foot of a cliff; then I heard that you had gone off with the major, so knew you were all right. You see, well"—the prince spoke either in genuine or assumed diffidence—"as it was a Raj pony that came to grief I couldn't very well speak of it; that is, knowing that you were all right."
"When I heard it," Gilfain broke in, "remembering what you had said about the hunting leopard, I was deuced well bashed, I assure you."
"Was there—anything—in the report of—a tiger trying to maul you?" the prince asked, and Swinton, tilting his helmet, found the luminous black eyes reading his face.
But Swinton could have been plotting murder behind those "farthing eyes" for all they betrayed as he answered: "I don't know what frightened the animal; he suddenly shied and I was thrown out, coming a cropper on my head which put me to sleep for a few minutes. When I came to the pony and cart had disappeared and there was nothing for it but go back to the major's bungalow for the night."
"Then there was nothing in the tiger story," the prince commented.
"I saw no tiger, anyway," Swinton declared, and Finnerty chuckled inwardly, for, like the captain, he had been mystified by Darpore's sudden interest in the latter.
The prince had presented something akin to a caste aloofness toward Swinton; now the change had tensed Finnerty's perceptions so that he took cognizance of things that ordinarily would have passed as trivial. He saw Ananda deliberately ride past the road that would have taken them to the magnificent courtyard entrance of the palace, the beautiful red rubble road that wound its way through crotons, oleanders, and hibiscus around the fairy Lake of the Golden Coin to cross the marble-arched bridge. Now they were following a road that led through the zoo to the back entrance. As they came to a massive teakwood gate, from the left of which stretched away in a crescent sweep a wall of cages—the first one at the very gatepost holding a fiend, a man-killing black leopard—the major pressed his mount close to the rump of Swinton's horse, upon the right of whom rode Prince Ananda. A guard saluted, an attendant swung the teakwood barrier inward, and while it was still but half open Ananda pressed forward, his horse carrying Swinton's with him into a holocaust of lightning-like happenings.
Swinton turned toward the prince at some word, and at that instant the latter's horse swerved against his mount, as if stung by a spur on the outside; a black arm, its paw studded with glittering claws, flashed through the bars of the cage with a sweep like a scimitar's, striking Swinton full in the chest, the curved claws hooking through his khaki coat and sweeping him half out of the saddle toward the iron bars against which he would be ripped to pieces in a second. With an oath, Finnerty's whip came down on his horse's flank, and the Irishman's body was driven like a wedge between the leopard and his prey; the thrusting weight tore the claws through the cloth of Swinton's coat, and, still clutching viciously, they slashed Finnerty across the chest, a gash the width of his chin showing they had all but torn through his throat.
Swinton pulled himself into the saddle and looked back at the major's blood-smeared chin and on beyond to the sinister black creature that stood up on his hind legs against the bars of his cage thrusting a forepaw through playfully as though it were only a bit of feline sport. He shuddered at the devilishness of the whole thing that looked so like another deliberate attempt. The prince would know that that black fiend, true to his jungle instincts, would be waiting in hiding behind the brick wall of his cage for a slash at any warm-blooded creature rounding the corner. They were a fighting pair, this black, murderous leopard and the prince. Finnerty was checking the blood flow on his chin with a handkerchief; his eyes, catching Swinton's as they turned from the leopard, were full of fierce anger.
There had been an outburst of grating calls and deep, reverberating roars as leopards and tigers, roused by the snarl of the black demon as he struck, gave vent to their passion.
As if stirred to ungovernable anger by the danger his friends had incurred through the gateman's fault, Ananda turned on the frightened man, and, raising his whip, brought it down across his back. Twice the lash fell, and two welts rose in the smooth black skin; this assault accompanied by a torrent of abuse that covered chronologically the native's ancestry back to his original progenitor, a jungle pig. Ananda's face, livid from this physical and mental assault, smoothed out with a look of contrite sorrow as he apologised to his companions.
"I'm awfully sorry, major; that fool nearly cost us a life by frightening my horse with his frantic efforts to open the gate. He's an opium eater, and must have been beating that leopard with his staff to have made him so suddenly vicious. Your coat is ripped, captain; are you wounded?"
