A BHUTTIA RAID
Dermot's friendship with the Dalehams made rapid progress, and in the
ensuing weeks he saw them often. In order to verify his suspicions as to
the Bengalis, he made a point of cultivating the acquaintance of the
planters, paid several visits to Payne and other members of the community,
and was a frequent guest at the weekly gatherings at the club.
On one of his visits to Malpura he found Fred recovering from a sharp bout
of malarial fever, and Dermot was glad of an opportunity of requiting their
hospitality by inviting both the Dalehams to Ranga Duar to enable Fred to
recuperate in the mountain air.
The invitation was gladly accepted. Their host came to fetch them himself
with two elephants; Badshah, carrying a _charjama_, conveying them, while
the other animal bore their luggage and servants. With jealous rage in his
heart Chunerbutty watched them go.
Noreen enjoyed the journey through the forest and up the mountains, with
Dermot sitting beside her to act as her guide, for on this occasion
Ramnath drove Badshah. As they climbed the steep, winding road among the
hills and rose out of the damp heat of the Plains, Fred declared that he
felt better at once in the cool refreshing breezes that swept down from
the lofty peaks above. The forest fell away behind them. The great teak
and _sal_ trees gave place to the lighter growths of bamboo, plantain,
and sago-palm. A troop of small brown monkeys, feasting on ripe bananas,
sprang away startled on all fours and vanished in all directions. A
slim-bodied, long-tailed mongoose, stealing across the road, stopped in
the middle of it to rise up on his hind legs and stare with tiny pink
eyes at the approaching elephants. Then, dropping to the ground again
with puffed-out, defiant tail, he trotted on into the undergrowth angry
and unafraid.
Arrived at Ranga Duar the brother and sister exclaimed in admiration at the
beauty of the lonely outpost nestling in the bosom of the hills. They gazed
with interest at the stalwart sepoys of the detachment in khaki or white
undress whom they passed and who drew themselves up and saluted their
commanding sahib smartly.
Dermot had given up his small bungalow to his guests and gone to occupy
the one vacant quarter in the Mess. Noreen was to sleep in his bedroom,
and, as the girl looked round the scantily-furnished apartment with
its small camp-bed, one canvas chair, a table, and a barrack chest of
drawers, she tried to realise that she was actually to live for a while
in the very room of the man who was fast becoming her hero. For indeed
her feeling for Dermot so far savoured more of hero-worship than of
love. She looked with interest at his scanty possessions, his sword,
the line of riding-boots against the wall, the belts and spurs hung on
nails, the brass-buttoned greatcoat hanging behind the door. In his
sitting-room she read the names of the books on a roughly-made stand to
try to judge of his taste in literature. And with feminine curiosity she
studied the photographs on the walls and tables and wondered who were
the originals of the portraits of some beautiful women among them and
what was their relation to Dermot.
While her brother, who picked up strength at once in the pure air,
delighted in the military sights and sounds around him, the girl revelled
in the loveliness of their surroundings, the beauty of the scenery, the
splendour of the hills, and the glorious panorama of forest and plains
spread before her eyes. To Parker, who had awaited their arrival at
Dermot's gate and hurried forward to help down from Badshah's back the
first Englishwoman who had ever visited their solitary station, she took an
instant liking, which increased when she found that he openly admired his
commanding officer as much as she did secretly.
In the days that followed it seemed quite natural that the task of
entertaining Noreen should fall to the senior officer's lot, while the
junior tactfully paired off with her brother and took him to shoot on the
rifle range or join in games of hockey with the sepoys on the parade
ground, which was the only level spot in the station.
Propinquity is the most frequent cause of love--for one who falls headlong
into that passion fifty drift into it. In the isolation of that solitary
spot on the face of the giant mountains, Kevin Dermot and Noreen Daleham
drew nearer to each other in their few days together there than they ever
would have done in as many months of London life. As they climbed the hills
or sat side by side on the Mess verandah and looked down on the leagues of
forest and plain spread out like a map at their feet, they were apt to
forget that they were not alone in the world.
