"How would it be to move camp to-morrow?" Tarleton was saying. "We've
been here long enough, and there's nothing to shoot, or next to nothing.
What do you think, Raynier?"
"No great hurry, is there? It's breezy and picturesque here, and has
its advantages. What do _you_ think, Haslam?"
"I'm with Tarleton," said the Forest Officer. "All our fellows are
grumbling. They say it's an unlucky place."
It was the evening after the somewhat eventful ride just recorded, and
they were all assembled within the large tent which was used as a common
dining-room. Dinner was over and cheroots were being discussed.
"Yes. My Babu was telling me something of the kind only to-day,"
rejoined Raynier, tranquilly. "By the way, Haslam, how is it all this
while we've never been through that _tangi_? You know, the one you were
telling me the yarn about?"
Haslam stared.
"Well, you know, old chap--I--I told you the yarn, didn't I? Well, that
explains it."
"But you don't really mean to say you believe in such arrant
tomfoolery?"
"I don't know about believing in it. But--well, it's best to be on the
safe side."
"Goodness gracious, I should think so," struck in Mrs Tarleton. "Why, I
wouldn't go into that place if anyone were to offer me a million
pounds."
"Well, I wish they'd offer it to me, that's all," said Raynier. "For I
mean to go through it to-morrow, gratis. Who'll volunteer? What do you
say, Miss Clive?"
"I'll go, with pleasure," was the answer.
It will be seen that these two had kept their former experience to
themselves, and this they had done by mutual agreement, mainly to get
some fun out of the rest of the party, and it was to this object Raynier
was now leading up. The head which both had seen watching them they had
since accounted for by optical delusion, even as the startling sounds
had been accounted for by perfectly natural causes.
Mrs Tarleton gave a cry of genuine consternation.
"Hilda, you must not go," she implored. "Oh, Mr Raynier, don't take
her--if only as a favour to me."
"But I'm not in the least superstitious, Mrs Tarleton," said the girl,
looking up from the work she was engaged upon. "In fact, I like to
demonstrate the absurdity of these childish beliefs. Why, I can hardly
count the number of times I've got up first of thirteen from table."
"Well, there must be something in these ideas, I suppose, or else they
wouldn't be so universally accepted," cut in Tarleton.
"No? Then of course the world has only lately become round, seeing that
for ages it was `universally accepted' as flat," said Raynier.
"Ah, but that's quite a different thing."
Then Haslam told a weird and wonderful story or two illustrating the
strange power of native prophecy, which interested Hilda, and Tarleton
would cap such with the coincidence type of anecdote, such as the first
of thirteen at table--and at these she laughed.
"None of those instances come anywhere near carrying conviction," she
said. "Now, remember. In good time I will supply you with just such an
instance to the contrary. No; I won't tell you anything about it now.
But you'll see at the right time."
"I believe Miss Clive means to go into the _tangi_," said Haslam.
"No, I don't," Hilda answered. "I won't go into it now. I don't want
to frighten all you poor creatures."
They laughed, rather weakly it must be owned--all but Raynier, that is,
for he was in the know, and was enjoying the situation immensely. How
well she looked when she was animated and her face lighted up like
that--was what he was thinking as he sat watching her. Somebody touched
on the subject of clairvoyance. In a moment Hilda's manner changed.
She became grave, almost earnest.
"Hullo!" cried Tarleton. "We've got hold of something at last that Miss
Clive does believe in."
"To a certain extent, yes."
"I remember going to a _seance_ once," said Mrs Tarleton. "There was a
dreadful woman going into trances, and pointing out people's dead
relations standing behind their chairs. She described them, and all
sorts of things. It made me feel quite creepy."
"Yes, but how many times was she wide of the mark for every time she
made a good shot?" said Raynier.
"Hardly once. It is quite wonderful."
"There's nothing in that sort of clairvoyance; it's sheer quackery,"
said Hilda, speaking in a decisive, authoritative tone that astonished
her hearers.
"I should think so," said Raynier. "Whatever may be the state or
locality of the dead, it is not to be supposed that they would be
empowered, or would even wish, to appear in London, to enable a cad in a
second-hand dress-suit to take up so much a head in gate money, nor a
female fraud either, for the matter of that."
"Well, but I don't see why they shouldn't," cut in Tarleton,
characteristically.
"No! It doesn't strike you as improbable?" said Hilda, with a pitying
look.
"Why should they be quacks?" persisted Tarleton. "Why shouldn't there
be anything in what they do?"
"I don't know why there shouldn't be, I only know there isn't," she
replied. "Why, the gift--for clairvoyance is a gift--is so rare that it
is hardly surprising its very existence is disbelieved in. I know it--
at least, I mean--er--anybody can reason out the matter for themselves."
The concluding words were lame and stammering, and the change from the
firmness and decision of tone which had marked her utterances hitherto,
as though she had suddenly found herself out in saying too much, could
not but strike her hearers as strange, to say the least of it. To
Raynier it suggested a new idea, which indeed came to him with a sort of
mental start. But he came to the rescue.
"Its existence is undoubted, though as rare as Miss Clive says. Why,
that feeling that comes to us sometimes of having done or said some
given thing before, or found ourselves in some given place, is a sort of
an approach to the art, or gift, or whatever you like to call it."