"No, thanks!" Swinton answered dryly.
"You are, major."
"Nothing much—a scratch. I'll have to be careful over blood poisoning, that's all."
"Yes," the prince said, "I'll have my apothecary apply an antiseptic."
As they wound between a spurting fountain and a semicircle of iron-barred homes, a monkey dropped his black, spiderlike body from an iron ring in the ceiling, and, holding by a coil in the end of his tail, swung back and forth, head down, howling dismally. Bedlam broke forth in answer to this discordant wail.
"Delightful place!" Finnerty muttered as he rode at Swinton's elbow.
"Inferno and the archfiend!" And Swinton nodded toward the back of Prince Ananda, who rode ahead.
In the palace dispensary Finnerty brushed the apothecary to one side and treated his slashed chin with iodine; a rough treatment that effectually cleaned the cut at the bottom, which was the bone.
They did not tarry long over the champagne, and were soon in the saddle again. Finnerty asked his companions to ride on to his bungalow for an early dinner. Lord Victor declined, declaring he was clean bowled, but insisted that the captain should accept. As for himself, he was going to bed, being ghastly tired.
As Swinton and the major sat puffing their cheroots on the verandah after dinner, the latter gave a despairing cry of "Great Kuda!" as his eyes caught sight of the Banjara swinging up the road, evidently something of import flogging his footsteps. "We shall now be laughed at for not having bagged that tiger yesterday." Finnerty chuckled.
But the Lumbani was in no hurry to disburse whatever was in his mind, for he folded his black blanket on the verandah at the top step and sat down, salaaming in a most grave manner first. Finnerty and Swinton smoked and talked in English, leaving the tribesman to his own initiative. Presently he asked: "Is the young sahib who shot my dog present?"
Relief softened the austere cast of his bony face when Finnerty answered "No."
"It is as well," the Lumbani said, "for the young have not control of their tongues. But the sahib"—and the Banjara nodded toward Swinton, his eyes coming back to Finnerty's face—"is a man of discretion, is it not so, huzoor?"
To this observation the major agreed.
"And the sahib will not repeat what I tell?"
The Lumbani rubbed his long, lean hands up and down the length of his staff as though it were a fairy wand to ward off evil; his black, hawklike eyes swept the compound, the verandah, as much of the bungalow interior as they could; then pitching his voice so that it carried with wonderful accuracy just to the ears of the two men, he said: "There was a man beaten to-day at the gate of the tiger garden."
Neither of the sahibs answered, and he proceeded: "The gateman who was beaten is a brother to me; not a blood brother, sahib, but a tribe brother, for he is a Banjara of the Lumbani caste."
"By Jove!" The major clamped his jaws close after this involuntary exclamation and waited.
"Yes, sahib"—the Lumbani had noticed with satisfaction the major's start—"my brother has shown me the welts on his shoulder, such as are raised on a cart bullock, but he is not a bullock, being a Banjara."
There was a little silence, the native turning over in his mind something else he wished to say, trying to discover first what impression he had made, his shrewd eyes searching Finnerty's face for a sign. Suddenly, as if taking a plunge, he asked: "Does the sahib, who is a man, approve that the servant be beaten like a dog—even though the whip lay in the hands of a rajah?"
Finnerty hesitated. It is not well to give encouragement to a native against the ruling powers, whether they be black or white.
"And he was not at fault," the Banjara added persuasively; "he did not frighten the pony—it was the rajah's spur, for my brother saw blood on the skin of the horse where the spur had cut."
"Why didn't he open the gate wide; had he orders not to do so?" Finnerty asked quickly.
"Sahib, if the rajah had passed orders such as that he would not have struck a Banjara like a dog, lest there be telling of the orders; but the gate had been injured so that it would not open as always, and the tender did not know it."
"But the rajah did not know we'd be coming along at that time," the major parried.
"As to time, one day matters no more than another. The rajah would have invited you through that gate some time. But he did know you were up in the jungle, and rode forth to meet you."
