There was a scowl on his face as Lord Victor, looking so pink and white
after his bath, sat down to breakfast, growling: "There's a bally London
fog of that attar fume in my room; somebody's been pawing my letter
case, kit bag--everything. It isn't my bearer, for he smells chiefly of
dried fish and opium."
"The attar would suggest a woman--a jealous woman looking for love
letters; but you haven't been here long enough, Gilfain," the captain
remarked.
A servant entered with a broiled fish, and Swinton switched Lord Victor
to a trivial discussion of food. When the servant reappeared later with
curry, the captain said: "Leave it on the table, Abdul, and sit
without." Then, rising, he added: "I'll be back in a minute.
"My stuff has been censored, too," he said, on his return.
"What's the devilish idea--loot?"
"No; nothing missing."
"Who's doing it--servants?"
"This is India, youth; here we don't bother chasing 'who;' we lock up
everything, or destroy it."
"I'm going to dash the bearer with an exam," Lord Victor said decidedly.
"You'd get nothing but lies; you'd draw blank."
The captain lapsed into a moody silence, completing a diagnosis of this
disturbing matter mentally. The attar suggested that somebody on
intimate terms with Prince Ananda had investigated. Doctor Boelke would
do it; he could read papers written in English and assimilate their
contents. If Swinton were under suspicion, Prince Ananda would look for
proofs as to whether he was a secret-service man or just the companion
of Lord Victor.
Later, when, with Finnerty, they arrived at the hunt-ground, the
Banjara, who was waiting, said: "My brothers have taken the buffalo to
the west of the big growth of tall grass wherein is the slayer of my
cow, because from that side blows the wind and it will carry the scent
of the buffalo, and the tiger will move forward, not catching in his
nostrils word of the guns which the sahib knows well how to place. When
the sahib is ready, I will give the call of a buffalo, and my brothers
will make the drive. Where will be the place of the young sahib, that I
may remain near in the way of advice lest he shoot one of my people, or
even a buffalo?"
"Where will the tiger break to, Lumbani?" Finnerty asked.
The Banjara stretched his long arm toward the north. "At that side of
the cane fields lies a nala that carries a path up into the sal forest,
and the tiger knows it well. If he is not annoyed with hurry, he will
come that way out of the cane; and if the young sahib's elephant is
stationed in the nala, the tiger will come so close that even he can
make the kill."
"That's the idea," Finnerty declared. "Swinton, you and Lord Victor take
your elephant to the nala--the Banjara will show you the very spot to
stand; I'll post the prince on our left when he arrives; I'll keep the
centre, and if the tiger is coming my way I can turn him off with old
Moti--I'll shoo him over to you. Here comes the prince now. Heavens,
you'd think he was going to a marriage procession! Look at the gorgeous
howdah! And he has got old Boelke and the girl, too."
The howdah was a regal affair, such as native princes affect on state
occasions. The girl was almost hidden by the gilded sides of its
canopied top; indeed, her features were completely masked by a veil
draped from the rim of her helmet. The heavy figure of Doctor Boelke
bulged from the front of the howdah.
"Where are we stationed, major?" Ananda called, the mahout checking
their elephant some distance away.
"To the left, beyond the pipal tree."
Swinton chuckled, observing Gilfain stretching his long neck as the
prince's elephant plodded on; evidently there was to be no introduction.
"We'd better get placed at once," Finnerty declared; "the buffalo may
get out of hand--anything may happen. The elephants that will act as
stops are already in place on the two sides; I sent them on ahead. The
natives on their backs will keep tapping on gongs to prevent the tiger
from breaking through the sides; if he does break through, they'll blow
shrill blasts on their conch shells. Away you go, Swinton!"
And at an order from the mahout, their elephant trudged over to the
point of honour, accompanied by the Banjara. In a few minutes his voice
rose in the plaintive squeak of a buffalo, and in answer down the wind
that rustled the feathered tops of the cane came a mild clamour of
buffaloes, being driven, and men's voices crying:
"_Dut, dut! Gar! Aoi-aoi!_"
The buffalo were in a huge fan, advancing in a crescent troupe slowly,
so that the tiger, not suddenly overrun, would keep slipping along in
front.
Finnerty sat with his .450 Express across his knee, his eyes fixed on
Gilfain, whose head he could just see above the bank of the nala, which
was shallow where it struck the plain.
The turmoil of buffalo noises and their drivers' cries, drawing near,
had increased in the cane. To the left, on one of the stop elephants, a
native beat vigorously on his brass gong, followed by voices crying from
a stop elephant: "The tiger passes!" Then a conch shell sent out its
warning screech.
"Gad! He's broken through!" Finnerty growled.
Prince Ananda, thinking the tiger was escaping, had the elephant driven
forward to give Boelke a shot at the fleeing beast; but just as they
reached the grass there was a coughing roar, a flashing turmoil of brown
and gold in the sun, and the elephant, terrified by the ferocious
onslaught, whirled just as Boelke's rifle barked. Straight back for the
fringe of trees where Finnerty waited the elephant raced, the tiger
clinging to his rump and striving to reach the howdah.
Burra Moti knew the elephant was running away, and, at a command,
shuffled forward with the intent of peeling the tiger from his perch
with her trunk. But the fleeing animal, taking Moti for a new enemy,
swerved to the right under the pipal, a long arm of which swept away the
howdah, leaving Herr Boelke sprawled on the limb like a huge gorilla and
yelling: "_Ach, Gott!_ Hel-lp!"