The more Dermot saw of Noreen, the more he was attracted by her naturalness
and her unconscious charm of manner. He liked her bright and happy
disposition, full of the joy of living. On her side Noreen at first hardly
recognised the quiet-mannered, courteous man that she had first known in
the smart, keen, and intelligent soldier such as she found Dermot to be in
his own surroundings. Yet she was glad to have seen him in his little world
and delighted to watch him with his Indian officers and sepoys, whose
liking and respect for him were so evident.
When she was alone her thoughts were all of him. As she lay at night
half-dreaming on his little camp-bed in his bare room she wondered what
his life had been. And, to a woman, the inevitable question arose in her
mind: Had he ever loved or was he now in love with someone? It seemed to
her that any woman should be proud to win the love of such a man. Was
there one? What sort of girl would he admire, she wondered. She had
noticed that in their talks he had never mentioned any of her sex or
given her a clue to his likes and dislikes. She knew little of men. Her
brother was the only one of whose inner life and ideas she had any
knowledge, and he was no help to her understanding of Dermot.
It never occurred to Noreen that there was anything unusual in her interest
in this new friend, nor did she suspect that that interest was perilously
akin to a deeper feeling. All she knew was that she liked him and was
content to be near him. She had not reached the stage of being miserable
out of his presence. The dawn of a woman's love is the happiest time in its
story. There is no certain realisation of the truth to startle, perhaps
affright, her, no doubts to depress her, no jealous fears to torture her
heart--only a vague, delicious feeling of gladness, a pleasant rose-tinted
glow to brighten life and warm her heart. The fierce, devouring flames come
later.
The first love of a young girl is passionless, pure; a fanciful, poetic
devotion to an ideal; the worship of a deified, glorious being who does
not, never could, exist. Too often the realisation of the truth that the
idol has feet of clay is enough to burst the iridescent glowing bubble. Too
seldom the love deepens, develops into the true and lasting devotion of the
woman, clear-sighted enough to see the real man through the mists of
illusion, but fondly wise enough to cherish him in spite of his faults,
aye, even because of them, as a mother loves her deformed child for its
very infirmity.
So to Noreen love had come--as it should, as it must, to every daughter of
Eve, for until it comes no one of them will ever be really content or feel
that her life is complete, although when it does she will probably be
unhappy. For it will surely bring to her more grief than joy. Life and
Nature are harder to the woman than to the man. But in those golden days in
the mountains, Noreen Daleham was happy, happier far than she had ever
been; albeit she did not realise that love was the magician that made her
so. She only felt that the world was a very delightful place and that the
lonely outpost the most attractive spot in it.
Even when the day came to quit Ranga Duar she was not depressed. For was
not her friend--so she named him now in her thoughts--to bring her on his
wonderful elephant through the leagues of enchanted forest to her home? And
had he not promised to come to it again very soon to visit--not her, of
course, but her brother? So what cause was there for sadness?
Long as was the way--for forty miles of jungle paths lay between Malpura
and Ranga Duar--the journey seemed all too short for Noreen. But it came
to an end at last, and they arrived at the garden as the sun set and
Kinchinjunga's fairy white towers and spires hung high in air for a
space of time tantalisingly brief. Before they reached the bungalow the
short-lived Indian twilight was dying, and the tiny oil-lamps began to
twinkle in the palm-thatched huts of the toilers' village on the estate.
And forth from it swarmed the coolies, men, women, children, not to
welcome them, but to stare at the sacred elephant. Many heads bent low,
many hands were lifted to foreheads in awed salutation. Some of the
throng prostrated themselves to the dust, not in greeting to their own
sahib but in reverence to the marvellous animal and the mysterious white
man bestriding his neck who was becoming identified with him.
When Dermot rode away on Badshah the next morning the same scenes were
repeated. The coolies left their work among the tea-bushes to flock to the
side of the road as he passed. But he paid as little attention to them as
Badshah did, and turned just before the Dalehams' bungalow was lost to
sight to wave a last farewell to the girl still standing on the verandah
steps. It was a vision that he took away with him in his heart.