"It was but a happening," Finnerty asserted, with the intent of extracting from the Lumbani what further evidence he had.
"When one thing happens many times it is more a matter of arrangement than of chance," the Banjara asserted.
"I don't understand," Finnerty declared.
"There is a window in the palace, sahib, directly in front of the gate, and it has been a matter of pastime for the rajah to sit at that window when somebody against whom he had ill will would be admitted and clawed by that black devil."
"Impossible!"
"It is not a new thing, sahib; my brother who was beaten knows of this."
Finnerty stepped into his room, and returning placed a couple of rupees in the ready palm of the Banjara, saying: "Your brother has been beaten because of us, so give him this."
The Lumbani rolled the silver in the fold of his loin cloth, and, indicating Swinton with his staff, said: "The sahib should not go at night to the hill, neither here nor there"—he swept an arm in the direction of the palace—"for sometimes that evil leopard is abroad at night."
Finnerty laughed.
The Banjara scowled: "As to that, the black leopard has had neither food nor water to-day, and if the sahibs sit up over the pool in Jadoo Nala they may see him drink."
"We'd see a jungle pig coming out of the fields, or a muntjac deer with his silly little bark, perhaps," Finnerty commented in quiet tolerance.
"Such do drink at the pool, but of these I am not speaking. The young man being not with you to disarrange matters, you might happen upon something of interest, sahib," the Banjara declared doggedly.
"We are not men to chase a phantom—to go and sit at Jadoo Pool because a herdsman has fallen asleep on the back of a buffalo and had a dream."
Behind a faint smile the Lumbani digested this. "Very well, sahib," he exclaimed presently, with definite determination; "I will speak. When my brother was beaten the dust was shaken from his ears and he has heard. Beside the big gate Darna Singh and his sister, the princess, talked to-day, and the speech was of those who would meet in secret at the pool to-night."
"Who meet there?"
"The rajah's name was spoken, sahib."
"How knew Darna Singh this?"
"There be always teeth that can be opened with a silver coin. Now," and the Lumbani gathered up his black blanket, throwing it over his shoulder, "I go to my herd, for there is a she-buffalo heavy in calf and to-night might increase the number of my stock."
"Have patience, Lumbani," Finnerty commanded, and as the Banjara turned to stand in waiting he added to Swinton: "What do you think, captain—we might learn something? But there's Lord Victor; he'll expect you home."
"I'll drop him a note saying we're going to sit up over the Jadoo Pool and to not worry if I don't get home to-night."
Finnerty brought pencil and paper, and when the note was written handed it to the Banjara, saying: "For the young sahib at the bungalow, and if he receives it you will be paid eight annas to-morrow."
The herdsman put the note in his loin cloth and strode away. At the turn where Swinton had been thrown from his dogcart he dropped the note over the cliff, explaining to the sky his reasons: "A hunt is spoiled by too many hunters. It is not well that the young sahib reads that they go to Jadoo Pool—it was not so meant of the gods—and as to the service, I have eaten no salt of the sahib's, having not yet been paid."
The old chap was naturally sure that Swinton had written in the note that the young sahib was to join them at the pool.
As he plodded downhill he formulated his excuse for nondelivery of the note. It would be that the she-buffalo had demanded his immediate care, and in all the worry and work it had been forgotten and then lost. It was well to have a fair excuse to tender a sahib who put Punjabi wrestlers on their backs.
After the Banjara had gone, Finnerty said: "That's the gentle Hindu for you—mixes his mythology and data; he's found out something, I believe, and worked his fancy for the melodrama of the black leopard stalking abroad at night."
"I'm here to follow up any possible clue that may lead to the discovery of anything," Swinton observed.
"Besides," the major added, "I meant to take you for a sit up over that pool some night; many an interesting hour I've spent sitting in a machan over a pool watching jungle dwellers. There's a salt lick in Jadoo Nala, and even bison, shy as they are, have been known to come down out of the big sal forest to that pool. Nobody shoots over it, so that entices the animals; but Prince Ananda has a roomy machan there with an electric light in it. I suppose one of his German chaps put it in, for he has an electric lighting plant under the palace, also an ice-making machine. We'd better get a couple of guns fixed up in the way of defence, for it will be dark in an hour or so."