"Oh, I don't know what that is," said Mrs Tarleton. "Thank goodness
that sort of thing doesn't come my way. But we've been talking about
creepy things all the evening. I'm sure I shall dream. Ugh!" with a
shiver. "What is it like outside?"
It was time to separate for the night, but they lingered a while
chatting in front of the tent. There was a very wildness of desolation
in this sudden transition from light to darkness. All within the camp
was silent, and away beyond, the loom of the hills was just discernible,
black against the stars. The ghostly cry of a night bird echoed from
the craggy height which overhung the camp, and far away over the plain a
most weird and melancholy howling was borne upon the night wind.
"That's a wolf--or wolves," said Haslam, his _shikari_ instincts
metaphorically pricking up his ears. "Aren't you afraid, Miss Clive?
There's nothing between you and them but a strip of canvas, all night
through."
Hilda laughed.
"Afraid?" she repeated. "Why, this is positively delightful. It is
such a contrast. Inside the tents--why, we might be in Mazaran, or even
in London. Outside--the very ideal of savage wildness. Afraid? Why,
I'm positively revelling in it. I like to hear that. Hark! There it
is again. I'd like to see those wolves close--to watch them prowling
for prey and doubling back and signalling to each other--if only I could
get near enough to observe them without scaring them."
"My goodness, child! Why, they'd eat you," said Mrs Tarleton.
"Not they." And Hilda laughed again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I say, old chap," said Haslam, later, as Raynier lounged into his tent
for another "peg" and a final smoke, "that's a strange sort of girl the
Tarletons have picked up. Who is she? Do you know?"
"No more than you do."
"Well, there's something dashed uncanny about her. The way she talks--
there's something sort of creepy about it. Eh? And did you ever see
such eyes as she's got? Eh?"
"N-no, I don't think I ever did," answered Raynier, slowly and between
puffs, but in no wise with the same meaning as Haslam had in his mind.
"I say, she'd make a rum sort of a wife for most fellows, with those rum
uncanny ideas of hers. Eh?" And then the speaker stopped rather short,
remembering, all of a sudden, that Raynier and the object of his remarks
had been getting a bit thick of late. But, then, Raynier was rather a
queer chap himself, he reflected. Anyway, he felt a trifle embarrassed,
as though he had been putting his foot in it.
"I daresay," answered Raynier, equably. "`Most fellows' are like shot--
assorted into sizes, and might safely be numbered in the same way." At
bottom, however, the remark jarred upon him, and set him wondering for
the fiftieth time what insidious fascination the strange personality of
Hilda Clive was beginning to set up within his innermost being, and that
such was the case he was only beginning to admit, hugging to himself the
very secrecy of the thought, and the subtle stimulus it afforded. Yet,
what did it all mean? He was not in love with Hilda Clive, but some
strange fascination radiated from her. It might be uncanny--as Haslam
had said--yet he liked it--nor would he have bartered it for the artless
advances of conventional attractions, and of such he was not without
experience, for natural and unassuming as he constitutionally was, the
Political Agent of Mazaran, on the right side of forty, was something of
a _parti_, by reason of his position and its emoluments; and when, added
to this, he who filled the one and enjoyed the other was in the prime of
physical health and strength, why, then, so much the more eligible did
that _parti_ become.
Haslam the while had turned in, and was yawning profusely--in fact,
could hardly give a coherent answer to any question or remark, wherefore
Raynier adjourned to his own tent. But not the slightest inclination
was on him to follow Haslam's example. He felt extraordinarily wide
awake, wherefore he got out a camp-chair, and, having extinguished the
lamp within his tent, lit another cheroot and sat there to enjoy the
beauty of the night and think.
It was very still. What little wind there had been had dropped
completely. A glow had begun to suffuse the velvety darkness of the
star-gemmed sky, and, widening, the black loom of a rocky ridge away
beyond the plain became clearly defined, then a rim of fire, and lo!--a
broad moon soared majestically upward.
It was beautiful. The white tents lay like blocks of marble in its
light, which silvered over the plain and the scant foliage of a few
scattered junipers. The crunch, crunch of ruminating camels, and the
stamp and snort of a horse, alone broke the stillness, save for the
long-drawn howl still heard from time to time over the wilderness afar,
where wolves prowled. Dark peaks, in softened outline, stood clear
against the sky.
His thoughts ran back to the time of his furlough, to England and what
had transpired there. Again and again he congratulated himself that he
was free from that bond; how on earth he could ever have entered into it
seemed more incomprehensible than ever. And what a long while ago it
seemed, and--
What was this? A figure moving in the moonlight, a figure clothed in
white draperies. In a brief flash the solution of a midnight marauder--
the first of others--occurred to him, and his hand went to his pistol
pocket--this time not empty. But he quickly withdrew it. For as the
figure glided swiftly among the tents he knew it--knew it for that of
Hilda Clive.
Heavens! What was she doing, what was she bent upon, just as she had
risen from bed like this? She was walking, erect and rather swiftly,
and now in a straight line; stepping forward, looking neither to the
right nor to the left, yet there was something about the gait that was
not usual, a something as though she was walking unconsciously. And--
she had left the tents behind her now, and was walking swiftly and
straight for the open country. He gazed for a moment, dumbfounded,
after the receding form, then, rising, started to follow.