THE MAKING OF A GOD
Parry's departure served as a hint to Noreen that it was time for her to
say good-night to her guests and withdraw. As soon as she left the room
there was an instant hush of expectancy, and all eyes were turned to
Dermot. The servants had long since gone, but, after asking his host's
permission, he rose from his place and strolled with apparent carelessness
to each doorway in turn and satisfied himself that there were no
eavesdroppers. Then he shut the doors and asked members of the party to
station themselves on guard at each of them. The planters watched these
precautions with surprise.
Having thus made sure that he would not be overheard Dermot said:
"Gentlemen, a few of you already know something of what I am going to tell
you. I want you to understand that I am now speaking officially and in
strict confidence."
He turned to his host.
"I must ask you, Mr. Daleham (Fred looked up in surprise at the formality
of the mode of address) to promise to divulge nothing of what I say to your
friend, Mr. Chunerbutty."
"Not tell Chunerbutty, sir?" repeated the young planter in astonishment.
"No; the matter is one which must not be mentioned to any but Europeans."
"Oh, but I assure you, Major, Chunerbutty's thoroughly loyal and reliable,"
said Daleham warmly.
"I repeat that you are not to give him the least inkling of what I am going
to say," replied Dermot in a quiet but stern voice. "As I have already told
you, I am speaking officially."
The boy was impressed and a little awed by his manner.
"Oh, certainly, sir. I give you my word that I shan't mention it to him."
"Very well. The fact is, gentlemen, that we are on the track of a vast
conspiracy against British rule in India, and have reason to believe that
the activity of the disloyalists in Bengal has spread to this district. We
suspect that the Brahmins who, very much to the surprise of any one
acquainted with the ways of their caste, are working as coolies on your
gardens, are really emissaries of the seditionists."
"By George, is that really so, Major?" asked a young planter in a doubting
tone. "We have a couple of these Bengalis on our place, and they seem such
quiet, harmless chaps."
"The Major is quite right. I know it," said one of the oldest men present.
"I confess that it didn't occur to me as strange that Brahmins should take
such low-caste work until he told me. But I have found since, as others of
us have, that these men are the secret cause of all the trouble and unrest
that we have had lately among our coolies, to whom they preach sedition and
revolution."
Several other estate managers corroborated his statement.
"But surely, sir, you don't suspect Chunerbutty of being mixed up in this?"
asked Daleham. "He's been a friend of mine for a long time. I lived with
him in London, and I'm certain he is quite loyal and pro-British."
"I know nothing of him, Daleham," replied the soldier. "But he is a Bengali
Brahmin, one of the race and caste that are responsible for most of the
sedition in India, and we must take precautions."
"I'd stake my life on him," exclaimed the boy hotly. "He's been a good
friend to me, and I'll answer for him."
Dermot did not trouble to argue the matter further with him, but said to
the company generally:
"This outrageous attempt to carry off Miss Daleham--"
"Oh, but you said yourself, sir, that the ruffians were Bhuttias," broke in
the boy, still nourishing a grievance at the mistrust of his friend.
Dermot turned to him again.
"Do Bhuttias talk to each other in Bengali? The leader gave his orders
in that language to one man--who, by the way, was the only one he spoke
to--and that man passed them on to the others in Bhutanese."
This statement caused a sensation in the company.
"By Jove, is that a fact, Dermot?" cried Payne.
"Yes. These two were the men I shot. Do Bhuttias, unless they have just
looted a garden successfully--and we know these fellows had not--carry sums
like this?" And Dermot threw on the supper-table a cloth in which coins
were wrapped. "Open that, Payne, and count the money, please."
All bent forward and watched as the planter opened the knot fastening the
cloth and poured out a stream of bright rupees, the silver coin of India
roughly equivalent to a florin. There was silence while he counted them.
"A hundred," he said.
Dermot laid on the table a new automatic pistol and several clips of
cartridges.
"Bhuttias from across the border do not possess weapons like these, as you
know. Nor do they carry English-made pocket-books with contents like those
this one has."
He handed a leather case to Granger who opened it and took out a packet of
bank notes and counted them. "Eight hundred and fifty rupees," he said.
The men around him looked at the notes and at each other. A young engineer
whistled and said: "Whew! It pays to be a brigand. I'll turn robber myself,
I think. Poor but honest man that I am I have never gazed on so much wealth
before. Hullo! What's that bit of string?"
Dermot had taken from his pocket the cord that he had cut from the corpse
of the second raider and laid it on the table.
"Perhaps some of you may not be sufficiently well acquainted with Indian
customs to know what this is."