He went to his room and returned with a gun in each hand, saying: "Fine-sighted rifles will be little use; here's a double-barrelled 12-bore Paradox, with some ball cartridges. We won't be able to see anything beyond twenty yards, and she'll shoot true for that distance; I'll take this 10-bore. Now we'll go over into the jungle and get some night sights."
Wonderingly Swinton accompanied Finnerty, and just beyond the compound they came to a halt beneath a drooping palm, from a graceful branch of which a long, pear-shaped nest swung gently back and forth in the evening breeze. "This is the nest of the baya, the weaver bird; it's a beautiful bit of architecture," Finnerty said as he tapped with gentle fingers on the tailored nest.
A fluttering rustle within, followed by the swooping flight of a bird, explained his motive. "I didn't want the little cuss to beat her eggs to pieces in fright when I put my hand in," he added softly as he thrust two fingers up the tunnellike entrance to the nest, drawing them forth with a little lump of soft clay between their tips in which was imbedded a glowworm. "That will make a most excellent night sight," the major explained; "there should be two or three more in there."
"What is the idea of this most extraordinarily clever thing?" Swinton asked.
"It may be food in cold storage, but the natives say it's a matter of lighting up the house. At any rate, I've always found these glowworms alive and ready to flash their little electric bulbs."
As he gathered two more nature incandescents Finnerty indicated the beauty of the nest. The insects were placed in the hall, or tunnel entrance, and above this, to one side, like a nursery, was the breeding nest, the whole structure being hung by a network of long grass and slender roots from the branch of the palm.
As they went back to the bungalow, Finnerty, as if switched from the machinations of Prince Ananda by the touch of nature's sweet handicraft in the nest, fell into a mood so poetically gentle that Swinton could hardly subdue a sense of incongruity in its association with the huge-framed speaker. There was no doubt whatever about the pleasing thrill of sincerity in his Irish voice as he said, "One of my enjoyments is the study of bird nidification. They run true to breeding—which is more than we do. On that"—he pointed to a giant teakwood monarch that had fallen perhaps a century before and was draped with a beautiful shroud of lichen and emerald-green moss that peeped from between bracken and fern—"is the nest of a little yellow-bellied 'fly-catcher warbler' that is built of brilliant green moss lined with snowy cotton-silk from the Simul tree. See that fellow?" and Finnerty pointed to a little scarlet-and-black bird, its wings splashed with grey and gold, sitting on a limb. "That's a Minivet; she covers her nest with lichens so that on a lichen-covered limb it looks like a knot."
"Tremendously wise are Nature's children," Swinton contributed.
"Generally," Finnerty answered thoughtfully: "sometimes, though, her children do such foolish things. For instance, the Frog-mouth is just as cunning about hiding her nest, covering it with scraps of bark and moss to make it look like the limb of a tree, lining it inside with down from her own breast; but there's a screw loose somewhere, for she lays two eggs and the nest is never big enough to contain more than one bird, so the other one is crowded out to die."
They were at the bungalow now, and saying that he and Swinton must have a day some time among the birds Finnerty adjusted the night sights. With a slim rubber band he fastened a match across the double barrels at the front sight and beneath this placed a glowworm.
As Finnerty and Swinton went by a jungle path up the hill, the oncoming night was draping the forest with heavy gloom.
"We'll get within sight of the palace by this path," the major advised, "and then we'll skirt around the Lake of the Golden Coin to see if there are indications of things unusual."
When they came out on the plateau they were on the road that wound about the palace outside of the garden wall, and as they passed the teakwood gate it looked forbiddingly sombre outlined against the palace light. Swinton shuddered, and through his mind flashed a curious thought of how so much treacherous savagery could exist in the mind of a man capable of soft-cultured speech, and who was of a pleasing grace of physical beauty.
They circled the Lake of the Golden Coin till they faced the marble bridge; here they stood in the shadow of a mango thicket. The moon, now climbing to shoot its rays through the feathery tops of the sal trees, picked out the palace in blue-grey tones, the absence of lights, the pillared architecture, giving it the suggestion of a vast mausoleum.
