THE ELEPHANTS' CHACE
This, in the meantime, was what had been happening to Tom. When,
having provided himself with tinned meats and a bottle of the powerful
restorative which he had always on hand, he left the camp, he had
turned, by what he spoke of afterwards as a happy instinct, into the
track which Bâl Narîn had been following, before the strong impression
of human neighbourhood and the eccentric movements of the three birds
of prey had started him on his perilous journey across the belt of
jungle that lay between the wild beasts' track and the hermit's hut.
He, too, was well-armed with light and weapons, and he went cautiously
lest he should be taken by surprise. Suddenly the ping of Bâl Narîn's
bullet aroused him. He waited until the echoes died away to make sure
of the direction whence the sound had come, and then dashed into
another track. He was in great doubt as to whether he was right, for
there is nothing more confusing than the sound of firing in a wood. The
detonations repeated again and again, and dashed, as it were, from one
opposing substance to another, seem to come from a hundred points at
once. Instead of approaching Bâl Narîn he might be putting immeasurable
distance between them, while, on the other hand, it was quite possible
that one of a company of robbers or fugitive sepoys had fired, in which
case a deadly conflict would be before him.
The prudent course would have been to retreat while he could, to rouse
his little camp, and to take the advice of those who knew more than
he did about this dangerous region. Tom, however, never once thought
of retreating, for he was launched--launched, as he felt even at that
moment of doubt and difficulty--on the last stage of his enterprise;
and, if hell and all its legions had yawned at his feet, he was bound
to go on.
The path into which he had struck, as being that which seemed to lead
in the direction where he had heard the firing, was comparatively easy.
As he went on cautiously, throwing the light of his lamp in front of
him, he felt surprised that he met with so few difficulties. For a
space several yards in width the tall kutcha-grass was so completely
trodden down, and the low trees and bushes, with their rank wealth of
undergrowth, were so uniformly levelled to the ground, that he could
have imagined an army with artillery and baggage-waggons had passed
this way. That such a thing was impossible he knew very well, for
he had studied the map of Terai again and again with Bâl Narîn. The
maharajah's road, which was the only one used for military purposes,
was many miles distant from the point they had reached. But what he
did not know was that he was in the very track of the monarch of the
jungle. Eight months before, when the plains of the north-west were
at peace, and the Terai was unhaunted by the deadly fever that, for
three-quarters of the year, makes it uninhabitable to all but the
savage Aswalias, Jung Bahadoor, who was at that time one of the keenest
sportsmen of his generation, brought down from the high Nepaul valley a
gallant company of hunters, mounted on tame elephants of proved skill
and sagacity, to chase and capture some of the wild elephants that
have their dwelling in the morass and jungle, and it was along this
road that the hunters had come. A terrible chase it was to any but
men mounted and caparisoned as they were, for the wild herd had made
it their drive. Hither they came, from the mud in which they had been
wallowing--night after night in awful phalanx serried--to drink from
a pool in the morass, and to tear down the tall grasses and trees on
their passage, for the succulent young shoots that made their food. Had
Tom met the dark army, he was lost. Not even the flaming torch, which
was a protection from serpents and tigers, would have saved him. They
would have rushed over him--crushed him into a grave, where even the
birds of prey would scarcely have found him.
Of this danger--the worst that had ever threatened him yet--Tom had no
more idea than a child. He trusted for his protection to his torch,
his lamp, and his weapons, and all the energies he had to spare from
picking out his way were bent on watching for anything that might
indicate human neighbourhood. That, at a moment so critical, his mind
should have strayed even for an instant from the scenes in which he
found himself, seems so strange as to be almost incredible. He was
alone; he was surrounded with unknown perils; an object dearer far to
him than the preservation of his own life was--or seemed to be--within
his grasp; everything might depend upon the way in which he met the
next few moments; and yet--I have it on an authority which there is no
disputing--at this point his mind began to wander.
He could not help it, any more than he could have helped the curious
transfusion of his own thoughts and ideas with those of another, which
had come to him now and then since the night when he wandered unbidden
into Grace's rose-garden, and dreamed his dream of fear. It came
suddenly too, and without, as it seemed, anything to lead up to it.
When, thinking to make a signal to Bâl Narîn, he lifted to his lips the
flute-like reed which he always carried, and felt his breath quiver
through it, he stepped all at once into another world. Instead of the
long shrill whistle he had intended to send forth, it was the notes of
a melody, which he had sung a year ago, floating with oars suspended,
on the reach of the silver Thames by the lawn of the General's little
garden, that stole out on the pestilential air of the wild beasts'
haunt--'Come where my love lies dreaming--dreaming the happy hours
away.' Was it his own voice--or was it the voice of another? He paused
and looked round him trying to collect his thoughts. Ah! to him too the
scene is changed. What are these--what are these--that come towards him
out of the darkness? Old hopes--old memories, old dreams. He is the
Indian rajah no longer--he is the English boy, into whose heart the
honeyed sweetness of a new land of promise is stealing. 'My love! my
love!' under his breath he whispers the magic words. And then again he
lifts the reed to his lips, and again the melody that he dared to sing
long ago, close--close to his darling's rose-bower--floats out upon the
air. 'Come! Come! Come where my love lies dreaming!'
