Kitabı oku: «The Three Sapphires», sayfa 6
Chapter VIII
Captain Swinton and Lord Victor remained with Finnerty for dinner, and after that meal, sitting on the verandah, the latter asked: "What sort of bally charm did that shikari repeat when he made that ripping address to the tiger, major?"
Finnerty looked at Swinton and the latter nodded violently; but the major answered curtly: "I forget."
"Oh, I say! I want to know, old top – it'll go well when I tell the story in London." He turned to Swinton. "Captain, perhaps your memory is better."
"If you must know," Swinton answered, in mock resignation – for he was most anxious to interpret the native's words – "Mahadua told the tiger to play the game, for Finnerty had purposely put down his rifle, taken up the shotgun, and fired over his head to spare his life."
"That's when you made the fumble in the howdah, eh, major? It would have been quite on the cards for him to have mauled you to-day. You should have potted him when you had a chance on the elephant."
Tried beyond patience by Gilfain's obtuse egotism, Swinton blurted: "Mahadua lied to the tiger; he was concealing the fact that Major Finnerty spared his life that you might have the glory of the kill later on."
"But, I say, this is no end of a draw; the major told us he got rattled and pumped bird shot into Stripes."
With a sigh, Swinton gave up the hopeless task; and Finnerty, to change the venue, said:
"I don't think we were in any danger, really. A tiger is considerable of a gentleman; all he asks is to be left alone to kill his legitimate prey. And if it weren't for him the wild pig and deer would eat up the crops of the poor."
"But tigers kill a lot of human beings," Lord Victor contended.
"About two in every million are killed annually by tigers in India – that's statistical. Wolves, leopards, hyenas kill far more. Also a very few tigers do the killing, and generally it was man's fault in the first place. A griffin comes out to the service, makes a bad shot in the dark, and the tiger is wounded; the rankling wound makes him ferocious and he kills any human that comes within his reach. If he recovers he may be incapacitated for killing game – who are either strong or swift – and, driven by hunger, he takes the easiest mark, man."
The Banjara had come up the road unnoticed. He now stood at the steps, and, with his black ayes fixed on Lord Victor, said, in heavy gravity: "Salaam, shikari sahib."
"Will you pay the beggar for that dog, major? I'll send the money over," Lord Victor said, missing the sarcasm.
When, after much bargaining, the blood debt had been wiped out at twenty rupees, the Banjara, ringing each coin by a spin in the air with his thumb nail, broached the matter of his deferred revenge.
"What of the slaying of that debased killer of my cow, O sahib?" he asked. "I will tie up a young buffalo, so be it the sahib will pay for it, and, as the tiger has got in this way of amusing himself, he will come. But" – and he cast a scornful glance at Lord Victor – "do you make the kill, major sahib?"
"It is too late. We will take a dozen elephants to-morrow and make a wide beat, driving the tiger up to the guns."
But the native shook his head. "The sahib knows that if the elephants are not trained to the hunt they are no good, and tiger knows it. When he smells that it is a trap, he will break back, and some of the elephants will not stand. But if the sahib will pay me and my brothers we will take all our buffalo and drive tiger ahead of them. He will not break back through the buffalo, for I will take them first to smell of the blood of the cow he has slain."
"A good idea," Finnerty declared; "the buffalo make great beaters – Stripes won't face them. All right!" he told the Banjara. "I'll post the sahibs on elephants. Get your men and buffalo ready for two o'clock – it will take me till that time to get things ready."
"The tiger will be in the same grass, huzoor," the Banjara said; "but if the young sahib shoot a buffalo or another dog, that also he will be required to pay for. My brothers will be behind the buffalo, walking slowly, that they do not come too sudden upon the tiger, and they are men of passion."
Then the herdsman went clanking down the road, feeling that he had done all that could be done in the way of insurance.