But, as the elephant bore him away through the forest, Noreen faded from
his mind, for he had graver, sterner thoughts to fill it. Love can never be
a fair game between the sexes, for the man and the woman do not play with
equal stakes. The latter risks everything, her soul, her mind, her whole
being. The former wagers only a fragment of his heart, a part of his
thoughts. Yet he is not to blame; it is Nature's ordinance. For the world's
work would never go on if men, who chiefly carry it on, were possessed,
obsessed, by love as women are.
So Dermot was only complying with that ordinance when he allowed the
thoughts of his task, which indeed was ever present with him, to oust
Noreen from his mind. He was on his way to Payne's bungalow to meet the
managers of several gardens in that part of the district, who were to
assemble there to report to him the result of their investigations.
His suspicions were more than confirmed. All had the same tale to tell--a
story of strange restlessness, a turbulent spirit, a frequent display of
insolence and insubordination among the coolies ordinarily so docile and
respectful. But this was only in the gardens that numbered Brahmins in
their population. The influence of these dangerous men was growing daily.
This was not surprising to any one who knows the extraordinary power of
this priestly caste among all Hindus.
There was evidence of constant communication between the Bengalis on the
other estates and Malpura, which pointed to the latter as being the
headquarters of the promoters of disaffection. But few of the planters were
inclined to agree with Dermot in suspecting Chunerbutty as likely to prove
the leader, for they were of opinion that his repudiation and disregard of
all the beliefs and customs of the Brahmins would render him obnoxious to
them.
From Payne's the Major went on to visit some other gardens. Everywhere he
heard the same story. All the planters were convinced that the heart and
the brain of the disaffection was to be found in Malpura. So Dermot
determined to return there and expose the whole matter to Fred Daleham at
last, charging him on his loyalty not to give the faintest inkling to
Chunerbutty.
A delay in the advent of the rain, which falls earlier in the district of
the Himalayan foothills than elsewhere in India, had rendered the jungle
very dry. Consequently when Dermot on Badshah's neck emerged from it on to
the garden of Malpura, he was not surprised to see at the far end of the
estate a column of smoke which told of a forest fire. The wide, open
stretch of the plantation was deserted, probably, so Dermot concluded,
because all the coolies had been collected to beat out the flames. But, as
he neared the Daleham's bungalow, he saw a crowd of them in front of it.
Before the verandah steps a group surrounded something on the ground, while
the servants were standing together talking to a man in European clothes,
whom Dermot, when he drew nearer, recognised as Chunerbutty.
The group near the steps scattered as he approached, and Dermot saw that
the object on the ground was a native lying on his back, covered with blood
and apparently dead.
Chunerbutty rushed forward. He was evidently greatly agitated.
"Oh, Major Dermot! Major Dermot! Help! Help!" he cried excitedly. "A
terrible thing has happened. Miss Daleham has been carried off by a party
of Bhuttia raiders."
"Carried off? By Bhuttias?" exclaimed the soldier. "When?"
He made the elephant kneel and slipped off to the ground.
"Barely two hours ago," replied the engineer. "A fire broke out in the
jungle at the south edge of the garden--probably started purposely to draw
everyone away from the bungalows and factory. The manager, Daleham, and I
went there to superintend the men fighting the flames. In our absence a
party of ten or twenty Bhuttia swordsmen rushed the house. Miss Daleham had
just returned from her ride. Poor girl!"
He broke down and began to cry.
"Pull yourself together man!" exclaimed Dermot in disgust. "Go on. What
happened?"
"They seized and bound her," continued the Bengali, mastering his emotion.
"These cowards"--with a wave of his hand he indicated the servants--"did
nothing to protect her. Only the _syce_ attempted to resist, and they
killed him."
He pointed to the prostrate man.
"They tried to bear her off on her pony, but it took fright and bolted.
Then they tied poles to a chair brought from the bungalow and carried her
away in it."
"Didn't the servants give the alarm?" asked Dermot.
"No; they remained hiding in their quarters until we came. A coolie woman,
who saw the raiders from a distance, ran to us and told us. Fred went mad,
of course. He wanted to follow the Bhuttias, but I pointed out that it was
hopeless."
"Hopeless? Why?"
"There were only three of us, and they were a large party," replied
Chunerbutty.
"Yes; but you had rifles and should have been a match for fifty."