Unconsciously--blindly--he was rushing on. He did not hear the thunder
behind him, and the mad cries of Bâl Narîn made no impression whatever
upon his senses. Why he swerved aside--how it came about that he
should have dashed into the jungle and precipitated himself into the
deep nullah that yawned close by, he never knew. He thought he saw the
flashing of silver water through trees--this is the only explanation he
could ever give. But, meanwhile, as bruised and shaken, he lay in the
slime, wondering what had come to him, and bitterly cursing himself for
his folly in not being able, at a crisis so momentous, to keep his wits
about him, the black army that had been marching in his rear, dashed
over the spot where, but a few moments before, he had been tranquilly
walking.
* * * * *
It took Tom some little time to recover his breath, climb to the edge
of the nullah, and shake off the mud from his clothes. That time, as we
know, had been spent by Grace in frenzied prayers to Heaven, and by Bâl
Narîn in no less frenzied ejaculations and gestures. When silence fell
upon the hut and silence upon the jungle--a silence fearfully broken by
the earth-shaking tread of the herd of elephants--when he whistled and
shouted, and fired wildly over his head, and no one answered, he made
up his mind that all was lost. The young lord whom he had accompanied
for gain, and clung to in despite of his own better judgment for love,
had met with a sudden and fearful death at the very moment when his end
was won.
Overcome for a few instants by pity and sorrow, Bâl Narîn covered his
face and wept.
A desire came over him then to see what was left of his unfortunate
young master, and leaving the little clearing he plunged into the
jungle. His senses being far better trained than Tom's, he had no doubt
whatever about the direction he should take. The last articulate sound
the rajah had made, before darkness and silence swallowed him up, came
from a point known to Bâl Narîn, who had been one of the mahouts in
Jung Bahadoor's famous hunt, as a sharp curve in the elephants' drive.
For this point he was making as speedily and cautiously as he could,
when a tall figure--bareheaded, and covered from head to foot in a
coating of mud--stood suddenly before him.
Grasping his weapon, Bâl Narîn challenged the man. He was answered by
a voice that made his heart leap into his mouth. 'Don't you know me in
this disguise, Billy?' it asked.
'Rajah Sahib'--cried the poor fellow passionately. 'Forgive me. I would
have searched for you amongst the dead. Now thank the gods and the
demons of the jungle, who have been favourable to his Excellency!' And
he fell down before him and held him by the feet.
'Get up, you foolish fellow!' said Tom, who was touched, although he
would not show it, by his devotion. 'I have fallen into a mud-bath, and
got myself into a pretty mess; but why you should have thought me dead,
I confess I don't see. You must have come this way yourself, since I
find you here.'
'This way, that is true, Rajah Sahib, and why I came only the gods
know. But I kept clear of the Elephants' Chace. I would no more have
adventured myself there than I would have slipped my neck into an
enemy's noose.'
'The Elephants' Chace,' stammered Tom, 'was that road----?'
'It is the deadliest road in all this region for a man not furnished
as a hunter,' said Bâl Narîn. 'And the herd has just gone by. How his
Excellency escaped is a mystery.'
'The herd--of what, Billy----?'
'Does not my lord know----?'
'I understand,' said Tom, a shiver, which he could not control, running
through him. 'Wild elephants! My life must be valuable to some one,
Billy. Yes; I heard them. I thought it was thunder. I must have only
jumped into the nullah in time. And I wasn't trying to escape. Well! it
is over now, so there's no use thinking about it. I will stick to you
for the future, my good friend! Why did you separate yourself from us
last evening?'
'If I tell my master, he will scarcely believe me,' said Bâl Narîn.
'Billy! Billy!' Tom was trembling from head to foot. 'You have found
something.'
'I have found those his Excellency is seeking.'
'What? The English lady and the child. And in life? Billy, you are
torturing me. Speak plainly. No; no; I cannot bear it. Don't speak
at all. I shall see. And yet--where has my manhood gone? If they are
dead----'
'Master, they are not dead.'
'Not? Now Heaven be praised!'
'Yes; but my master must be careful. See! there are pits here! If his
Excellency goes in so headlong a fashion, he will break his limbs, and
how will that profit his friends? Let him follow me, and I will take
him where they are.'
'Yes; yes; I will follow you--my good guide--my noble guide! If all I
have can recompense you, it is yours. But it cannot.'
'That my master gives me his confidence still is all I ask,' said Bâl
Narîn.
'My confidence! I am bound to you for ever and ever. From this day I
look upon you as the nearest and dearest of my friends. But how, in the
name of heaven, could you have found them in this thicket?'
'That is a long story. Some day I will tell my master. But truly those
he loves are favoured by the gods, for the birds and the beasts that
are their children have helped me in my search----'
And there he broke off, for they had leapt over the last nullah that
separated them from the clearing and the hermit's hut; and the moon
having risen and floating freely overhead, Tom saw, as Bâl Narîn had
seen before him, the little enclosure of dried twigs and leaves; but
within there was darkness, and no one was moving to and fro.