Finnerty placed his hand on Swinton's arm, the clasp suggesting he was to listen. Straining his ear, he heard the measured military tramp of men; then their forms loomed grotesquely in the struggling moonlight as they crossed the marble bridge coming from the palace; even in that uncertain light the military erectness of the figures, the heavy, measured tramp told Swinton they were Prussians. Finnerty and the captain hurried away, and as they passed around the lake end to the road a figure, or perhaps two, indefinite, floated across a patch of moonlight like a drift of smoke.
The major spread his nostrils. "Attar of rose! Did you get it, Swinton?"
"Think I did."
"There's only one woman on this hill whose clothes are so saturated with attar."
"Ananda's princess? What would she be doing out here at night?"
As they moved along, Finnerty chuckled: "What are we doing up here? What were the Prussians doing in the prince's palace? What is Marie doing here in Darpore? I tell you, captain, I wouldn't give much for that girl's chances if the princess thinks she's a rival. The princess comes from a Rajput family that never stopped at means to an end."
"It would suggest that there is really something on to-night. Doesn't Boelke's bungalow lie up in that direction?"
"Yes; and I think it was two women who passed; probably it was Marie's ayah whom the Banjara referred to when he said there were always teeth that could be opened with a silver coin. Prince Ananda has not been seen much with the girl, but the princess may have discovered that he meets her at the pool. It would be a safe trysting place so far as chance discovery is concerned, for natives never travel that path at night; they believe that a phantom leopard lives in the cave from which the salt stream issues. This is the way," he added, turning to the left along a path that dipped down in gentle gradient to the beginning of Jadoo Nala, which in turn led on to a valley that reached the great plain.
Along this valley lay a trail, stretching from the forest-covered hills to the plains, that had been worn by the feet of great jungle creatures—bison, tiger, even elephants, in their migratory trips, Finnerty told Swinton, and sometimes they wandered up Jadoo Nala for a lick at the salt, knowing that they were never disturbed.
There was some bitterness in the major's low-pitched voice as he said: "Jadoo Pool would be an ideal spot for pothunters who come out here to kill big game and sit up in a machan over a drinking place to blaze away at bison or tiger, generally only wounding the animal in the bad night light; if it's a tiger he goes off into the jungle, and, crazed by the pain of a festering sore, will kill on sight, and finally, his strength and speed reduced by the weakening wound, will turn to killing the easiest kind of game—man; becomes a man-eater. I once shot a rogue elephant that had killed a dozen people, and found that the cause of his madness was a maggot-filled hole in his skull that had been made by a ball from an 8-bore in the hands of a juvenile civil servant, fired at night."
Finnerty's monologue was cut short by the screeching bell of a deer. "A chital at the pool; something, perhaps a leopard hunting his supper, has startled him," he advised.
They moved forward softly, their feet scarce making a rustle on the smooth path, and as they came to the roots of a graceful pipal that stretched its lean arms out over the pool, from the opposite bank the startled cry of the deer again rent the brooding stillness as he bounded away, his little hoofs ringing on the stony hill.
A light bamboo ladder, strapped to the pipal, led to a machan that was hidden by a constructed wall of twigs and grass, through which were little openings that afforded a view of the pool.
As they reached the machan, Finnerty said: "As we are here to hear and see only, I suppose that even if Pundit Bagh comes we let him go free, eh?"
"Yes; I really don't want to kill anything while I'm in Darpore; that is, unless it's necessary to take a pot shot at a Hun, and I have a feeling that we're going to see something worth while—that Banjara is no fool."
Then the two men settled back on the springy, woven floor of the machan to a wait in the mysterious night of a tropical jungle. Stilled, the noise of their own movements hushed, the silence of the mighty forest was oppressive; it suggested vastness, a huge void, as though they sat in a gigantic cave, themselves the only living thing within. A dried leaf rustling to earth sounded like the falling of a large body; the drip of dew-drops on the leaf carpet was heard because of the dead stillness; a belated nightjar, one of those mysterious sailors of the night air, swept acres the pool with his sad cry, "Chyeece—chyeece!" Then the stillness.