The Bengali shrugged his shoulders.
"We did not know in which way they had gone," he said. "We could not track
them."
"I suppose not. Well?"
"Fred and Mr. Parry have ridden off in different directions to the
neighbouring gardens to summon help. We sent two coolies with a telegram to
you or any officer at Ranga Duar, to be sent from the telegraph office on
the Barwahi estate. Then you came."
Dermot observed him narrowly. He was always suspicious of the Hindu; but,
unless the engineer was a good actor, there was no doubt that he was
greatly affected by the outrage. His distress seemed absolutely genuine.
And certainly there seemed no reason for suspecting his complicity in the
carrying off of Miss Daleham. So the Major turned to the servants and,
taking them apart one by one, questioned them closely. Chunerbutty had
given their story correctly. But Dermot elicited two new facts which they
had not mentioned to the engineer. One raider at least was armed with a
revolver, which was unusual for a Bhuttia, the difficulty of procuring
firearms and ammunition in Bhutan being so great that even the soldiers of
the Maharajah are armed only with swords and bows. The Dalehams'
_khansamah_, or butler, stated that this man had threatened all the
servants with this weapon, bidding them under pain of death remain in their
houses without raising an alarm.
"Do you know Bhutanese?" asked Dermot.
"No, sahib. But he spoke Bengali," replied the servant.
"Spoke it well?"
"No, sahib, not well, but sufficiently for us to understand him."
Another servant, on being questioned, mentioned the curious fact that the
man with the revolver conversed with another of the raiders in Bengali.
This struck Dermot as being improbable, but others of the servants
confirmed the fact. Having gathered all the information that they could
give him he went over to look at the dead man.
The _syce_, or groom, was lying on his back in a pool of blood. He had been
struck down by a blow from a sword which seemed to have split the skull.
But, on placing his ear to the poor wretch's chest, Dermot thought that he
could detect a faint fluttering of the heart. Holding his polished silver
cigarette case to the man's mouth he found its brightness slightly clouded.
"Why, he is still living," exclaimed the soldier. "Quick! Bring water."
He hastily applied his flask to the man's lips. Although he grudged the
time, Dermot felt that the wounded man's attempt to defend Noreen entitled
him to have his wound attended to even before any effort was made to rescue
her. So he had the _syce_ carried to his hut, and then, taking out his
surgical case, he cleansed and sewed up the gash. But his thoughts were
busy with Noreen's peril. The occurrence astonished him. Bhuttias from the
hills beyond the border occasionally raided villages and tea-gardens in
British territory in search of loot, but were generally careful to avoid
Europeans. Such an outrage as the carrying off of an Englishwoman had never
been heard of on the North-East Frontier.
There was no time to be lost if the raiders were to be overtaken before
they crossed the border. Indeed, with the start that they had, pursuit
seemed almost hopeless. Nevertheless, Dermot resolved to attempt it, and
single-handed. For he could not wait for the planters to gather, and
summoning his men from Ranga Duar was out of the question. He did not
consider the odds against him. Had Englishmen stopped to do so in India,
the Empire would never have been founded. With his rifle and the prestige
of the white race behind him he would not have hesitated to face a hundred
such opponents. His blood boiled at the thought of the indignity offered to
the girl; though he was not seriously concerned for her safety, judging
that she had been carried off for ransom. But he pictured the distress and
terror of a delicately nurtured Englishwoman at finding herself in the
hands of a band of savage outlaws dragging her away to an unknown and awful
fate. She was his friend, and he felt that it was his right as well as his
duty to rescue her.
With a grim determination to follow her abductors even to Punaka, the
capital of Bhutan, he swung his leg across Badshah's neck and set out,
having bade Chunerbutty inform Daleham and the planters that he had started
in pursuit.
The raiders had left the garden by a path leading to the north and headed
for the mountains. When Dermot got well clear of the bungalow and reached
the confines of the estate, he dismounted and examined the ground over
which they had passed. In the dust he found the blurred prints of a number
of barefooted men and in one place four sharply-defined marks which showed
where they had set down the chair in which Noreen was being carried,
probably to change the bearers. A mile or two further on the track crossed
the dry bed of a small stream. In the sand Dermot noticed to his surprise
the heel-mark of a boot among the footprints of the raiders, it being most
unusual for Bhuttias to be shod.