They sat for an hour planning a grand hunt for the next day. Prince Ananda must be invited; as they were shooting over his grounds, it was only proper courtesy. The prince would bring his own elephant, of course, but reliable hunting elephants were scarce. The one Lord Victor and Swinton had used that day had shown either a white feather or too excitable a temperament; he would only do to put on the side of the cane belt as a stop to keep the tiger from cutting out. Finnerty's elephant had proved fairly steady, but he needed another; he would give that one to Swinton and Lord Victor and in the morning get a goldsmith to beat out Moti's bell, putting a metal clapper in it. The maharajah had elephants, but none well trained for a drive, because the maharajah never shot anything.
Before leaving Swinton took the major into the bungalow and gave him the sapphire to use in the bell should it be necessary, insisting that it was as safe with Finnerty as it was with him. At any rate, he did not value it highly, not placing any faith in its miraculous power.
The moon had risen when the two drove back to their bungalow in the major's dogcart. As they swung to enter the gate, the horse recoiled with a snort of fear; the check was so sudden that Swinton, to avoid a headfirst dive, jumped, cannoning into a native, who, his face covered by his loin cloth, dashed from the compound. Instinctively Swinton grabbed the fleeing man; but the latter, with a dexterous loosening twist of his garment, left it in the captain's hands and sped away. On the ground lay a white envelope and a small notebook that had fallen from a fold of the cloth, and these Swinton put in his pocket, saying: "That man has been up to some deviltry." To Finnerty's syce he added: "Take the tom-tom back; we'll walk to the bungalow."
"I say, old chap," cried Lord Victor, "don't you know this is no end of a risky caper; that urban tiger dashed that fellow – what!"
"We'd be in a hat if we stuck to the tom-tom in that event; that flooey-headed horse would kill us if the tiger didn't."
At that instant the captain's foot caught something that projected from the crotons. A look disclosed a pair of legs. There was something familiar about these white-trousered limbs that terminated in canvas shoes, and their owner must be either very drunk or dead. Swinton grasped the projecting feet and pulled their owner to the drive, where he lay on his back, the moonlight glinting the glazed eyes. It was Perreira – and he was dead. His neck showed an abrasion as though a rope had scorched it; and when Swinton lifted the dead man's shoulders the head hung limp like the head of a rag doll.
"That old Thug trick!" Swinton declared. "Somebody caught him from behind with a towel across the throat, threw him to the ground, put a foot on his back, and with one twist broke his neck."
"Murdered!" Lord Victor gasped.
"Yes. That native I met at the gate did the trick." Raising his voice, the captain called: "Chowkidar! Watchman!"
There was an answer from somewhere in the compound, and the evil-faced native they had seen the night before came hurrying to where they stood.
"If the half-caste sahib is dead he must have fallen from a horse and broke his neck," the watchman declared.
"Call the servants and carry him into the bungalow where the baboo is; then go at once down to the police and tell who killed this man," Swinton commanded.
At that instant Baboo Dass, who, startled by the clamour, had waited in fear on the verandah, now ploughed through the bushes, saying: "Please, sar, I will be frighted if defunct body is brought within. This place is too much evil-spirited. If tiger is not devour I am head-shaved like a felon and burglared of jewel."
But Swinton turned away and proceeded with Lord Victor to their bungalow, leaving Baboo Dass wrangling with the watchman.
Lord Victor was in a captious mood over the rapid succession of stirring episodes. "No end of a somnolent old India – what!" he said ironically, sitting on Swinton's bed. "I'm bally well dashed with all the floaty creeps. We've only been here twenty-four hours, and we've dined with the rajah, seen a topping wrestling bout, been at a temple riot, chevied a tiger out of our front yard, entertained a baboo flooey on Hindu gods, had a drive for a tiger – "
"Shot a Banjara dog," Swinton interrupted, because he wanted to go to bed.
"Rather! And made a devilish good shot. Then we were spoofed by Stripes, and found a murdered man on the doorstep. A tallish order, I call all that. Going some – what!"
Swinton yawned sleepily, and when Lord Victor had gone to his room he took from his pocket the notebook and letter he had picked up. The letter was addressed to himself and contained two rupees. The notebook contained curious, ambiguous entries. To a casual reader they would have meant nothing, but to Swinton they were a key to a great deal. With a small screw driver he took the shoulder plate from the butt of a gun, and, wedging the book in the hollow with some paper, replaced the plate.
