Swinton was glad when he saw his dogcart turn into the compound to take
him to the keddah sahib's for tiffin. Lord Victor had been hypnotised by
the splendour of Maharajah Darpore; he went around the bungalow giving
vent to ebullitions of praise. "My aunt, but the old Johnnie is a
corker! And all the tommyrot one hears at home about another mutiny
brewing! Damn it, Swinton, the war chiefs who want every bally
Englishman trained to carry a gun like a Prussian ought to be put in the
Tower!"
An hour of this sort of thing, and with a silent whoop of joy the
captain clambered into his dogcart and sped away, as he bowled along his
mind troubled by the maharajah angle of the espionage game.
After tiffin with the major, and out on the verandah, where they were
clear of the servant's ears, Swinton asked: "Who is the mysterious lady
that rides a grey Persian?"
He was conscious of a quick turn of Finnerty's head; a half-checked
movement of the hand that held a lighted match to a cheroot, and as the
keddah sahib proceeded to finish the ignition he described the woman and
her flight over the brick wall.
"She's Doctor Boelke's niece; she has been here about a month," Finnerty
answered, when Captain Swinton had finished.
"I wonder why she risked her neck to avoid me, major?"
"Well, she's German for one thing, and I suppose she knows there's a
growing tension between the two peoples."
Captain Swinton allowed a smile to surprise his always set face. "Do you
know why I am here, major; that is, have you had advice?"
"Yes," the major answered.
"Very good," Captain Swinton declared. "I'll give you some data. Lord
Victor's father, Earl Craig, is under-secretary to India. There was some
extraordinary jumble of a state document intended for the Viceroy of
India. Whether its misleading phraseology was carelessness or traitorous
work on the part of a clerk, nobody knows, but it read that the sircar
was to practically conscript Indians--Mussulman and Hindu alike--to
fight against the Turks and Germans in the war that we all feel is about
to come. This paper bore the official seal; had even been signed. Then
Earl Craig's copy of it disappeared--was stolen from Lord Victor, who
was acting as his secretary. A girl, with whom the young man was
infatuated, was supposed to have taken it for the Prussians for use in
India. The girl disappeared, and Lord Victor was sent out here for fear
he would get in communication with her again. Neither Lord Victor nor
the earl knows I am a secret-service man. Maharajah Darpore is marked
'low visibility' in the viceroy's book of rajah rating, and, as Earl
Craig wanted an Anglo-Indian as a companion to his son, this seemed a
good chance to investigate quietly. There's another little matter," the
captain continued quietly as he drew from his pocket a sapphire in the
rough.
"Where the devil did you get that, captain? I thought that old professor
pirate had stolen it," Finnerty gasped.
"That's not the stone you lost last night, major."
Finnerty looked at Swinton incredulously as the latter handed him the
sapphire, for it was exactly like the stolen stone, even to the
inscription.
"Let me explain," Captain Swinton said. "Some time since one Akka, a
hillman, came down out of Kululand into Simla leading a donkey that
carried two bags of sapphires in the rough. Nobody knew what they were,
so, of course, he found it hard to sell his blue stones. That night the
stones disappeared, and Akka was found in the morning at the bottom of
an abyss with a jade-handled knife sticking in his back. He must have
dropped over the rocks so quickly the killer hadn't time to withdraw his
knife. About Akka's neck, hidden under his dirty felt coat, was hung
this sapphire, and it was given to me, as I was put on the case. I took
a trip up into Kululand with a hillman who claimed to have come in with
Akka as guide. I got a very fine bharal head--almost a record pair of
horns--and a bullet in my left leg that still gives me a limp at times,
but as to sapphires in the rough I never saw another until last night."
Finnerty laughed. "India is one devil of a place for mystery."
Swinton related the incidents of the night before, and Baboo Dass' story
of the three sapphires, adding: "Of course that's Hindu mythology up to
date, the attributing of miraculous powers of good and evil to those
blue stones."
Finnerty shifted uneasily in his chair; then, with a little, apologetic
smile, said: "I'm getting less dogmatic about beliefs and their
trimmings--absolute superstition, I suppose--and if a sapphire, or
anything else, were associated in my mind with disaster I'd chuck the
devilish thing in the river."
"At any rate, major, the main thing, so far as my mission is concerned,
is that if Prince Ananda happens to get possession of the three
sapphires every Buddhist--which means all the fighting Nepalese--will
believe the expected Buddha has arrived."
"By gad! And the three sapphires are in Darpore--the one that was stolen
from me last night, the one stolen from Baboo Dass, and this one."
"Prince Ananda has yours; I saw Boelke purposely tip over that table.
But who stole the one from the baboo I don't know; it couldn't have been
a raj agent, for it belonged to the maharajah."