"I'm blessed if I am, Major," said the engineer. "What is it?"
"It's the _janeo_, or sacred cord worn by the three highest of the
original Hindu castes as a symbol of their second or spiritual birth and
to mark the distinction between their noble twice-born selves and the
lower caste once-born Súdras. You see it is made up of three strings of
spun cotton to symbolise the Hindu _Trimurti_ (Trinity), Brahma, Vishnu,
and Siva, and also Earth, Air, and Heaven, the three worlds pervaded by
their essence."
"Oh, I see. But where did you get it?" asked the engineer.
"Off the body of the second man that I shot, together with the pistol and
pocket-book. Now, Bhuttias do not wear the _janeo_, not being Hindus. But
high-caste Hindus do--and a Brahmin would never be without it."
"Oh, no. So you mean that the man wasn't a Bhuttia?"
"This is the last exhibit, as they say in the Law Courts," said Dermot,
producing a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. "You don't find Bhuttias
wearing these."
"By Jove, no," said Granger, taking them up and trying them. "Damned good
glasses, these, and cost a bit, too."
Dermot turned towards Daleham.
"Do you remember showing me on this garden one day a coolie whom you said
was a B.A. of Calcutta University?"
"Yes; he was called Narain Dass," replied Fred. "We spoke to him, you
recollect, Major? He talked excellent English of the _babu_ sort."
"What has happened to him?"
"I don't know. He disappeared a short time ago. Deserted, I suppose, though
I don't see why he should. He was getting on well here."
Dermot smiled grimly and touched the cord and spectacles.
"The man who wore these, who led the Bhuttias in the raid, was Narain
Dass."
These was a moment's amazed silence in the room. Then a hubbub arose, and
there was a chorus of exclamations and questions.
"Good Heavens, is it possible, Major? He appeared to be such a decent,
civil chap," exclaimed Daleham.
"His face seemed familiar to me, as he lay dead on the ground," replied
Dermot. "I couldn't place him, though, until I found the spectacles. I put
them on his nose, and then I knew him. His hair was cropped close, he was
wearing Bhuttia clothes, but it was Narain Dass, the University graduate
who was working as a coolie for a few _annas_ a day."
"And he had eight hundred and fifty rupees on him," added the young
engineer.
"Yes; and if all the Bhuttias had as much as the one shot that meant over
two thousand."
"Where did they get it?"
"Who is behind all this?"
"The seditionists, of course," said an elderly planter.
"Yes; but today it isn't a question of an isolated outrage on one
Englishwoman, nor of a few Bengali lawyers in Calcutta and their dupes
among hot-headed students and ignorant peasants," said Dermot. "It's the
biggest thing we've ever had to face yet in India. What we want to get at
is the head and brains of the conspiracy."
"What do you make of this attempt on Miss Daleham?" asked Granger. "What
was the object of it?"
"Probably just terrorism. They wanted to show that no one is secure under
our rule. It may be that Narain Dass, who had worked on this garden and
seen Miss Daleham, suggested it. They may have thought that the carrying
off of an Englishwoman would make more impression than the mere bombing of
a police officer or a magistrate--we are too used to that."
"But why employ Bhuttias?" asked Payne.
"To throw the pursuers off the track and prevent their being run down. The
search would stop if we thought they'd gone across the frontier, so they
could get away easily. When they had got Miss Daleham safely hidden away in
the labyrinths of a native bazaar, perhaps in Calcutta, they'd have let
everyone know who had carried her off."
"Who was the other fellow with Narain Dass--the chap who talked Bengali?"
"Probably a Bhuttia who knew the language was given the Brahmin as an
interpreter."
"But I say, Major," cried a planter, "who the devil were the lot that
attacked you?"
"I'm hanged if I know," Dermot answered. "I have been inclined to believe
them to be a gang of political _dacoits_, probably coming to meet the
Bhuttias and take Miss Daleham from them, but in that case they would have
been young Brahmins and better armed. This lot were low-caste men and their
weapons were mostly old muzzle-loading muskets."
"Perhaps they were just ordinary _dacoits_," hazarded a planter.
"Possibly; but they must have been new to the business," replied the Major.
"For there wouldn't be much of an opening for robbers in the middle of the
forest."
"It's a puzzle. I can't make it out," said Granger, shaking his head.
The others discussed the subject for some time, but no one could elucidate
the mystery. At length Dermot said to Daleham:
"No answer has come to that telegram you sent to Ranga Duar, I suppose?"
"No, Major; though there's been plenty of time for a reply."