Swinton, his ear tuned to the outer distances of the void, caught a soft faint rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub! that drifted lazily up from a village in the plain, where some native thrummed idly on a tom-tom or his wife pounded grain in a clay mortar. Then something rustled the leaves just where the little streamlet flowed sluggishly from the cave to the pool, and something that was a hare or a mouse-deer slipped across the open space upon which the moon swept its soft light. To the left a startled "bhar-ha-ha!" from the bank above the pool was followed by a tattoo of tiny stamping hoofs as a muntjac, frightened by the mouse-deer, gave this first evidence of his own approach; then he bounded away, leaving stillness to take his place.
The boom of a gun sounded drowsily from down in the plains, some native, sitting up in a machan to guard his jowari or sugar cane, had fired his old muzzle-loader to frighten away greedy jungle pigs or bison.
Swinton found the drowsiness of the brooding jungle creeping into his frame; with difficulty he kept from sleep. He knew enough of jungle watching to know that he dare not smoke; the telltale odour of burning tobacco would leave them indeed in their solitude. And there was the thought that something was to happen, some mysterious thing to eventuate; the Banjara had not sent them there to see deer drinking at the pool or even to feast their eyes on bigger game.
What was it? What was it? His head drooped toward his chest; dreamily he heard the soft rustle of something close; half consciously he raised his heavy lids to gaze into two big round orbs that blazed with ruby light. On the point of calling out, he saw a pair of white wings spread; there was an almost silent swoop, and that night hunter, the great horned owl, swept away. He felt the pressure of Finnerty's elbow; it was a silent laugh.
For five minutes the unruffled pool mirrored the moon in placid silence; it lay beneath them like some jewel, a moonstone on a deep green cloth. Where the stream trickled in and out of ruts and holes left in the muddy shore by drinking animals the water gleamed like scattered pearls.
Suddenly there was a crash of breaking bamboos, followed by the heavy breathing of large animals and the shuffling of many feet. Then a herd of bison—two bulls, a few cows, and two calves—less cautious in their enormous strength, swept over the hill brow of the farther bank; there they checked and examined the pool. A big cow, followed by two others and the calves, clambered down to the water, and the scraping of their rough tongues against the crusted salt lick could be heard. One bull, his high wither with its massive hump and enormous head denoting his sex even in the transient, vibrating shimmers of moonlight the swaying branches wove into the heavy gloom, stood on guard, his big ears flapping from side to side to catch every sound of danger. The other bull, as if depending on the sentry, slid down the bank, took a hasty drink, and returned; then the cows, with their calves, went up from the water, and the herd melted like shadows into the gloomed sal forest.
Swinton was wide awake now; the majestic bison, the faithful bull on guard lest a tiger creep up on the calves, was a sight worth an hour or two of vigil.
Finnerty's head leaned toward Swinton as he whispered: "Gad! I wish I dared smoke." Then, with a smothered chuckle: "If I had turned on the electric it would have been a sight. I wonder if the current is on; we might need it if there's a shindy."
Like an echo of the major's whisper a sound floated up from the heavy pall of darkness that lay beneath the pipal; it might have been the sniff of a honey badger, the inquisitive, faint woof of a bear, or a muttered word. His hand resting on Swinton's arm in a tense grip, Finnerty strained his ears to define the curious sense he had that some one was stealthily moving beneath them. Once he put a hand on the top rung of the bamboo ladder; it vibrated as though some one leaned against it or had commenced to ascend. He slipped the butt of his 10-bore forward, ready for a handy, silent push of defence. But still, he thought, if it were Prince Ananda to meet somebody he would wait below. With a pang, Finnerty realised who the somebody that the prince must meet so secretly would be.
A little slipping sound as of a foot higher up on the path came to the listeners' ears; there was the tinkle-clink of a pebble rolling to the stones below; the rustling push of a body passing from beneath the pipal and along the mud bank of the pool. Then Finnerty saw, for a second, an outlined figure where the moon fell upon the pearllike cups of water; and the straight, athletic Rajput swing betrayed that it was Darna Singh. Then he was swallowed up in the shadow that lay heavy toward the cave.