"Where did they come from?" Finnerty queried.
"Yours, of course, was on Burra Moti's neck, and she must have been
attached to some temple; Akka probably murdered some lama who had this
one about his neck; where Prince Ananda got the third one I don't know."
"By Jove!" Finnerty ejaculated. "It was a hillman that Moti put her foot
on. He had been sent to steal that bell, as he couldn't carry the
elephant."
"Here's another thing," Captain Swinton said. "In the United States
there has been arrested a clique of Hindus who have sold a great
quantity of rare old jewels, gold ornaments, and sapphires in the rough.
Machine guns and ammunition were bought with the money obtained, and
quite a consignment is somewhere on the road now between China and
India."
"Great Scott! Up this way--to come in through Nepal?"
"The stuff was shipped from San Francisco to Hongkong, and though the
British government had every road leading out of that city watched, they
never got track of it. Our men there think it was transshipped in
Hongkong harbour and is being brought around to India by water."
"Does the government think the maharajah is mixed up in this?"
"I'm here to find out. He mystified me to-day. Gilfain thinks he's
magnificent--as natural as a child. But he's too big for me to judge; I
can't docket him like I can Ananda. He was as regally disinterested over
the disappearance of that sapphire as the Duke of Buckingham was when
his famous string of black pearls broke and scattered over the floor at
the Tuileries; but the prince was seething."
Finnerty waved his cheroot in the direction of the palace hill. "The
trouble is up there. Ananda is wily; he's like a moon bear he has there
in a cage that smiles and invites you to tickle the back of his neck;
then, before you know it, the first joint of a finger is gone."
A little lull in the talk between Swinton and Finnerty was broken by a
turmoil that wound its volcanic force around the bungalow from the
stables. Finnerty sprang to his feet as a pair of Rampore hounds reached
the drive, galloping toward a tall native at whose heels came a big
hunting dog.
"Faith, I was just in time," Finnerty said as he led the two hounds to
the verandah, a finger under each collar; "they'd soon have chewed up
that Banjara's dog."
The Rampores were very like an English greyhound that had been shaved;
they were perhaps coarser, a little heavier in the jaw. A panting keeper
now appeared, and the dogs were leashed.
Seeing this, the native approached, and in a deep, sombre voice said:
"Salaam, Sahib Bahadur!" Having announced himself, the Banjara came up
the steps and squatted on his heels; the long male-bamboo staff he
carried betokened he was a herdsman.
"What do you want, Lumbani?" Finnerty queried.
"Yes, sahib, I am a Banjara of the Lumbani caste. The sahib who is so
strong is also wise in the ways of my people."
"I wonder what this will cost me in wasted time," the major lamented in
English. "I judge his soul is weighted with matters of deep import."
Then, in Hindustani: "That's a true Banjara dog, Lumbani."
"Yes, sahib, he is one of that great breed. Also in the sahib's hands
are two thoroughbred Rampores; they be true dogs of the Tazi breed, the
breed that came from Tazi who slept by the bedside of Nawab Faiz Mahomed
five generations since. The sahib must be in high favour with the Nawab
of Rampore, for such dogs are only given in esteem; they are not got as
one buys bullocks."
"What is it you want?" queried Finnerty.
The Banjara looked at Swinton; he coughed; then he loosened the loin
cloth that pinched at his lean stomach.
"This dog, sahib--Banda is the noble creature's name--has the yellow
eyes that Krishna is pleased with; that is a true sign of a Banjara." He
held out his hand, and Banda came up the steps to crouch at his side.
At this intrusion of the native's dog, the patrician Rampores sprang the
full length of their leash with all the ferocity that is inherent in
this breed. A pariah dog would have slunk away in affright, but the
Banjara's yellow eyes gleamed with fighting defiance; he rose on his
powerful, straight legs, and his long fangs shone between curled lips.
"Good stuff!" Finnerty commented, and to his groom added: "Take the
hounds away. He's a sure-enough Banjara, Swinton," he resumed in
English. "Look at that terrier cast in the face, as though there were a
streak of Irish or Airedale in him."
Indeed, the dog was a beauty, with his piercing bright eyes set in the
long, flat head that carried punishing jaws studded with strong teeth.
The neck was long, rising from flat, sloping shoulders, backed up by
well-rounded ribs and arched loins leading to well-developed quarters.
The chest was narrow and deep, and the flanks tucked up.
"They're game, too," Finnerty declared. He turned to the owner. "Will
Banda tackle a panther?"
"He and his sons have been in at the death of more than one; they will
follow a leopard into a cave."
"How much will you take for him?" Swinton asked.
The native looked his scorn. He turned to Finnerty as though his sarcasm
might be wasted upon this sahib who thought a Banjara would sell one of
the famous breed. "Perhaps the strange sahib will go to Umar Khan, at
Shahpur, and buy one of the Salt Range horses--a mare of the Unmool
breed. When he has I will sell him Banda."