"It's strange. Parker would have answered at once if he'd got the wire, I
know," said Dermot. "But did he? Most of the telegraph clerks in this
Province are Brahmins--I don't trust them. Anyhow, if Parker did receive
the wire, he'd start a party off at once. It's a long forty miles, and
marching through the jungle is slow work. They couldn't get here before
dawn. And the men would be pretty done up."
"I bet they would if they had to go through the forest in the dark," said a
planter.
"Well, I want to start at daybreak to search the scene of the attack on us
and the place where I came on the Bhuttias. Will some of you fellows come
with me?"
"Rather. We'll all go," was the shout from all at the table.
"Thanks. We may round up some of the survivors."
"I say, Major, would you tell us a thing that's puzzled me, and I daresay
more than me?" ventured a young assistant manager, voicing the thoughts of
others present. "How the deuce did those wild elephants happen to turn up
just in the nick of time for you?"
"They were probably close by and the firing disturbed them," was the
careless answer.
"H'm; very curious, wasn't it, Major?" said Granger. "You know the habits
of the _jungli hathi_ better than most other people. Wouldn't they be far
more likely to run away from the firing than right into it?"
"As a rule. But when wild elephants stampede in a panic they'll go through
anything."
The assistant manager was persistent.
"But how did your elephant chance to join up with them?" he asked. "Judging
by the look of him he took a very prominent part in clearing your enemies
off."
"Oh, Badshah is a fighter. I daresay if there was a scrap anywhere near him
he'd like to be in it," replied Dermot lightly, and tried to change the
conversation.
But the others insisted on keeping to the subject. They had all been
curious as to the truth of the stories about Dermot's supposed miraculous
power over wild elephants, but no one had ever ventured to question him on
the subject before.
"I suppose you know, Major, that the natives have some wonderful tales
about Badshah?" said a planter.
"Yes; and of you, too, sir," said the young assistant manager. "They think
you both some special brand of gods."
"I'm not surprised," said the Major with assumed carelessness. "They're
ready to deify anything. They will see a god in a stone or a tree. You know
they looked on the famous John Nicholson during the Mutiny as a god, and
made a cult of him. There are still men who worship him."
"They're prepared to do that to you, Major," said Granger frankly. "Barrett
is quite right. They call you the Elephant God."
Dermot laughed and stood up.
"Oh, natives will believe anything," he said. "If you'll excuse me now,
Daleham, I'll turn in--or rather, turn out. I'd like to get some sleep, for
we've an early start before us."
"Yes, we'd better all do the same," said Granger, rising too. "How are you
going to bed us all down, Daleham? Bit of a job, isn't it?"
"We'll manage all right," replied the young host. "I told the servants to
spread all the mattresses and charpoys that they could raise anywhere out
on the verandah and in the spare rooms. I'm short of mosquito curtains,
though. Some of you will get badly bitten tonight."
"I'll go to old Parr's bungalow and steal his," said Granger. "He's too
drunk to feel any 'skeeter biting him."
"I pity the mosquito that does," joined in a young planter laughing. "The
poor insect would die of alcoholic poisoning."
"I've given you my room, Major," said Daleham. "I know the other fellows
won't mind."
No persuasion, however, could make Dermot accept the offer. While
the others slept in the bungalow, he lay under the stars beside his
elephant. The house was wrapped in darkness. In the huts in the compound
the servants still gossiped about the extraordinary events of the day,
but gradually they too lay down and pulled their blankets over their
heads, and all was silence. But a few hundred yards away a lamp still
burned in Chunerbutty's bungalow where the Hindu sat staring at the wall
of his room, wondering what had happened that day and what had been
said in the Dalehams' dining-room that night. For he had prowled about
their house in the darkness and seen the company gathered around the
supper-table. And he had watched Dermot shut the door between the room
and the verandah, and guessed that things were to be said that Indians
were not meant to hear. So through the night he sat motionless in his
chair with mind and heart full of bitterness, cursing the soldier by all
he held unholy.
Long before dawn Noreen, refreshed by sleep and quite recovered from the
fatigues and alarms of the previous day, was up to superintend the early
meal that her servants prepared for the departing company. No one but her
brother was returning to Malpura, the others were to scatter to their own
gardens when Dermot had finished with them.
As the girl said good-bye to the planters she warmly thanked each one for
his chivalrous readiness to come to her aid. But to the soldier she found
it hard, impossible, to say all that was in her heart, and to an onlooker
her farewell to him would have seemed abrupt, almost cold. But he
understood her, and long after he had vanished from sight she seemed to
feel the friendly pressure of his hand on hers. When she went to her rooms
the tears filled her eyes, as she kissed the fingers that his had held.