A cicada started his shrill piping in a neighbouring tree, awakening several of his kind, and the hissing hum, raspingly monotonous, filled their ears. Suddenly it was drowned by droning English words that came floating up from below, smothered to indistinctness.
"It is the prince," Finnerty thought.
Then there were odd catches of a woman's voice. Distinctly the major heard: "No, I cannot." The man's tones had a wavering drawl, as though he pleaded. More than once the word "love," with a little fierce intonation, came to the listener. The woman had uttered words that, patched together out of their fragmentary hearing, told that she, or some one, would go away the next day.
A low, purring note carried to the machan from the cave mouth.
Turning his head cautiously, lest the machan creak, Finnerty, holding his eyes on the trickling stream where it splashed into light, dread in his heart, saw a shadow creep toward the pool, its progress marked by the blotting out of the pearllike spots of moonlit water; then the shadow was lost, and next he heard the pushing pad of velvet paws upon the leaf-covered ground just beyond the pipal. Finnerty knew. Only a tiger or a leopard stalked like that. Now the approaching animal had stopped. There was no moving shadow, no faint rustle of leaves; the thing was eyeing the pool—looking for something to kill by its brink. Below, the voices still droned, their owners unconscious of the yellow cat eyes that perhaps even then watched them in desire.
To Finnerty came with full horror a memory of the Banjara's words: "See the black leopard drink at the pool to-night."
Silently shifting his 10-bore till its muzzle ranged the side along which the thing crept, he uncovered the glowworm, and a little speck of luminous light showed that it was still alive.
Swinton, who sat facing the other way, feeling that there was something stirring, drew his gun across his knee.
A minute, two minutes—they seemed years to Finnerty—then he heard, deeper in the jungle, a bush swish as if it had been pushed, and in relief he muttered: "The brute must have seen my movement and has gone away."
For a full minute of dread suspense the silence held, save for the rasping cicada and a droning voice beneath; then, from beyond where those below stood, some noise came out of the gloom—it might have been a small branch falling or the scamper of a startled jungle rat. Holding his eyes on the spot, Finnerty saw two round balls of light gleam—yellow green, as if tiny mirrors reflected the moonlight. They disappeared, then glowed again; they rose and fell. With a chill at his heart he knew that the beast, with devilish cunning, had circled, and now approached from the side farthest from the machan. Swinging his gun, with a prayer that the current was on, he turned the electric button; a splash of white light cut the jungle gloom, and where his eyes searched was outlined in strong relief, crouched for a spring, a black leopard. Turned up to the sudden glare, ghastly in the white light, was the face of Lord Victor; at his side, clutching his arm, with her eyes riveted on the leopard, stood Marie.
Values flashed through Finnerty's mind with lightning speed. He had expected the jungle dweller to flee when the electric glare lit up the scene, but the leopard was unafraid; he even crept a pace closer to those below. His forepaws gripped nervously at the ground in a churning movement; his tail stiffened; but before he could rise in a flying tackle a stream of red light belched from Swinton's gun; there was a coughing roar telling of a hit, and the leopard, turned by the shot, bounded into the jungle, his crashing progress growing fainter as he fled. Then darkness closed out the scene of almost tragedy, for Finnerty had turned the switch.
On the point of calling in assurance, Swinton was checked by the sudden death of the light; he understood the major's motive.
The two sat still, while Finnerty, his grasp on Swinton's shoulder, whispered into his ear: "The leopard is wounded; he won't turn now that he has started to run; let them get away without knowing who saw them, for they're in no danger."
There came the sound of feet going with stumbling speed up the path as Marie, dreading discovery more than the terrors of the jungle path, clutching Gilfain's hand, fled.