Swinton laughed, and, taking a rupee from his pocket, passed it to the
native, saying: "Food for Banda. The sarcasm was worth it," he added in
English, "an Unmool mare being above price."
"All this talk of the dogs," Finnerty declared, "is that our friend has
something on his mind. He was studying you, but you've broken the ice
with your silver hammer."
The native salaamed, tucked the rupee in his loin cloth, and the
questioning, furtive look that had been in his eyes disappeared. He
turned to the major:
"Huzoor, I am a man of many buffaloes, robbing none, going in peace with
my herds up into the hills in the hot weather when the new grass comes
green and strong from the ashes of the fire that has been set out in the
spring, and coming back to the plains when the weather is cold."
"Where is your country?" Finnerty queried.
"Where my grain bags and my cooking pots are is my country, my fathers
holding that all lands were theirs to travel in. For fifteen years in
this moon have I remained down yonder by the river with my herd, just
where the heavy kagar grass makes good hunting for tiger, and always on
good terms of friendship with him."
"Gad! I thought so," Finnerty ejaculated. "We'll get news of a kill in a
minute."
"If we met in the path--that is, your slave and tiger--I would say:
'_Khudawand_, pass here, for the thorns in the bush are bad for thy
feet,' and if tiger was inclined he would pass, or he would turn. Often
lying on the broad back of a buffalo as we crossed where the muck is
deep I would see tiger lying in wait for pig or chinkara, and I would
call, '_Kudawand_, good hunting!' Then what think you, sahib, if after
years of such living in peace, this depraved outcast, begotten of a
hyena, makes the kill of a cow?"
"A tiger, like a woman, is to be watched," Finnerty declared, quoting a
tribal adage.
"And all in the way of evil temper, sahib, for the cow lies yonder with
no mark beyond a broken neck, while in the jungles rajah tiger is
growling abuse. A young cow, sahib, in full milk. For the sake of God,
sahib, come and slay the brute."
The Banjara had worked himself into a passion; tears of rage stood in
his eyes. "And to think that I had saved the life of this depraved one,"
he wailed.
"You saved the tiger's life, Lumbani?"
"Surely, sahib. Of the Banjaras some are Mussulmans--outcasts that lot
are--and some are Hindus, as is your servant, so we are careful in the
matter of a kill, lest we slay one of our own people who has returned.
This slayer of my cow always took pleasure in being near the buffalo.
Why, huzoor, I have seen him up in the hills looking as though he had
felt lonesome without the herd. Noting that, it was in my mind that
perhaps a Banjara herdsman had been born again as a tiger. That is why I
saved his life from the red dogs of the jungle; nothing can stand before
them when they are many. From the back of a buffalo I saw one of these
jungle devils standing on high ground, beckoning, with his tail stuck up
like a flag, to others of his kind."
"I've seen that trick," Finnerty commented.
"The tiger had been caught in a snare of the Naga people as he came to
partake of a goat they had tied up, as he thought, for his eating; the
sahib knows of what like a snare is to retain a tiger. A strong-growing
bamboo, young and with great spring, had been bent down and held by a
trip so that tiger, putting his paw in the noose, it sprang up, and
there he was dancing around like a Nautch girl on the rope that held his
wrist, being a loose bamboo too big for a grip of his teeth; it spun
around on the rope. The red dogs, hearing his roars, knew he was
trapped, and were gathering to settle an old dispute as to the eating of
a kill. They would have made an end of him. A mongoose kills a cobra
because he is too quick for the snake, and they were too quick for the
tiger; so, taking pity upon him as an old friend, with my staff I drove
them off; then, climbing into the bamboos, cut the rope."
"Did you tackle them alone, Lumbani?"
"Surely, sahib; jungle dogs run from a man that is not afraid."
Finnerty's shikarri, Mahadua the Ahnd, who had come to the verandah, now
said: "The tiger this herder of buffalo tells of is 'Pundit Bagh;' he is
well known to all."
"And you never brought word that we might make the hunt," Finnerty
reproached.
"Sahib, we Ahnd people when we know a tiger is possessed of a spirit do
not seek to destroy that one."
"Why is he called Pundit? Is he the ghost of a teacher?"
"This is the story of Pundit Bagh, sahib: Long ago there was a pundit
that had a drug that would change him into an animal, and if he took
another it would change him back again."
The Ahnd's little bead eyes watched his master's face furtively.
"One day as the pundit and his wife were walking through the jungle a
leopard stepped out in the path to destroy them. He gave his wife one
powder to hold, saying: 'I will take this one and change into a tiger,
and when I have frightened the leopard away give me the other that I may
change back to myself.' But the poor woman when she saw her tiger
husband spring on the leopard dropped the powder and ran away; so the
pundit has remained a tiger, and is so cunning that it will be small use
to make the hunt."