Out in the forest the Major led the way on Badshah, the ponies of his
followers keeping at a respectful distance from the elephant. When nearing
the scene of the fight the tracks of the avenging herd were plain to see,
and soon the party came upon ghastly evidences of the tragedy. The buzzing
of innumerable flies guided the searchers to spots in the undergrowth where
the scattered corpses lay. As each was reached a black cloud of blood-drunk
winged insects rose in the air from the loathsome mass of red, crushed
pulp, but trains of big ants came and went undisturbed. The dense foliage
had hidden the battered, shapeless bodies from the eyes of the soaring
vultures high up in the blue sky, otherwise nothing but scattered bones
would have remained. Now the task of scavenging was left to the insects.
Over twenty corpses were found. When an angry elephant has wreaked his rage
on a man the result is something that is difficult to recognise as the
remains of a human being. So out of the twenty, the attackers shot by
Dermot were the only ones whose bodies were in a fit state to be examined.
But they afforded no clue to the identity of the mysterious assailants. The
men appeared to have been low-caste Hindus of the coolie class. They
carried nothing on their persons except a little food--a few broken
_chupatis_, a handful of coarse grain, an onion or two, and a few
_cardamoms_ tied up in a bit of cloth. Each had a powder-flask and a small
bag with some spherical bullets in it hung on a string passed over one
shoulder. The weapons found were mostly old Tower muskets, the marks on
which showed that at one time they had belonged to various native regiments
in the service of the East India Company. But there were two or three
fairly modern rifles of French or German make.
These latter Dermot tied on his elephant, and, as there was nothing further
to be learned here, he led the way to the other spot which he wished to
visit. But when, after a canter along the narrow, winding track through the
dense undergrowth, jumping fallen trees and dodging overhanging branches,
the party drew near the open glade in which Dermot had overtaken the
raiders, a chorus of loud and angry squawks, the rushing sound of heavy
wings and the rustling of feathered bodies prepared them for
disappointment. When they entered it there was nothing to be seen but two
struggling groups of vultures jostling and fighting over what had been
human bodies. For the glade was open to the sky and the keen eyes of the
foul scavengers had detected the corpses, of which nothing was left now but
torn clothing, mangled flesh, and scattered bones. So there was no
possibility of Daleham's deciding if Dermot had been right in believing
that one of the two raiders that he had killed was the Calcutta Bachelor of
Arts. On the whole the search had proved fruitless, for no further clue to
the identity of either body of miscreants was found.
So the riders turned back. At various points of the homeward journey
members of the party went off down tracks leading in the direction of their
respective gardens, and there was but a small remnant left when Dermot said
good-bye, after hearty thanks from Daleham and cheery farewells from the
others.
He did not reach the Fort until the following day. There he learned that
Parker had never received the telegram asking for help. Subsequent
enquiries from the telegraph authorities only elicited the statement that
the line had been broken between Barwahi and Ranga Duar. As where it passed
through the forest accidents to it from trees knocked down by elephants or
brought down by natural causes were frequent, it was impossible to discover
the truth, but the fact that nearly all the telegraph officials were
Bengali Brahmins made Dermot doubtful. But he was able to report the
happenings to Simla by cipher messages over the line.
Parker was furious because the information had failed to reach him. He had
missed the opportunity of marching a party of his men down to the rescue of
Miss Daleham and his commanding officer, and he was not consoled by the
latter pointing out to him that it would have been impossible for him to
have arrived in time for the fight.
Two days after Dermot's return to the Fort he was informed that three
Bhuttias wanted to see him. On going out on to the verandah of his bungalow
he found an old man whom he recognised as the headman of a mountain village
just inside the British border, ten miles from Ranga Duar. Beside him stood
two sturdy young Bhuttias with a hang-dog expression on their Mongol-like
faces.
The headman, who was one of those in Dermot's pay, saluted and, dragging
forward his two companions, bade them say what they had come there to say.
Each of the young men pulled out of the breast of his jacket a little
cloth-wrapped parcel, and, opening it, poured a stream of bright silver
rupees at the feet of the astonished Major. Then they threw themselves on
their knees before him, touched the ground with their foreheads, and
implored his pardon, saying that they had sinned against him in ignorance
and offered in atonement the price of their crime.
Dermot turned enquiringly to the headman, who explained that the two had
taken part in the carrying off of the white _mem_, and being now convinced
that they had in so doing offended a very powerful being--god or devil--had
come to implore his pardon.