After a little, Finnerty said: "Fancy we may go back now. I wonder how much of this business the Banjara knew; how much of it is a twist of fate upsetting somebody's plans." And as they climbed the hill path from Jadoo Nala he continued: "Tomorrow morning we'll follow the pugs of that black devil; there'll be blood enough for the shikari to track him down, I think; he'll have stiffened up from his wound by then and we'll get him."
With irrelevance the captain blurted, in a voice filled with disgust: "That young ass!"
Finnerty laughed softly. "The dear old earl sent him to India to be out of the way of skirts. It can't be done!"
"But how did he get a meeting with that foolish virgin; he's only been here three days! And how did the Banjara know, and how did—oh, one's life here is a damn big query mark!"
"I should say that there's been a note written, either by the girl to his giddy lordship or vice versa; Darna Singh has made the mistake of supposing Prince Ananda was the man she was to meet; that's why the black leopard was turned loose."
"Do you think it really was the prince's beast?"
"Yes; that's why he didn't run when the light flashed. He's accustomed to it in the zoo grounds. But it was a fiendish caper, and Gilfain is fortunate."
"I think it proves the girl is a spy; she probably, at the prince's suggestion, led the young fool on. I'm glad he doesn't know anything about——" Swinton broke off suddenly, as the heavy gloom of the forest interior was brushed aside like a curtain, disclosing to their eyes a fairy scene—the prince's palace.
The moon, which had leaped high above the barrier of the forest, poured a flood of yellow light across the open plateau, gilding with gold leaf the mosquelike dome roof of a turret and shimmering a white marble minaret till it sparkled like a fretwork thing of silver. The Lake of the Golden Coin was a maze of ribboned colours where the mahseer rose to its surface in play or in pursuit of night flies. A dreamy quiet lay over all the mass of gleaming white and purple shadow as they swung to the road that circled the gardens. Coming to the big teakwood gate, Finnerty clutched the captain's arm, bringing him to a halt as a sigh from its rusty hinges told it had just been closed by some one.
"I saw him," Finnerty whispered as they passed on. "It was Ananda, I swear."
Over the walls floated the perfume of rose and jasmine and tuberose; so sensuous, so drugged the heavy night air that it suggested unreality, mysticism, dreams, and beyond, rounding a curve, to their nostrils came the pungent, acrid smell of a hookah from the servants' quarters. Even deeper of the Orient, of the subtle duplicity of things, was this.
Swinton spat on the roadway, and Finnerty, knowing it as a token of disgust, muttered: "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves."
As they dipped down a hill toward the path that led to Finnerty's bungalow they came upon Lord Victor's horse leisurely dawdling along, stopping at times for a juicy snack from some succulent bush, and altogether loafing, a broken rein dangling from the bit to occasionally bring him up with a jerk as he stepped on it. At their approach he scuttled off into the jungle.
"Gilfain's nag!" Finnerty commented. "Wishing to keep this meeting secret, he's left the syce at home and tied the pony to a tree up there somewhere; the shot probably frightened it."
"What's the horse doing on this road?" Swinton asked.
"It's a shorter cut down to the maharajah's stables in Darpore town than by the tonga road. Lord Victor will have to walk; we couldn't catch that harebrained weed even if we wanted to."
"Come on, major," Swinton cried, pushing forward; "I've got an idea. You give me a horse and I'll gallop back to my bungalow, getting there ahead of the young ass."
"I see," Finnerty grunted as they strode swiftly along. "You'll tell his lordship that you've been in bed for hours, and let him guess who was his audience at Jadoo Pool. The Banjara didn't deliver that note or his lordship wouldn't have been there."
As they hurried along, Swinton panted: "Devil of a hole for a flirtation; he must be an enthusiast!"
They swung into the bungalow, and Finnerty sent the watchman to have a syce bring "Phyu," adding that if there was delay a most proper beating would eventuate. As the watchman hurried away on his mission the major said: "Phyu is a Shan pony; he's only thirteen hands, but you can gallop him down that hill without fear of bucking his shins, and you couldn't do that with an Arab."
While they waited, Finnerty explained: "The girl made that appointment for some reason. She would know that nobody would see them together there, as natives don't travel that path at night, and she would know that tiger and leopard do not ordinarily come to the pool."