Undoubtedly the little black book had something to do with Perreira's death. He would have been closely watched since the watchman had listened on the verandah the night before, and it would be known he was coming to see the captain.
Chapter IX
Next morning Swinton again rode alone, Lord Victor declaring he would have enough exercise in the hunt that day.
As Shabaz came out of his loping canter and steadied to a leisurely gait up the palace hill, Rada, the groom, overtook his master.
"Put a hand on the stirrup," Swinton commanded, "for the hill is long and your legs are the legs of experience."
"As the sahib wishes; but I know little of her who rides the grey stallion," Rada replied, grasping the iron. Swinton chuckled at the naïve admission that the servant took it for granted he was to talk, being thus favoured.
"It is the way of my people," Rada resumed, when his breath came easier, "that when we make speech with a sahib we watch his eyes for a sign, and if it is one of displeasure we then tell lies to avert his anger; but with the captain sahib this may not be done."
"Why, Rada?"
"Sahib knows the karait – the snake with an eye that is all red?"
"Deadly as a cobra."
"Yes, sahib; and our people say that if one looks for a long time into that red eye that never shifts nor blinks nor gives a sign, he will go mad."
"Delightful! And mine are like that, Rada?"
"No, sahib; only so far as that they give no sign. So if I make speech that is displeasing, the presence must command me to be still."
After a time Rada said: "The Missie Baba will not ride the grey stallion to-day?"
"Why not?"
"I know not, except that she has reported that the stallion is lame; but the groom says he is not lame."
Reaching the plateau, Swinton followed a road that swung around the Place of Roses. Over the brick wall floated the sweet perfume of myriad flowers, to give place presently to the tang of animal life as they came to the tiger garden. A jungle clamour vibrated the morning air; cockatoos and parrakeets called shrilly beyond the brick wall; a hornbill sent forth his raucous screech; pigeons of all colours, green, blue, grey, fluttered free in the air, waiting for the grain that would presently be scattered by the keepers. The unpleasant, sputtering laugh of a hyena, raucously grating, mingled with the full, rich-toned monologue of leopards that paced restlessly their cages, eager for their meal of blood-dripping meat.
Then the road crawled restfully into the cool of a noble sal forest. To the right it branched presently, and he caught the glint of white marble splitting the emerald green.
"The lady who rides the grey stallion lives yonder with the large sahib who is her uncle," Rada explained; and as they came to a path on the left a little beyond, he continued: "This leads to Jadoo Nala, wherein is a pool."
Captain Swinton turned Shabaz into the path, following it to the edge of the plateau and down its winding course to the pool.
Pointing to a machan in a pipal tree that overhung the pool, Rada said: "That is the rajah's, but no one makes a kill here – it is but for the pleasure of the eye. Knowing this, the dwellers of the jungle come to drink of the waters that are sweet with salt, and depart in peace; though it is said that at times a spirit, in the shape of an evil leopard, creeps from yonder cave and makes the kill of a deer or a sambar. In the cave yonder, Buddha, who was once of our faith, lamented on the sins of the world till his tears made the stream sweet with salt, and so it has remained. The cave is an abode of evil spirits; lights have been seen, and deep noises heard such as the hill gods make."
"Who comes to the pool, Rada – for there is the machan?"
Rada lifted his small, black, twitching eyes to the placid, opaque ones of Swinton. "The sahib knows what talk over a hookah is, each one trying to show great knowledge; but it is whispered at such times that the Missie Baba, who fears neither horse nor spirit, comes here at night."
"For what purpose – to meet some one?"
"Of that Rada knows nothing; that the evil gossips say it is the rajah is perhaps a lie."
Swinton turned Shabaz up the path, and at the top rode a little tour of inspection, following a road that circled above the winding stream. Overlooking the Jadoo cave and the path that wound down the hillside was a heavy wall built of stone that had been taken from the buried city.