Their story was soon told. They said that they had been approached by a
certain Bhuttia who, formerly residing in British territory, had been
forced to flee to Bhutan by reason of his many crimes. Nevertheless, he
made frequent secret visits across the border. For fifty rupees--a princely
sum to them--he induced them to agree to join with others in carrying off
Miss Daleham. They found subsequently that the real leader of the
enterprise was a Hindu masquerading as a Bhuttia.
When they had succeeded in their object they were directed to go to a
certain spot in the jungle where they were to be met by another party to
which they were to hand over the Englishwoman. Having reached the place
first they were waiting for the others when Dermot appeared. So terrible
were the tales told in their villages about this dread white man and his
mysterious elephant that, believing that he had come to punish them for
their crime, all but the two leaders fled in panic. Several of the
fugitives ran into the party of armed Hindus which they were to meet, a
member of which spoke a certain amount of Bhutanese. Having learned what
had happened he ordered them to guide the newcomers' pursuit.
When the attack began the Bhuttias, having no fire-arms, took refuge in
trees. So when the herd swept down upon the assailants all the hillmen
escaped. But they were witnesses of the terrible vengeance of the powerful
devil-man and devil-elephant. When at last they had ventured to descend
from the trees that had proved their salvation and returned to their
villages these two confided the story to their headman. At his orders they
had come to surrender the price of their crime and plead for pardon.
Their story only deepened the mystery, for, when Dermot eagerly
questioned them as to the identity of the Hindus, he was again brought
up against a blank wall, for they knew nothing of them. He deemed it
politic to promise to forgive them and allow them to keep the money that
they had received, after he had thoroughly impressed upon them the
enormity of their guilt in daring to lay hands upon a white woman. He
ordered them as a penance to visit all the Bhuttia villages on each side
of the border and tell everyone how terrible was the punishment for such
a crime. They were first to seek out their companions in the raid and
lay the same task on them. He found afterwards that these latter had
hardly waited to be told, for they had already spread broadcast the
tale, which grew as it travelled. Before long every mountain and jungle
village had heard how the Demon-Man had overtaken the raiders on his
marvellous winged elephant, slain some by breathing fire on them and
called up from the Lower Hell a troop of devils, half dragons, half
elephants, who had torn the other criminals limb from limb or eaten them
alive. So, not the fear of the Government, as Dermot intended, but the
terror of him and his attendant devil Badshah, lay heavy on the
border-side.
Chunerbutty, kept at the soldier's request in utter ignorance of more
than the fact that Noreen had been rescued by him from the raiders, had
concluded at first that the crime was what it appeared on the surface--a
descent of trans-frontier Bhuttias to carry off a white woman for ransom.
But when these stories reached the tea-garden villages and eventually came
to his ears he was very puzzled. For he knew that, in spite of their
extravagance, there was probably a grain of truth somewhere in them. They
made him suspect that some other agency had been at work and another reason
than hope of money had inspired the outrage.
In the Palace at Lalpuri a tempest raged. The Rajah, mad with fury and
disappointed desire, stormed through his apartments, beating his servants
and threatening all his satellites with torture and death. For no news had
come to him for days as to the success or failure of a project that he had
conceived in his diseased brain. Distrusting Chunerbutty, as he did
everyone about him, he had sent for Narain Dass, whom he knew as one of the
_Dewan's_ agents, and given him the task of executing his original design
of carrying off Miss Daleham. To the Bengali's subtle mind had occurred the
idea of making the outrage seem the work of Bhuttia raiders. But for
Dermot's prompt pursuit his plan would have been crowned with success. The
girl, handed over as arranged to a party of the Rajah's soldiers in
disguise, would have been taken to the Palace at Lalpuri, while everyone
believed her a captive in Bhutan.
At length a few poor wretches, who had escaped their comrades' terrible
doom under the feet of the wild elephants and, mad with terror, had
wandered in the jungle for days, crept back starved and almost mad to the
capital of the State. Only one was rash enough to return to the Palace,
while the others, fearing to face their lord when they had only failure to
report, hid in the slums of the bazaar. This one was summoned to the
Rajah's presence. His tale was heard with unbelief and rage, and he was
ordered to be trampled to death by the ruler's trained elephants. Search
was made through the bazaar for the other men who had returned, and when
they were caught their punishment was more terrible still. Inconceivable
tortures were inflicted on them and they were flung half-dead into a pit
full of live scorpions and cobras. Even in these enlightened days there are
dark corners in India, and in some Native States strange and terrible
things still happen. And the tale of them rarely reaches the ear of the
representatives of the Suzerain Power or the columns of the daily press.