"But coming and going as he must, Mahadua, how know you it is the same
one?"
"By the spectacles of the pundit, sahib; there is but one tiger that
wears them."
Finnerty laughed. "Does he never drop them, little man?"
"Sahib, they are but black rings around his eyes--such as are on the
back of a cobra's head--like unto the horn glasses the pundit wore."
"Baboo Dass declared the tiger that peeped in his window wore
spectacles; it must have been this same legendary chap," Swinton
remarked.
An old man came running up the road, between its walls of pipal trees,
beating his mouth with the palm of his hand in a staccato lament. At the
verandah he fell to his knees and clasped Finnerty's feet, crying: "Oh,
sahib, Ramia has been mauled by a tiger the size of an elephant, and
from the fields all have run away. Come, sahib, and slay him."
"Pundit Bagh keeps busy," the major said; "but by the time we make all
our arrangements it will be near evening, and if we wound him we can't
follow up in the dark. Go back and keep watch on the tiger; to-morrow we
will make the hunt," he told the old man.
To the Hindu to-morrow meant never; when people did not mean to do
things they said "to-morrow." Perhaps the sahib was afraid; perhaps he
had presented the tiger in too fearful a light, so he hedged. "Come,
protector of the poor, come even now, for we are afraid to go into the
grass for Ramia. The tiger is not big--he is old and lame; one ball from
the sahib's gun will kill him. Indeed, sahib, he is an old tiger without
teeth."
Finnerty laughed; but the Banjara flamed into wrath at this trifling.
"Son of filth! Skinner of dead cattle! Think'st thou the sahib is
afraid? And did an old, toothless tiger kill a buffalo of mine? Begone!
When the sahib goes to the hunt, he goes."
The Ahnd now said: "Have patience, man of buffaloes; perhaps another, a
leopard, is the guilty one. Pundit Bagh acts not thus; in fact, in the
little village of Picklapara, which he guards, more than once when the
villagers have made offering to him of a goat has he driven away a
leopard that had carried off an old woman or a child."
"Fool! Does a leopard break the neck of a bullock? Does he not slit the
throat for the blood? And always does not a leopard first tear open the
stomach and eat the heart and the liver? I say it was the tiger," and
the Banjara glared at Mahadua.
"It was a small, old tiger," the Hindu declared again.
"Seems a bit of luck; evidently 'Stripes' is inviting trouble," Swinton
observed.
"You'll want Lord Victor to have a chance at this first tiger, I
suppose, captain?"
"If not too much trouble."
"I fancy our best way will be to make the hunt from elephants," Finnerty
said musingly. "We can beat him out of the grass." He spoke to the old
Hindu sternly: "Tell me the truth. Is Ramia still with the tiger?"
The Hindu blinked his eyes in fear. "It may be, huzoor, that he ran away
to his home, but there is a big cut in his shoulder where the beast
smote him."
"Sahib," the Banjara advised, "if the Presence will go on foot, even as
he does many times, I will go with him, carrying the spare gun; the
tiger knows me well and will wait till we are able to pull his
whiskers."
"These Banjaras haven't a bit of fear," Finnerty commented. "Is it good
ground for elephants?" he asked.
The Banjara's face clouded. "Sahib, the elephants make much noise.
Perhaps the tiger will escape; perhaps if he comes out in an evil way of
mind the elephant will run away."
"Well, Swinton, if you'll ride back and get Gilfain--what guns have
you?"
"I've a Certus Cordite and my old .450 Express."
"Good as any. Soft-nosed bullets?"
"Yes, I have some."
"Well, use them; we'll be pretty close, and you'll want a stopping
bullet if the old chap charges. What's Gilfain got?"
"A battery--a little of everything, from a .22 Mannlicher up to a
double-barrel, ten-bore Paradox."
"Tell him to bring the Paradox--it won't take as much sighting as the
rifle; Gilfain has probably done considerable grouse shooting. He's
almost sure to miss his first tiger; nerves go to pieces generally. I'll
get two elephants--you and Lord Victor in one howdah, and I'll take
Mahadua in the other."
"If you've got a bullet-proof howdah I'd use it, major; I've seen that
young man do some bally fool things."
"I wish I could take Burra Moti," Finnerty said regretfully; "she's a
good hunting elephant, but without her bell I couldn't depend on her."
"Use the stone I've got for a clapper."
"No, thanks."
"Why not? It will be under your eye all the time. You can take it off at
night and put it in your box. Besides, nobody will suspect that there's
another sapphire in the bell."
"I won't have time to have a goldsmith beat the bell into shape to-day."