"Most delightful place to plant a machine gun, or even a 'three-inch,'" the captain muttered.
A reverberating tiger roar shook the earth as Swinton rounded the Place of Roses on his way back, and past its wall he came suddenly upon Lord Victor in active controversy with a lop-eared native horse he was more or less astride of. Evidently the sudden tiger call had frightened the horse, for he was whirling, with his long ewe neck stretched high in air, his lop ears almost brushing the clinging rider's face. Lord Victor had lost his stirrups; he was practically over the pommel of the saddle, sitting the razor-bladed wither. A country bred's neck is like a piece of rubber hose, and Anglo-Indians have learned to sit tight and let him have his head; but Lord Victor climbed up the reins, pulling the brute's head into his lap, and when to save himself he threw an arm around the lean neck, down went the head and he was sent flying, to sprawl on his back, where he lay eyeing the smiling captain.
Having unseated his rider, the country bred, forgetting all about the tiger, stood looking with complacent vacuity at the groom, who now held him by the rein.
"Thought you weren't riding this morning," Swinton remarked, as they went down the hill.
"Changed my mind. You didn't happen to see a young lady on a grey stallion this morning, did you, old chap?"
"I did not. And the earl expects you to ride away from spins, not after them, out here."
"The governor is optimistic. This is only curiosity – to see the girl Ananda is going to make his queen."
"Where did you hear that rot?"
"The usual source – my bearer."
"Bad form. It's all idle gossip, too; she's the niece of old Boelke."
"Oh, now I know why you ride up on the hill every morning. Did your bearer tell you? Earl Craig expects you to keep away from skirts while – By Jove! What's the bally shindy – are they planting another brass god in the temple?"
Lord Victor's sudden change in discourse had been caused by sounds of strife that came from a Hindu village that lay between Maha Bodhi Hill and Darpore City.
"The men of the temple and others who are followers of Mahadeo live yonder in Chota Darpore," Rada said.
As eager as a boy at the clang of a fire bell, Lord Victor, his eyes alight with sporting fervour, cried: "Come on, captain; every bally hour in this land of the poppy has its spiffing thrill."
Arrived on the scene, a unique battle lay before their eyes. The centre of the conflict was a silk-skinned, terrified little cow tied to a stake. A fanatical Mussulman priest, ordained to the bloodletting, waited with a sharp knife behind a battling line of Allah men for a chance to slit the cow's throat. With the followers of Mohammed were ranged the adherents of Buddha in a battle line that checked the Hindus, who, with fierce cries of "Maro, maro!" fought to rescue the cow and stop this offence against their gods – the slaying of a sacred animal.
Heads cracked beneath the fall of staves, and red blood spurted from a knife thrust or the cut of a tulwar. Swinton smiled grimly as he saw here and there a man in a green-and-gold jacket bring his baton down on the neck of a Mussulman – always a Mussulman, for these men of the green-and-gold jackets were the Hindu police of the maharajah.
Encouraged by their gaunt leader, the Hindus charged fiercely, and, seizing the cow, bore it toward their village, fighting a rear-guard action as the Mussulmans, with cries of "Allah! Allah!" charged over the bodies of men who lay in the silent indifference of death, or writhed in pain. There was a desperate mêlée, a maelstrom of fanatical fiends, out of which the Mussulmans emerged with the sacrificial victim to fight their way backward to the slaughter mound.
The tinkle of a bell, the "phrut-phrut" of an elephant, caused Swinton to turn toward the road. It was Finnerty on Burra Moti.
The mahout, at a command from the major, drove Moti into the fray, where she, with gentle, admonishing touches from the mahout's feet against her ears, picked up one combatant after another, tossing them without serious injury to one side. But the fanatics, religion-crazed, closed in again in Moti's wake and smote as before. One Mussulman, whose red-dyed beard bespoke one who had been to Mecca, threw a heavy Pathan knife at Finnerty, just missing his mark.