The tiger was carried away in the wreck, and now, thirty feet away, was
crouched, his tail lashing from side to side.
The girl had struggled to her feet and stood dazed, clinging to the
wrecked howdah. The tiger was in a nasty mood; he would charge the first
move the girl made, Finnerty knew, and nothing but a miracle shot
through the heart or brain could stop him in time to save her. Ordering
the mahout to pick the girl up, he dropped to the ground. Holding his
gun from the hip, both barrels cocked, he slipped past the girl to stand
between her and the snarling brute, saying: "Keep cool! Keep your face
to the tiger and step back; the elephant will pick you up."
His blue, fearless, Irish eye lay along the gun barrels, looking into
the yellow eyes of the tiger as he spoke to the girl. Well he knew how
straight his shot must be, or that flat, sloping forehead, with its
thick plate of bone, would glance the bullet like armour plate.
A little cry of pain, the thud of a falling body, told him that the girl
had gone down at the first step. For a fraction of a second his eye had
wavered from the gun-sight, and the tiger, with a hoarse growl, rose in
his catapult charge. Both barrels of Finnerty's rifle blazed as he was
swept backward by a push from Moti's trunk, and the tiger landed upon
two gleaming ivory swords that, with a twist of the mighty head, threw
him twenty feet into the scrub.
With a roar of disgruntled anger he bounded away toward cover in the
cane, pursued by Gilfain, whose mahout had driven the elephant across at
the sound of the tiger's charge.
Finnerty, telling the mahout to make Moti kneel, turned to the girl, who
sat with a hand clasping an ankle, her face white with pain; and as he
lifted her like a child, like a child she whispered with breaking
passion: "You, you! God--why should it be you again?"
Then Finnerty commanded the mahout to retrieve Herr Boelke from his
perch, pick up the prince, who had scuttled off some distance when he
fell, and take them home.
When the prince had been lifted to the howdah on a curl of Moti's trunk,
he waved his hand to the major, calling: "Devilish plucky, old chap;
thanks for the elephant."
The elephant bearing Lord Victor and the captain returned, and the major
tossed up a gold cigarette case he had found beside the broken howdah,
saying: "You can give that to Prince Ananda; fancy he dropped it."
It looked familiar to Lord Victor. "Yes," he said, "I'm sure it's his. I
know I've seen it at Oxford."
Plodding homeward in the solemn dejection of an unsuccessful hunt, even
the ears of their elephant flapping disconsolately like sails of a
windless boat, Finnerty suggested: "If you chaps would like it, we can
swing around to your bungalow across the plain."
"Topping!" Lord Victor cried. "I'm so despondent I want a peg."
At the bungalow Finnerty alighted for a whisky and soda; and Gilfain,
after reading a note his servant had handed him, advised:
"The prince wants me at the palace for dinner, and a confab over old
Oxford days; the note came after we had gone to the hunt. Devilish fuzzy
order, I call it--what! I can't leave you to dine alone, old boy."
"The captain can come with me--the very thing!" Major Finnerty declared
eagerly.
The arrangement suited Swinton perfectly; it would give him an unplanned
chance to talk with the major. And Gilfain would, of course, have to
honour the prince's invitation.
* * * * *
It was a somewhat tame dinner for two; though Ananda plied his lordship
with wine of an alluring vintage, for he had a "hare to catch," as the
native proverb has it. He was most anxious to discover as much as
possible about Captain Swinton's mission. By a curious chance he had
learned who Lord Victor's companion was--that he was Captain Herbert, a
secret-service man.
But Lord Victor was automatically unresponsive to the several subtle
leads of his host for the simple reason that he didn't even know that
Captain Swinton was in reality Captain Herbert; and as to the
mission--any mission--why, it was to shoot game, to keep out of England
for a season. Prince Ananda was puzzled. Either Lord Victor was cleverer
than he had been at Oxford, or he knew absolutely nothing. Indeed, the
subject of Captain Swinton bored Gilfain; he saw enough of his companion
in the day. He was wishing Ananda would say something about the
mysterious lady.
It was when the cigarettes were brought that he remembered the gold
case. Drawing it from his pocket, he said: "Oh, devilish stupid! I
forgot--brought your cigarette case."
But Ananda disclaimed the ownership. "That's not mine," he said.
"Rather! Finnerty picked it up at the broken howdah. It's the same one
you had at Oxford, I think; I remember seeing it, anyway."
Prince Ananda took the gold case and examined it thoughtfully; then
said: "By Jove! I didn't know I'd lost it; thought it was in my shooting
togs. Thanks, old chap."
Of course, as it had been found at the howdah, it must belong to the
girl--the Herr Boelke smoked cheroots--though the prince did not
remember having seen it with her. But he said nothing as to its true
ownership as he slipped it into his pocket.
Lord Victor, somewhat puzzled by Ananda's denial of ownership and then
the admittance of it, concluded that the prince was still upset by the
cropper he had come off the elephant.
But all down the hill, on his return, this curious incident kept
recurring to him. He wasn't a man to follow problems to a conclusion,
however, and it simply hung in his mind as a fogging event. Just as he
was falling asleep, wondering why the captain had not returned, it
suddenly dawned upon him with awakening force that perhaps the gold case
belonged to the girl. Of course it did, he decided. The prince had
treated the case as a stranger; his face had shown that he did not
recognise it. And yet Gilfain had seen it in England, as he thought, in
the prince's possession. He fell asleep, unequal to the task of
wallowing through such a morass of mystery.