As his rider knelt down to examine the tracks, Badshah stretched out his
trunk and smelt them as though he understood the object of their mission.
And, as soon as Dermot was again on his neck, he moved on at a rapid pace.
It was necessary, however, to check constantly to search for the raiders'
tracks. The Bhuttias had followed an animal path through the jungle, and
Dermot seated on his elephant's neck with loaded rifle across his knees,
scanned it carefully and watched the undergrowth on either side, noting
here and there broken twigs or freshly-fallen leaves which marked the
passage of the chair conveying Noreen. Such signs were generally to be
found at sharp turnings of the path. Wherever the ground was soft enough or
sufficient dust lay to show impressions he stopped to examine the spot
carefully for footprints. Occasionally he detected the sharp marks of the
chair-legs or of the boot.
The trial led towards the mountains, as was natural. But after several
hours' progress Badshah turned suddenly to the left and endeavoured to
continue on towards the west. Dermot was disappointed, for he had persuaded
himself that the elephant quite understood the quest and was following the
trail. He headed Badshah again towards the north, but with difficulty, for
the animal obstinately persisted in trying to go his own way. When Dermot
conquered finally they continued towards the mountains. But before long the
soldier found that he had lost all traces of the raiding party. He cast
around without success and wasted much time in endeavouring to pick up the
trail again. At last to his annoyance he was forced to turn back and
retrace his steps.
At the spot where the conflict of opinion between him and the elephant had
taken place he cast about and found the track again. It led in the
direction in which Badshah had tried to take him. The elephant had been
wiser than he. Now, with an apologetic pat on the head, Dermot let him
follow the new path, wondering at the change of route, for it was only
natural to expect that the Bhuttias would have made for the hills by the
shortest way to the nearest pass into Bhutan. As the elephant moved along
his rider's eye was quick to recognise the traces of the passing of the
raiders, where no sign would have been visible to one unskilled in
tracking.
All at once Badshah slackened his pace and began to advance with the
caution of a tusker stalking an enemy. Confident in the animal's
extraordinary intelligence Dermot cocked his rifle. The elephant suddenly
turned off the path and moved noiselessly through the undergrowth for a few
minutes. Then he stopped on the edge of an open glade in the forest.
Scattered about in it, sitting or lying down half-asleep, were a number of
short, sturdy, brown-faced men with close cropped bare heads. Each was clad
in a single garment shaped like a Japanese _kimono_ and kilted up to expose
thick-calved, muscular bare legs by a girdle from which hung a _dah_--a
short, straight sword. A little apart from them sat Noreen Daleham in a
chair in which she was securely fastened and to which long carrying-poles
were tied. She was dressed in riding costume and wore a sun-helmet.
The girl was pale, weary, and dejected, and looked so frail and unfitted to
cope with so terrifying a situation that a feeling of immense tenderness
and an instinctive desire to protect her filled Dermot as he watched her.
Then passionate anger welled up in him as he turned his eyes again to her
captors; and he longed to make them pay dearly for the suffering that she
had endured.
But, despite his rage, he deliberated coolly enough on the best mode of
attack, as he counted the number of the raiders. There were twenty-two. The
soldier's quick eye instantly detected that one of them, although garbed
similarly to the rest, was in features unlike a Bhuttia and had not the
sturdy frame of a man of that race. He was wearing shoes and socks and was
the only one of the party not carrying a _dah_.
Dermot's first idea was to open fire suddenly on the raiders and continue
firing while moving about in cover from place to place on the edge of the
glade, so as to give the impression of a numerous force. But he feared that
harm might come to the girl in the fight if any of the Bhuttias carried
fire-arms, for they would probably fire wildly, and a stray bullet might
hit the girl. So he resolved on a bolder policy. While the raiders, who had
put out no sentries, lay about in groups unconscious of the proximity of an
enemy, Dermot touched Badshah with his hand, and the elephant broke
noiselessly out of the undergrowth and suddenly appeared in their midst.