Suddenly a shrill voice rose in a screaming command; there was terror in the voice that came from the lips of a gigantic Tibetan priest, who stood with extended arm pointing to the tinkling bell on Moti's neck. As though strong wind had swept a field of grain, the Buddhists ceased the combat and stood with bowed heads. Even the Mussulmans, realising from the priest's attitude that it was something of holy import, rested from warfare.
"It is the sacred elephant of the Zyaat of Buddha Gautama!" the priest said, when the tumult had stilled.
Then spoke Finnerty, seizing upon this miraculous chance: "Cease from strife! You who are of Chota Darpore, go back to your village; you who are followers of the Prophet, the grace of Allah be upon you, go your way, for even some of you are servants of mine at the keddah. As to the disciples of Buddha, the bell on the sacred elephant recalls them to peace. I will take away from strife the cow, so that there be no killing."
He called to one of his Mussulmans, saying: "Come you, Amir Khan, and take the cow to the keddah."
The scarlet-whiskered Pathan who had thrown the knife stepped forward, and in his rough voice said: "Sahib, these infidels, these black men, have desecrated the shrine of Sheik Farid by tying there a pig, therefore it is injustice if we be not allowed to crack a few heads and spill the blood of a cow on the doorstep of their village."
"You threw the knife, Hadjii; you're a poor marksman," Finnerty answered.
"Yes, sahib, it was an unlucky throw; but a man fell against my elbow at that point, or the sahib would have received my gift. Perhaps the next time I will have better luck."
With a smile at the Pathan's grim humour, Finnerty said: "The spirit of a saint like Sheik Farid is not disturbed by the acts of infidels. I will speak to the rajah and have the village fined a matter of many rupees to be paid to your people, Hadjii."
From the Buddhists, who stood in a semicircle eyeing Burra Moti with reverence, a priest came forward, saying: "We have fought with the idolators because the shrine rests on the 'Rock of Buddha,' and so is sacred to us, too. The sahib has seen in the flat rock the footprint of Prince Sakya Sinha where he stood and became Buddha?"
"But Buddha commanded peace, not strife," Finnerty reminded the priest.
At that instant Burra Moti, undoubtedly bored by inaction, reached back with her trunk and tinkled the bell. It was like a voice crying out of the temple. The Buddhists in silence went away; Amir Khan, at a command, departed with the cow of discord.
Burra Moti was turned, and, with Lord Victor and Swinton riding at his side, Finnerty swept regally down the road.
"Your elephant seems deuced happy, major; she's got a tooty little gurgle that suggests it. Where did you find your sapphire bell clapper?" Lord Victor queried.
"Oh, this isn't – " Finnerty caught the import of Swinton's gasping cough in time to switch, adding: "This is a clapper the old goldsmith fixed up for me, and it's doing beautifully. Moti is like a woman that has found a necklace she had lost." This latter for Captain Swinton's edification.
"Why doesn't Prince Ananda sit on these bally fire-eating worshippers – why do you have to keep them in hand, major?" Lord Victor wanted to know.
Finnerty pondered for a minute. He could have told the captain in a very few words his idea of Ananda's reasons for keeping out of the matter, but with Lord Victor he would have to answer cautiously.
"The rajah's police wallahs were there," he answered; "but they're never any good. As for my part in it, the Maha Bodhi Temple is really under government supervision, being practically a national Buddhist institution. The government never interferes with either Hindus or the Buddhists there unless it might be in just such a case as this, to stop a riot. To tell you the truth, I've rather exceeded my authority, acting without an invitation from the maharajah or an order from the government; however, as it was a drawn battle, nobody will appeal to the powers. The keddah is something in the same way," Finnerty added, as they jogged along; "it's in Darpore territory, but the government has an arrangement with the maharajah, as this is an ideal spot as a centre for our elephant catching all through the Siwalik Hills."
At the fork in the roads the major called back: "After you've had breakfast, get your hunting kit all ready, captain. I'll meet you with the elephants at the same place as yesterday, at one o'clock. We mustn't keep the old Banjara waiting – we're to be on the ground at two – his buffalo might stir up Stripes before we arrive."
